Fears paranoid mass shooter targeted deaf friends he thought were bashing him
The Maine mass shooter is feared to have targeted his deaf friends at a cornhole night after growing paranoid they were bashing him behind his back.
The concerns emerged as anger grew in the local community over how Robert Card had access to a gun despite recently being admitted to a mental health facility after saying he wanted to kill. Tonight, as the manhunt continued two days after the massacre of 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, Canadian border services were issued an "armed and dangerous" alert.
Cole had recently begun suffering from hearing loss and four of the eight killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille had been to a cornhole night for deaf people at the bar. Card was an avid player of cornhole. Thousands of police, FBI agents, State troopers, and other law enforcement have been drafted in for the search as divers took to a nearby river to try and determine if Card fled the scene by jet ski.
While officials appeared no nearer tonight to finding the army sergeant reservist - an expert in firearms - Card's devastated sister-in-law, Katie O'Neill, told how his mental health spiralled in recent weeks.
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She told how they had tried to get help for her brother-in-law but failed as she revealed he may have targeted a bar and bowling alley on Wednesday evening, knowing his friends may have been inside. "I have known Rob my whole life," O'Neill said. "He is quiet but the most loving, hardworking, and kind person that I know. But in the past year, he had an acute episode of mental health, and it's been a struggle."
She told how he recently began wearing powerful hearing aids to combat significant hearing loss. Since then, O'Neill said her brother-in-law has insisted to his family that he could hear people criticising him - including at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grill, where the attacks occurred. "He truly believed he was hearing people say things," she added. "This all just happened within the last few months."
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Robert Card, named as an "armed and dangerous" person of interest in the deadly shootings (Lewiston Maine Police Department)
An arrest warrant has been issued for Robert Card (Maine State Police)The Army Reserve began to hear voices that were saying "horrible" things about him a couple of months ago when he was fitted for high-powered hearing aids, added O'Neill, who is married to his brother. "He was picking up voices that he had never heard," she added. "His mind was twisting them around. He was humiliated by the things that he thought were being said."
She said the family did their best to reassure Card that the comments were false, including by checking with some of the people he claimed had made the remarks. But, O'Neill said, "it turned into a manic belief." "He was just very set in his belief that everyone was against him all of a sudden," she said.
His sister-in-law said the family contacted police and his Army Reserve base as they "got increasingly concerned" in the last couple of months. "We just reached out to make sure everyone was on the same page because he is someone who does gun training," she said. "We were concerned about his mental state. That's all."
Robert Card, a 40-year-old Army reservist and firearms instructor, has been named as the suspect (FACEBOOK)Her husband - Card's brother - went "back and forth" with the Army, she said. "They were following up on it, too, but he's never been someone we thought would actually do anything," she said. O'Neill spoke as answers began being demanded over how, despite saying he wanted to kill people, he was not prevented from being around firearms.
Authorities today said they found a note at a home connected to Card but would not elaborate on its contents. "There was a note at one of these residences. I'm not permitted to really talk about what that included," said Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck.
Card's neighbour, Rick Goddard, who knows the suspected gunman and his family well, spoke about the AR-15 weapon used in the attack before questioning why he was not stopped.
Heavily armed law enforcement personnel swarm an area, two days after the mass shooting (CJ GUNTHER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)He said: "It was a $2,000 thermo scope. He had just gotten, it's, you know, that's infrared. You can see in the dark with it. It picks up heat signatures. I don't have that. I mean, who could afford that, if you know, unless you're really into wanting that.
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"I heard he was in Togus, which is the mental health hospital in Augusta where all the veterans go. It's a veterans hospital. I heard he was there for a few weeks during the summer because he was reportedly hearing voices in his head. I don't get why that wasn't taken care of. I don't get why he didn't get better treatment or more treatment. Why wasn't that taken seriously?
"I mean, nobody's gonna say they're gonna do something like that if they're just joking around. It's not a funny thing. It's not as you know, you throw that out there for laughs and see if anybody cares and it happened. He went and did what he said he was gonna do. It doesn't make any sense why that wasn't addressed before the fact that it was actually capable of happening."
The state of Maine has a 'yellow flag' law' that outlines steps that must be taken before a weapon can be removed from an individual by courts or law enforcement, such as getting a medical practitioner evaluation to deem that person a threat. It differs from 'red flag' laws, adopted in 21 states, which allows family or law enforcement to ask a court directly to temporarily remove guns from a person who may be at serious risk of harming themselves or another person with a firearm.
Law enforcement personnel prepare to search an area, two days after the mass shooting (CJ GUNTHER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)When asked about what authorities had or hadn't done, Sauschuck said today: "I'm not gonna talk about who knew what and when," instead saying he was focussing on the search efforts. When asked again if he could confirm if a warning was made to law enforcement, Sauschuck said, "I cannot".
The search, which now covers more than 700 sq miles while leaving tens of thousands to remain inside, has few clues for the suspect, whose army training equipped him with military evasion skills. Of the task police and FBI face, Goddard spoke to the enormity of what searchers face. "This is his stomping ground. He grew up here," said the neighbour. "He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket."
Today, officials pleaded for the public's patience in tracking down Card. Sauschuck said police had received at least 530 tips about the suspect, which "vary greatly."
The ongoing search included dive teams and air searches of the Androscoggin River in the area where the suspect's car was found. The search will scour the area near a boat launch where Card's white Subaru car was found.
Card enters the bowling alley where he slaughtered several people (Androscoggin County Sheriff's Of)Sauschuck said aerial teams will search the waters from above, dive teams may use remote-operated vehicles using sonar technology to look for shadows or movement, and officers will search the land in the area as well. Early this year, Card had registered a jet ski, which could have taken him from where he was parked upriver or out into the ocean.
As the search continued more details of the victims emerged. According to police, seven were murdered at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley. Six were male and one was female. Eight more people, all male, died at Schemengees Bar and Grille. Three others died after being taken to hospitals.
Deaf interpreter Joshua Seal had been taking part in a cornhole tournament for deaf athletes at Schemengees Bar and Grille when he was killed. His employer, Pine Tree Society, said Seal was their Director of Interpreting Services, they wrote on Facebook.
Joshua Seal, 36, (right) with his wife Elizabeth Seal (Elizabeth Seal/Facebook)"He was a husband, a father of four and a tireless advocate for the Deaf community. He was committed to creating safe space for Deaf people and was widely known as the ASL interpreter," the post said. "The ripple effects of his loss will be felt by countless Maine people."
Maxx Hathaway (Gofundme)
Main shooting victims Bill Young and son AaronAnother victim at the bar was Maxx Hathaway, a full-time stay-at-home dad of two with a third child on the way. "He was a goofy, down to earth person, loved to joke around and always had an uplifting attitude no matter what was going on," his sister Kelsay Hathaway said in a verified GoFundMe campaign she set up.
"Brenda (his wife), the girls, his family and friends meant the world to him, and his loss will be felt among the communities that he was a part of and grew up in."
Hathaway's wife is due in a little over a month, Kelsay Hathaway said. Bill Young and his 14-year-old son Aaron, who died at a bowling alley in Lewiston, were also named.
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