Crime scene tape still surrounds Schemengees Bar & Grille, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023, in Lewiston, Maine. The community is working to heal following shooting deaths of 18 people at the bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Maine State Police documents released Tuesday shed light on why a delusional U.S. Army reservist who killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston may have targeted those locations.
State police interviewed a woman three hours after the shooting who said 40-year-old Robert Card believed the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, Schemengees Bar and Grille and several other businesses were “broadcasting online that Robert was a pedophile.”
The woman said Card, who was found dead Friday, had been delusional since February after a break-up, had been hospitalized for mental illness and prescribed medication that he stopped taking, according to a police affidavit filed in support of a request for an arrest warrant.
Police also spoke to Robert’s brother, who said Card had been in relationship with someone he met at a cornhole competition at the bar. Another man said the same thing to a different officer, according to an affidavit filed in a request to access Card’s cell phone records.
That man told police he had been to both the bowling alley and bar with Card, and that Card knew people at both locations. He Card’s girlfriend had two daughters that he would take out to eat at Schemengees, “and that is where the pedophile thing in Robert’s head came from as Robert was there with (his girfriend’s) two daughters on occasions and felt that people were looking at him.”
The man said Card also mentioned bar manager Joey Walker was one of the people who Card thought had disparaged him. Walker was among those killed.
Members of Card’s Army reserve unit also have told authorities that he accused fellow soldiers of calling him a pedophile.
