Grieving Amish raise money for killer's family

[尼古拉前执事]

Grieving Amish raise money for killer's family
'This is possible if you have Christ in your heart'
Posted: October 4, 2006 8:20 p.m. Eastern
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52296

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

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."

[尼古拉前执事]

Killer's wife is invited guest at first Amish funeral
By BARRY WIGMORE Last updated at 18:28pm on 5th October 2006
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... _id=408830

In a ceremony made more heartbreaking by its centuries-old simplicity, four little girls were buried yesterday as the Amish of Pennsylvania turned the other cheek.

With television and newspaper cameras kept at a distance, and police helicopters enforcing a no-fly zone overhead, one of the few non-Amish guests invited to the funeral of seven-year-old Naomi Rose Ebersole, the first little girl to be buried, was Marie Roberts, the killer's wife.

With tears in her eyes, Mrs Roberts sat in the back of one of the 34 black horse-drawn carriages that were part of the funeral cortege behind Naomi's horse-drawn hearse.

On the way from the church to the hilltop cemetary, the procession passed Mrs Roberts' home where her husband, Charles, loaded up his guns before heading for the little village school on Monday.

As usual in times of crisis, the deeply-religious villagers of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, turned inwards for support yesterday with prayers before, during and after each of the three ceremonies.

Like the other three children who were buried - the oldest, Marian Fisher, 13; and sisters Mary Liz Miller, eight, and Lena Miller, seven - Naomi was laid to rest in a simple wooden casket, narrow at the head and feet and wider in the middle.

All the children were dressed in a traditional white burial gown with a cape and a white prayer-covering on the head.

Each ceremony was attended by around 500 mourners. Services were also held throughout the day for non-Amish mourners at a church in the nearby town of Correyville.

The funeral of a fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, is being held on Friday.

As Marian Fisher was buried yesterday, it was revealed that she had bravely begged Roberts to kill her, but release the other children he held at gunpoint.

Leroy Zook, had seven close rleatives in the school when Roberts broke in: his wife, two daughters - one of them the teacher - two daughters-in-law, and two baby grandchildren. All escaped unharmed.

Standing in the drive of his family farm, Mr Zook, wearing braces and a straw hat with a black paper band around the brim, said: `The oldest girl there, Marian, she said, "Shoot me, and leave the others alone." But he ignored her.'

Mr Zook was among the many Amish villagers who also rallied behind Mrs Roberts and her three children. Within hours of the shootings, it emerged yesterday that a neighbour knocked on the Roberts family's door to pray for them and extend forgiveness.

Another neighbour, Daniel Esh, a 57-year-old Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were inside the school during the attack, said: `I hope they stay around here. They'll have a lot of friends and a lot of support.'

Community leaders said that Mrs Roberts and her children may even receive money from a fund established to help victims and their families.

Although the Amish do not usually accept help from outside their community, even shunning social security payments, Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster Services, an agency managing the hundreds of thousands of dollars already sent in, quoted an Amish bishop: `We are not asking for funds.

In fact, it's wrong for us to ask. But we will accept them with humility.'

Meanwhile, police said the truth about the reason for Roberts' mad rampage probably died with him. In a brief phone call to his wife seconds before opening fire on his victims and then killing himself, Roberts said he was tortured by memories of how he had molsted two girls, aged four or five, 20 years ago when he was 12.

But the girls, now in their mid-20s, told police they were 'absolutely sure' that he had NOT molested them.

State police spokeswoman Linette Quinn said: `We will continue to investigate and try to determine what other motive there may have been.' Also yesterday, a six-year-old girl, one of the five critically-injured survivors of the attack, was taken off life-support after her family was told she was brain-dead.

Dr Holmes Morton, who runs a clinic for Amish children, said the girl's family wanted to take her home to allow her to die in peace, surrounded by her loved ones.

Dr Morton said: `These families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that.'

Author Gertrude Huntington, who has written a book about Amish children, said: The people know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent. And they know that they will join them in death. [b]The hurt is very great. But they don't mix hurt with hate.'[/b]

[spiridon]

the Faith of these Amish is amazing, their belief is similiar to us, unfortunately they are still far from being Orthodox- but there is something about them that is just beautiful. I think its there stance on modernism and living a simple life in Christ, kinda like the orthodox old Believers of russia.
May God have mercy on those poor little girls souls...