'Revenge' Shooting At Amish School

Police say a milk truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with wood planks, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.

Early Tuesday, authorities confirmed reports that a fourth girl has died.

The 7-year-old girl died about 4:30 a.m. at Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey, hospital spokeswoman Amy Buehler Stranges said.

"Her parents were with her," Buehler Stranges said. "She was taken off life support and she passed away shortly after."

Six other girls are in the hospital.

At Penn State Children's Hospital, a 6-year-old girl is in critical condition and a 13-year-old girl is in serious condition. Another victim is at Christiana Hospital in Delaware, where officials are not releasing any information. And three girls, ages 8, 10 and 12, are at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where a spokeswoman says they are out of surgery but are in critical condition.

Police say notes and phone calls show the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was "angry at life, he was angry at God." While some who knew him saw no signs of trouble, others say his mood had darkened and he'd stopped chatting and joking with co-workers and customers.

This is America's third deadly school shooting in less than a week.

CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports President Bush, reacting to the shootings, has ordered the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Education to study ways the government can help prevent school violence.

A conference on that subject is planned for next week with the participation of law enforcement, educators and parent groups.

Monday's rampage shattered the typical quiet of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, home to the Amish, horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is rare.

A teacher called police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.

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"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.

Miller says Roberts, who lived in the nearby town of Bart, Pa., was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy.

Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.

A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife.

"The man who did this today was not the Charlie I have been married to for almost ten years. My husband was loving, supportive, thoughtful... all the things you would always want and more," she said. "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."

Neighbors who knew the Roberts' family said they saw no indications of trouble brewing.

"They're a fine Christian family. It's ironic and it's heartbreaking," said Lois Fiester, a relative, as she stood outside the family's modest tan ranch house.

Police say Roberts was not Amish, appeared to have nothing against the Amish, and apparently chose the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.

The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colorado, and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.

Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.

Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.

From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.

Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it is not clear what role that may have played in the attack.

Miller said investigators are looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.

As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched - the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.

Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.

The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.

The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.

According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.

He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.

The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.

Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police did not back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.

Authorities say the three who died were two students and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old.

No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.

Miller said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat of the similar Colorado crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."

On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.

The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.

Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.

In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.

There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.

Numbering about 180,000, the Amish, have settlements in 25 states and Ontario with 70 percent of the population in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. They practice a form of Christianity - emphasizing piety, modesty and community - derived from a literal reading of the Bible.

Because of their belief in separating their communities from the outside world, which they consider corrupting, they have strict regulations over societal customs. They tend to dress in simple, mostly dark clothes with little ornamentation, speak in a German dialect, and often shun technological innovation they deem corrosive to their way of life, including electricity, television, automobiles, telephones and tractors.

The Amish run their own schools, but most communities educate their children only through the eighth grade. U.S. courts have exempted the Amish and other groups from requiring further education on the grounds of religious freedom.