Creepy and Depressing on So Many Levels

Earlier today, as I was feeling sorry for myself for the rough day I was having, I heard the story about Charles Carl Roberts IV, the deranged man who took over a one-room Amish schoolhouse with "three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag holding 600 rounds of ammunition." As you no doubt know by now, Roberts let the boys and the adults go and kept the girls inside the schoolhouse, where he bound them and shot them execution-style before killing himself. This story is obviously shocking, sick, and tragic; but here are a few things that stuck out to me as especially eerie:

The Bart, Pennsylvania, resident had three children, and left several notes for his family "along the lines of suicide notes," Miller said. . . .

Roberts' wife tried to call him when she found the notes, Miller said. He returned the call on his cell phone, told her he wouldn't be coming home. . . .

The commissioner said Roberts had worked a shift that ended about 3 a.m. Monday and taken his children to their bus stop before beginning his rampage.

You don't think of people like this having spouses, let alone three children. I can't imagine how Roberts' wife and his three (probably young) children are handling this, and even thinking about it makes me sick. How can this man's children grow up knowing that their seemingly loving father ended his life in such a painful, horrifying way? What kind of stigma will follow them for the rest of their days?

[Roberts told his wife] "that he was acting out to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago."

Police said he had barricaded himself in the schoolhouse with two-by-four and two-by-six pieces of lumber, which he brought to the scene in a borrowed pickup truck.

"He planned this out meticulously," the commissioner said.

Miller said Roberts' grudge did not appear to involve the Amish community and that he may have chosen his target out of convenience, perhaps thinking "getting into a school like this was maybe just a little bit easier."

How does a person "meticulously" plan to shoot up people against whom he has no apparent grudge? How does a 20-year-old quest for revenge end with four preteen Amish girls dead in a schoolhouse?

The gunman, 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts IV.

This guy is roughly my age. And the 20-year-old event in question must have taken place when Roberts was 12. Several things could be done to a 12-year-old that would make him crack later in life; I'm just not sure that any of them involve girls his age.

Update: From CNN.com:

Then [Pennsylvania Police Commissioner Jeffrey] Miller said Roberts stated, "'I molested some minor family members, family members that were 3 or 4 years old, 20 years ago.'"

"Roberts mentioned in his suicide note that he was having dreams of molesting again," Miller said.

I still don't understand how this sick and tortured soul decided to take out several Amish schoolgirls before taking his own life.