LEWISTON, Maine (CN) — The body of the mass shooter who killed 18 people in Lewiston three days ago was found in a tractor-trailer on the third search of a recycling center, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said at a news conference Saturday.
Robert Card, 40, died of “a self-inflicted gunshot wound” and his body was discovered about 7:45 p.m. Friday, Sauschuck said.
The Maine Recycling Corporation center in the town of Lisbon Falls, about 10 miles away, had been searched and cleared by law enforcement officials twice, by local police and a state police tactical team. But the owner called back and mentioned that there was an overflow parking lot across the street with additional tractor-trailer-style dumpsters, and the state police returned and found the body across the street.
News reports suggested that Card had been fired from the center. “There was an employment relationship there at some point,” Sauschuck said, but he declined to go into further details.
Police found a paper note in Card’s residence addressed to a loved one with his phone passcode and bank account numbers. “I wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note, but the tone and tenor were that he would not be around and he wanted to make sure his loved one had access to his phone and bank codes,” Sauschuck said. “That is not uncommon in suicide situations.”
Card legally purchased the guns he used, according to Lewiston police Chief David St. Pierre. “Some were purchased very recently and some a long time ago.”
Card, an Army reservist, spent two weeks at a mental health facility this summer after reporting that he heard voices telling him to "shoot up" the National Guard Base in Saco, Maine. But he “was not forcibly committed for treatment, and thus that would not show up on background checks” that would prevent him from buying firearms, Sauschuck said.
“I want to emphasize that the vast, vast, vast majority of people with a mental health diagnosis do not hurt anybody,” Sauschuck added.
The shootings happened at a bowling alley and a restaurant. Sauschuck suggested that Card may have “felt like people were talking about him … and that led him to those two locations.” Voices “might have been in play,” he said.
Card’s sister-in-law, Katie O’Neill, told CNN that he was having “an acute episode” and “he is not someone who has had mental health issues for his lifetime or anything like that.”
Card’s white Subaru, which contained a rifle, was found abandoned at a boat launch in Lewiston. A trail follows from there along the river to the recycling center, so it appears that Card followed that trail.
His body was found with two guns. It’s not clear when he died but he was wearing the same sweatshirt that he wore during the shootings.
Law enforcement received a total of 821 tips from the public, Sauschuck said.
“I am breathing a sigh of relief,” Maine governor Janet Mills said at a separate news conference Friday. “Now is a time to heal.”
Police announced last night that they had identified all 18 victims who died in the shootings. They ranged in age from 14 to 76, with most in their 40s and 50s. Some 13 other people were wounded.
Lewiston is Maine’s second-largest city, although it has fewer than 40,000 residents, and is the home of Bates College. Bates earlier postponed the inauguration of its new president, which had been scheduled for Friday.
In 2022 Lewiston was ranked as one of the 10 safest cities in America by Forbes magazine. The entire state recorded only 29 homicides in all of 2022, according to the Associated Press.
President Biden earlier used the tragedy to call for federal gun legislation.
"I urge Republican lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their duty to protect the American people," Biden said in a statement. "Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers."
U.S. Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents the Lewiston area, said in the wake of the shooting that he would reverse his previous opposition to banning assault rifles. Susan Collins, the state’s Republican U.S. senator, said it was more important to ban large capacity magazines.
Maine has few restrictions on purchases of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and allows both open and concealed carry without a permit.
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