Shooter’s body found within 12 hours of suicide, authorities say

The Maine Department of Public Safety released to media a timeline of events surrounding the mass shootings in Lewiston on Oct. 25 and the ensuing manhunt.

LEWISTON — The man who police said fatally shot 18 people and wounded 13 more last week likely killed himself within 12 hours of the time his body was found in a recycling trailer in Lisbon.

While the official time of death of Robert Card, 40, of Bowdoin is recorded as 7:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, when police discovered his remains, the “postmortem interval based on rigor mortis and other physical signs indicate Mr. Card was deceased likely 8-12 hours before being located,” Lindsey Chasteen, spokeswoman for the Maine Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said Friday.

She said Card died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

That means Card likely had been alive for at least 34 hours after shooting 31 men, women and a teenager at a bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston the evening of Oct. 25.

He was found in a recycling trailer with two guns, including a handgun, authorities said.

Police had issued shelter-in-place orders for Androscoggin County after the shooting and had later narrowed the order for four towns, including Lisbon and Lewiston, until 6 p.m. on Oct. 27.

Dozens of law enforcement officers had begun combing the area where Card’s station wagon was discovered parked at a boat launch on the Androscoggin River shortly before 10 p.m. on the night of Oct. 25.

Within a half-hour, dozens of law enforcement officers were deployed at the boat launch and later joined by Maine State Police Tactical Team, according to Maine State Police.

At 8 a.m. on Oct. 26, police searched the woods north of the boat landing with K-9 units to track Card’s scent, according to Maine State Police.

At 12:30 p.m., police were assigned to search the recycling facility where Card had worked.

An aerial view Tuesday morning shows Maine Recycling Corp. property on Capital Avenue in Lisbon. Tractor trailers can be seen at the bottom of the frame, where authorities say the body of mass shooter Robert Card was found. At left is the Androscoggin River. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Police investigated numerous reports of gunshots in Lisbon, which turned out to be unfounded. They also checked local areas, such as a gravel pit, where Card could have hidden, Maine State Police said.

At 8 a.m. on Oct. 27, underwater recovery teams were deployed near the boat launch to scan and dive in that area, according to Maine State Police.

The Maine Warden Service was assigned to sweep the riverbank.

It’s not clear from police reports when Card climbed into the trailer.

Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said Card 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 and the overflow parking lot of Maine Recycling Corp. at 61 Capital Ave. more than a mile away.

His remains were found in one of the roughly 60 trailers in the company’s overflow parking lot.

Sauschuck said the doors of some of the trailers had been locked.

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.

Police had checked and cleared the recycling company’s main property located across the street from the overflow lot.

It wasn’t until the business owner called local police to ask whether the trailers in the overflow parking lot had been searched that Card’s body was found, Sauschuck said, who added that authorities hadn’t been aware that the lot was part of the recycling business.