Nickel Mines, Pa. – As they struggle with the slayings of five of their children in a one- room schoolhouse, the Amish in this Lancaster County village are going from home to home for two days to attend viewings for the five victims, all little girls laid out in white dresses made by their families.
Such viewings occur almost immediately after the bodies arrive at the parents’ homes.
Typically, they are so crowded, “if you start crying, you’ve got to figure out whose shoulder to cry on,” said Rita Rhoads, a Mennonite midwife who delivered two of the five slain girls.
At some viewings, 1,000 to 1,500 people might visit to pay respects, according to Jack Meyer, 60, a buggy operator in the town of Bird in Hand.
Such visits are important, given the lack of e-mail and phone communication, Meyer said.
The Amish have also been reaching out to the family of the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, who committed suicide during the attack. Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted members of the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.
“I hope they stay around here and they’ll have a lot of friends and a lot of support,” Daniel Esh, a 57-year-old Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were inside the school during the attack, said of the Robertses.
Investigators said Roberts, who brought lubricating jelly and plastic restraints with him, may have been planning to sexually assault the Amish girls.
Roberts revealed to his family in notes he left behind and in a phone call from inside the West Nickel Mines Amish School that he was tormented by memories of molesting two young relatives 20 years ago.
But police said Wednesday there was no evidence of any such sexual abuse.
Funerals for Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7, are today. The funeral for the fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, is Friday.
