Possible Motives
Roberts was at the time a resident of nearby Georgetown, another unincorporated area of Bart Township. His wife last saw him at 8:45 a.m. when they walked their children to the bus stop before leaving. When Mrs. Roberts returned home a little before 11:00 a.m., she discovered four suicide notes; one addressed to herself and one to each of their three children. Roberts called his wife from the schoolhouse on his cell phone and told her that he had molested two young female relatives (between the ages of 3 and 5) 20 years previously (when he was 12) and had been daydreaming about molesting again.
One note Roberts left behind indicated his despondency over a daughter who died approximately 20 minutes after birth nine years earlier. He stated that he had "been having dreams for the past couple of years about doing what he did 20 years ago and he has dreams of doing them again", according to State Police Commissioner Colonel Jeffrey B. Miller. On 4 October 2006, the two relatives whom Roberts said he molested 20 years ago told police that no such abuse had ever happened, throwing a new layer of mystery over the gunman's motive and mental state during the shooting. Miller said there was no evidence any of the Amish children had been molested. Roberts' suicide note also spoke of the anger he had held against God.
Read more about this topic: Amish School Shooting
Famous quotes containing the word motives:
“The motives to actions and the inward turns of mind seem in our opinion more necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Men sometimes have strange motives for the things they do.”
—Michael Reeves (1945–1969)