A young Pennsylvania woman who survived a 2006 mass shooting at her Amish school has died nearly 18 years after she was left permanently brain-damaged in the rampage.
Rosanna King, who was only 6 when she was injured, passed away at her family’s home in Paradise on Tuesday, according to her obituary. She was 23.
King was left unable to walk, talk, or feed herself when she was shot execution-style by gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV inside an Old Order Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines on Oct. 2, 2006.
Roberts, a non-Amish milk truck driver, took King and nine other girls ages 6 to 13 hostage inside the one-room schoolhouse, where he shot them and then killed himself as authorities closed in.
Two of the girls died at the scene, while the eight others – including King – were rushed to different medical centers, where three more were pronounced dead.
King’s family removed her from life support after two days. They brought her home to Paradise, where doctors did not expect her to survive.
King ultimately lived for nearly 18 years, but was unable to talk, walk, or feed herself, and had frequent seizures, Lancaster Online reported.
The Nickel Mines Amish community moved the entire nation when they publicly forgave and embraced the family of the gunman – with about 30 members of the community supporting Roberts’ widow at his funeral.
In the years after the shooting, King was visited every week by Charles Roberts’ mother, Terri Roberts, who read her the Bible and the “Anne of Green Gables” books.
Terri Roberts told Lancaster Online in 2016 that King was an “amazing young woman.”
“Her family is amazing in the measures that they go to make life as good as it can be for Rosanna,” Roberts said at the time.
King is survived by her parents and four siblings, as well as several extended family members.
Funeral services are set for Friday morning at the family’s home, the obituary read.
Rosanna King will be buried in the Bart Amish Cemetery in nearby Georgetown, where the other victims of the Nickel Mines shooting were also laid to rest.
Nearly Eighteen years after King and her peers were targeted, school shootings continue to be one of the most prevalent issues in US culture: One day after King died, a gunman opened fire and killed four people – two teachers and two students – at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
