Grieving Amish raise money for killer's family
Pastor Dale Morgan
Grieving Amish raise money for killer's family*
'This is possible if you have Christ in your heart'
Posted: October 5, 2006
New York Times
In what's being called a stunning example of "the imitation of Christ,"
the Amish community devastated by the cold-blooded murder of five of its
schoolgirls is raising money for the killer's family.
Amish residents of rural Lancaster County, Pa., have started a charity
fund to help not only the victims' families – but also the
mass-murderer's widow and children, reports the New York Times today.
The killer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, committed suicide at the end of
Monday's attack, in which he shot 10 girls. Five of them, aged 7 to 13,
died.
Dwight Lefever, a spokesman for the Roberts family, said an Amish
neighbor comforted the killer's family and extended forgiveness to them
after the shooting, the Associated Press reports.
Explaining the Amish way, Gertrude Huntington, an expert on children in
Amish society, told the AP that Roberts' Amish neighbors would probably
be very supportive of the killer and his wife, "because judgment is in
God's hands: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.'"
Monday morning, Roberts, heavily armed, stormed into the one-room West
Nickel Mines Amish School, sent the boys and adults outside and
barricaded the entrance with wood before tying up the 10 girls and
shooting them, finally turning the gun on himself. In a sordid subplot,
investigators say Roberts also brought lubricating jelly and plastic
restraints with him, apparently planning to sexually assault the Amish
girls. When the police showed up quickly, Roberts reportedly panicked
and began executing the girls, then himself.
In suicide notes he left for his family, as well as a cell-phone call he
made to his wife from inside the school, Roberts revealed that he was
tormented both by memories of having sexually molested two young
relatives 20 years ago – and by dreams of committing the heinous acts again.
However, investigators who have spoken to the two relatives, who would
have been only 4 or 5 at the time Roberts specified, say no such abuse
ever occurred.
"Both of them have no recollection of being sexually assaulted by
Roberts," state police Trooper Linette Quinn told the AP. "They were
absolutely sure they had no contact with Roberts."
Regardless, said State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller, "It's very
possible that he intended to victimize these children in many ways prior
to executing them and killing himself,"
Reacting to the Amish outpouring of support for the killer's family,
columnist Rod Dreher writes: "Yesterday on NBC News, I saw an Amish
midwife who had helped birth several of the girls murdered by the killer
say that they were planning to take food over to his family's house. She
said – and I paraphrase closely – "This is possible if you have Christ
in your heart."
And Journalist Tom Shachtman, who wrote a book on Amish culture called
"Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish," told the New York Times: "This
is imitation of Christ at its most naked. If anybody is going to turn
the other cheek in our society, it's going to be the Amish."
He said, "I don’t want to denigrate anybody else who says they're
imitating Christ, but the Amish walk the walk as much as they talk the
talk."
Added Huntington, "They know their children are going to heaven. They
know their children are innocent ... and they know that they will join
them in death. The hurt is very great," she told the Associated Press.
"But they don't balance the hurt with hate."