at 18:36 on October 5, 2006, EST.
By MARK SCOLFORO

GEORGETOWN, Pa. (AP) - Scores of horse-drawn buggies from across the Pennsylvania countryside clip-clopped past the home of the schoolhouse gunman to a windswept, hilltop graveyard Thursday as the Amish buried four of the girls killed in their classroom.

In a doleful scene that looked like a 19th-century tintype, hundreds of Amish - boys and bearded men in wide-brimmed hats and dark suits, women and girls in long black dresses and black mourning bonnets - stood near a huge mound of earth for the brief graveside services.

The daylong series of three funeral processions took the coffins past the home of Charles Roberts, the 32-year-old milk truck driver who laid siege Monday to the girls' one-room schoolhouse in an attack so traumatic that the building may soon be razed to obliterate the memories.

Benjamin Nieto, 57, watched the processions from a friend's porch.

"They were just little people," he said of the victims. "They never got a chance to do anything."

Pennsylvania state troopers on horseback and a funeral director's black car with flashing yellow lights cleared the way for up to four dozen buggies, including black carriages carrying the hand-sawn wooden coffins of seven-year-old Naomi Rose Ebersol, then 13-year-old Marina Fisher, then sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7. The funeral for the fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, was scheduled for Friday.

The killer's widow was invited to one of the funerals Thursday, according to a Roberts family member. But it was not immediately known if she attended. Roberts was well-known around the community because his milk pickup route took him to many Amish dairy farms.

The girls, in white dresses made by their families, were laid to rest in graves dug by hand in a small burial ground bordered by cornfields and a white rail fence. Amish custom calls for simple wooden coffins, narrow at the head and feet and wider in the middle.

To protect the privacy of the Amish, all roads leading into the village of Nickel Mines were blocked off for both the funerals, which were held in the families' homes, and the burials. Airspace for four kilometres in all directions was closed to news helicopters.

Tragedies such as the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado have become moments of national mourning, in large part because of satellite and TV technology. But the Amish shun the modern world and both its ills and conveniences, including automobiles and most electrical appliances.

"I just think at this point mostly these families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that," said Dr. Holmes Morton, who runs a clinic that serves Amish children.

Donors from around the world are pledging money to help the families of the five dead and the five wounded in amounts ranging from US$1 to $500,000. The families could face steep medical bills.

Though the Amish generally do not seek help from outside their community, Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster services, an agency managing the donations, quoted an Amish bishop as saying: "We are not asking for funds. In fact, it's wrong for us to ask. But we will accept them with humility."

At the behest of Amish leaders, a fund has also been set up for the killer's widow and three children.

During the slow trip to the funerals, the clip-clop of the horses was broken up only by the roar of official helicopters enforcing the no-fly zone.

Mary Miller, 43, a hotel housekeeper, watched the processions from her front porch. As the buggy carrying one of the dead passed, Miller said, "I had tears in my eyes because I knew there was a child's body in that one."

In the attack on West Nickel Mines Amish School, Roberts took over the schoolhouse, sent the adults and boys out and bound the 10 remaining girls at the blackboard. Investigators said he might have been planning to sexually assault the girls before police closed in. He shot the girls and killed himself.

Roberts had confided to his wife by cellphone that he was tormented by memories of molesting two young relatives 20 years ago.

A sixth victim was reported in grave condition Thursday. County coroner Gary Kirchner said he had been contacted by a physician at Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey who said doctors expected to take one girl off life support.

Daniel Esh, an Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were at the school, said there was also talk among the Amish of tearing down the schoolhouse.


©The Canadian Press, 2006

Funerals for Amish school victims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h...408784.stm
The funerals of five Amish girls killed in a schoolroom massacre in the US state of Pennsylvania are under way.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Nickel Mines, as seven-year-old Naomi Rose Ebersole was buried at a the community's hilltop cemetery.

Three more girls are being buried on Thursday, with a fifth on Friday.

The girls were gunned down on Monday by a 32-year-old local man, Charles Roberts, who then killed himself. Five more girls were injured.

Doctors treating the survivors have reportedly taken one girl off a life-support machine and allowed her to be taken home to die.

Roads into the village were closed off to maintain privacy, as Naomi Rose Ebersole was carried to the graveyard at the head of 32 horse-drawn coaches.

Less than four hours later, the procession for Marian Fisher, 13, began.

The final funeral for Thursday would be for the Miller sisters, Lena, seven, and eight-year-old Mary Liz.

The funeral of Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, is scheduled to take place on Friday.

About 300 to 500 people were expected at each service.

The Anabaptist denomination eschews technology and preaches isolation from the modern world to varying degrees.

Amish burial customs call for simple wooden caskets - and a girl is typically laid to rest in a white dress, cape and white prayer-covering on her head, the victims' funeral director said.

Forgiveness

Donations have been coming in from around the world to help with medical expenses - Amish do not carry health insurance.

One insurance company has pledged $500,000 (£265,000).

But the Amish have also reached out to the family of Roberts, the 32-year-old milk-tanker driver who killed himself at the end of the shooting spree.

Amish leaders have helped set up a fund for the family at a local bank.

A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbour had also comforted the family hours after the shooting - and extended forgiveness to them.

"I hope they stay around here and they'll have a lot of friends and a lot of support," said Daniel Esh, an Amish artist whose grand-nephews were inside the school at the start of the attack.

In a final phone call, Roberts told his wife he had molested two young members of his own family 20 years ago.

In suicide notes he also made references to another incident 20 years ago, and said he had been haunted by dreams of repeating his actions.

Roberts had entered the one-room school in the village of Paradise, armed with guns, knives and 600 rounds of ammunition.

He ordered the women and boys to leave, tied up the girls, barricaded the doors and shot his captives in the head.

Roberts' wife Marie and other family members have said he was a good and loving husband and father, and that prior to Monday's attack there had been no hint of what he was planning.

So very heartbreaking

I just can't believe this story.

There's no forgiving something like this. If there is a Hell, I hope that MFer is roasting over an open spit for what he did.

I swear, the Amish are consistently the most peaceful, forgiving people I've ever witnessed. Bless them all at a time like this.