Amish school shooting anniversary to be quiet

Pa. community aims for 'just a normal day' five years after deadly attack

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updated 8:59 a.m. ET Oct. 2, 2008

NICKEL MINES, Pa. - Empty pasture is all that's left on the site of the one-room Amish schoolhouse where a gunman left five girls dead and five others wounded two years ago and the anniversary of the massacre was expected to pass quietly Thursday.

"We're going to try to go on with just a normal day," Bart Township Fire Chief Curt Woerth said. "We've been in contact with the families — they don't want anything, and neither do we, really."

On Wednesday, Amish people could be seen mowing lawns, working on farms and tending home-based businesses. Several refused to comment on the anniversary.

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A year ago, on the first anniversary, state troopers and other guests joined Amish families for a private gathering at the home of a family that lost a child in the tragedy. They prayed and sang together and shared a meal to mark the occasion.

School to be shut
The New Hope Amish School was to be closed Thursday, said teacher Emma Mae Zook. It replaced the schoolhouse where 32-year-old milk truck driver Charlie Roberts barricaded himself and the girls before he shot them and killed himself with a 9 mm handgun.

Four of the five surviving girls have returned to classes, although some require continuing treatment for their wounds. The fifth remains in a nonresponsive coma, according to Dr. Holmes Morton, a physician who runs the Clinic for Special Children in nearby Strasburg.

Slide show
Tragedy
Images from the aftermath to the deadly schoolhouse shooting.
Millions of dollars in donations poured in following the tragedy, and that money is being used to pay the victims' expenses. The Nickel Mines Accountability Committee, which was established to field the donations, is now entirely in Amish hands.