Killer’s Widow Thanks Amish

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The New York Sun

PARADISE, Pa. — The widow of the killer of five Amish girls in a schoolroom massacre in rural Pennsylvania, Marie Roberts, has written to the families of his victims thanking them for their forgiveness.

The hamlets of Nickel Mines, where the children lived, and Georgetown, the home of Charles Roberts, a milkman who killed himself after shooting dead the girls and injuring a further five, are slowly recovering. At the weekend, Mrs. Roberts remained too distressed to give an interview but she issued a letter to her neighbors.

Mrs. Roberts, now a lone parent to three children, said her family was overwhelmed by the forgiveness, grace, and mercy shown by the Amish community. The Amish are a largely self-sufficient group of ethnic Germans who live according to 16th-century values.

The open letter said: “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.”

It is the latest in a series of acts of forgiveness extended by the Amish to Mrs. Roberts’s family. Mrs. Roberts was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.


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