The massive two-day manhunt for the suspect in a shooting rampage that killed 18 people in a bowling alley and bar in Maine ended when the alleged gunman was found dead.
The body of Robert Card, 40, a US Army reservist and firearms instructor, was found Friday evening near the Androscoggin River in the Lisbon Falls area, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Lewiston in the northeastern US state, said Mike Sauschuck, commissioner of Maine’s department of public safety. He apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Card was suspected of opening fire on Wednesday evening with at least one military-style rifle at two locations in Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city: Schemengees Bar & Grille restaurant and Just-in-Time Recreation, a bowling alley.
He would have faced 18 counts of murder once all the names of the dead are confirmed, said Maine State Police Colonel William Ross.
Among those killed were the manager of the bar and restaurant who reportedly tried to thwart the attack with a butcher knife; a sign-language interpreter playing in a cornhole tournament; and a 76-year-old retiree who coached a youth bowling league that was practicing at the time of the attack. Another 13 people were injured.
Residents of Lewiston and nearby towns had been told to shelter in place since the shooting as teams of police and FBI agents scoured an area of over 700 square miles for signs of the alleged shooter. Divers searched a river near a dock where his car was found.
Schools in Lewiston and Portland were closed while the hunt for card was underway. Bates College in Lewiston canceled classes for its roughly 1,800 students on Friday and postponed the inauguration of the school’s first Black president, according to the Associated Press.
Card underwent a mental health evaluation in mid-July after he began acting erratically while with his reserve regiment, a US official told AP.
A bulletin sent to police across the country after the attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.
The shootings stunned the state of about 1.3 million people. Maine had just 29 murders all of last year, according to data from the Maine State Police.
“All Maine people are sharing in the sorrow of the families who lost loved ones last night,” Governor Janet Mills said at a press briefing in Lewiston on Thursday morning. “This is a dark day for Maine.”
It was the 36th mass killing in the US this year, according to a database maintained by AP and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. The database includes every mass killing since 2006 from all weapons in which four or more people, excluding the offender, were killed within a 24-hour time frame.