Death Toll in Attack at Amish School Rises to 5

Discussing the tragedy at the local post office with another neighbor, their voices falling silent when an elderly Amish woman walked in, Marie Pelliccio described her conversation with a young survivor. He was among the 15 boys Roberts ordered out of the school after lining up the girls in white bonnets and long pinafores against the chalkboard and binding their feet with plastic ties.

Pelliccio said the teenage boy is a neighbor who works as a hired hand at her horse farm. When she stopped by to check on the family Tuesday afternoon, Pelliccio said, the boy told her the gunman had burst into the school and yelled at everyone to line up, then pointed to the boys: "You, you and you and you, get out of here!"

When the teacher fled as well, the boy told his neighbor, the gunman ordered another boy to chase after her, warning, "You go get her, or I'll start shooting!"

Pelliccio's eyes welled as she recalled the boy's quiet account of the horror: "I saw him tying my sister up," he told her.

The 8-year-old girl was shot in the jaw and shoulder and remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Several of the families whose children were shot were on Roberts's milk run, Pelliccio said. "He knew them."

Police found Roberts's truck where he customarily parked it after his shift ended at 3 a.m.: in a lot across from the intersection the Amish children crossed each day on their way to school.

"We believe this had nothing to do with the Amish," Miller said. "The school was a target of opportunity. It was close by his home. He felt comfortable."

After finishing his milk run, police said, Roberts went home and helped his two older children get ready for school, dropping them off at their bus stop about 8:45 a.m.

Marie Roberts told police she had "absolutely no" clue that anything was troubling her husband when she left at 9 a.m. for the prayer group she leads at a nearby church. The first emergency call about a hostage situation at the school came about 10:36 a.m., from the teacher who had escaped.

Charles Roberts had carried boxes of tools, hardware and lumber with him, Miller said, and he barricaded the front door with a piece of wood, bolted it and piled desks in front of it. A side door was barricaded with a foosball table, a 2-by-4 piece of wood and plastic ties.

At 10:50 a.m., Miller told reporters, Roberts called his wife from a cellphone to say, "I am not coming home. Police are here." He said Roberts then claimed to have molested two family members 20 years ago, when the girls were "3 or 4."