Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening, October twenty fifth, twenty twenty three was just
Speaker 2: an ordinary knight in Lewistown, a small, working class city
Speaker 2: of thirty seven thousand in central Maine. Friends and families
Speaker 2: had gathered at a bowling alley called Just in Time
Speaker 2: Recreation Center and Schemengi's, a popular sports bar and restaurant.
Speaker 2: They felt immune from the violent crime that seemed to
Speaker 2: rack the rest of the country. In a state that
Speaker 2: the FBI had just named the safest in America. Then
Speaker 2: Robert card the Second, a deeply paranoid Army reserved soldier,
Speaker 2: walked into both places with a high powered rifle and
Speaker 2: open fire, killing eighteen people and wounding thirteen more. He
Speaker 2: then fled to a third location, where, according to the
Speaker 2: evidence and the testimony of his best friend, he likely
Speaker 2: planned to lay in wait and kill his ex co
Speaker 2: workers when they came to work the next morning. The
Speaker 2: tragedy is that the numerous red flags he had raised
Speaker 2: in the months before weren't enough to stop him before
Speaker 2: he carried out his terrible plan. A combination of watered
Speaker 2: down gun control laws and law enforcement and military negligence
Speaker 2: made sure of that. In The Lewiston Shootings, An All
Speaker 2: American Tragedy, author and award winning journalist Robert Conlin traces
Speaker 2: the shootings that deeply scarred a community that thought it
Speaker 2: was the last place on Earth where a mass shooting
Speaker 2: would take place. The book that we're featuring this evening
Speaker 2: is The Lewiston Shootings, An All American Tragedy, with my
Speaker 2: special guest, former journalist, longtime main resident, and author, Robert Conlin.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for
Speaker 2: this interview. Robert Conlin, Yes, Hi, thanks very much for
Speaker 2: having me, Dan, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: And congratulations on the Lewiston shootings.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jan. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Let's start off with the central character in this Robert Card,
Speaker 2: the second or known why most people as Robbie, his
Speaker 2: father Robert Sr.
Speaker 3: And his mother Janna.
Speaker 2: Just tell us a little bit about Robert Carr and
Speaker 2: his background before we start talking about this incredible rampage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he Robert Carr the second, not junior with the second,
Speaker 3: grew up in the small town of Bowden, which is
Speaker 3: a town of about three thousand people just in close
Speaker 3: to central close to central Maine in Sagatahawk County inland
Speaker 3: from the coast, just probably twenty miles. Yeah, a very
Speaker 3: small community and located about fifteen miles from Lewiston, the
Speaker 3: city of Lewison itself. The family was a farm family,
Speaker 3: dairy farm and then eventually cattle and also various other things.
Speaker 3: It's like a lot of people in Maine. It's do
Speaker 3: a number of things to make a living. So I
Speaker 3: know his father worked as an electrician and as well
Speaker 3: as running the farm. And Robert the second was forty
Speaker 3: years old that at the time these shootings occurred. He
Speaker 3: had gone away to college for a year or two
Speaker 3: and then came back to Bowden. He went to the
Speaker 3: University of Maine for engineering, but couldn't afford it. He
Speaker 3: got married at a very young age to his high
Speaker 3: school sweetheart and they had a son, but they weren't
Speaker 3: married that long and I spent some time with his
Speaker 3: ex wife, who was gracious enough to really help me
Speaker 3: understand who he was. He joined the Army Reserve when
Speaker 3: he get when he when he left college, and the
Speaker 3: Army Reserve was a is a is a one weekend
Speaker 3: a month commitment and two weeks annually per year, and
Speaker 3: they act obviously in a reserve capacity, not they get
Speaker 3: confused a lot of the national guarret here in the States,
Speaker 3: But the Army Reserve is under the command of the
Speaker 3: Department of Defense, just like the Army is. However, the soldiers,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit different in terms of their responsibility
Speaker 3: to the soldiers that they only have jurisdiction over the
Speaker 3: soldiers when they're on duty, so that one weekend a
Speaker 3: month and two weeks a year, which became an issue
Speaker 3: certainly in the case of in the case of his
Speaker 3: mental health treatment and his deterioration. But in any event,
Speaker 3: he was a truck driver for pretty much all of
Speaker 3: his adult life, very good at it, I guess. They
Speaker 3: had a tendency to bounce around from job's job, and
Speaker 3: that's how he supported himself. Although he was he was
Speaker 3: an outdoorsman. Like a lot of people in Maine, are
Speaker 3: pretty rural state, and so people like to hunt and
Speaker 3: fish and go four wheeling and snowmobiling and et cetera.
Speaker 3: So he you know, those are all things that he did.
Speaker 3: He was also an avid cornhole player in cornhole and
Speaker 3: this this really popular game board game with the beam
Speaker 3: bag toss thing, so he entered in all kinds of tournaments.
Speaker 3: Also a horseshoe player, So that's pretty much who he
Speaker 3: was in the lead up to the shootings in October
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the kinds of skills that he acquired
Speaker 2: in the training he had in the Army Reserve.
Speaker 3: He actually signed up his MOS His occupation was a
Speaker 3: petroleum specialist, so refueling. But the unit did he eventually,
Speaker 3: and they moved, you know, they moved around from unit
Speaker 3: to unit. They tended to change in morph and consolidate
Speaker 3: units from different places. So eventually he ended up at
Speaker 3: the unit based in Saco, Maine in southern Maine, and
Speaker 3: that unit was responsible for training West Point Cadets at
Speaker 3: the academy in West Point, the new recruits that come
Speaker 3: in the cadets and they trained them in machine guns, grenades,
Speaker 3: automatic rifles, and so they would go there for two
Speaker 3: weeks every summer, I think for a period of about
Speaker 3: eight years he did that and they would train the cadets,
Speaker 3: and he primarily trained them on grenade throwing, and that ultimately,
Speaker 3: I think also became an issue in terms of his
Speaker 3: mental health, as they discovered when they did some brain
Speaker 3: scans on him later after he died.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of that other training and included marksmanship.
Speaker 2: And in the beginning he enlisted, he thought suredly that
Speaker 2: he would see some action in Iraq.
Speaker 3: He thought, oh yeah, oh yeah, so you know right
Speaker 3: after nine to eleven, so almost in anybody who went
Speaker 3: the military then, you know, even going into the reserves,
Speaker 3: would have expected to see some combat. You had Afghanistan
Speaker 3: and then Iraq, and it was just sheer happenstance that
Speaker 3: he was not called up to any kind of active
Speaker 3: duty combat duty. You know, some some members of the
Speaker 3: unit were called up. It's not they don't go over
Speaker 3: in mass as a unit, so it depends on their mos,
Speaker 3: their occupation, and it just so happened that they didn't
Speaker 3: have a need for him at the time as a
Speaker 3: petroleum specialist. So he never did do that, and he
Speaker 3: spent a pretty you know, benign twenty years in the
Speaker 3: Army reserve training certainly, and they were they were they
Speaker 3: were highly trained. It wasn't like they were just stumbling around,
Speaker 3: you know, with no with no idea of how to
Speaker 3: conduct themselves as soldiers. They were soldiers. They they went
Speaker 3: to a regular basic training just like any Army soldier.
Speaker 3: And they and they had training over the course of
Speaker 3: all those years. So he was a qualified marchman, you know,
Speaker 3: was was well versed in tactics like any soldier.
Speaker 2: Tell us about his teen teenage sweetheart, Caro Lamb and
Speaker 2: their marriage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she they've been in high school. She went to
Speaker 3: a different high school than him, but just just one
Speaker 3: town over. And you know, she explained to me she
Speaker 3: was kind of young and dumb and puppy love. She
Speaker 3: did say that, and initially the it didn't last long.
Speaker 3: The you know, the the romance sort of faded pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: She said. He was more or less my way the
Speaker 3: highway kind of guy. Anybody else who would have talked
Speaker 3: about him said he was very dependable and steady, reliable,
Speaker 3: not quick to anger. She you know, saw a little
Speaker 3: bit of a different side of him, I think, and
Speaker 3: you know, after I think it was five years. She
Speaker 3: was trying to get him to go to marriage counseling
Speaker 3: and he refused, said he wouldn't learn anything. So she
Speaker 3: asked for a divorce and he was very, very angry
Speaker 3: and bitter about that, and they had a very a
Speaker 3: lot of animosity in the post years after the divorce
Speaker 3: when they were raising their son, which you know, they
Speaker 3: he more or less and talked to her, and when
Speaker 3: he did, he was very very brusque and she, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a tough period for her, and I think
Speaker 3: she did her best to raise her son without any
Speaker 3: real input from him. She said he was a good
Speaker 3: father to her, to his son, but not a good
Speaker 3: father to raise a son with.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the son Colby, But there we get to
Speaker 2: the point that Colby is actually living with his father
Speaker 2: in a trailer, and the reason he goes back living
Speaker 2: with his mother is what.
Speaker 3: His father said that he wanted to have his friend,
Speaker 3: staff Sergeant Sean Hodgson, who was in the same unit
Speaker 3: with him and he had met many years before. I
Speaker 3: think they were friends for seventeen years. He wanted to
Speaker 3: move him into his bedroom in the trailer, and by
Speaker 3: that time there were signs to his son certainly that
Speaker 3: his father there's mental health was starting to deteriorate and
Speaker 3: some pretty pretty obvious signs that things weren't going well
Speaker 3: with him. So he he asked him to leave, and
Speaker 3: he and his son did and went back to live
Speaker 3: with his mother. His son was only seventeen. I think
Speaker 3: it might have been eighteen at the time, but it
Speaker 3: was just graduating high school.
Speaker 2: So did Sean Hodgins move into the trailer with cart.
Speaker 3: He did for a short while and then he left
Speaker 3: after I think it was I think it was a
Speaker 3: few months. And he was also getting some real strong,
Speaker 3: you know, some strong signals that things were not right
Speaker 3: with his friend, and he developed a real concern for
Speaker 3: him really in the in the in about a year's
Speaker 3: lead up to the shootings, you know, it progressively got
Speaker 3: worse and worse, and we can talk about what the
Speaker 3: real signs were at anytime, but yeah, his friend was
Speaker 3: starting to get really concerned. His son was starting to
Speaker 3: get really concerned. His son passed that concern on to
Speaker 3: his mother, Card's ex wife, and his sister and family
Speaker 3: were also concerned. They were his brother. He was close
Speaker 3: to his brother and his sister Nicole, who wasn't necessarily
Speaker 3: close to, but she was, you know, getting indications from
Speaker 3: the rest of the family that things were really not
Speaker 3: going well. And the sister in law was a nurse.
Speaker 3: Ryan Card's wife who was close to him, also noticed
Speaker 3: you know, some really really bizarre behavior and concerning signs.
Speaker 2: What was he saying specifically, what were some of the
Speaker 2: source of hallucination or delusion that he was spouting.
Speaker 3: His you know, his sole focus seemed to be on
Speaker 3: the fact that he thought that virtually everybody in his
Speaker 3: orbit was calling him a pedophile. It started out with strangers,
Speaker 3: you know, they would go, he would go with his
Speaker 3: son to home depot and insists that he could hear
Speaker 3: ya just got these new hearing aids, by the way,
Speaker 3: because he did have hearing difficulties, and they were bluetooth
Speaker 3: enabled hearing aids, but they were giving him a lot
Speaker 3: of he was having a hard time adjusting them, so
Speaker 3: he would be picking up on conversations from far away,
Speaker 3: or he was getting a lot of distortion and would
Speaker 3: shut them off and then not be able to hear
Speaker 3: well at all. So he was claiming that he was
Speaker 3: hearing people from a you know, from quite a distance away.
Speaker 3: Saying that he was a pedophile, and that it started
Speaker 3: out was you know, just strangers, and eventually as time
Speaker 3: went on over that period of that year, he insisted
Speaker 3: the adverse that everybody was calling, including his own son,
Speaker 3: his family, his friend. So he that was really seemed
Speaker 3: to be the sole focus of his his parent.
Speaker 2: You're right about this job he had as a driver
Speaker 2: for a recycling plant. And interestingly, where possibly he might
Speaker 2: have this this gossip might have possibly come from.
Speaker 3: The recycling plant is called Main Recycling in a town
Speaker 3: of Lisbon, about ten miles from Lewiston. He worked there
Speaker 3: for I believe it was close to two years, and
Speaker 3: his friend Hodgson also worked there with him. So I
Speaker 3: got some of this information from Hodgson and some from
Speaker 3: just public sources. But he told his friend, and he
Speaker 3: told his sister that someone at Main Recycling claimed that
Speaker 3: he was on the sex offender registry and essentially called
Speaker 3: him a pedophile. That seems to be the source of
Speaker 3: the origin of the whole fixation on being called a pedophile.
Speaker 3: His sister told me that she went on to the
Speaker 3: sex offender Registry online to look to see if that
Speaker 3: was the case. If you know, somebody was claiming that
Speaker 3: he was honest. She wanted to just try to find
Speaker 3: out because he seemed to be so fixated on that idea,
Speaker 3: and she wanted to just let him know that it
Speaker 3: wasn't the case. But when so, she did go on
Speaker 3: and she did do a sert, and she didn't find him. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: it turns out there was a Robit card on the
Speaker 3: sex offender industry, same exact name, which is not a
Speaker 3: common name, by the way, so it's it's pretty it's
Speaker 3: a pretty random happenstance that there is a Robert card
Speaker 3: on the sex offender registry. His birthday was eerily similar
Speaker 3: to the other Rubbit card. I think it was like
Speaker 3: four three eighty four versus four four eighty three, so
Speaker 3: they were about the same age. They didn't necessarily look alike,
Speaker 3: but you didn't if you weren't good with faces, you
Speaker 3: might say, well that's a you know, a different picture
Speaker 3: or a different time or whatever. You could see some similarity, certainly,
Speaker 3: but she she didn't see that person. And had she
Speaker 3: had seen as she could have gone back and said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: this is a mistake. This is another guy. They got
Speaker 3: you confused with somebody else. But she did not see
Speaker 3: it when she did her search. When I looked into that,
Speaker 3: I went on the registry myself and I started to
Speaker 3: dig around a little bit. And then because I was wondering,
Speaker 3: why would why would they be looking on the registry
Speaker 3: for Robert card And as it turns out that particular
Speaker 3: place where he worked had at least a dozen employees
Speaker 3: that were on the sex offender industry. I think just
Speaker 3: got mixed up in his head, the whole toxic stew
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 2: Let's this is as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now, let's talk about the people, including Ryan
Speaker 2: and Sean Hodgens, and what they did in reacting to this,
Speaker 2: to their friend Robert Carr's bizarre behavior, who did they
Speaker 2: speak to and the members of Bravo Company, his other soldiers,
Speaker 2: fellow soldiers noticed his mental deterioration, What was noted and
Speaker 2: who did they speak to about his mental health?
Speaker 3: It was noted in early in the spring of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, some members of his unit were hearing the
Speaker 3: same thing with other people. At that point, we're hearing
Speaker 3: that they were pedophiles, or or he was hearing pedophiles.
Speaker 3: Everybody's calling him a pedofile, and they had internally had conversations,
Speaker 3: but it really sort of became public when his son
Speaker 3: went to the school resource officer at his high school
Speaker 3: with his mother and they ended up calling the local
Speaker 3: sheriff's deputy, who came and listen to the story about
Speaker 3: his behavior, and then reached out to the Army Reserve
Speaker 3: unit because they decided, well, this would be a good
Speaker 3: place for the Army Reserve to maybe step up because they,
Speaker 3: you know, because it's a contained unit, they're close to
Speaker 3: each other, and they have programs that could maybe help them,
Speaker 3: so they reached out. The deputy deputy in May of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, reached out and was very proactive. He
Speaker 3: wrote a thirteen hundred page police report, very detailed. He
Speaker 3: took a lot of a lot of proactive steps to
Speaker 3: try to see what could be done to help him.
Speaker 3: At this point, he hadn't other than his behavior. There
Speaker 3: was no there was nothing that would rise to the
Speaker 3: level of dangerous behavior. But the Army Reserve, the commanding
Speaker 3: officer a captain who would By the way, a number
Speaker 3: of the members of that reserve unit, the Bravo Company,
Speaker 3: were civilian law enforcement in the state of Maine, New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: So the captain of the unit, himself a police officer
Speaker 3: in New Hampshire, assured the deputy that they would come
Speaker 3: up with some kind of a mental health plan, some
Speaker 3: kind of a plan to get him some help. That
Speaker 3: didn't happen, and ultimately he ended up going to training
Speaker 3: at West Point in July of twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 3: it was supposed to be another weapons training for the cadets.
Speaker 3: But when he showed up at training, he was acting
Speaker 3: very bizarrely. He was making the comments that now his
Speaker 3: members of his unit were calling him a pedophile, and
Speaker 3: then he assaulted one of them when they went to
Speaker 3: a comedians sto to buy some beer and then barricaded
Speaker 3: himself in his room and wouldn't come out. And at
Speaker 3: that point they really had no other recourse put to
Speaker 3: It was a National Guard base in New York, so
Speaker 3: it wasn't the Army Reserve that was involved at MPs.
Speaker 3: It was actually they had to call the New York
Speaker 3: State Police right who showed up and he was command directed,
Speaker 3: so he was told that he had to go to
Speaker 3: a psychiatric facility. It wasn't voluntary, and that becomes that's
Speaker 3: because sort of an issue in the in the post,
Speaker 3: you know, the posts follow up on could they have
Speaker 3: used any kind of laws to take him into custody?
Speaker 3: And they took him to a psychiatric facility, first the
Speaker 3: army unit there and then that and then eventually to
Speaker 3: a civilian facility where we stayed for three weeks.
Speaker 2: What was the their diagnosis and was there any follow
Speaker 2: up with any type of drugs prescribed?
Speaker 3: Mhmm. Yeah, The diagnosis was he was psychotic, and there's
Speaker 3: there's still there's still a lot we don't know about
Speaker 3: his stay at that facility. There were pending lawsuits, so
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff is not going to come
Speaker 3: out into the open, you know. And of course it's
Speaker 3: hip hop hip hop regulations also. But we do know
Speaker 3: that that they diagnosed him as as being psychotic. The
Speaker 3: army psychiatrist who did the pre screening before he went
Speaker 3: to the civilian facility specifically said he should not be
Speaker 3: in possession of personal firearms when he went to the facility.
Speaker 3: We do know that through some information that has come out,
Speaker 3: that he told them that he had a hit list
Speaker 3: of people that he wanted to kill. He told him
Speaker 3: about his weapons, he told them he continued with a
Speaker 3: pedophile story, and he stayed for three weeks. They at
Speaker 3: one point there was supposed to be a hearing before
Speaker 3: a judge in New York, but because he was because
Speaker 3: Card himself asked for a release from the facility, so
Speaker 3: that that triggered a potential hearing before a judge. But
Speaker 3: then he withdrew that request, so there was no hearing,
Speaker 3: so there was no finding from a court at all
Speaker 3: about whether he was a danger to the community. And
Speaker 3: ultimately he was released. And you know, once again, I
Speaker 3: spent some time talking to his friend Hodgson, who he
Speaker 3: was in communication with while he was in the facility,
Speaker 3: and he called Hawgson said can you come pick me up?
Speaker 3: And did Card get in the car and then complained,
Speaker 3: I mean, he was happy to get out, complained a
Speaker 3: lot about how they didn't do anything for him. Everybody
Speaker 3: thought he was crazy, but he was fine. It's hard
Speaker 3: to notice that his knuckles were all battered and bruised,
Speaker 3: and he asked him why that was the case, and
Speaker 3: he said, because he had been rolling up his mattress
Speaker 3: in his room and punt using it as a punching bag.
Speaker 3: So clearly really angry and he had threatened to punch
Speaker 3: one of the other patients at the facility, and he
Speaker 3: told his friend Hadgston. He said, you know, I threatened
Speaker 3: to punch her. But then, you know, I managed to
Speaker 3: convince him that I was just kidding or something so
Speaker 3: that they would release him. So he more or less
Speaker 3: just pulled the wall over their eyes about enough anyway
Speaker 3: to get them to release him with a plan. But
Speaker 3: the plan was essentially he had some medication which he
Speaker 3: stopped taking almost immediately, and they spoke to his family
Speaker 3: and his mother, who had her own, you know, pretty
Speaker 3: severe health issues at the time, was supposed to monitor
Speaker 3: his follow up with mental health professionals in Maine, but
Speaker 3: he just you know, ducked out of any any follow
Speaker 3: up at all. And the Army Reserve program that they
Speaker 3: had in place, the psychological health program, tried contact contacting him,
Speaker 3: but he kept just ignoring the phone calls and eventually
Speaker 3: they just gave up.
Speaker 2: Now, let's talk about what Robert card the second does
Speaker 2: the very next day. Where does he go and what
Speaker 2: does he try to purchase? You talk about suppressors, what
Speaker 2: are they in actual fact, and also what are the
Speaker 2: laws regarding someone that has mental health Health red Flags
Speaker 2: will say regarding the ability to purchase guns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, as far as what he did when he
Speaker 3: came back from New York from the facility, he went
Speaker 3: the next stage in Maine. Back in Maine, in the
Speaker 3: town of Auburn, City of Auburn, right across the river
Speaker 3: from Lewiston, he went. He went to pick up a
Speaker 3: suppressor or a silencer. It's also known as that he
Speaker 3: ordered a few months previously. They actually they're quite regulated,
Speaker 3: and you have to fill out an FF Federal license
Speaker 3: form and you have to answer a bunch of questions
Speaker 3: about this and that. And one of the things that
Speaker 3: he had answered when he went to go pick it
Speaker 3: up was had he been adjudicated in a psychiatric facility?
Speaker 3: And he answered yes because his friend Hodgson advised him
Speaker 3: that if he didn't, if he lied on that form
Speaker 3: or was a felony. So he did answer yes, and
Speaker 3: as a result, they would not give him the suppressor.
Speaker 3: So he was unable to get that whether he tended
Speaker 3: to use it later on or not. I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: intended to use it somewhere at some point, but I'm
Speaker 3: not sure if it was for the shootings. As far
Speaker 3: as the law is, yeah, complicated, just trying to think
Speaker 3: of a way to distill these things down. Maine has
Speaker 3: what they call a yellow Flag law. So there are
Speaker 3: twenty states in the country that have a red Flag law,
Speaker 3: which allows someone in a family or in a professional
Speaker 3: law enforcement or mental health capacity to petition a court
Speaker 3: to remove the firearms from somebody who was presenting a
Speaker 3: danger to themselves or others. Maine has a watered down
Speaker 3: version of that called the Yellow Flag Law, which does
Speaker 3: not which which requires a couple of extra steps, including
Speaker 3: getting a mental health professional to render a prognosis or
Speaker 3: diagnosism sorry, before the weapons can be removed by a
Speaker 3: judge's orders. It's sort of a it requires a couple
Speaker 3: of extra steps, and as we found out later when
Speaker 3: it wasn't used in cards case by the local sheriff's department,
Speaker 3: it's pretty unwieldy a law for a small rural police
Speaker 3: force because it just requires a lot of steps and
Speaker 3: a lot of resource, a lot of time. So he
Speaker 3: you know that, and those laws have been tightened up
Speaker 3: since these shootings, but they still, you know, they were
Speaker 3: in the eyes of the sheriff's deputies. Later in September,
Speaker 3: they were impediment to taking him into custody and removing
Speaker 3: his firearms.
Speaker 2: Let's get to you have an incredible statement about eight
Speaker 2: days before there's an announcement on how safe Maine really
Speaker 2: is in regards to murder per capita.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, the FBI came out with a press release,
Speaker 3: like you said, eight days before saying that Maine was
Speaker 3: actually the safest state in the nation for in terms
Speaker 3: of violent crime. And you know, to put in perspectively,
Speaker 3: year before, there were nineteen homicides in the entire state.
Speaker 3: So you know this, he killed eighteen people in fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes and then himself eventually, so that was nineteen That
Speaker 3: equaled the entire you know, murder rate for the state
Speaker 3: from the from the prior years. It's not a place
Speaker 3: where a lot of murders occur. It's not a lot
Speaker 3: of it's not a place where there's a lot of
Speaker 3: gun violence, despite the pretty high ownership gun ownership ratio
Speaker 3: in the state. And that's an argument used by gun proponents.
Speaker 3: They say, we're responsible gun owners in this state. Why
Speaker 3: are we going to be changing these laws because of
Speaker 3: one horrible incident, And that's you know, that's a question
Speaker 3: that will go on for quite a while.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the officials that were warned and their
Speaker 2: reaction just before preceding October twenty fifth. Give us the
Speaker 2: play up to October twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in September, in the middle of September, Hodgson his
Speaker 3: friend Card went to a casino and on the way back,
Speaker 3: Hodson accused his I mean sorry. Card accused Hardson of
Speaker 3: once again calling him a pedophile, and Hodgson of course
Speaker 3: denied that, and Card then as he was driving the vehicle,
Speaker 3: punched him in the face, almost putting almost putting the
Speaker 3: car into the into the woods. Hodgson demanded that he stop,
Speaker 3: and he jumped out, and then he when he got home,
Speaker 3: he wrote a text to the to the sergeant in
Speaker 3: the Inn Bravo company, the NCO in charge, squad leader,
Speaker 3: and he said, I'm afraid he's going to go shoot
Speaker 3: up the facility meeting the SOCCO Army Reserve base. You're
Speaker 3: gonna need to change the pass code, and then ultimately
Speaker 3: ended that text by saying I'm afraid he's gonna going
Speaker 3: to snap and do a mass shooting. That text was sent.
Speaker 3: That text actually put then triggered a call from that,
Speaker 3: the guys in that unit to Sagata Hawk County Sheriff's
Speaker 3: Department where Bowden is and they asked that they do
Speaker 3: a welfare check on Card. He had not showed up
Speaker 3: for the training on that Saturday, so they asked for
Speaker 3: welfare check, and the Sheriff's department sent out one deputy,
Speaker 3: twenty five year career law enforcement career Segatahawk County Sheriff
Speaker 3: actually deputy. He responded to the call. He went there
Speaker 3: and on I think it was the sixth. On the fifteenth,
Speaker 3: he went there and there was nothing, no indication of
Speaker 3: anybody in the in the in the house or in
Speaker 3: the driveway. The next morning he went back and Guard's
Speaker 3: car was in the driveway, so he knocked on the
Speaker 3: door and he could hear him moving around. And by
Speaker 3: the way, by this time he had all this information
Speaker 3: about Card having been in a psychiatric facility, about the
Speaker 3: fact that he owned ten to fifteen personal firearms, the
Speaker 3: fact that the family was really afraid of him, the
Speaker 3: fact that he had been acting erratically and the son
Speaker 3: was afraid of him, and the people in the unit
Speaker 3: were afraid of him. They were afraid he was going
Speaker 3: to do a mass shooting. He had all that information.
Speaker 3: He went to the door, he heard him moving around.
Speaker 3: He decided, this is dangerous. I can't go in there
Speaker 3: and get them because I'm not allowed to get a
Speaker 3: warrant in this case to take someone into protective custody.
Speaker 3: So he didn't have that capability. So he decided, and
Speaker 3: I don't think you can question this. He decided he
Speaker 3: would just back off and come up with another plan.
Speaker 3: And you know, knowing what he knew, and knowing that
Speaker 3: he possessed a lot of firearms, I certainly can't blame
Speaker 3: him for that. However, his plan was to talk to
Speaker 3: the card family and asked them to make sure that
Speaker 3: the guns were removed. And at this point they were
Speaker 3: they were afraid of him. They were walking on eggshells
Speaker 3: around him, and he had more or less cut off
Speaker 3: all communication with all of them, even his brother who
Speaker 3: he was very close to by this point. And of
Speaker 3: course now he's also not even talking to his friend Hodgson,
Speaker 3: who was the last person to really have any contact
Speaker 3: with him at all. The sheriff's deputy spoke to the family.
Speaker 3: The family, you know, made some assurances that they would
Speaker 3: try to do that, but there was certainly no guarantee
Speaker 3: that they'd be able to do that. And that was
Speaker 3: a brother and then Scofield. His name was Sergeants Schofield.
Speaker 3: He went on vacation. The next day. He had a
Speaker 3: conversation with the superior and they agreed, okay, that the
Speaker 3: best course of action is to not to try to,
Speaker 3: you know, try to force him to come out. But
Speaker 3: they didn't. They didn't come up with anything else. And
Speaker 3: then he went on vacation the next day and then
Speaker 3: he was gone for I think ten days. When he
Speaker 3: came back, he didn't call to check the sea, so
Speaker 3: he didn't notify anybody about what was going on. He
Speaker 3: didn't ask anybody to follow up. He didn't, he didn't
Speaker 3: do anything. And then when he came back, he didn't
Speaker 3: follow up at all. And then there was a there
Speaker 3: was an alert. They had put out a bolo for him,
Speaker 3: be on the lookout, calling it this is Schofield who
Speaker 3: had done this, and the wording was he's armed and
Speaker 3: dangerous and you know it's psychotic and you know, watch out,
Speaker 3: be careful. But when he came back, he lifted that
Speaker 3: bolo without even checking to find out if there had
Speaker 3: been any resolution to the if anybody had spoken to
Speaker 3: him or anything. And you know that was the last contact.
Speaker 3: That knock on the door was the last contact they
Speaker 3: had with card. That's just is that's an opportunity to
Speaker 3: stop to hear these messages. Now, let's get to October
Speaker 3: twenty fifth, Lewiston, Auburn, the Twin Cities nine urgency.
Speaker 2: In Auburn. The first calls came in at six fifty
Speaker 2: five pm from people in the Just In Time Recreation Center,
Speaker 2: which is a bowling alley complex from the and the
Speaker 2: people say, I'm at the front desk, tell us about
Speaker 2: this incredible interaction between nine to one one operators and
Speaker 2: people experiencing the rampage of Robert Carr.
Speaker 3: The second they released the transcripts, it's horrifying to read
Speaker 3: those obviously during real time people, you know, experiencing something
Speaker 3: that was the worst nightmare for anybody. He came in
Speaker 3: at six fifty five pm dressed in tactical pants and
Speaker 3: a sweatshirt and with an AR ten semi automatic capable
Speaker 3: of firing seven hundred rounds a minute, raised to a shoulder,
Speaker 3: just in a shooting position, just like he would have
Speaker 3: touted all those cadets, and he just opened fire. He
Speaker 3: did actually have a jam when he came into front entrance.
Speaker 3: He fired one shot and then it jammed, and he
Speaker 3: was trying to clear that jam when two lifelong friends,
Speaker 3: fifty one year old men, Jason Walker and Michael Deloier.
Speaker 3: They they were lifelong friends from kindergarten as a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, and they were with their wives and they
Speaker 3: were bowling. They heard the shot and as he was
Speaker 3: trying to clear it, they charged him and tried to
Speaker 3: disarm him. Unfortunately, he was able to clear the weapon
Speaker 3: in time to kill them. He randomly opened fire. It
Speaker 3: didn't really move much from the position where he was
Speaker 3: at near the door, but he started shooting, and he
Speaker 3: ended up killing six other people there at the bowling alley,
Speaker 3: including a couple seventy late seventies, the Violets who were
Speaker 3: mentors to the kids at that bowling alley, the youth
Speaker 3: bowling league, and they were, you know, they were just
Speaker 3: teach case ou and they were sort of they were
Speaker 3: everybody's grandmother and grandfather. They shot and killed them because
Speaker 3: they were shielding some kids who were there. There were
Speaker 3: eighteen kids in that bowling alley at the time, one
Speaker 3: fourteen year old boy, Aaron Young died, but they shielded
Speaker 3: some others and the violets died, and then a couple
Speaker 3: of employees and yeah, eight people in total. They're at
Speaker 3: the bowling alley. And then he left as everybody just
Speaker 3: scrambled to try to get out a horrifying scene. And
Speaker 3: he left and he got in his car and he dress.
Speaker 3: So I'll follow this up by saying, all of which
Speaker 3: is what he did was clearly planned. Harson and I
Speaker 3: discussed his at length about he was trained in the
Speaker 3: Army Reserve to plan, to train, to execute, and he
Speaker 3: had a plan, and the plan was to go from
Speaker 3: the bowling alley to the and by the way, he
Speaker 3: had bowled there. He had encounters with people there, and
Speaker 3: he had an encounter where he thought that they were
Speaker 3: openly accusing him of being a pedophile. He knew the
Speaker 3: bowling alley and then he went to the next place
Speaker 3: that he knew well because he used to play corn hole.
Speaker 3: There was at Schremengy's Bar and Grill about five minutes away,
Speaker 3: four miles. He drove there and they were having a
Speaker 3: cornhole league and it was a including a deaf cornhole league.
Speaker 3: So there were ten member, ten male members of the
Speaker 3: deaf community in the state of Maine, very tight knit group.
Speaker 3: They were there. He opened the door and stood there
Speaker 3: and opened fire, and he shot and killed ten people there,
Speaker 3: including four members of the deaf community, and wounded a
Speaker 3: number of others. And extraordinary thing happened there. The the manager,
Speaker 3: Joe Joe Walker, you know, by all accounts said, taken
Speaker 3: a butcher knife or some kind of a knife from
Speaker 3: behind the bar and was trying to you know, to
Speaker 3: go after card. But he was shot and killed. And
Speaker 3: during all this, one man who was able his son
Speaker 3: playing corn hole. They were at separate boards. They were
Speaker 3: right next to each other, but he looked across and
Speaker 3: saw his son crouching in fear. As soon as the
Speaker 3: shots went out, he was behind a wall, but he
Speaker 3: was very exposed and very vulnerable. The father ran into
Speaker 3: a utility closet and as he was leaning against the wall,
Speaker 3: he looked up and saw the electrical panel and just
Speaker 3: he pulled the main breaker switch for the panel, and
Speaker 3: the room plunged into the darkness. Though the entire placed
Speaker 3: it he put it, you know, no lights at all
Speaker 3: except from the parking lot lights outside seeping through the windows,
Speaker 3: and that undoubtedly saved many many lives, as did Joe
Speaker 3: Jason Walker and Michael Delorier back at the Bowling Alley.
Speaker 3: That they distracted Card enough for people to be able
Speaker 3: to escape. They save countless lives. And then this this
Speaker 3: particular case, he was reloading. Card was reloading and putting
Speaker 3: a magazine into his rifle at the time the lights
Speaker 3: went out, and a number of survivors said that they
Speaker 3: were sure that he would have shot and killed them
Speaker 3: had had the lights knock one out, including by the way,
Speaker 3: the man's son who was who Card was approaching as
Speaker 3: he was putting the new magazine in, and you know,
Speaker 3: more than likely would have shot him to death. So
Speaker 3: it was an amazing I guess you could say act
Speaker 3: of God.
Speaker 2: Now, at the same time he leaves this crime scene,
Speaker 2: he's on the run. You call it manhunt part one.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that there is a video
Speaker 2: image eventually shown, and people like Sean Hodgins seemed to
Speaker 2: well they do he recognizes the image.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he recognized his image, but he actually was
Speaker 3: in a truck on it. He was doing a delivery
Speaker 3: to Massachusetts when he heard about the shootings. And his
Speaker 3: first thought was before they even there was any photo,
Speaker 3: any image hinting, was oh my god, it's my friend. Right.
Speaker 3: It was a camera right near the door, which he
Speaker 3: didn't even look at it. He knew it was there,
Speaker 3: but so he didn't care about being identified. He came
Speaker 3: in and that was released to the public. Meanwhile, he
Speaker 3: had left the bowling alley and once again he trained
Speaker 3: and executed the plan, which was he drove to a
Speaker 3: boat launch about ten miles away in Lisbon, about a
Speaker 3: mile away from Main Recycling where he used to work.
Speaker 3: He parked his car there. That's where they found his
Speaker 3: car at ten o'clock that night, so about three hours
Speaker 3: after the shootings. His car was visible from the road
Speaker 3: from a pretty busy road. They found his car there
Speaker 3: and the weapons that were used in the shooting shootings
Speaker 3: were laying on the front seat. And then he left
Speaker 3: and they you know, it took him forty six hours
Speaker 3: to find him.
Speaker 2: Did they ask Sean Hodgins what he thought where his
Speaker 2: friend might go? Did they ask anyone?
Speaker 3: Yes, this is something that is really There's been a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of commission. It was an independent commission to
Speaker 3: find the facts. The mainstap police released their own The
Speaker 3: Mainstay Police were in charge of the entire investigation. They
Speaker 3: released their own report, and this is something they're not discussing,
Speaker 3: but it's worth discussing because it shows some real holes
Speaker 3: that need to be filled. Augstin did talk to them,
Speaker 3: and so did his brother Ryan about six hours after
Speaker 3: the shootings. When they asked him a Mainstreak police detective
Speaker 3: asked him where did he think his brother was going
Speaker 3: to go next? He said Main Recycling. Addgson also told
Speaker 3: detective's Main Recycling. He and Ryan Card had a conversation
Speaker 3: and agreed, yes, he hates those people there. This is
Speaker 3: the origin source of the story that drove him to
Speaker 3: do all this. So he parked at the boat launch
Speaker 3: and then there's a bicycle trail that runs from the
Speaker 3: boat launch across underneath an overpass of that busy road,
Speaker 3: and then it goes into the woods and runs along
Speaker 3: the river and Raskagin River for one point one mile
Speaker 3: and then ends up at the back of Main Recycling
Speaker 3: at the overflow lot where all the tractor trailers aparked,
Speaker 3: and that's where he went. I went down that route
Speaker 3: three or four times myself, and it's a perfect way
Speaker 3: to stay out of sight, you know, from one one
Speaker 3: direct way to get exactly to where he wanted to go,
Speaker 3: which is what he did. And main state police had
Speaker 3: that information. But in the in the you know, in
Speaker 3: the heat of war, little details get dropped, and unfortunately
Speaker 3: they were. They were getting a lot of tips. They
Speaker 3: had a tip line and I think they responded to
Speaker 3: I forget how many they responded to, but they I
Speaker 3: think they received over nine hundred tips. And the region
Speaker 3: was in a lockdown. I mean it wasn't There wasn't
Speaker 3: anybody moving except law enforcement for forty six hours. So
Speaker 3: they were chasing a lot of tists. But they did
Speaker 3: not follow up the tips from the two people who
Speaker 3: knew him best that told them where told them where
Speaker 3: he was going. They dropped the ball. And he was
Speaker 3: going there for one reason. And he went there by
Speaker 3: the way with another semi automatic rifle and two hunder
Speaker 3: rounds of ammunition and a handgun, and he was going
Speaker 3: there to kill the employees that man recycling when they
Speaker 3: showed up for work the next morning. He hid in
Speaker 3: a tractor trailer which he attracted trailer that he used
Speaker 3: to drive. He knew exactly where he was going he
Speaker 3: opened one up and climbed inside and pulled the door shut.
Speaker 3: And then you know, the plan would have been to
Speaker 3: wait until the employees, who by the way, would have
Speaker 3: parked their cars right near the trailer where he's found.
Speaker 3: He was going to kill them in the morning, but
Speaker 3: they didn't show up because there was a lockdown.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about, just briefly, about any concern for his
Speaker 2: ex wife, Carol Lamb.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, oh sure there was concern. She had concerned.
Speaker 3: She was with her son when that image came across
Speaker 3: of him at the Bowling Alley and the family, by
Speaker 3: the way, I spent you know, like I said, some
Speaker 3: time and with the sister as well, and the family
Speaker 3: was doing everything they could to try to notify people
Speaker 3: that you know, he was a real concern. They were really, really,
Speaker 3: really concerned about him. They were trying to get him help.
Speaker 3: The sister was calling the VA to try to get
Speaker 3: him help. You know, whatever happened didn't happen because that
Speaker 3: family didn't care about their brother and their ex husband
Speaker 3: and their father. They really were trying to get him help.
Speaker 3: And they called in the night of the shooting and said,
Speaker 3: we know who this is. They cooperated completely with law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and she was concerned, of course, that he was coming
Speaker 3: after her, so she managed to find a place to
Speaker 3: hide for the next few days until he was found.
Speaker 2: Let Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: we haven't talked about this, You say, the forty eight
Speaker 2: hours that they couldn't find him, You haven't spoke about
Speaker 2: the extent of that search, including helicopters and CANAI units.
Speaker 2: Just tell us briefly about the extent of the search.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, No, I mean, you know, listen, they
Speaker 3: obviously did their best to try to find him and
Speaker 3: stop him. And you know, I do like to say this,
Speaker 3: if it sounds like I'm pointing a finger at law enforcement,
Speaker 3: it's only only in service of trying to you know,
Speaker 3: to tell the true story and the real story. And
Speaker 3: you know, hopefully once again, if something like this happens
Speaker 3: that you know, some lessons would have been learned. But
Speaker 3: they had the resources. You know, there were eight hundred
Speaker 3: law enforcement agents. Within twelve hours of this happening. The
Speaker 3: state was crawling with ATF and with FBI tactical teams,
Speaker 3: armored vehicles, helicopters, the Coast Guard crutters on the road.
Speaker 3: I mean there was all the resources were there, and
Speaker 3: they CA. Nine teen did not go down the bicycle
Speaker 3: trail that night. They were worried about him having a
Speaker 3: thermal scope and laying away to ambush them, And as
Speaker 3: it turns out, he when he was in that trailer
Speaker 3: for all that time before they found him, Lauren Forsman
Speaker 3: was all around him. He could have jumped out and
Speaker 3: taken out as many as were around at the time.
Speaker 3: That's right, and he didn't do it because it wasn't
Speaker 3: part of his plan, I think is really what it was.
Speaker 3: That's not who he was angry at.
Speaker 2: What happens in terms of finally finding Robert cart and
Speaker 2: what had happened to him.
Speaker 3: Well, they eventually went back to the overflow lot. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is another thing the main state police said was
Speaker 3: they didn't know there was an overflow lot. But you
Speaker 3: can see it from the main road next to the
Speaker 3: facilities easily as you can see a traffic light. Trailers
Speaker 3: are marked the main recycling it's right off the main road.
Speaker 3: So it was pretty implausible that they even suggested they
Speaker 3: didn't know it was there, but it had been searched.
Speaker 3: A cursor research had been done by a local police
Speaker 3: department before the investigation got turned over to Mainstay police.
Speaker 3: Ultimately they went back because they said they were notified
Speaker 3: about the overflow lot, which once again I questioned, because
Speaker 3: you couldn't miss it on Friday night. So the shooting
Speaker 3: was on a Wednesday at seven. On Friday at eight,
Speaker 3: they found his body in the trailer. He had shot
Speaker 3: himself to death.
Speaker 2: Now, tell us about the public reaction and law enforcement's
Speaker 2: reaction and the media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, jeez, a lot there. Obviously, the state was
Speaker 3: in shock. You know, this was I mean, that was
Speaker 3: the predominant response the entire including from me. By the way.
Speaker 3: I you know, I had been to that bowling alley
Speaker 3: and I knew Lewis, and well, I've skated in the
Speaker 3: ice rink there, I you know, took my motorcycle license there,
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff. So, like everybody else, it was
Speaker 3: just a complete shock that this happened here. How could
Speaker 3: it happen here? This is in Maine. So that was
Speaker 3: the reaction, and statewide was just shock and disbelief that
Speaker 3: this happened. And then you know, given the scale of
Speaker 3: the manhunt and the fact that there were two different
Speaker 3: shooting locations. It was an overwhelming episode for all that
Speaker 3: for a long period of time, and it's still discussed
Speaker 3: almost daily in the newspapers here. Investigations and hearings, you know.
Speaker 3: The hearing and the independent commission they've formed to find
Speaker 3: the facts concluded that they were just egregious errors and
Speaker 3: judgment by Sagadahawk County Sheriff's department. And I should mention,
Speaker 3: by the way, that that Sagatahawk County Sheriff who they
Speaker 3: specifically pointed out, Sargant Schofield decided, first of all, he
Speaker 3: hired his own lawyer and issued a twenty page rebuttal
Speaker 3: to their findings. But then he decided he did such
Speaker 3: a good job, he's going to run for sheriff. So
Speaker 3: he's now up for in November. And I happened to
Speaker 3: go buy one of his election signs planted in a
Speaker 3: yard and bath the other day, and I had a
Speaker 3: visual reaction when I grow by it, like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: how could you, my god, how could you do this?
Speaker 3: You know, there's got to be some accountability. There has
Speaker 3: to be for these things, for lessons to be learned.
Speaker 3: It would be the right thing to do would say,
Speaker 3: it would be to say, boy, we made some mistakes,
Speaker 3: but we're going to learn from this. And as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, that Sheriff's department Segada County had never
Speaker 3: used the yellow flag law and the prior three years
Speaker 3: it was in place. Since incident, they've used it at
Speaker 3: least I think of fourteen times that I know of
Speaker 3: an overall statewide the amount of times that law, which
Speaker 3: has been streamlined a little bit, but still essentially the
Speaker 3: same law it's been used. You know, I think the
Speaker 3: quad the amount of times that's been used since. So
Speaker 3: there is some lessons that have been learned in that respect,
Speaker 3: but there still needs to be some accountability. And in
Speaker 3: the case of Sake a Hot Country shure, they're just not.
Speaker 3: They hired a lawyer to do a ninety three page
Speaker 3: review that completely exonerated them. Also, and you know, they
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars the taxpayers money to say, to try
Speaker 3: to pull the ball over everybody's eyes. Money could have
Speaker 3: been better spent.
Speaker 2: You talked earlier in the book about the three day loophole.
Speaker 2: And as a result of these hearings, our gun laws
Speaker 2: are there are any significant changes to gun laws in
Speaker 2: Maine as a result of these hearings and this rampage.
Speaker 3: Yes, there has been a couple there's been They've now
Speaker 3: streamlined that yellow flag to allow for warrants to be
Speaker 3: issued to take someone into protective custody, which then triggers
Speaker 3: the removal of firearms. So that's been you that's been
Speaker 3: implement into. Has also been a universal background check instituted
Speaker 3: for private sales of guns, a seventy two hour waiting period,
Speaker 3: guns that have purchased at gun shows and advertised private sales.
Speaker 3: And I expect this. You know that there were attempts
Speaker 3: to do others that they attempted to just go straight
Speaker 3: to a red flag law to eliminate the need for
Speaker 3: mental health diagnosis, but that there was pushback on that
Speaker 3: that did not pass. The governor was reluctant to sign
Speaker 3: a couple of other things they'll be you know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of push now in light of this these
Speaker 3: shootings to get tougher on the laws in the state.
Speaker 3: Whether that makes a big difference or not, you know,
Speaker 3: it remains to be seen. It's difficult to know. But
Speaker 3: I think the fact that they've you know, the yellow
Speaker 3: flag of lar has been implemented so much more since
Speaker 3: then indicates that they're taking it in a lot more seriously,
Speaker 3: and I think in its own ways, recognition of the
Speaker 3: fact that they really felt they fell far short of
Speaker 3: the standards they needed to be held to. That you know,
Speaker 3: these police officers have all had this training and it's
Speaker 3: a difficult job. I wouldn't want to do it. It's
Speaker 3: really a really hard job to try to ascertain mental
Speaker 3: health and firearms and substance abuse, and really difficult job.
Speaker 3: But you know they swore uphold and protect in this
Speaker 3: case that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: There were survivors. There was eighteen killed and thirteen wounded.
Speaker 2: So there were survivors like Arthur Bernard and Artie Strout
Speaker 2: who formed a group Maners for Gun Safety January twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four rally involving Governor Mills. You also talk about
Speaker 2: the difficulties of the survivors after even going out in
Speaker 2: public as a result of this. But also you have
Speaker 2: the photos of the eighteen victims and the names of
Speaker 2: each one of them. Thomas Conrad thirty four, Tricia Aslin
Speaker 2: fifty three, Lucille Violet seventy three, and her husband Bob
Speaker 2: seventy six years old, Aaron Young, which was fourteen, and
Speaker 2: you mentioned this young man, William Young's father forty four,
Speaker 2: Jason Walker fifty one, and Michael Delorier fifty one. The
Speaker 2: best friends that tried to intervene when they saw the
Speaker 2: gun was jammed. Keith mcneer sixty four, Joe Walker fifty seven,
Speaker 2: Ron Moran fifty five. We mentioned Artie Strout Arthur Strout
Speaker 2: forty two years old, Max Hathaway thirty five, Peyton Brewer
Speaker 2: Ross forty, Joshua Seal thirty six, William Billy Brackett forty eight,
Speaker 2: Steven Vosella forty five, and Brian McFarland forty one years old.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of people just hearing it read out
Speaker 3: like that, just it's yeah, it's a lot of people
Speaker 3: just going out for a good time.
Speaker 2: You write that in the The Aftermath the Reckoning you called
Speaker 2: the reckoning for the Sheriff's office. Sheriff Mary goes from
Speaker 2: a lofty position of trust to becoming a pariah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, he's also running for reelection, so he's
Speaker 3: running against that particular deputy. I don't talk about it
Speaker 3: in the book, but privately I had some email exchanges
Speaker 3: with him that were off the record, So I'm not
Speaker 3: going to get into the content of those exchanges, but
Speaker 3: I can say that he there's a lot of remorse,
Speaker 3: a lot of remorse I do. I came to the
Speaker 3: conclusion myself that I think he was a little far
Speaker 3: removed from the day to day operations of that department,
Speaker 3: and he had a lot of irons in the fire
Speaker 3: that were outside of the departments, on different commissions and
Speaker 3: boards and et cetera. Hopefully if he does when selection,
Speaker 3: that he becomes more hands on. He's a good man,
Speaker 3: a long, long time law enforcement official, highly respected up
Speaker 3: and up until that point, and and you know by
Speaker 3: some people still is. But you know, obviously his department
Speaker 3: will be forever linked to this tragedy. So you know,
Speaker 3: I think he carries that burden, I really do.
Speaker 2: What does the family of Robert Carr want and need
Speaker 2: as a family, But also tell us about some of
Speaker 2: the research done regarding Robert Carr's brain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the family has been, in my opinion, has been
Speaker 3: incredible in terms of their response. But you know, they're
Speaker 3: entrenched in the community there. You know, they're they're people.
Speaker 3: They don't want to get up and leave. They're part
Speaker 3: of this community. They and to you know, to be
Speaker 3: linked to that just must I can't even imagine how
Speaker 3: difficult it is to they lost their own First, they
Speaker 3: lost their own family, bereaving over that of course, and
Speaker 3: then the fact that they knew he was responsible for
Speaker 3: all these deaths is just such a I know, triggered
Speaker 3: such guilt with them. So they their respond. They were
Speaker 3: brave enough to get up in front of a commission
Speaker 3: and talk about what they knew about him and tell
Speaker 3: the community how sorry they were, which was really brave,
Speaker 3: But they also were angry. Carol Lamb is angry that
Speaker 3: law enforcement and the army have not stepped up and said, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what, we screwed up and we can do better.
Speaker 3: There's been some little you know, some little things, but nothing,
Speaker 3: nothing that would really be satisfy that anger. So I
Speaker 3: know car is still really angry about the response and
Speaker 3: about the lack of accountability. You know, she hurt, as
Speaker 3: she says to me, you know, she's like, my son
Speaker 3: lost his father and it didn't have to happen. And
Speaker 3: all those people lost their fathers and their brothers and
Speaker 3: their sons, and it didn't have to happen. So they
Speaker 3: did find out, and this was a source of solace
Speaker 3: to them, was that they sent his brain off to
Speaker 3: Boston University's Brain Trauma Center and they ran it through
Speaker 3: some tests and found out that he had severe TBI
Speaker 3: traumatic brain injury, a severe case of it. And almost
Speaker 3: assuredly it came from his training with Greenades and training
Speaker 3: the cadets at West Point. I mean, they wore ear protection,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't enough. And besides that, as it turns out,
Speaker 3: it's probably linked to blast over pressure, which is caused
Speaker 3: by the blast waves and not the sound repeated exposure.
Speaker 3: And because they said it was very significant, and is
Speaker 3: that the sole source of his psychosis and was it
Speaker 3: the only reason why he did what he did. It's
Speaker 3: impossible to say, but it certainly had a connection. And
Speaker 3: the family has been very strongly advocating for mental health
Speaker 3: treatment for soldiers and veterans, and as a result, just
Speaker 3: recently the DoD passed well, the Congress passed a blast
Speaker 3: Over Pressure Act, which is which is requires the four
Speaker 3: branches of the Service to give cognitive baseline tests to
Speaker 3: their recruits when they come in so they can track them.
Speaker 3: So it's not just combat related TBI, but training related TBI.
Speaker 3: And that's a positive first step. And I know that
Speaker 3: the family is happy. You know. The silver lining and
Speaker 3: this is that this might help down the road prevent
Speaker 3: any other soldiers from experiencing such significant injury. And you know,
Speaker 3: we tried to make sure in the book that we
Speaker 3: we didn't want the victims of the shooting to just
Speaker 3: be the statistical numbers. We wanted to try to, you know, demonstrate,
Speaker 3: let people know what kind of human beings they were,
Speaker 3: and that it could happen to anybody anytime. It's just
Speaker 3: a matter of luck. That's where we've come to with
Speaker 3: this epidemic of mass shootings is that I know there
Speaker 3: were plenty of people here in the state, myself included.
Speaker 3: I remember I took my kids. I've got six kids
Speaker 3: and some of them are adults now. But anyway, we
Speaker 3: were skating in an ice skating rink a couple of
Speaker 3: months later, and I had a sort of semi panic
Speaker 3: attack as I looked around and realized, what a you know,
Speaker 3: what an opportunity for somebody to come in and kill
Speaker 3: a lot of people, And where's the exit? How do
Speaker 3: you get out of here? Wow? Yeah, yeah, so that
Speaker 3: you know that. I think that seed was certainly planted
Speaker 3: by by Robert Carter, and that seat is not going
Speaker 3: to go away.
Speaker 2: And I think what we haven't spoken about but people
Speaker 2: will enjoy in the book is the personal stories of
Speaker 2: what happened that night, the brave stories of people like
Speaker 2: Delorier's and Walker who had tried to intervene when they
Speaker 2: saw the gun was jammed, very brave efforts to try
Speaker 2: to save people, which did save some lives. And then
Speaker 2: the again brave again at the Schmengis location where somebody
Speaker 2: turned out the lights trying again to save people's lives.
Speaker 2: So you include all the personal stories and the backgrounds
Speaker 2: of these people that were innocents at this mass shooting
Speaker 2: perpetrated by Robert Carr the second.
Speaker 3: Yes, I tried to do that as best as I could.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about the lewis Than shootings and all American
Speaker 2: tragedy for those that might want to find out more
Speaker 2: information about this. Do you have a website and do
Speaker 2: you do any social media? I do, Yeah, I should
Speaker 2: do more social media, and I don't have a website.
Speaker 3: I do have a LinkedIn page, a Facebook page, and
Speaker 3: in an Instagram page. I'm told that I should use
Speaker 3: them more, but I don't. I'm one of those I
Speaker 3: guess the ludeites. But in any event, the book's audiobook
Speaker 3: and the books itself can be found on any site.
Speaker 3: And Wild Blue Press is the publisher. They've been a
Speaker 3: fantastic publisher to work with. Yes, and so yeah, the
Speaker 3: book's available just about anywhere.
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much, Robert Conlin for the Lewiston
Speaker 2: shootings and all American tragedy. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview, and you have a great evening. And good night,
Speaker 2: thank you, good night, thank you.