Lancaster, Pa. – The Amish schoolhouse gunman threatened to kill his hostages “in two seconds” if authorities did not leave the property, according to a 911 transcript released Tuesday.
“Don’t try to talk me out of it, get them all off the property now,” Charles Carl Roberts IV told a Lancaster County dispatcher in a call that came in at 10:55 a.m. Oct 2.
The dispatcher then asked Roberts to stay on the phone so he could be transferred to state police. Roberts replied: “No, you tell them and that’s it. Right now or they’re dead in two seconds.”
The 911 dispatcher sought to transfer the call and told Roberts: “Hang on a minute.” Roberts replied again: “Two seconds, that’s it.” Roberts then hung up.
Roberts, a 32-year-old milk truck driver and father of three, stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School on Oct. 2 armed with a shotgun, a handgun and a stun gun. He sent the adults and boys out and bound the 10 remaining girls at the blackboard.
“I just took, uh, 10 girls hostage and I want everybody off the property or, or else,” Roberts told the 911 dispatcher.
Within seconds of Roberts’ warning, gunfire erupted. He killed five girls and wounded five others before killing himself. Police burst in after hearing the gunfire.
Teacher Emma Mae Zook, 20, and her mother, who was visiting the schoolhouse, darted out of the building after seeing Roberts’ gun.
They ran to a neighboring farm that had a telephone.
According to the transcript, the initial 911 call came in to Lancaster County emergency authorities at 10:35 a.m. from that farmer, Amos Smoker, according to the transcript.
“There’s a, there’s a guy in the school with a gun,” Smoker said.
After determining the location, the dispatcher transferred the call to state police, who handle law enforcement for the area.
Marie Roberts, the gunman’s wife, called the Lancaster County dispatch center three minutes after her husband. She had received a call from him from the schoolhouse.
“My name is Marie Roberts, my husband just called me and said that he wasn’t coming home and that the police were there and that he left notes for myself and my children and I’m worried that he tried to commit suicide somewhere,” she said, according to the transcript.
Marie Roberts then told the dispatcher that her husband had not revealed his location.
The 911 dispatcher replied: “OK, and, and all he said to you was that. …”
“I’m not coming home, um, he was upset about something that had happened 20 years ago, and he said he was getting revenge for it, I don’t think he was getting revenge on another person, I’m worried that maybe he was trying to commit suicide,” Marie Roberts said.
