Terri Roberts is the mother of Charlie Roberts, the man who shot and killed five Amish girls and injured five others before killing himself in Bart Township, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Here, she recounts a moment of her journey toward forgiveness following that tragic event.
So how had the boy who had been nothing but loving and loved, the young man who’d shown so much joy in bringing happiness to his family and others, turned into the monster who had undeniably committed acts so heinous I could not bring myself to dwell on them? I slept only a few hours that night, tossing and turning, my anguish flowing out of me in floods of tears. Despite Betsy’s counsel, I found myself returning again and again to the day’s events, trying to make some sense of them.
Oh, God, this is so awful! I cannot bear that these girls’ deaths be the end of all this! I cried heavenward. However terrible this tragedy, I pray that you will bring something good out of it, that you will shine some light in the darkness that is all I can see now. If there is anything at all you can use in this situation to bring glory to you, allow that to be.
We had chosen not to watch or read the news, so new tidbits and endless analysis of Charlie’s crimes playing out on the television screen did not reach us over the next several days. But we had seen Charlie’s farewell notes he’d scribbled to his wife, Marie, and the children. His letter to Marie was lengthy and rambling. He repeatedly emphasized his love for her and his children and how sorry he was for the choices he’d made and the acts he was about to commit. But even his attempts at explanation made no sense.
He expressed remorse for events he claimed had happened when he was only twelve years old. He spoke of having molested a couple of much younger female relatives, who would have been only three to five years old at the time, and of the guilt and torment that had built up in him through the years until he could suppress it no longer. But the police had already investigated those claims and found no evidence that they had ever happened. The relatives in question had no memories of any such events.
But something must have happened to trigger his assertions. At twelve years old, he was still a child, and a sheltered one. Had there been some incident for which he’d blamed himself and then blown far beyond what had actually happened? Had some evil befallen Charlie himself back then? Had someone hurt him? If so, why had he not come and shared it with us who loved him? Why had he buried hurt and shame away to fester inside?
Whatever the truth, we will have no answers in this lifetime, for the answers died with Charlie.
But the other explanation Charlie’s letter offered was even less comprehensible. Our son and his wife, Marie, had suffered the loss of their firstborn daughter, Elise Victoria, only twenty minutes after her premature birth. It had indeed been a tragedy. Looking back now, sifting through the rambling phrases of bitterness and blame in Charlie’s letter, I can see that to my son, Elise’s death was the culmination of loss that had begun with the deaths of grandparents with whom he’d had a bond our other sons weren’t old enough to enjoy; the horrible, lingering end of the Siberian husky, Suzie, for which Charlie blamed himself; and the passing of our family pet Cinnamon.
His losses were no greater than those countless human beings have experienced. God had given Charlie and Marie three beautiful, healthy children. But according to his letter, he’d allowed bitterness and hatred against God to build up inside him. He saw Elise’s death as God’s punishment for past transgressions rather than seeing his three living children as God’s gifts. And now, he bizarrely thought that taking the precious daughters of families who prayed to the same God would be his revenge on the God he’d chosen to no longer worship, love, or forgive for what he perceived as His offenses against him.
It was not only hatred for God he expressed. He wrote: “I’m filled with so much hate toward myself, toward God, and an unimaginable emptiness.”
The one sentence in that letter that brought a small comfort was among the last:
“Please tell Mom and Dad and my brothers that I love them.”
Oh, my son, how did we not see your pain? Why did you not speak to us? Why did you not share your pain and confusion so that we who loved you could help? How could you let bitterness and hatred so consume you—and yet never express it outwardly by any word or deed that those around you could see or hear? There was another way to deal with loss and pain! Why did you not choose it?
By the second day, we’d already had more than one glimpse of that other way. Our neighbor Henry was not the only one of the Amish community who reached out to our family in love and forgiveness. Though we were not watching the news, we’d already received word of the story that was sweeping the media, driving Charlie’s terrible actions from the headlines. A group of Amish leaders had walked into the yard of Marie’s parents. Every one of them had a family member who had died in the schoolhouse. But they were not there to express rage. They had come to offer forgiveness and their concern for the wife and children and extended family of the shooter. They did not raise fists in fury, but as Henry had done with my husband, they reached to pull Marie’s father—the “English” neighbor who for so many years had collected their milk and been part of their lives—into their embrace. Together, fathers and grandfathers of the victims and father-in-law of their killer wept and prayed.
“Amish forgiveness” became a catch phrase for the media in countless TV and print news stories. How could these quaint people dressed in black and driving horse-drawn buggies show such willingness to offer forgiveness to the family of their daughters’ murderer, much less the murderer himself? What was it about the Amish lifestyle, belief system, faith that made this possible?
It was certainly not because the Amish were perfect people, as their spokesmen immediately pointed out. It came down to the God they worshiped, a God of forgiveness and love.
“If we will not forgive, how can we be forgiven?” were words expressed over and over again, not only by the families affected, but by the greater Amish community across Lancaster County.
“Forgiveness is a choice,” explained another Amish spokesman. “We choose to forgive.”
This article is excerpted from Forgiven: The Amish School Shooting, a Mother’s Love, and a Story of Remarkable Grace by Terri Roberts with Jeanette Windle. © 2016 by Terri Roberts with Jeanette Windle. Published by Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Used by permission.
