Robert Card, the 40-year-old suspect in a Maine shooting spree that killed 18 people, was found dead late Friday near Lisbon, ME., where his vehicle was earlier found abandoned. He shot himself, Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office said.
Sauchuck said the body was located at about 7:45 p.m. local time near the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, a town about 8 miles southwest of Lewiston. The suspect’s vehicle, a white Subaru Outback, had earlier been found abandoned by a boat launch on the river.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills told reporters that she called President Biden to inform him of the suspect’s death.
“Like many people, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Mills said.
The circumstances of Card’s life, death and his killings of others—he was a reservist who legally kept possession of rifles despite hearing voices that directed him to kill others, and being institutionalized with a mental health crisis—has local politicians in Maine now uncomfortable with their past positions on the matter.
“The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles, like the one used by this sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown,” Golden said at a press conference. “For the good of my community, I will work with any colleague to get this done in the time that I have left in Congress.”
In the U.S. Senate, though, it’s full steam ahead: they just approved a bill allowing veterans deemed ‘mentally incompetent’ to access guns.
This was the 565th mass shooting, and the deadliest so far, in 2023.