Leola, Pa. – Nearly two decades after surviving a tragic shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, Rosanna S. King has passed away due to complications stemming from her injuries. At the age of 23, King succumbed to the long-term effects of a severe head wound inflicted during the attack on the West Nickel Mines Amish School in October 2006. Funeral services for King are set for Friday at her home in the agricultural enclave of Paradise.
King, who was just 6 years old at the time of the shooting, was noted as the most gravely injured of the surviving victims. Charles Carl Roberts IV, the perpetrator of the mass shooting, was a milk truck driver who entered the school, dismissed the males and adults, and tied up 10 young girls before shooting them. Roberts eventually ended his own life as law enforcement encircled the school.
The violence inflicted by Roberts left King with profound impairments; she lost her ability to speak and required a feeding tube and extensive personal care for mobility. Despite these challenges, her family remarked in 2007 on her recognition of relatives, her frequent smiles, and her limited movements, though they also shared the immense difficulty of witnessing her suffer.
The reaction of the Old Order Amish community, to which King belonged, was marked by a profound expression of forgiveness toward the shooter’s family, an act that garnered national attention. Terri Roberts, the mother of the gunman, was deeply impacted by this gesture and made regular visits to King, moved by the community’s capacity for forgiveness.
In an interview in 2013, Christ King, Rosanna’s father, reflected on the emotional and spiritual challenges the family faced in reconciling with the notion of forgiveness that had been so publicly lauded.
The original schoolhouse was dismantled just 10 days following the massacre, replaced by a new structure erected nearby, symbolizing both a literal and figurative rebuilding in the wake of the community’s profound loss.
The Amish community, known for their devout Christian faith and simple living, eschew many modern conveniences, including electricity and cars, favoring traditional attire and horse-drawn buggies. They predominantly speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch, maintaining a lifestyle centered around their faith and familial ties.
The news of Rosanna King’s death coincided tragically with another school shooting event the same week, where a 14-year-old in Georgia was charged with using an assault-style rifle to take the lives of two students and two teachers. This recent event highlights the ongoing issue of mass killings in the United States, with more than 600 occurrences since the 2006 tragedy that profoundly affected King and her community.
King will be laid to rest in Bart Cemetery, leaving behind a community that continues to grapple with the ramifications of that fateful day when their lives changed forever. Through their enduring faith and resilience, the Amish of West Nickel Mines strive to uphold the tenets of forgiveness and peace that have long guided their way of life, even in the face of unimaginable tragedy.