The US army reservist who is suspected to have opened fire in a bowling alley and a bar in Maine, killing 18 people this week, was found dead last night after a frantic two-day manhunt that has terrified the community.
Robert Card, a 40-year-old firearms instructor was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound close to the city of Lewiston where he is suspected of going on the rampage on Wednesday night. The massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in the US this year and the worst in Maine’s history.
Almost 700 square miles of Maine have been effectively locked down for two days as hundreds of police and FBI agents scoured the state in a search that stretched to the Canadian border. In the end, Card’s body was found in woods in Lisbon Hills, just a short drive from the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille, where the double shootings were staged this week.
The announcement brought an end to the search and some relief to a traumatised community that has been ripped apart by the killings but forced to grieve behind locked doors with the gunman still at large. There had been no confirmed sighting of Card since he fled Schemengees soon after 7pm on Wednesday, leaving a trail of dead and wounded, and disappeared into the night.
“Like many people, I’m breathing a sigh of relief, knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Maine governor Janet Mills told a press conference in Lewiston last night.
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Card’s death “may not bring solace to many,” Mills acknowledged, but she said that Lewiston and Maine can now begin their “long and difficult road to healing.”
• Robert Card: what we know so far about the Maine suspect
In the hours before Card’s body was found, officials named the rest of the 18 people killed. Aged from 14 to 76, they embodied the warm, close-knit community bonds that were shattered in a hail of bullets this week. The victims included a teenage bowler, a shipbuilder, friends playing their weekly cornhole tournament, a group of girlfriends having drinks after work.
The oldest victim was Bob Violette, a 76-year-old retiree who coached the local children’s bowling league and was gunned down when Card entered the bowling alley in Lewiston and opened fire. The youngest victim was Aaron Young, 14, who was killed alongside his father Bill.
Friends recalled Joe Walker, the manager of Schemengees, who was killed as he grabbed a kitchen knife to confront Card in a bid to defend his customers.
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“He was a sweetheart,” said April Stevens, reflecting with husband Ted on their porch close to the bowling alley. Walker’s car license plate was “Cueball”, they said, a nod to his baldness.
“He looked like a pitbull,” said Ted, sadly. “But he was just the sweetest guy.”
“When I heard he grabbed a knife, that just did not surprise me,” April added. “He’s very protective, he’s a very caring person.”
This city of fewer than 40,000 people is routinely ranked as one of the safest in America and its community has been rocked by the massacre. Maine is a state of just 1.3 million people with one of lowest murder rates in the country, recording 29 homicides in the whole of last year. Mass shootings had previously been seen as a plague blighting the rest of America, locals said, but not here.
“If it can happen here, it can happen in your town,” said Paul Englehart, a supervisor with UPS whose house on King Avenue backs onto the bowling alley.
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Lewiston has been “shattered” by the bloodshed, Englehart said. Everyone knows someone touched by the massacre. The news of Card’s death was relief, he said, but the wounds will take longer to heal.
“I’m a dad. They were kids my son’s age. We were getting ready to sign him up for Wednesday night bowling in the next session,” he said. “Now, he doesn’t want to go near the place.”
Despite the sprawling manhunt, the search for Card has remained focused around Lewiston and neighbouring towns, strung between wooded valleys. Divers were called in after Card’s car was found by a nearby river. An AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and a possible suicide note were reportedly found in the vehicle.
In her statement last night, Mills insisted, “This isn’t us”. Yet the shooting and Card’s previous history of serious mental illness, which emerged during the investigation, have revived debate about Maine’s lax gun laws.
The state does not have red-flag laws which allow relatives or law enforcement officials to seek a court order to deny a person access to guns if they are considered dangerous. Maine also does not require permits to carry concealed weapons or background checks for private gun sales.
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Jared Golden, a Democratic congressman for Maine who was born in Lewiston and has previously opposed tougher gun control in the state, issued a public statement on Thursday recanting his stance and urging Congress to act.
“The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure,” Golden said. He pleaded for “forgiveness and support” from the families of the victims. President Biden has renewed his call for Congress to ban assault weapons in the wake of the Lewiston shooting but faces entrenched opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“Americans should not have to live like this,” Biden said in a statement last night following confirmation that Card was dead.
“Once again, an American community and American families have been devastated by gun violence,” the president went on. He urged Republicans in Congress to “fulfil their obligation to keep the American people safe.”
Ted said he feared that without tougher legislation, gun owners in Maine would become more aggressive in the wake of the killings.
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“Maine is an open carry state now. I think you’re going to see more people making it obvious that they’re carrying,” he said. “It just keeps getting ratcheted up. Some nut does something like this and it escalates. How much further do we go?”
