Murder Visits an Amish School House

A funeral procession of horse-drawn buggies makes their way down Georgetown Road in Georgetown, Pa. Friday, Oct. 6, 2006, to bury Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, one of five girls killed Monday, in a shooting at an Amish school. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (Matt Rourke - AP)

But this day, a neighbor would later tell reporters, after his girl and boy had gotten on the bus, he asked the driver to open the door again. He called his children out. He hugged each one, spoke to them, and sent them back in.

Marie Roberts left the house before her husband, who was scheduled to take a random drug test that morning _ standard for state-licensed truck drivers in Pennsylvania. Marie was headed to her prayer group, a chapter of the national organization called Moms in Touch. At 9:15 a.m., in the Middle Octorara Presbyterian Church, as Marie met with other mothers and offered up their regular prayers for the protection of children everywhere, her husband was at a local hardware store, buying more flex-ties.

Some 30 minutes later, Aaron Esh, an Amish carpenter, was headed down White Oak Road, going to buy supplies. He passed the West Nickel Mines Amish school, and waved to the children at play during recess in the wide yard ringed by a white plank fence, boys in dark pants and suspenders, girls in long dresses and bonnets.

Moments later, Esh saw Charles Roberts, standing next to his pickup truck by the auction house, looking at the children from across the road.

The carpenter thought nothing of it. Roberts always parked there.

When the children went inside, Roberts got in the pickup and drove down.

Just before 10 a.m., he backed the truck up to the front double-doors of the one-room schoolhouse. He walked inside, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and over that, a buttoned-down shirt. He wouldn't look at the teacher, just walked up and stood beside her mumbling something about a metal tool he held in his hand. Had anyone seen something like this in the road?

Emma Mae Zook would later recall that she said no, but we'll look for it.

Roberts walked out the open school doors.

Then he started walking back. In the classroom, Aaron Esh Jr., whose great-uncle had waved just minutes before, heard the sound of a gun being loaded.

Roberts crossed the threshold, pointing his handgun.

There were several women in the school _ the teacher, her visiting mother, two sisters-in-law. When the schoolteacher and her mother saw the gun, they ran out the door and made their way to a neighboring, non-Amish farm, where there would be a telephone. The 911 call came in at 10:36 a.m.