PHILADELPHIA - One of the girls who died in Pennsylvania's Amish schoolhouse
massacre asked the killer to shoot her first in an apparent bid to save younger
girls, a woman who spoke to the victim's family said on Friday.
The funeral procession of Anna Mae
Stoltzfus, age 12, a victim of the Amish school shooting makes its way
through the town of Nickel Mines, Penn., on 06 October 2006. Four other
victims killed by Charles Roberts were buried 05 October 2006. Five other
girls remain in critical or serious condition.
[AFP] |
Rita Rhoads, a nurse-midwife who delivered 13-year-old Marian Fisher as well
as another victim, said Fisher appealed to Charles Carl Roberts to shoot her
first because she thought it might allow younger girls to survive.
Rhoads said she did not know whether Fisher in fact was shot first. Roberts
shot 10 girls aged 6 to 13, killing five of them and then himself in Monday's
rampage.
Fisher's 11-year-old sister, Barbie, appealed to Roberts to shoot her next,
Rhoads said. Barbie survived and was in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
recovering from shoulder, hand and leg injuries.
"Barbie has been talking and she said Marian said, 'Shoot me first,'" Rhoads
said. "Apparently what she was trying to do was to save the younger girls."
Barbie, who attended her sister's funeral on Thursday before returning to the
hospital, gave details of her ordeal to relatives including her grandfather, who
told Rhoads, the midwife told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"It was very courageous of the girls to offer themselves," Rhoads said. "God
was really present to give the girls that kind of courage."
Pennsylvania state police were not immediately available for comment.
Roberts, 32, a local non-Amish milk truck driver, attacked the one-room
schoolhouse at Nickel Mines, a farming community in Lancaster County about 60
miles (100 km) west of Philadelphia.
He allowed boys and adults to leave and then tied the legs of the girls
before shooting them execution-style, police said.
Four of the girls including Marian Fisher were buried on Thursday and a fifth
funeral was scheduled for Friday.
The Amish, descendants of Swiss-German settlers, are a traditionalist
Christian denomination who place particular importance on the Gospel message of
forgiveness. They believe in nonviolence, simple living and little contact with
the modern world.
