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September 29th, 2013
08:40 AM ET
From grief to grace: Wife of Amish schoolhouse shooter breaks her silenceBy Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog co-editor [twitter-follow screen_name='BurkeCNN'] Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (CNN) - Among the flowers and plants in Marie Monville’s sunny yard sits a rosebush, a gift from her first husband, Charlie. A few years ago, Monville painstakingly unearthed the roots and transplanted the bush from her old house 10 miles away - a house that Charlie had thrown into tumult and grief. The bush’s prickles recall the pain she and her family have endured, Monville said, and its peach-colored blossoms offer a yearly reminder that God creates new life from old. After years of silence, Monville is now telling a story of her own. It’s the story of how a milkman’s daughter became a murderer’s wife, and how she found a divine calling after a devastating tragedy. “If this wasn’t my life,” Monville said during a recent interview in her kitchen, family pictures smiling from the fridge, “I never would have expected it to look this beautiful.” On October 2, 2006, Charlie Roberts - then Monville’s husband - burst into a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, with a handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a rifle, cans of black powder, a stun gun, two knives, a toolbox and restraint devices. Roberts ordered a teacher, a teacher’s aide and the boys to leave, then bound 10 young schoolgirls and lined them up against the blackboard. He boarded the windows, apparently preparing for a long siege, but as police surrounded the schoolhouse, Roberts shot all 10 girls before killing himself. Five girls died; the others were severely wounded. The gentle, quiet man who had shared Monville's bed, children and life was now a mass murderer, guilty of unfathomable evil. In mere hours, Monville lost her husband, and her children lost their father. Her close-knit community was terrorized and her family's name disgraced. Her innocence was despoiled, and her evangelical faith tested. “I felt deserted, left behind to bear the weight of the world’s judgment and questions alone,” Monville writes in “One Light Still Shines,” her new book about the shooting and its aftermath, “and I felt that weight pressing me down.” Stepping out of the shadows After the shooting, Monville tried to keep her family, especially her three young children, out of the public eye. But with the release of “One Light,” which goes on sale Monday, Monville is stepping out of the shadows, sharing her story in deeply personal detail. Zondervan, one of the country’s largest Christian publishing houses, won't say how many copies it plans to print. But it has launched a “robust” marketing and publicity campaign, with a billboard in New York’s Times Square and interviews with TV networks, including CNN’s Piers Morgan. “It will sell millions of copies," said Donald Kraybill, co-author of "The Amish" and a professor at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "Millions." Not only is Monville’s story powerful and largely untold, it also hits a burgeoning market for book publishers, Kraybill said: the cross-section of evangelical spirituality and interest in all things Amish. Christian fiction best-seller lists brim with Amish romance novels, largely because of their large evangelical readership, which scholars trace to the 2006 shooting and its stunning postlude of Amish forgiveness. Monville said she kept silent for so long because that story - the grace and compassion the Amish offered her family - was already making headlines around the world. “There wasn’t much more for me to say,” she said. Even if there had been more to say, the intensely private Monville was reluctant to speak publicly. Shy and quiet, she sometimes joked that the label under her high-school yearbook picture should have read, “Most Likely to be Forgotten.” But as the shooting’s psychological wounds began to heal, Monville said she heard God calling her to a new mission: to share her message of hope and to tell others that, even after Charlie's crushing actions, her family not only survived, they thrived. “I now saw a grand purpose in telling my story,” Monville writes, “I wasn’t afraid anymore.” Walking on water The morning of October 2, 2006, was sunny and warm, Monville recalls, the trees in her rural neighborhood radiant with red and golden leaves. Monville, then Marie Roberts, was living her deepest childhood dreams. At 28, she had a vibrant church community and spiritual life, a dutiful husband who doted on their three young children and a home next-door to her grandparents in idyllic Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she was born and raised. Charlie Roberts, her husband of nearly a decade, drove a truck that delivered milk to nearby dairies, just as Marie’s family had done for generations. He sometimes brooded over the death of their first daughter, who was born three months premature and died after just 20 minutes, but he usually pulled out from these bouts of depression. On the morning of the shooting, Marie led a prayer group at a local church, where they asked God to keep schoolchildren safe. As usual, she and Charlie later walked their two oldest children, then 7 and 5, to the bus stop, kissing them goodbye before Charlie left for work. At 11 a.m., as Marie was pouring herself a cup of coffee, Charlie called. “I had never heard Charlie’s voice sound like that before,” Monville writes, “not in almost 10 years of marriage. Something was horribly wrong.” Charlie told Marie he was not coming home. He left a note explaining everything, he said. Marie pleaded with him to come home, but he hung up. According to Pennsylvania State Police, Charlie also told Marie he had molested young family members two decades before and had daydreamed of doing so again. Monville said she left that out of her new book because police found the claims to be false. “Charlie said a lot of things on the phone or the letter that didn’t make a lot of sense,” Monville said in an interview. “His mind was filled with all of the things he was planning to do, so he wasn’t in a place of being OK.” The three-page letter Charlie left for Marie said she was the perfect wife, but the death of their firstborn child made him enraged at God. “I am sorry to put you and the kids in this position but I feel that this is the best and only way,” Charlie wrote. “I love all of you and this is why am I doing this.” Marie called 911. Sirens wailed in the distance. Hanging up the phone, she stood in the living room, staring at her ceiling fan, and prayed. Monville calls this her “walk on water” moment, recalling when Jesus challenged the disciples to show their faith by following his footsteps across the Sea of Galilee. “I was faced with two choices, and only two,” she said. “I could choose to believe that everything written about God in the pages of the Word were true, and that he was going to rescue me and my family. Or I could choose to believe that we were going down like the fastest sinking ship.” The falling flower Raised a churchgoer in deeply religious Lancaster County, where churches far outnumber bars, Monville said she always enjoyed a close relationship with God, hearing his voice call to her, feeling his embrace during prayer and worship. Even after the death of her firstborn, whom they named Elise, and a later failed pregnancy, Monville said she kept hoping that God held better days in store. But Charlie’s faith faltered, and he shrugged off her pleas to talk to a pastor, counselor or friend about his deepening depression. “He was angry at God, which I didn’t realize in those days,” Monville said. “I just thought he wasn’t connected to the Lord in the ways I was. The harder I pushed, the more he withdrew.” Counselors later said that Charlie Roberts likely suffered for years with untreated clinical depression over the death of Elise, which led to a psychotic break with reality, Monville said. “I did not know the man who went into the schoolhouse and did the things he did there,” she said. “I did not know that Charlie.” Counselors told Monville that depression can be difficult to diagnose, especially when a sufferer is trying hard to hide it. “There were a lot of things I asked myself,” Monville said. “How did I not see this? What are the signs I missed?” Those questions didn’t yield easy answers, just more difficult questions, she said: How could God allow this to happen? What should she tell her children? Would people hold her responsible for Charlie’s actions? Could she rebuild her life in Lancaster? The community - including the Amish - showered her family with gifts, meals and love after the shooting, Monville recalls. They waved hello on the way to the bus stop, dropped by to see if she needed groceries, encouraged her to stay in Lancaster. Still, Monville had always been a people-pleasing middle child, shyly hoping she could somehow escape the world’s gaze. Now she was the center of attention, with news vans parked in her neighborhood and reporters prowling around her yard. With her newfound notoriety came questions from strangers that made her skin crawl. Did Charlie have life insurance? How do you sleep at night knowing what your husband did? In fact, Monville didn’t sleep at night. She tossed and turned, grieving over her husband and the deaths he caused, and worrying about her children’s future. But with Scripture and prayer, in reaching out to God and hearing his reply in shouts and whispers, feeling his fatherly care in signs and wonders that people of lesser faith might take for coincidences, Monville said she found healing. On the day of the shooting, after Charlie’s frightening call, she saw a vision of God’s hand catching a falling flower petal just before it hit the ground, Monville said. And that’s just what God did for her, she said, every time her spirits fell. She saw God's hand when the Amish attended Charlie's funeral, when neighbors sent baskets of food, and strangers filled her mailbox with supportive notes. Most importantly, Monville said, she felt God's strength when she had to tell her children that their father had made some very bad choices, and some people had died, and he had died, too. “Over and over again," Monville writes, "(God) broke though my pain, revealed his presence, and restored my hope.” New love Along with restored hope came another miracle, Monville said: She no longer cared what other people thought. Marie needed that fearlessness when, just four months after the shooting, she told her family she was engaged to a family friend, Dan Monville. She and Dan, a divorcé, had bonded after the shooting as they supervised play dates with their young children. She felt a connection with Dan as their families bonded, she said, which ripened into love. Maybe Dan was the right man, her family said, but it was definitely the wrong time. Marie had doubts, too. It was so soon after the shooting. But she felt God whispering to her, telling her that Dan was the man she should marry. Marie said she wrestled with that revelation, fasting and praying for days. Again, one of those signs and wonders - the kind that others might take for happenstance - broke into her life. Early one morning in December 2006, Marie awoke to hear her Christmas tree tumble with a crackling crash. Each year, she and Charlie had exchanged Christmas ornaments, their own family tradition. Only two broke when the tree fell, Monville said, the first and last Charlie had given her. “At the precise moment I noticed this,” she writes, “I heard the words 'It is finished' echo through my heart and mind.” Dan and Marie were married in May 2007, seven months after the schoolhouse shooting. They now live in the house with Charlie's rosebush, their five children are healthy and happy. Joyful messenger Sipping a cup of coffee in her tidy kitchen last week, Monville said she relishes her return to routine, dropping the kids off at school, grocery shopping. "Normal mom" stuff. She keeps the letter Charlie left and reads it from time to time, even though some parts leave her feeling shaky. Monville also keeps cartons full of letters sent from strangers around the world. She tries not to dread the arrival of October 2, but still finds her eyes fixed to the clock each year, remembering when Charlie left her work, when he called, the day's devastation. Monville said she has spent years trying to remove the “the shooter’s wife” label - but in a way, she embraces it now, as long as she gets to tell the rest of the story. It’s the story of how the milkman’s timid daughter, the murderer’s grieving wife, became of all things a joyful messenger, telling everyone who’d listen about the grace of God’s love.
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Great, now I know more about the killer than I do his victims. Bravo, CNN. Take this woman's anguish and multiply it by, oh, let's say infinity for argument's sake – then we might begin to comprehend the parents grief. Really?! This is what people prefer to see? Do yourself a favor after reading this story: find something out about one of the victims. Something. Anything.
D@mnit CNN! Look what you did to Brian!
God can take a mess and make a message.
So can Sesame Street and the Electric Company.
Yeah, Word girl could do it too.
Ah, but this "God" character had **nothing** to do regarding the original mess, eh?
God didn't shoot the children.
Didn't prevent it either.
Yes. Tragedy, strife and misfortunes are a part of life. God will see us through it. Trust God.
Why trust something that no one can show exists?
Why is your god only given credit for the good things? Not why did god just try to kill me with a tornado, but god saved me from the tornado?
I trust that there are no gods interfering with daily life. I have never seen it, and no one else has either (though a lot of them will give god credit, for the good things at least), since no one actually knows if there are any gods, all you are really doing is putting all of your faith in your faith.
Sure, the Great Ethereal Wizard knows best. Work all day. Live on hay. There'll be pie in the sky when you die.
The lady in this story says she saw God at work. I've met many people that share her point of view.
If you don't need God you don't need God. I do.
You need to examine your thinking more critically.
True – but was god unaware that it was going to happen?
This interview will boost her book sales. How transparent.
And the problem with that would be....?
She's capitalizing on a tragedy. Though not illegal, it's at the very least bad taste...
"“I now saw a grand purpose in telling my story,” Monville writes, “I wasn’t afraid anymore.” Yeah, sure. And that grand purpose? "Money, money, money, it's a rich man's world..." The article was enough. Go away, no book for me.
my writing and reading skills aren't advanced enough for a whole book anyway
The "psychotic break from reality" he suffered from was believing in a God and Jesus, two fictional characters...Many are suffering from this same delusion. Luckily, reason is spreading (though slowly). This psychosis has a powerful hold on the morallly and mentally weak.
@bullziger
nope
@nope
yup
@yap
nope
@nope
yup
yup
Great JOB! staying low. Just change your name and don't talk about it and ESPECIALLY do not tell your story on CNN. Now everyone knows! Unless you want to write a book which is totally different story.
to bad she doesn't realize that her ability to survive and move on all came from her, not god.
Actually it came from the magic acorn she thought she had in her pocket.
she had to know
Wow! So sorry to hear so much bitterness and criticism. I know the world we live in is tough, but this Lady is just sharing how she got through tough times. Just maybe someone out there can benefit from this, when did society become such critics. The whole purpose in this article is to show one way on how NOT to become bitter and resentful.
I'm really smart and important, so accept my opinion about something with which I have no experience!
Prayer changes things
Two daily lies from troll prayer bot
Two wonderful Truths to live by.
Ahh...the name theif is back. Silly troll. How Nice that you fear me so much you have to try to steal my name. Pitiful troll.
Mom named me dick head for a good reason.
I must be really important for you to keep posting under my name troll.
It just shows that I am having a good effect.
Or else I'm just an ass hole with a superiority complex. You choose.
sure, so does magic and witchcraft. Crazy people.
@bullsh itzinger
nope
Utterly disgusting this woman is choosing to profit from the deaths of young girls her husband slaughtered. There's nothing good or redeeming about what she's doing. It's downright vile.
I don't fault her too much for that. Inquiring minds want to know the back story on this. Some might learn to recognize danger signs in their own family or friends. The supernatural fantasy part - meh.
The lesson from this tragedy was that the people who lost the most, the Amish community, not only forgave Charlie but supported his widow as if she were one of their own as she grieved too. That IS a story worth sharing in a book and a tv interview, and one that I think we wouldn't hear more about from the Amish themselves. I'm perplexed that people who weren't affected at all by the tragedy personally are so behaving with such judgement and so very different from the way the Amish behaved through this all. I'm sure the "what will you do with the money" question will be answered soon too. It could be that she already plans to donate it to the families or to the Amish or to mission work.
How do you know her motive is for profit? Maybe some people can learn and benefit by the telling of her side of the story.
Good grief, do you really need to profit from this horrible crime? Do you need your five minutes of fame? Hypocrite.
Fione,
People do not always have the reasons for their actions, which others of different ilk may believe they have. Did it ever occur to you that her reason for her actions is because she believes she was called to bear witness?
"Bearing witness" need not entail a book contract and a publicist. I spent years among the "born again," Olivier. I know how egotistical the "saved" can be.
Ow easy for everyone to judge others. Walk in their shoes, live their lives. Then maybe you may speak. My very best to her and her family.
I haven't read these posts and seen a great deal of real understanding in what's being said in the story.
Did you get it, that this person, has decided to believe in "GOD", and that doing so, means that she listens to, and looks for answers when she seeks "God's" will for her?
The constant harping on what "she should do" with all that money ... tells me you haven't understood this about her.
I think, that if what I read, was honest, and truth telling, (evidence say's it is), than it's automatically a part of who she is, to ask "GOD" what "GOD" wants' her to do, with any money from book sale's. And that she will listen to the guidance and follow it.
I'm a bit amazed at the inability(so many demonstrate) to even entertain this "type" of deliberately chosen mental discipline.
Do you think it's only certain "super-human-saint's", floating high above humanity that actually think and act this way?
I am amazed you think no one gets this thinking nor has never known anyone who engages in this type of thinking and lacks "real" understanding.
What makes you think a lot of us don't know people who engage in this type of thinking or have even engaged it it ourselves? Is the narrative not flowing in lockstep?
Been There,
I am amazed that you put apostrophes in words like "sales" "says" and "saints"? Why?
CNN, did we REALLY need to dreg up ANOTHER shooting to cover for page views? This one happened in 2006; that was over 6 years ago, in case your arithmetic skills have dwindled since you left college.
The cyclical covering of shootings is PART OF THE PROBLEM. Insignificant nobodies KNOW based on ABUNDANT EVIDENCE that if they go down to their local school/theater/mall/public place and mow down civilians, they will be FAMOUS. Even in death they will be remembered because YOU LOT think it's a good idea to plaster their names, faces, life stories, and body counts for weeks after they bite the dust.
Wow, lots of angry people here! Are you all really that bitter and why?
as usual, the victims are ignored and the killer and his freak wife lionized. sick
Geez people need to lay off this lady...if you don't have any religious beliefs that's fine but don't trash her for having hers. She obviously gained inspiration and strength from her experiences after this tragedy. The saying goes, "Don't judge until you've walked in another man's moccasins."
Then why write a book about it ? Why not simply tell her side of the story to the congregation in church.
You know why she wrote it right, to help her make sense of it all.
If she truly believes in God then let God forgive him. She should have wrote a book about how she can't forgive him and wishing she had never married him. Judgement like Forgiveness is not her place or your place.
How is forgiveness not her place? It would be better if she let hatred destroy her. You need to get over yourself. Why do people think if you forgive someone she is some way saying she is ok with his actions no it just means she has moved on and let go of the hatred and found a new life for herself.
It's not about harboring hate. It's really about walking away from it and giving it no justification to exist anymore.
How could she ever admit she made a terrible mistake when she thinks she can pass it off on God. It's all good then, why we will even bring the roses home.
Please..
Uneducated simpleton.
Maybe if she hadn't been so wrapped up in her church and idolization of a book and fictional character, she would have seen how depressed her husband was. There is NO way there weren't signs he was having a breakdown.
This chick is seeing visions. She needs medication herself. She also needs to stop breeding.
I hope the money made on the book goes to help the girls who are still struggling with their recovery.
God is not a fictional character and it's obvious that you do not have a relationship with him. Some like to use the term "bible banger" I assure you that I am not one but, I have a strong faith in a high power and that Lynda is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Are you a doctor? It IS possible not to show signs of a mental illness – others have accomplished this deceit and their loved ones were not lost in "fictional characters" such as God. Hateful people like yourself, who post hurtful words for your 20 seconds of fame, are the very reason why we live in a world ridden with hate and violence. Your reply isn't necessary, you've already exposed your black heart and your ignorance. God Bless.
The problem is religion has corrupted the concept of a God, and the jury remains out as to whether Jesus was anything more then just a really good teacher.
This bimbo married the let's play house scenario, meaning young and the thrill of thinking you are an adult now out from under the parents. He didn't didn't know her husband then and now it's just to hard to fathom.
So, let's write a book and lay claim to how faith in God has helped her in her supposed grief, which is code so that she can bee seen in public again without the snide remarks from the other faith believers.
Since there is absolutley no evidence of your god, or any of the other thousands that nem have worshipped, it is most likely ture that your god is fictional.
We can see the history of the stories that Christ came from, and we can see the other influences of society that led to the Christ character, such as 90% of what your Jesus allegedly said, came from the Buddha.
Do you think that Zeus is fictional, Ra, Quetzlcoatl, Odin?
Your god is most likely just as real as they appear to be.
Sherry,
" I have a strong faith in a high power and that Lynda is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
Lynda is our Lord and Savior? I wonder if she knows?
Well maybe your reply wasn't necessary either. How Dare you say someone else is showing their ignorance? Can you prove there is a God? No you can't. It is just a bunch of written words in a Book. And who wrote that book? A bunch of men. Hell those people that lived way back then couldn't even write so where did those words come from. How many Bibles are there? How many different Religions are there? Why did they choose to leave 3 parts out of the Bible? You are not Religious or you would not have called some body out by saying they was showing their ignorance. If Jesus was Jewish then everybody should be Jewish but oh no this fight has been going on for years. There are so many religions because people wanted it their way so they started new ones. She didn't need to write a book. Hell how many people even remembered this Happened? And it isn't Bible Banger. It is Bible Thumper.
Can you prove He (God) doesn't exist. No, I didn't think so. Your opinion is just that an opinion and only has meaning to you.
sam,
The default stance in situations like this is NOT that a thing (or being) DOES exist until proven otherwise. The default stance is to withhold belief one way or the other.
Example: You cannot prove that invisible leprechauns do not exist... so, therefore they DO?
God certainly is real. Trust Him.
First clue that someone is B-S'ing you is that request for trust, AE.
You have to trust something. We are not here on your power.
No, AE, that is an invalid appeal, and also, there are degrees of trust. You are clearly demanding an absolute trust. Trust is something to be earned, not given without merit, and to me, your god has done nothing to earn my trust. Acts purportedly done 2000 years ago and other odd, incredible stories with no modern evidence to support them do nothing to earn my trust, or belief.