Key Points
- The US shooting suspect was found dead inside a shipping container at a plant where he once worked.
- Police said the tragedy has a “mental health component”.
- Authorities found two guns on the suspect’s body, which apparently were purchased legally.
This article contains references to suicide/self-harm.
The US Army reservist who sprayed a bowling alley and bar with gunfire this week in the Maine town of Lewiston, killing 18 people, took his own life inside a shipping container parked on the site of a recycling plant where he once worked, police said on Saturday.
Robert R Card, 40, was found dead on Friday evening local time from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. The announcement, after a 48-hour search for the suspect in the most lethal act of firearms violence in the state’s history, brought a sense of relief to Lewiston and other southern Maine communities plunged into a virtual lockdown during the manhunt.
At a news briefing on Saturday, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck revealed that a state police tactical team had found Card’s corpse in an unlocked shipping container parked on one of dozens of tractor-trailer rigs occupying an overflow lot of the recycling plant.
Police had combed the plant twice before, as Card was believed to have worked there in the past, Sauschuck said. But searchers had initially overlooked the extra parking lot, occupied by 60 cargo trailers full of crushed plastic and metal, the commissioner said.
Note to loved one
Officials have yet to offer a possible motive for the violence, though Sauschuck elaborated on a note that police previously said they found at Card’s house. They said it was addressed by the suspect to a loved one and listed the passcode to Card’s phone and bank account information.
“I wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note, but the tone and tenor was that the individual was not going to be around,” he said.
Sauschuck said investigators had determined the tragedy had “a mental health component”. He cited evidence Card suffered from paranoia and “felt like people were talking about him”, factors that might have led him to target the venues he attacked.
Robert Card, who had allegedly killed 18 people in a mass shooting at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, had worked at the recycling centre. Source: Getty / Joe Raedle
Officials said they recovered a rifle in Card’s abandoned white Subaru and two guns on his body. All the weapons were apparently purchased by Card legally, a representative for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
A Maine law enforcement bulletin circulated this week identified Card as a trained firearms instructor at the US Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine. It said he had reported hearing voices and had other mental health issues.
He also had threatened to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco and was “reported to have been committed to [a] mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released”, according to the bulletin from the Maine Information & Analysis Center, a unit of Maine State Police.
Sauschuck said on Saturday that officials had no evidence that Card was ever “forcibly committed” for mental health treatment, which may have explained why he was able to buy weapons legally. Police were still looking into any voluntary treatment he may have received.
From carnage to normalcy
Card’s body was dressed in what appeared to be the same brown sweatshirt a surveillance camera caught him wearing the night of the attack. Investigators would not say how long they believed Card had been dead.
The recycling facility is in the nearby town of Lisbon Falls, around a kilometre from the spot where police found Card’s abandoned getaway vehicle shortly after the shooting spree.
A total of 18 people were killed and 13 others wounded in Wednesday night’s carnage, which began when the gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley. He launched another attack minutes later at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant a few kilometres away.
Authorities also officially released for the first time, revealing that a cross section of Lewiston people had been killed, including deaf people playing in the beanbag-throwing tournament, a father-and-son pair of bowlers, and a couple aged 76 and 73.
Thirteen others were wounded, three of them still in critical condition, Sauschuck said on Saturday.
The shootings and prolonged manhunt convulsed the normally bustling but serene community of Lewiston. A former textile hub and the second-most populous city in Maine, it is situated on the banks of the Androscoggin River about 56km north of the state’s largest city, Portland.
The murder investigation continued, and vigils were planned to honour the shooting victims on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Still, by Saturday afternoon, a measure of normalcy was restored to the postcard-like New England city. Residents were out shopping, children played on quiet, leafy streets, and Bates College students were jogging around campus after two days of shelter-in-place orders rendered the community a ghost town.
Mass shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people and where attempts to clamp down on their spread are always met with stiff resistance.
, defined as four or more people wounded or killed, according to non-governmental organisation the Gun Violence Archive.
Readers seeking crisis support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at and on 1300 22 4636.
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