Amish Woman Dies 18 Years After Being Shot in School

Rosanna King was just 6 when she was wounded in Pennsylvania
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 5, 2024 2:04 PM CDT
Amish Woman Dies 18 Years After Being Shot in School
A group of Amish men wait at a roadblock near the West Nickel Mines Amish School, where a gunman killed five girls and injured others in Nickel Mines, Pa., on Oct. 2, 2006.   (Ed Hille/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

A woman who was severely injured when a gunman killed five girls and wounded her and four other girls during an attack on their one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania has died 18 years later, per the AP. Rosanna S. King, 23, died at her home on Tuesday, and a funeral is planned at her home in the farming community of Paradise on Friday, according to an obituary from Furman Home for Funerals in Leola. King was among those shot at the West Nickel Mines Amish School in October 2006.

Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old milk truck driver, barricaded himself inside the schoolhouse and let boys and several adults go as he tied up 10 girls and shot them before taking his own life as police closed in. King, who belonged to an Old Order Amish Church community, was 6 years old at the time and had been considered the most severely injured survivor. She had been shot in the head and the attack left her unable to talk and in need of a feeding tube. She was dependent on others for personal care and mobility.

A year after the shooting, her family said she was able to recognize family members, smiled a lot, and had limited physical movement. They said in 2007 that "the hardest part has been to see her suffer." Roberts' mother, Terri Roberts, regularly visited Rosanna King, inspired by the forgiveness the Amish community expressed to her and her family after the attack. The schoolhouse was torn down 10 days after the killings and a new one was constructed nearby.

(More Amish stories.)

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