Grieving Amish forgive schoolroom assassin

See also...

• Lost innocence: Inside America's Amish community

• The Amish - a community frozen in time

For all the horror of what happened in that one-room schoolhouse - the death toll has now risen to five girls as well as the killer Charles Roberts - the town of Nickel Mines has shown more forgiveness than anger in the 48 hours since the shooting.

"It's just not the way we think. There is no sense in getting angry," said Henry Fisher, 62, a retired farmer with five grown children and 33 grandchildren who has lived in the town all his life. Such have been the efforts of the community to show their forgiveness that an Amish neighbour even went round to the home of Roberts's father to comfort the family.

Dwight Lefever, a spokesman for the Roberts family - who are not Amish - told the prayer meeting: "He held that man in his arms, and he said, 'We will forgive you.' He extended the hope of forgiveness that we all need these days."

As the people of the town prayed, a community struggling to understand was offered an insight into the tormented mind of the gunman when police disclosed details of his rambling suicide note.

The 32-year-old milk truck driver, a father of three, described how he was filled with "so much hate" over the death of his prematurely born daughter Elise and told how her death changed his life for ever.

Roberts left the note for his wife before setting off for the schoolhouse where he tied up the girls before shooting them in the head. Three girls died at the scene and two more died of their wounds in hospital. Three other girls are in critical condition and two more in serious condition. They range in age from 6 to 13.

Investigators said the items he took to the siege - including plastic ties, eyebolts and lubricating jelly - suggest he may have been planning to sexually assault the Amish girls before police closed in.

"It's very possible that he intended to victimise these children in many ways prior to executing them and killing himself," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B Miller said. But Roberts "became disorganised when we arrived" and shot himself in the head.

During the stand-off, Roberts told his wife in a mobile phone call that he molested two female relatives when they were three to five years old, Mr Miller said. Roberts would have been around 11 or 12 at the time. In a suicide note left for his family, he said he "had dreams about doing what he did 20 years ago again".

Holding up a copy of the suicide note, Mr Miller suggested that Roberts was haunted by the death of his daughter in 1997.

Elise's death "changed my life for ever", he wrote to his wife. "I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself, hate towards God and unimaginable emptiness it seems like every time we do something fun I think about how Elise wasn't here to share it with us and I go right back to anger."

He added: "I don't know how you put up with me all those years. I am not worthy of you, you are the perfect wife."