The terrified residents of Lewiston, Maine, were afforded a sense of relief amid their shock and grief on Saturday after the “armed and dangerous” gunman who had kept them on lockdown since killing 18 people on Wednesday was found dead.
The body of suspected shooter, Robert Card, 40, was found on Friday evening near a recycling area 10 miles from Lewiston, with what the authorities confirmed on Saturday was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Announcing late on Friday that the massive local, county, state and federal hunt for Card was over, Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, said she was “breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing Card is no longer a threat to anyone”.
“Tonight the people of Lewiston and the state of Maine begin to move forward on what will be a long and difficult road to healing. But we will heal together,” Mills said.
The commissioner of Maine’s department of public safety, Michael Sauschuck, said the suspect’s body was discovered on Friday evening near the Androscoggin River in Lisbon Falls, just a few miles from Lewiston, where 18 people were fatally gunned down at a bowling alley and restaurant and 13 others wounded in the worst such massacre the state has ever witnessed.
In Lewiston, there was an almost immediate sense of the community being able to exhale after a tense and terrifying three days with the gunman on the loose. Stores have been closed, with few people on the streets while hundreds of police searched rivers, woods and homes for Card. Officials announced that the Maine hunting season for the public would open on Saturday as scheduled.
Attention will now turn to comforting and assisting the families of those killed in the attack on Just-in-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar & Grille, supporting those injured, of whom seven were still in the hospital on Saturday morning, and laying to rest the dead.
Those killed ranged in age from 14 to 76 and included staff at the establishments, parents, children, members of the local deaf community out for a games night, and several heroes who called for help and tried to stop the gunman.
Sauschuck said Card’s body had been found in the back of a trailer full of metal at an area recycling business.
Sauschuck added that the center had been searched twice previously, by the local Lisbon police and by a tactical team. It was only after the manager of the business asked if trailers on an unmarked overflow site adjacent to the main property had been searched that the suspect was then found by state police.
Card’s body was in an unlocked, previously unsearched trailer among as many as 60 trailers on that site full of metal and plastic for recycling.
It has not yet been established at what point following the shootings on Wednesday that Card took his own life.
Sauschuck said on Saturday that a note left by Card at a family home was not explicitly a suicide note, though Card had written the unlock code to his phone and bank account numbers.
He noted that though “there is clearly a mental health component to this”, Card had not been “forcibly committed” to mental health treatment and had not triggered any firearm restrictions.
“Just because there appears to be a mental health nexus to this, the vast majority of people with a diagnosis will never hurt anybody, themselves or the community,” he added.
Card had been taken by police for an evaluation after military officials became concerned that he was acting erratically in mid-July, a US official told the Associated Press.
It emerged later on Saturday that police across Maine were alerted just last month to “veiled threats” by Card, one of a string of missed red flags that preceded the massacre.
Two local law enforcement chiefs told the Associated Press that a statewide awareness alert was sent in mid-September to be on the lookout for Card after he made threats against his base and fellow soldiers. But after stepped-up patrols of the base and a visit to Card’s home – neither of which turned up any sign of him – they moved on.
Meanwhile, Sauschuck thanked the shooter’s family for its assistance to investigators. “This family has been incredibly cooperative with us. Unfortunately, the family has taken a great deal of grief over this, threats and people hanging out at their houses.”
But, he said, “they came forward immediately to let us know who this individual was”.
The Lisbon police chief, Ryan McGee, said at the press conference that many residents in the area were out in their front yards on Saturday morning, after the long shelter-in-place order was lifted, waving and smiling with relief as officers, who had been searching around the clock for Card, passed by.
The community remains badly shaken as well as grieving.
“It’s been one the scariest things I’ve ever had to go through,” said Elizabeth Bean, 18, who, before Card’s body was found, said that she and her family had only left their home once since the shooting – to get groceries. “We didn’t want to risk it. So it’s been really sad.”
At Auntie D’s on Saturday afternoon, a mobile food truck only steps from the path Card probably followed from his car to the waste station, Desaray Hayes, 32, said the community would heal but that it would take time.
“It’s still a ghost town. You can feel people’s emotions. A lot of people are feeling strong emotions or they’re in shock,” she said.
“We’re a pretty tight community here, so if there’s a traumatic event, whether it’s one person or 22, the whole town comes together.”
Noah Caron, 17, said he felt that Lewiston could now start to grieve. “It was good to see how the community came together and kept everyone close,” he said.
As she got into her car in Lewiston, Alison Johnson, 81, said: “I’m very relieved, it’s very nice to not think I have to be careful if I go outside. I can now go plant some daffodil bulbs, and I didn’t want to do that in case the shooter guy might be there to come by and shoot me.”
It was the worst gun massacre in the US this year and prompted Joe Biden to reiterate his strong calls for a ban on assault weapons, as well as motivatingthe Maine Democratic congressman Jared Golden to switch to supporting a ban.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
• This article was amended on 28 October 2023. In an earlier version the first name of Jared Golden, the Maine congressman, was mistakenly given as ‘“Jason”.
