The man who fatally shot five girls and wounded five others in a one-room Amish schoolhouse, then killed himself, had no drugs in his system, a coroner said Friday.
“The toxicology is negative across-the-board,” said Lancaster Coroner Gary Kirchner, after reviewing the lab results with his office’s forensic pathologist.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old milk truck driver and father of three with no criminal record, took the girls hostage in the school about a mile from his home on Oct. 2.
Statements Roberts made to his wife in a phone call from the schoolhouse and in suicide notes suggested he was tormented by the 1997 death of a newborn daughter. He also said he was haunted by memories of having molested two young female relatives 20 years earlier, but police said the two relatives have no memory of being molested by him.
According to police, Roberts told the girls he had taken hostage: “I’m going to make you pay for my daughter.”
Authorities have said he may have intended to molest the girls.