NICKEL MINES, Pa. – Six months to the day after 10 Amish girls were gunned down by a milk deliveryman, students returned to class at a newly constructed schoolhouse.
Four of the five survivors wounded in the original violent incident attended class at the one-room New Hope Amish School along with 17 other students on April 2. Devoid of electricity or a phone, the new facility is only reachable by a private driveway and has a steel door that locks from the inside. Razed by all members of the community, construction costs were paid in part by more than $4 million in donations taken on behalf of the victims. Part of the donations were spent to help provide healthcare for the five wounded survivors.
The shooting occurred only a few hundred yards away at the now demolished West Nickel Mines School. Charles Carl Roberts IV, killed five students and wounded another five before turning his gun on himself during the Oct. 2 attack. The fifth survivor is a six-year-old girl still on a feeding tube and unable to communicate. Roberts was apparently distraught by an unconfirmed memory of having molested relatives 20 years earlier and by the death of his infant daughter in 1997.
The school where the shootings occurred was torn down 10 days later. Construction on the new schoolhouse began in January. Since the incident, classes were being held in a family’s garage.
