"Living Proof Of Love Personified"

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Amish Girl 'Asked To Be Shot First'

AMISH families in mournful parades of horse-drawn buggies took part in funerals today for four schoolgirl victims of a gunman who went on a sexual fantasy-fuelled killing rampage at their school.

As four of the five young girls killed on Monday were laid to rest, tales of selfless heroism emerged of one victim who reportedly asked killer Charles Roberts to "shoot me first," to save her classmates.

But the grief looked set to deepen, as US media reports said one critically wounded schoolgirl had been taken off life support in hospital and brought back to her spartan Pennsylvania home to die.

The reclusive Amish sect, which disdains trappings of the modern world, turned in on itself, as hundreds of mourners gathered at three separate services in the homes of each child.

Police sealed off roads leading into the small town of Nickel Mines. There was also a no-fly zone to stop media helicopters buzzing overhead.

Those laid to rest today were Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13, Mary Liz Miller, 8, and her seven-year-old sister, Lena.

All died in the simple one-room schoolhouse before Roberts turned the gun on himself.

Each girl was buried in a plain pine coffin, using no metal in accordance with the Amish belief that all human remains should return to dust.

Each was dressed by female relatives in plain white dresses and laid out at home in open caskets as mourners arrived to pay their respects, said Rita Rhodes, a local midwife who delivered two of the victims.

As the services went ahead, there were stunning tales of bravery from the oldest victim, Marian Fisher, who reportedly stepped forward and told Roberts to gun her down in a bid to save her classmates.

"Shoot me first," Fisher said, ABC News reported, quoting Ms Rhodes.

Fisher's younger sister Barbie, who survived, then reportedly said: "Shoot me second."

"There was a tremendous amount of calm and courage in that schoolroom," Ms Rhodes said.

The funeral for Ebersole was first and was followed by a cortege to the hilltop Georgetown Amish cemetery for a simple burial. A large black carriage carried the coffin and was followed by Amish families in 32 horse draw buggies and two big open carriages.

A sign in front of one house on the route said "Our thoughts and prayers to all the families".

There were more than 50 carriages for the procession for the Miller sisters.

The funeral of the fifth girl, 12-year-old Anna Mae Stoltzfus, will be held tomorrow.

Media reports said a sixth victim had been taken home to die from the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey after being taken off life support. The hospital refused to comment, citing a family request for confidentiality.

Four other girls aged between six and 13 remain hospitalised in critical or serious condition.

Roberts, who was armed with a handgun, shotgun and other weapons, lined the girls up against a blackboard and shot them "execution-style".

Police believe the 32-year-old father of three had planned to sexually assault the girls. He had told his wife that he had abused two young relatives when he was 12 and had started having dreams of assaulting young girls.

Meanwhile, a man whose daughters and grandchildren survived the shooting spree told how girls questioned the gunman about his motives before he opened fire.

Leroy Zook told the New York Times: "And he told them why: He's angry at God, he's just bitter. He told them that they're supposed to pray for him that he wouldn't do this."

Mr Zook's 20-year-old daughter Emma Mae, a teacher, was among those who, along with her mother, escaped the school and called police, the Times said.

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Amish mourn gunman in school rampage

GEORGETOWN, Pa. - Dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.

Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was buried in his wife's family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.

"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Morrison, Colo., who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could and attended the burial. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.

"She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown," Porter said.

Leaders of the local Amish community were gathering Saturday afternoon at a firehouse to decide the future of the schoolhouse, and of the school year itself.

The prevailing wisdom suggested a new school would be built.

"There will definitely be a new school built, but not on that property," said Mike Hart, a spokesman for the Bart Fire Company in Georgetown.

Roberts stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School on Monday, releasing the 15 boys and four adults before tying up and shooting the 10 girls. Roberts, who had come armed with a shotgun, a handgun and a stun gun, then killed himself.

Roberts' suicide notes and last calls with his wife reveal a man tormented by memories — as yet unsubstantiated — of molesting two young relatives 20 years ago. He said he was also angry at God for the Nov. 14, 1997, death of the couple's first child, a girl named Elise Victoria who lived for just 20 minutes.

Hart is one of two non-Amish community members serving on a 10-member board that will decide how to distribute donations that have come in following the global news coverage. One stranger walked into the firehouse Saturday morning and dropped a $100 bill in the collection jar.

The condolences flowing into the Bart Post Office filled three large cartons on Saturday — two for the Amish children and one for the Roberts clan.

"(It's) envelopes, packages, food and a lot of cards," clerk Helena Salerno said.

More than $500,000 has been pledged, some of which is expected to cover medical costs for the five surviving girls. They remain hospitalized, and one is said to be in grave condition.

As the Sabbath Day approached, close friends expected to spend Sunday paying visits to the victims' families.

The funerals for the five slain girls — Marian Fisher, 13; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7 — were held Thursday and Friday.

One Amish woman, an aunt to the Miller girls, set out Saturday to retrieve some of the flowers dropped near the school and bring them to the families.

She was traveling on an Amish scooter and tried to balance two potted plants before going home and returning for the task with a child's small wagon.

The massacre sent out images to the world not only of the violence, but also of a little-known community that chooses to live an insular, agrarian way of life, shunning cars, electricity and other modern conveniences.

By Saturday, the hordes of satellite trucks and stand-up reporters had mostly left the country roads, and a semblance of routine returned. Early in the morning, Amish farmers hauled farm equipment past the boarded-up school.

"It was just getting to be too much," said Jane Kreider, a 48-year-old teacher's aide in Georgetown. "It was just, 'Get out of dodge, get out of our town and we'll pull together.'"

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Things like this are so unnecessary.

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A Final Look In The Coffin, Then Farewell With A Hymn


IT BEGAN with a tiny horse-drawn hearse no more than a few feet long, its small, darkened windows almost entirely obscuring the simple pine coffin lying within.
Inside lay Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, her eyes closed, a white cap atop her head, her body covered by a white dress, her child’s feet in white socks. All Amish women are buried in white: it symbolises the purity of heaven.



Behind her, 37 horse-drawn buggies joined the funeral procession, clip-clopping the mile down Mine Road from Naomi’s house — and past the home of Charles Roberts, the gunman who killed her — to Georgetown Amish Cemetery, where she was buried at noon watched by 100 family and friends.

The men and women, wearing wide-brimmed black hats and black bonnets, took one last look at Naomi, filing past the open coffin that has sat inside the Ebersol home for the past two days while her mother dressed her and her family touched her. Scores of cousins filled the home, bringing food and gazing at the little girl.

Then the coffin lid was sealed and the box lowered into its grave. The congregation picked up shovels to cover her with earth. Like all the dead in this Amish cemetery, an anonymous plot of land without a building, she will receive a small, simple headstone.

It was a solemn occasion, but, for the Amish, a profound one. Funerals are their most important religious event, for they believe they are sending a loved one into the arms of God.

Two more processions were to pass through the tiny Amish village of Nickel Mines yesterday: one for Mary Liz Miller, 8, and her seven-year-old sister, Lena; and another for Marian Fisher, 13. They were three of the five girls shot at point-blank range in their one-room schoolhouse on Monday by Roberts, who then killed himself. This morning the Amish will bury the last of their dead, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12.

Before each burial, services were held in their homes, for the Amish do not have churches. Amish from the entire area arrived by buggy or on foot to attend each service. Prayers were said in English and German. Preachers gave sermons and hymns were sung.

Even as they prepared for the first mass funeral in the 260-year history of Nickel Mines, the Amish were coming to terms with the revelation that the ten girls knew they were to be shot, well before Roberts opened fire.

One of the girls he shot, a 12-year-old in hospital with shoulder wounds, began talking yesterday. She told her family that Roberts told them what he was about to do as he tied them up beneath the blackboard. She said none begged for mercy. The oldest girl, a 13-year-old, said to him: “Shoot me and leave the others alone.” He shot them all.

A sixth girl was also on the verge of death last night. Her parents were planning to take her off a life-support machine and bring her home to die.

Three remain critical but two are stable. “He missed the heads on a few of them,” Rita Rhoads, a midwife who delivered some of the girls and has visited the families, told The Times.

The Amish belief in forgiveness is so genuine that Marie Roberts, the wife of the killer, was invited to the funerals. She did not attend but will meet the families next week. Ruben Fisher, an Amish bishop whose grand-daughter, Marian, was killed, visited Roberts’s wife on Monday night, just hours after the shootings. He had spent the afternoon looking at Marian. He told Mrs Roberts that the Amish had forgiven already.

Police have all but discounted claims made by Roberts in suicide notes that he was tormented by the memory of molesting two relatives 20 years ago. The women, now in their 20s, told police they were “absolutely sure” that he had never molested them.

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