The hunt for the man suspected of killing 18 people in Lewiston continued Friday morning.
Robert R. Card II, 40, of Bowdoin is suspected in shootings at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston Wednesday night. Eighteen people were killed and 13 were injured. It was one of the worst mass shootings in the nation.
Many schools and businesses remained closed on Friday as the manhunt for Card continued.
Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said Thursday night that a shelter-in-place order will remain in place indefinitely as the manhunt for Card continues. Androscoggin County and northern Sagadahoc County were under orders to shelter in place Thursday night.
On Thursday night, police had surrounded a Card family home on Meadow Road in Bowdoin. Reporters heard announcements over a loudspeaker addressing Card by name, saying, “We know you’re inside” and telling the 40-year-old to come out with his hands up. A helicopter flew overhead.
A short time later the police went quiet and then left. Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss in an email Thursday night said that language was part of “standard search warrant announcements” and that police did not know whether he was in that home or others being searched Thursday.
“Law enforcement officials are simply doing their due diligence by tracking down every lead in an effort to locate and apprehend Card,” Moss said.
Police appeared to be searching Card’s other home on West Road in Bowdoin earlier in the day Thursday. A suicide note addressed to his son was found at a property, including “rantings” as well as more mundane information including bank account information, ABC News reported. Card, an Army reservist, recently got mental health treatment.
Around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, several police cars remained lined up on the side of Meadow Road. Reporters were stationed at the base of a hill roughly one-fifth of a mile from a home obscured by a forest, and a plane circled overhead.
Card’s father and brother own a few homes in the area. The suspect and his wife own a home on Meadow Road. Earlier in the day, Katie Card, the alleged shooter’s sister-in-law, urged him to surrender to police.
“At the moment we are working extensively with law enforcement,” she said in a text message to the Bangor Daily News. “Our hearts break for these families, they’re all in our prayers. If Rob is listening, we love him and we can help, but he needs to turn himself in.”
Card, a 20-year U.S. Army veteran, recently reported mental health issues, including hearing voices. He threatened to “shoot up” a military facility in Saco, according to a bulletin issued to Maine law enforcement agencies Wednesday. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer, it added.
Card recently began wearing powerful hearing aids and insisted to family members that he could hear people speaking poorly about him, Katie Card told the Daily Beast.
She said Card would “get mad” when other members of his family would tell him the voices he was hearing were just in his head, according to the Daily Beast.
“Things have kind of gone downhill recently,” Katie Card told the Beast.
Police have not commented on what prompted Card to allegedly carry out a massacre but said Thursday morning that an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder has been issued. Card will likely face additional counts of murder once more victims have been identified, according to the state police.