A Maine State Police tactical team found the body of Robert Card on Friday evening inside a trailer at the Maine Recycling Corp., authorities said at a briefing in Lewiston on Saturday morning.
The trailer was one of 55 to 60 others in the company’s overflow parking lot at 61 Capital Ave. in Lisbon, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.
Card had worked at the business as a commercial driver for about a year and a half – until late last spring, when he left voluntarily, the recycling company said in a statement.
The business’s main property had been checked and cleared twice by local police, but officers did not learn until later in the search that there was an overflow parking lot across the street, Sauschuck said at the Saturday morning briefing.
“We cleared trailers there at that business footprint. We had no idea across the street there was an overflow parking lot,” he said.
The secondary lot is surrounded by other businesses, Sauschuck said, and it is not obvious that it is connected.
The owner of the recycling company followed up with the police to ask if they had checked the overflow lot, which set in motion the search in which they found Card.
Because Card had worked there, he was familiar with the facility, where trailers in the gravel lot are sometimes empty and unlocked. Police aren’t sure yet if Card forced his way into the trailer where he was found, or simply walked in.
Maine Recycling Corp. was quiet on Saturday afternoon. A single police cruiser blocked off the road leading to the overflow lot where the body was discovered. The air was warm, and the bright blue sky was spotless save for one helicopter circling overhead. A quarter mile down the road, officers with Maine State Police’s Major Crimes division were still investigating.
Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee said Card’s time of death is still unknown. Sauschuck said at Saturday’s press conference that an autopsy should provide more information, but he did not say when those results might be available.
“When he took his own life, I don’t have an answer to that,” Sauschuck said. “We’ll probably have a range-ish from the medical examiner’s office.”
It is also not clear when Card got to the trailer. Sauschuck suggested that he could have walked along the Paper Mill Trail in Lisbon, a wooded path along the Androscoggin River that passes both the boat launch – where his abandoned car was discovered at 9:56 p.m. Wednesday – and the parking lot where he was found dead Friday evening.
The stretch of path between the boat launch and the parking lot is around a mile long.
FIREARMS & MENTAL HEALTH
Card, who is accused of murdering 18 people and injuring 13 more in Lewiston on Wednesday night, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Sauschuck said.
Law enforcement across the state received an alert in mid-September that Card, an Army reservist, had made threats against his base and comrades, the Associated Press reported.
“We added extra patrols; we did that for about two weeks. … The guy never showed up,” Saco Police Chief Jack Clements said.
Authorities had increased patrols at the Army Reserve base in Saco where Card trained, and visited his Bowdoin home, according to the AP.
Joel Merry, sheriff of Sagadahoc County, where Bowdoin is located, said a deputy did a welfare check at Card’s home but “we couldn’t locate him.”
Authorities moved on.
A long gun was found in Card’s vehicle Wednesday night, and two other firearms were found with his body Friday.
An unidentified agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said at Saturday’s news conference that some of the guns were purchased several years ago and some more recently. All of them were purchased legally by Card, the agent said.
According to a criminal history record from the State Bureau of Identification, Card’s “Federal Firearms Disqualified Status,” was listed as “unknown.” A list of Mainers who have had their weapons confiscated through the state’s “yellow flag law” does not appear to include anyone matching Card.
A police bulletin sent to law enforcement last week said Card spent two weeks in a mental health facility this summer and reported paranoia. It did not say if that commitment was voluntary or forced.
Sauschuck said Saturday that based on current information, Card was never forcibly committed to mental health treatment and would not have been flagged on any background check required at licensed gun dealers in Maine.
“You can volunteer, as an example, to go to a facility and seek treatment for months on end, but if you’re not forcibly committed to seek that treatment, and it’s very specific to treatment … you could go into a firearms dealer who does all of their work, and a background check is not going to ping that this individual is prohibited,” he said.
Maine’s yellow flag law allows police to seek a court order and psychiatric evaluations to temporarily confiscate firearms and other weapons from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Sauschuck said he believes that severe mental health challenges played at least a partial role in the gunman’s decision to commit mass murder.
Card “felt people were talking about him,” Sauschuck said of the suspect. “It may even appear there are some voices in play here.”
That paranoia led Card to shoot at the two specific locations, Sauschuck said.
THE VICTIMS
Information about the 13 people injured in the shootings remains sparse. Sauschuck declined to share information about them out of respect for their privacy, he said.
One of those injured, Thomas Giberti, started walking again Friday with assistance from medical professionals, his nephew Will Bourgault said. Giberti was shot seven times in the legs at Just-In-Time Recreation, according to his nephew.
Giberti, who comes from a long line of bowlers and is a manager at the alley, was watching the youth league bowling team with friends on Wednesday night. When he came back to the lanes after grabbing a screwdriver in the back of the building, Giberti told his nephew that he saw flashes of light. Robert Card had entered the building and fired dozens of shots, killing eight people and wounding several others.
Giberti was shot as he helped some of the children, frozen in fear, escape out of the back door. Stuck in the doorway, Giberti tried to pull himself through; Card shot him several more times before he made it completely through the door, Bourgault said.
Another survivor helped Giberti place a tourniquet on his legs and he was later taken to the hospital by ambulance, according to his nephew.
Giberti is reluctant to call himself a hero, Bourgault says, but “he’s always been my hero.”
Bourgault said Giberti remains in good spirits and is making jokes with those around him.
The names and ages of the 18 who were killed were released by the police at a press conference Friday.
Those who died are: Tricia Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Bryan MacFarlane, 41; Keith Macneir, 64; Ronald G. Morin, 55; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Robert E. Violette, 76; Lucille M. Violette, 73; Stephen Vozzella, 45; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Aaron Young, 14; and William A. Young, 44.
A few memorials have started to appear in the city.
At the intersection where Lincoln Street turns into River Road, about half a block from Schemengees Bar & Grille, four pots of pink, yellow and red mums sat in plastic containers Saturday afternoon. A laminated image of Brackett, MacFarlane, Seal and Vozzella served as a memorial to the four deaf victims of the shootings.
A single bouquet of yellow roses lay below the sign for Just-In-Time Recreation as cars filled the parking lot. The FBI and police blocked the roads leading to the lot.
Two vigils were planned for the victims: a candlelight vigil held Saturday night at the waterfront Worumbo Mill park in downtown Lisbon, and another Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at the Franco Center on Cedar Street in Lewiston.
THE INVESTIGATION
Responding to questions about the length of time it took to find Card and decisions made about the lockdowns and search, Sauschuck said there were many resources in place and people working around the clock to find the shooter.
Sauschuck also said he will never stop thinking about how the investigation was run: “I will for the rest of my life be looking at this event and saying, ‘Could we have done this different? Could we do that different?’”
More than 350 local, state and federal law enforcement officers have been working to assist in the mass shooting investigation, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss.
Federal special agents, analysts, task force officers and support personnel, as well as evidence response, hostage rescue, SWAT and victim services’ teams, were all deployed.
Card’s body was found, but the work of law enforcement at all levels will continue, FBI Boston Division Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen said in a statement.
“There are many questions that need to be answered, there is a lot of evidence to be processed, and most importantly the victims and their families deserve special consideration,” Cohen said.
Sauschuck said police will continue to work through the weekend gathering physical evidence at the three main sites: Maine Recycling Corp., Schemengees Bar & Grille and Just-In-Time Recreation.
The manhunt for Card lasted for 48 hours. During that time, Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin were all under shelter-in-place orders. Since Card was found, lockdowns have been lifted, stores have reopened and people have begun to restart their lives.
Just after 9 a.m. on Saturday, the parking lot at the Hannaford on Spring Street in Auburn was nearly full as shoppers streamed into the store.
After Card was found, politicians came out to say how grateful they were that the search was over but that they know hard times lie ahead for Mainers.
“Like many people, I’m breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Gov. Janet Mills said. “I know there are some people, many people, that share that sentiment, but I know that his death may not bring solace to many.”
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said she knows that Mainers who were impacted by the shootings are in pain, but she hopes they can find comfort in the fact that many in Maine and the country are thinking of them.
Press Herald Staff Writer Grace Benninghoff, Sun Journal Executive Editor Judy Meyer and Staff Writer Kendra Caruso, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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