This story will be updated.
AUBURN, Maine — The shooter who killed 18 people at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar last week believed those businesses were broadcasting online that he was a pedophile, according to documents released by the Maine State Police on Tuesday.
Shortly after the shootings last Wednesday, an interview subject told police that 40-year-old Robert R. Card II of Bowdoin had been “delusional” since a breakup in February and believed businesses and people, including his family, were “broadcasting online” that he was a pedophile.
Those businesses included Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant, the sites targeted by Card. The reported delusions mirror those reported to Maine police on two separate occasions dating back to early May, and they also amount to the first public discussion of Card’s motive for the attacks.
Another person who knew Card told police the night of the shootings they had played cornhole with the shooter at Schemengees in the past. At that time, the person said Card falsely accused the bar’s manager, Joseph Walker, of calling him gay. Walker was among those killed in Card’s attack on the bar, which came just minutes after the shooting at the bowling alley.
Another 13 people were injured between the two sites of the mass shooting, which amounted to the deadliest such incident in the country this year and the deadliest in Maine history. After a two-day manhunt, Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Lisbon on Friday.
The Maine State Police released dozens of pages of documents that supported applications for warrants in Card’s case on Tuesday afternoon.
