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Maine shooting suspect found dead of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, ending days-long manhunt

by Binghamton Herald Report
October 27, 2023
in World
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LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LEWISTON, Maine — 

Lewiston mass shooting suspect Robert Card was found dead Friday, ending an epic manhunt for the mass shooting suspect that forced a swath of Maine to shelter in place.

Officials said law enforcement found Card dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 7:45 p.m. Friday in the area of Lisbon Falls, not far from where his vehicle was located.

Authorities had spent days searching for Card, who they allege opened fire at two Lewiston establishments late Wednesday, killing 18 and wounding at least 13 others. Officials finally lifted the shelter-in-place order late Friday, allowing thousands who were sheltering at home to commune with neighbors and loved ones.

In a country where so much of a mass shooting’s aftermath has become almost routine — makeshift memorials at the scene, candlelight vigils, pleas for stricter gun laws — the eerie quiet throughout much of the community Friday was far from normal, with few opportunities for the kind of communal grieving that so often follows such massacres.

At the Blue Goose Tavern in Lewiston, owner Earl St. Hilaire said some friends started asking about his plans to reopen after keeping the bar shut Thursday. Safety remained his top priority, he said, but it’s also important to be there for one another.

“I kind of wanted of let them breathe and relax instead of being tense,” said St. Hilaire, 49, a lifelong resident of the area. “I wanted them to talk with each other.”

Just before 6 p.m., phones simultaneously started blaring inside St. Hilaire’s tavern, alerting residents that the shelter-in-place was over. An emergency alert also flashed across the TV.

Bert Coty, who owns a restaurant in nearby Auburn, said he plans to reopen his eatery Saturday after two days without business.

Dale Forrest joined the small crowd at the bar with her boxer dog, not expecting to find normalcy but grateful to no longer be alone.

“How do you process it?” said Forrest, who lives on the outskirts of town but worked in Lewiston for more than three decades. “You have to reach out to people. I have a lot of my friends check in.”

Conversations at the bar almost always turned back to the shootings, the victims, the wounded or the gunman. The Blue Goose’s regulars struggled to reckon with how their small city — the second largest in Maine — came to be the latest scene of American gun violence.

“You would never expect something like that to happen here,” said Patricia Poulin, 60.

Officials limited the start of rifle hunting season — set to begin Saturday for Maine residents — prohibiting any hunting in Lewiston, Lisbon, Bowdoin and Monmouth.

The start of hunting season would not be restricted elsewhere in Maine.

Authorities used sonar, flyovers and dive teams on Friday to search the Androscoggin River in Lisbon, near where officials found Card’s white Subaru abandoned at the Paper Mills Trail in Miller Park boat launch, about eight miles southeast of Lewiston, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said.

Water teams looked for evidence and potentially bodies, Sauschuck said, adding that the massive multi-agency effort included teams searching the woods and following up on more than 500 tips from the public.

Late Thursday, authorities spent several hours serving search warrants at a residence associated with Card in Bowdoin, nearly 15 miles east of Lewiston. Officers surrounded the property, calling, “You are under arrest,” over a megaphone, but Card did not appear to be there.

In their search of that house and others in the area, police and federal agents confirmed they found a note, but Sauschuck would not elaborate on its contents.

A law enforcement source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Card appeared to have ditched his phone, leaving investigators no means of tracking him through electronic surveillance.

Officials identified 10 victims who were were fatally shot at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston: Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; William Frank Brackett, 48; Keith D. Macneir, 64; father and son William “Bill” A. Young, 44, and Aaron Young, 14; and husband and wife Robert E. Violette, 76, and Lucille M. Violette, 73.

There were eight victims killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles from the bowling alley: Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; Stephen M. Vozzella, 45.

Sauschuck said the victims’ families did not want to release their hometowns. He said among the dead, four were deaf.

Two people holding hands walk past a banner that says "Lewiston Strong," hanging on a storefront.

A couple walk by a banner put up in Lewiston, Maine, in response to this week’s deadly mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

An empty street lined by houses and trees with fall colors, with a church spire in the background.

The streets of Auburn, Maine, looking toward neighboring Lewiston, were quiet Friday as shelter-in-place orders remained in effect following this week’s mass shootings.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Family members of some of those slain in the two shootings have started sharing their loved ones’ stories. Walker’s father remembered his son as someone who always looked out for others and supported many charities and fundraisers.

Rob Young told The Times that his brother Bill Young and Bill’s son, Aaron, had been at the bowling alley for a league competition. He said Aaron was a talented young bowler, and Bill Young had been a dedicated, loving father.

Mike Dyndiuk told The Times that his son Chris had been at Schemengees Bar & Grille with a group of friends, all deaf, for a cornhole tournament. He said three of Chris’ friends were among those slain at the bar.

Three injured victims remained in critical condition as of Thursday, according to Steven Littleson, president and chief executive of Central Maine Healthcare.

One victim, Justin Karcher, 23, had been in and out of surgery since Wednesday and was still in the intensive care unit on full life support, said Haley May, Karcher’s younger sister who lives with him.

“Everybody is nervous or on edge,” May said. “At this point, he could not make it. He could. It’s hard. But if he made it through the shooting and made it through a surgery one time, there’s luck that he’s gonna make it through altogether.”

Karcher had gone to the Schemengees Bar & Grille Wednesday to play pool with his friend and the friend’s father, May said.

That day was supposed to be the day of celebration for Karcher — he and his girlfriend had just signed a contract to buy a home in a nearby town of Poland. Karcher, who loves the outdoors, was also planning a camping trip with his girlfriend for the next day.

But May said she and the rest of her family found out around 2 a.m. Thursday that Karcher was shot four times — on his right shoulder, left shoulder, stomach and kidney. Although Karcher was conscious when he got to the hospital — asking anesthesiologist whether he would be OK — he has been in a medically induced coma for more than a day.

As of Friday afternoon, he was in a surgery to address the internal bleeding in his stomach.

May said the circumstances that Karcher is going through are similar to that of his dad, who died in 2019 when he was shot randomly at a Walmart in Auburn. Karcher was there with his dad, May said.

“A lot of them think his dad’s looking over him right now, to keep on living,” May, 22, said.

Heart-shaped signs on four trees, with messages saying "to my city" and "to my friends."

Heart-shaped cut-outs with messages of support adorn trees in downtown Lewiston, Maine.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Card was a 21-year member of the Army Reserve, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. As a sergeant first class, Card served as a petroleum supply specialist and received several Army achievement medals, Dubee said.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Card was a “trained firearms instructor” who recently reported problems with his mental health — “hearing voices” and threatening “to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco,” Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer and released, according to law enforcement sources.

The sources said Wednesday’s shooting shows signs of a planned attack and escape, adding that Card would have advanced backwoods survival skills. Highly specialized federal teams were deployed to help find him, sources said.

As the search dragged on much of Lewiston remained quiet. Empty parking space after empty parking space lined the usually busy Main Street Friday morning. Most shops and businesses were still dark, with handwritten notes taped to windows announcing unplanned closures.

Only a handful of people ventured out earlier in the day Friday under the yellow, orange and red leaves that lined Main Street, not far from where a “Lewiston Strong” banner had been draped over a vacant storefront.

Nancy Pettegrow pushed her dog, Teddy, in a stroller — the only activity in sight along the city sidewalks. She’d been sheltering in her apartment, where she lives alone, anxious and scared to take Teddy out for anything except a quick bathroom break since Wednesday night’s bloodshed.

But on Friday morning, Pettegrow said she needed some fresh air, so her stepdaughter came from the neighboring Poland area to bring her groceries and accompany her on a walk.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Pettegrow, 73, breaking down. The mass shooting has shattered her sense of security in Maine’s second-largest city, where everyone feels like neighbors and friends.

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said.

To keep her mind busy, she sings — mostly old country tunes from Patsy Cline and Tanya Tucker — and prays — for those who lost loved ones and for the nightmare to come to an end.

“I ask for strength to get through this,” she said.

In Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, cars pulled in and out of the parking lot at Heathco’s, a pizza place with a small market.

Lisa Pesce, an employee who typically walks to work, said the store was closed Thursday but the owners decided to open Friday. But the thought of walking just the few minutes down the road Friday morning unnerved her, she said, so her husband offered to tag along.

“I said that’s foolish — if something happens to me and you, then the kids will have nobody,” said Pesce, 49.

She ended up walking alone.

The head of Lewiston public schools said Friday that schools would remain closed Monday, giving time for staff and students to heal.

Over at Bates College, Lewiston’s most prestigious university, the ongoing manhunt turned the campus desolate. Classes were canceled for the second day in a row.

Thomas Graham, 22, a senior biochemistry major who lives on campus, left his dorm to get some batteries Friday morning. He said campus security and safety are taking steps to keep students safe, including escorting them to the food halls at designated meal times for each dormitory. Still, he said, “it’s hard to know when this is all going to be over.”

Petri reported from Lewiston, and Toohey and Childs reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Faith E. Pinho, Brittny Mejia and Terry Castleman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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