The suspect in a mass shooting that killed 18 people in the US state of Maine has been found dead, the state’s governor said on Friday, ending a two-day manhunt that mobilized hundreds of law enforcement agents and set jittery residents of the northeastern state on edge.
Robert Card, a 40-year-old army reservist, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his body was discovered at 7:45pm, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.
Card is believed to be the perpetrator of a rampage on Wednesday evening that left 18 people dead and 13 others wounded in a bowling alley and a bar-restaurant in the city.
Photo: AFP / Lewiston Maine Police Department
“I’m breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Maine Governor Janet Mills told a hastily called news conference.
The sentiment was echoed by US Senator Susan Collins, of Maine, who wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that US President Joe Biden had called her “to tell me the perpetrator of the heinous attacks in Lewiston had been found.”
Biden said the mass shooting brought “a tragic two days — not just for Lewiston, Maine, but for our entire country,” she wrote.
“I will continue to do everything in my power to end this gun violence epidemic. The Lewiston community — and all Americans — deserve nothing less,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Authorities on Friday identified the victims, ranging from a husband and wife in their 70s, to a 14-year-old boy killed alongside his father.
The killing spree in a bowling alley and bar-restaurant was the deadliest mass shooting in the US this year.
Card’s body was found in Lisbon Falls, southeast of Lewiston near the Androscoggin River, authorities said.
US media said his body was found near a recycling center that was Card’s place of employment before he lost his job there.
Roads leading to the site were blocked by police on Friday evening, an Agence France-Presse journalist saw.
Sauschuck said that he could not immediately say when Card had shot himself.
Card was an army reservist, but had not been deployed in any combat zone. US media reported that he had recently been sent for psychiatric treatment after he said he was hearing voices.
“It’s a small community. When something like this happens, everybody knows somebody” affected, Lewiston resident Jeremy Hiltz said.
He said a number of intersecting social crises have afflicted the city of about 38,000 people.
“This community itself has been devastated by addiction and housing crisis and poverty... So to put this on top of it, it’s really just a devastating situation for us,” Hiltz said.
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