NICKEL MINES, Pa., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- The Amish community Thursday buried four of the victims of this week's Nickel Mines, Pa., shooting in private services under bright skies.
Naomi Rose Eberson, 7, was the first of the girls to be laid to rest at the Bart Amish Cemetery in Lancaster County. Funerals for Marian Fisher, 13, and sisters Lena, 7, and Mary Liz Miller, 8, also were set. Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, was to be buried Friday.
The other victims remain hospitalized, one in critical condition.
Mourners rode in 34 buggies to the first funeral, passing the home of Charles Carl Roberts IV, who gunned down the girls at their schoolhouse Monday before killing himself.
No outsiders were invited to the private service and police blocked traffic within 2 miles, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Rita Rhoads, a Mennonite nurse-midwife who helped prepare the girls for burial, said the community is devastated.
"They are human, they are crying," she told the Post-Gazette.
"But that their faith in God is strong, and they have forgiven the shooter. They hope that other people throughout the nation will be drawn closer to God through their witness."
