Nickel Mines Massacre

1
Nickel Mines Massacre
By Justin Rigler and Jonathon Cave
2
Painting a Tragedy

• Charles Robert was born on December 7, 1973 in
  Lancaster, PA.
• His father had retired from the local police
  force in 2004 and applied to the state for a
  special license to provide paratransit service to
  the Amish.
• In 1990, he worked as a dishwasher at Good N
  Plenty.
• On Decmber 20, 1991, two of his co-workers from
  there murdered a 16 year old girl. Allegedly,
  Robert was no longer working there but instead
  was a truck driver.

3
Painting a Tragedy (cont)

• It is reported that Roberts contacted his wife
  during the shooting and admitted to molesting two
  young female who were between the ages of 3 and 5
  nearly 20 years prior, when he would have been 12
  himself. He also claimed he desired to molest
  again.
• The items that he had with him included
  paraphernalia that implied this was indeed his
  intention.
• He left suicide notes as well announcing his
  anger at God for the death of his premature
  daughter nine years prior.

4
Recipe for Disaster

• Charles Carl Roberts IV entered the one room
  Amish schoolhouse at 10am, carrying a 9mm
  handgun, a 12 gauge shotgun, a rifle, a bag of
  black powder, two knives, tools, a stun gun, 600
  rounds of ammunition, sexual lubricant, wire,
  plastic ties, and a change of clothes.
• He proceeded to direct 15 boys, one pregnant
  woman, and three other infants that were among
  the schoolhouse inhabitants away from the
  facility.

5
Recipe for Disaster (cont)

• Roberts then proceeded to bind the remaining 11
  students, which happened to be all girls aged
  6-18 with crude plastic ties.
• Thirteen year old Marian Fisher asked him to
  shoot her first in an attempt to buy time for her
  companions. Her younger sister Barbie asked to be
  shot second. Could you even imagine that??
• He did indeed shoot ten of the girls. Three died
  immediately, two the next day in the hospital,
  while the remaining five survived in the hospital
  with one in critical condition.

6
Baptism by Fire

• The police eventually stormed the school. When
  they did, the shooter, Roberts, took his own
  life. This kind of seems to render the point of
  bringing a change of clothes a moot point. I
  guess things didnt entirely turn out the way he
  had anticipated.
• All of this took everybody by storm. His own
  family was devastated, the community, the school,
  and of course, the victims of the disturbing
  incident. I know that even people in our own
  county were mourning.

7
Ebbing the Tide of Pain

• The Amish, including the relatives of the victims
  were extremely injured emotionally. However,
  despite the grave crime Roberts committed, they
  still gave forgiveness to Roberts and his family.
  This shows the sheer resiliency of those people,
  and only enhances their reputation of good
  character.
• They were, however, still quoted to be shocked
  at the horrors that happened in that school, and
  they proved it too.

8
Ebbing the Tide of Pain (cont)

• The schoolhouse that Roberts desecrated was
  demolished a week later.
• Instead, the Amish school children attend a new
  school that was built nearby the original
  location.
• The new school, christened The New Hope School
  was built 6 months after the shooting. It was
  intentionally built as differently from the
  original as possible.

9
Stemming Disaster and you!

• Such tragic events like this are extremely hard
  to predict. While there are definite and
  correlative variables in these disasters, they
  can rarely ever be predicted, and often times can
  be committed when least expected, by the most
  unobvious of sort.
• Generally though, such as the case of Roberts, it
  comes from their own tragedies or mistreatments
  that can cause mental breakdowns and psychotic
  episodes. A way to prevent this? Talk about your
  feelings, and try to be wary of your own actions
  around and towards others.

10
Credits

• Content and presentation Jonathon Cave and
  Justin Rigler
• Information
• http//legacy.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20061
  002-1015-crime-schools.html
• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5400570.stm
• http//web.archive.org/web/20061009002325/http//w
  ww.cnn.com/2006/US/10/06/amish.girls.reut/index.ht
  ml
• And of course. Wikipedia!
• Jon and I thank Miss Wolsch for being real cool
  and loving mango peach salsa too Mmmm!