Charles Roberts IV

Charles Carl Roberts IV - who was born on December 7th, 1973, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. - was an American truck driver who murdered five Amish girls, before killing himself.  The son of Charles, a policeman, and Terri Roberts, he earned a diploma through a homeschooling association.  In 1990, Roberts was employed as a dishwasher at the Good 'n' Plenty restaurant in Smoketown, Pennsylvania; two of his co-workers there were subsequently convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Laurie Show in 1991.  Although neither he nor his family were Amish, Roberts later earned a living as a truck driver, working nights collecting milk from dairy farms in a heavily Amish area near his home in the tiny village of Georgetown, Pennsylvania.  On the morning of October 2nd, 2006, Roberts dropped-off his children at their school bus-stop, before driving a pickup truck to the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room schoolhouse in Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Instructing the schoolboys to help him carry ammunition and other supplies into the school, he then dismissed them, before barricading himself inside with the female pupils.  After making two phone calls - one to his wife, Marie, and one to the police - Roberts shot dead five of the girls, injuring the other five, and then killed himself.  Although obviously grieved at the loss of their offspring, the Amish's response to the tragedy was remarkably forgiving, refusing to show hatred for Roberts, and even setting up a support fund for his family.  Roberts had left four suicide notes: one for each of his three children, and one for his wife.  One note detailed the despondency he felt over the death of his daughter shortly after birth nine years earlier, and also stating cryptically that he had recently been having dreams of doing again what he had done twenty years ago.  Roberts had phoned his wife whilst barricaded in the schoolhouse, claiming to have molested two young female relatives two decades earlier, although the people concerned later denied that these events had occurred.  K-Y Jelly, a lubricant most often used during sexual intercourse, was found amongst Roberts's belongings in the school, possibly suggesting multiple motives for the murders.  One of Roberts's suicide notes spoke of his anger against God, whilst Roberts's co-workers spoke of a "change" in his temperament in the months leading up to the killings, although he apparently became calm again in the preceding week, with Roberts's neighbours reporting him to be unusually upbeat and jovial during his last days.  Charles Roberts was 32 years old.