The man identified as the suspect in a mass shooting in Lewiston on Wednesday night is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran and has lived for years in the area where he allegedly killed 18 people.
Robert Card, 40, of Bowdoin was first named as a “person of interest” late Wednesday night by Maine law enforcement. Michael Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, identified Card in a Thursday news conference as a “suspect.”
Card is from Bowdoin, and he graduated from Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham in 2001, people who knew Card and his family said Thursday. Card, his parents, and his brother all own property in Bowdoin, according to property records.
Eighteen people are dead and 13 injured after the shootings at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, previously known as Sparetime Recreation, and at Schemengees Bar & Grille, Gov. Janet Mills said during a Thursday morning news conference.
Months before Card opened fire inside Schemengees, he was an avid participant in a cornhole club there, the Sun Journal reported Thursday.
Early information, including a bulletin issued to all Maine law enforcement, indicated Card was a trained firearms instructor. However, that is not true, said Bryce Dubee, an Army spokesperson.
“SFC Robert Card is assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in Saco, Maine. While his unit supported West Point summer training in July of 2023, there are no records to indicate he instructed or participated in any training,” Dubee said. “The Army did not train SFC Card as a firearms instructor, nor did he serve in that capacity for the Army. Due to the Privacy Act and the ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further details.”
Card 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.
Officers in the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment said they saw Card acting erratically while his unit was at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York. It was there that Card was hospitalized at the Keller Army Community Hospital, the Sun Journal reported.
A U.S. official who wished to remain anonymous told the Associated Press that Card was taken by law enforcement to be evaluated following erratic behavior in July.
Card enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2002. He is a sergeant and petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve, according to Bryce S. Dubee, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army.
He has never deployed but has been awarded the Army Achievement Medal, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon, Dube said.
After he graduated from Mt. Ararat High School in 2001, he enrolled at the University of Maine in Orono in an engineering technology program, said Meredith Whitfield, a spokesperson for the university. He was enrolled until 2004 but didn’t graduate, she said.
Sagadahoc County court records show he was divorced in 2007.
The Sun Journal reported that he has an 18-year-old son.
Katie Card, Card’s sister-in-law, said she’s known “Rob” her whole life and that he’s a “quiet but most loving” person, the Daily Beast reported. But over the course of the past year, Robert Card struggled with his mental health, she said.
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, and ultimately he was sent to a mental health facility for a week this past summer, according to the Daily Beast.
“Things have kind of gone downhill recently,” Katie Card told the Beast.
In a text message to the Bangor Daily News, Katie Card said her family is urging Robert Card to turn himself in so that they can help him.
“At the moment we are working extensively with law enforcement,” she said. “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.”
NBC News reported Thursday that Liam Kent grew up about a half mile away from Card’s family “compound” in Bowdoin. Kent told NBC that the Cards are all “gun fanatics” and “very much associated with right-wing militias.”
“It’s known in the town to stay away from them, to not approach them,” Kent said in his interview with NBC. “If you see them, you just turn around and walk away.”
Maine law enforcement officials have not commented on what prompted Card’s alleged massacre but said Thursday morning that an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder has been issued.
Police are still looking for Card, and shelter-in-place orders remain in effect for all of Androscoggin County and part of Sagadahoc County, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said Thursday afternoon.
Card’s only publicly available criminal record is from 2007 when he was found guilty of operating under the influence.
