Sun coverage: Amish school shooting

All five Amish girls disabled, doctor says

One of the five Amish girls who survived last month's schoolhouse massacre is fully disabled from a severe head wound and unlikely to recover, and the other four have disabilities that probably will be permanent, a physician familiar with their medical treatment said yesterday.

When worlds collide

In a world where violence is shunned and the noises seldom get much louder than the rhythmic clip-clop of horse hooves on pavement, 18 shots rang out in a one-room schoolhouse, hitting 10 children and killing at least five.

A grim procession in Amish country

In the chill before daylight yesterday, two men with long beards stood before freshly dug graves in a small cemetery, where four little girls were soon to be buried.

Daily routine helps keep mind on school

Laughing and swinging lunchboxes, the children hurried up the gravel path and through the door of the one-room schoolhouse. The boys jostled one another as they hung their straw hats on hooks and the girls stood in knots, playing clapping games.

Families' grieving begins

In a single-file line, an Amish family of seven solemnly made its way across a wide, green field. When they finally touched the asphalt road on the other side, the young boy leading the way reached back for his father's hand and they entered the Ebersole home to pay their respects.

Only 5% survive gunshot wounds to head

The nine Amish girls shot in the head Monday by a deranged milk truck driver faced long odds: National statistics show that only 5 percent of people who sustain such gunshot wounds survive them.

Killer's portrait begins to emerge

As the Amish community here prepared yesterday to bury five girls killed in a school shooting, police tried to get inside the mind of the gunman, a milk truck driver who confessed to his wife during the siege that he sexually molested two young relatives 20 years ago and had been having recurring dreams about hurting children again.

Deep in grief, Amish strive to understand and move on

Along the miles of twisting country roads that divide and unite this community, people went about their business yesterday, tending acres of corn and pumpkins, ordering meatloaf lunch specials at homey diners, and browsing knickknacks at tourist haunts.

Parents are urged to maintain calm, reassure children

In the aftermath of the killings of five girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania, parents are anxious about how to talk to their children about recent school shootings. Crisis and psychiatric counselors urge parents to use common sense when discussing the subject with their children.

Calm voice describes horror

The public face of a tragedy is often not the bereaved relative or the hapless killer, but rather the official who steps before the microphones and brings the event into focus.

'I can't get it out of my head'

Bobbi Roschel heard the first call for help crackle across her scanner about 10:30 Monday morning. An emotionally disturbed man was on the school grounds in Nickel Mines, in Lancaster County's Pennsylvania Dutch country.

No school can be made 100% safe

Since the killings at Columbine High School seven years ago, schools have locked their doors, posted adults at entryways and drilled students in emergency procedures.

Psychiatrists are left with speculation

Those who want to know why Charles C. Roberts IV went on a killing rampage in an Amish schoolhouse will be tempted to find answers in the suicide note he left behind and in his final conversation with his wife.

Jean Marbella: A modest people, a respectful distance

The customer awkwardly approached the young Amish woman, as many of us have done these past couple of days.

School shootings in Pa. shock Amish

Agunman carrying 600 rounds of ammunition burst into a one-room Amish schoolhouse yesterday, ordered out the boys and several women, bound the girls and shot 11 of them execution-style, killing at least four.

Family in disbelief about father of 3

He was a soccer dad and a quiet, hard-working, churchgoing family man who didn't flinch at changing diapers.

Danger In school

Copycat crime can feed more violence

A spate of school shootings in less than a month has raised fears that even more "copycat" crimes lie ahead - with psychologists warning that news media attention could, in fact, perpetuate the violence.

Beliefs affect Amish reply to violence

There will be no high-profile funerals or church services for the Amish children killed yesterday in Lancaster County, Pa. The Old Order Amish have no churches. They worship, and dispatch the dead to God's care, from their homes and barns.

SUVs, buggies share county populated by farms, big-box stores

Just off the bustling highway that cuts through the rolling farmland and small villages of Lancaster County stretches a road that in many ways depicts the disparate faces of this region.

Jean Marbella: Evil can lurk in even the smallest, most remote communities

Night had already cloaked the valley by the time I arrived, and snow had started falling, gently as it does in the mountains in springtime. Under the twin covers of darkness and snowfall, I didn't realize until the next morning just how beautiful and idyllic Littleton, Col., was.

Statement from gunman's wife

A family friend of Charles Carl Roberts IV read this statement from Roberts' wife, Marie, last night on WGAL television in Lancaster:

Timeline of events

All times a.m., approximate

Fatal school shootings in the U.S.

Oct. 2, 2006: A gunman shot 10 girls hostage, killing at least five of them, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, police said. The shooter was among the dead, and a number of people were injured.