Funeral services begin for Amish girls

Families urge forgiveness of gunman who killed five children

GEORGETOWN, Pa. - Horse-drawn buggies clip-clopped past roadblocks Thursday morning as Amish families gathered to bury four of the five young girls gunned down inside their tiny rural schoolhouse.

All roads leading into the village of Nickel Mines, where a milk truck driver took 10 girls hostage and opened fire, were blocked off for the funerals.

The Amish families had asked for privacy as they pray at three homes before burying Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7. The funeral for a fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, was scheduled for Friday.

Five of their friends caught in the schoolhouse attack continued to fight their injuries, at least four of them still hospitalized.

Country coroner G. Gary Kirchner said he had been contacted by a doctor at Penn State Children¡¯s Hospital in Hershey who said doctors expected to take one victim off life support so she could be brought home.

Dr. D. Holmes Morton, who runs a clinic that serves Amish children, said Thursday that the reports that a 6-year-old had been taken off life-support and taken home to die were accurate ¡°as far as I know.¡±

¡°I just think at this point mostly these families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that,¡± Morton said.


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