NICKEL MINES, Pa. – Curiosity seekers left flowers and messages of sympathy Sunday near the one-room Amish schoolhouse where a quiet milkman killed five young girls and wounded five more.
Along the road leading to the West Nickel Mines Amish School, authorities posted dozens of “No parking or standing” signs to encourage people to keep moving.
Survivors of the shooting will probably receive lessons at home for the rest of the school year, and the schoolhouse will be torn or burned down and rebuilt elsewhere, according to Daniel Esh, who said he learned of the plans from a nephew who attended a meeting on the matter.
Ken Urbany, 57, a prison guard from Philadelphia, had hoped to stop at the school Sunday to offer a prayer for the victims but kept driving because of the restrictions. He said, “It doesn’t matter. The Lord will hear my prayer in my hotel room.”
But visitors also stole up to the grave of gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, who killed himself in last Monday’s rampage and was buried Saturday in his wife’s family plot a few miles from the school. They also drove past the house of his widow, Marie, and their three children.
Randy Fischer, 51, a Roberts family friend, stood at the end of their driveway, trying to keep people away.
County Coroner Gary Kirchner said one of the survivors, whose parents took her home to die late last week, was returned to Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey. He said her prognosis remained extremely poor.
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