Months before the mass shooting in Lewiston that claimed 18 lives, the gunman’s family and friends were desperately trying to get him help.

His mental health was deteriorating. He was experiencing auditory delusions. And there were multiple warnings about his potential for violence, his access to guns and his threats to do harm.

Six weeks before the attacks, his best friend warned the Army Reserve that he might snap and commit a mass shooting.

Maine Public Radio, in partnership with the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS, presents “Breakdown:” a limited-series podcast about the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history.

Episode 2 begins a two-part examination into the numerous opportunities for intervention that could have changed everything.

Audio transcript

[piano music fades up]

SUSAN SHARON, HOST: The sun is setting when Sean Hodgson arrives downtown to pick up his tractor trailer. Right away, he notices that his friend Robert Card’s white Subaru isn’t in its usual spot. They both work the late shift for a trucking company in Lewiston, Maine delivering bread around New England. They also serve together in the Army Reserve.

Sean fills out some paperwork and makes small talk with his boss who says she hasn’t seen Rob, that he hasn’t been in to pick up his keys.

Rob is normally the type of guy who shows up early for work. But for a while he hasn’t been himself. He had been diagnosed with psychosis and was suspicious of nearly everyone. He hasn’t spoken to Sean for several weeks.

Sean’s not sure what to make of Rob’s absence, but he gets in his truck and starts his route. He’s talking with a friend on his headset, when suddenly he’s forced to pull to the side of the road.

SEAN HODGSON: I just saw a line of police cars and ambulances going every which way.

HOST: That’s when his friend tells him the news — there’s an active shooter at a bowling alley and a nearby bar. Sean feels a wave of panic.

SEAN HODGSON: I knew it was Card. I knew it was him because of the places that she was naming off that were being hit.

[guitar strumming music]

HOST: For months, Sean has been listening to Rob complain about these and other places — accusing the people at the bowling alley, and the bar of calling him a pedophile. Sean has also heard Rob make threats.

Terrified about who or what might be Rob’s next target, Sean tells his friend to quickly gather her customers in the back of the store where she works, lock the door and not to come out until it’s safe. Then he calls his boss at the trucking company and advises her to leave. When the shooting ends that night, Oct. 25, 2023, 18 people are dead and 13 more are injured.

The city of Lewiston is shattered and Maine, considered one of the safest states in the country, is in shock.

To understand how Sean Hodgson knew his best friend, Robert Card, was the shooter you have to go back several months. Sean and others had been telling authorities that Rob was acting paranoid and potentially dangerous. He owns at least ten firearms. Just one month earlier, Sean had warned their Army command in a text that Rob might do something exactly like this.

“Please,” Sean wrote, “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”

SEAN HODGSON: Nobody fucking listened. … Like, I’m not stupid. I love my buddy. … And didn’t want anyone killed. … and all I tried to do is save my buddy’s life.

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HOST: The shootings in Maine follow a grim pattern. Researchers have found that about half the individuals who carry out similar attacks have previously communicated their intent to hurt someone. It might be online. It might be telling a family member, a classmate or a friend. But the comments are often dismissed as “just talk.” The risk for violence is not taken seriously — so no action is taken.

For those who lost loved ones in Lewiston, that only compounds the grief.

RACHAEL SLOAT, COMMISSION: “My fellow Americans, where are you? We failed my little girl.”

HOST: Over the past year, my colleagues and I listened to hours of emotional testimony, interviewed dozens of people and poured over hundreds of pages of documents.

What we’ve learned is that of the 656 mass shootings in this country in 2023, this one was the deadliest and, quite possibly preventable.

That’s because before Robert Card’s deadly attacks, there were multiple, specific occasions where intervention from law enforcement, the Army and mental health professionals could have changed everything.

Over the next two episodes, we’re going to dig into how authorities repeatedly dropped the ball and why their mistakes proved so costly.

This is “Breakdown,” a collaboration between Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS. I’m Susan Sharon. “Episode 2: ‘I believe he is going to snap.'”

[silent pause]

HOST: Sean Hodgson and Robert Card first met in the Army Reserve and became close when they were both getting divorced.

SEAN HODGSON: He was a great guy. … Hard worker. … Give him a couple beers and he’d start talking, being more opened up but usually he was pretty reserved, but he was fun to hang out with.

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HOST: Over the years when they weren’t on training missions, they’d hang out on weekends, go fishing, bowling and to the bars.

When Sean was evicted from his New Hampshire apartment, Rob invited him to come to live with him temporarily in Bowdoin, Maine. That was the summer of 2022. It was a tough time for Sean. He’d come home from Afghanistan the year before and says he was struggling with PTSD. Then he got into some trouble with the law, and spent nearly two weeks in jail. Not long after that, Sean remembers Rob’s first complaint that people were talking about him behind his back. One day, Rob called Sean at work. He was so upset that, at first, Sean couldn’t understand him.

SEAN HODGSON: And I thought I did something wrong. He just bailed me out of jail and I didn’t know what was going on. I’m like, ‘Slow down, dude, tell me what’s wrong ’cause now I’m thinking I’m in trouble.’

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HOST: Rob goes on to explain that his co-workers are calling him a pedophile, making fun of his body and his masculinity.

There actually was another man named Robert Card on the sex offender registry and that may have been behind some of the harassment Rob’s family said he was getting at work.

Sean says Rob’s next complaint hits closer to home. He accuses fellow Army reservists of the same kind of name calling. These are people they’d both known for years.

SEAN HODGSON: He’s never lied to me. Everything he told me, I believed him.

HOST: Sean is concerned enough that he reports it to their command. But Rob gets upset when he learns of this, and so Sean asks their commander to drop the matter. He believes he spoke to Capt. Jeremy Reamer sometime in 2022. Reamer remembers it differently. He told an independent commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting that Sean called him in March of 2023. Either way, this is the first time we’re aware that someone told Army leaders that Rob thought people were verbally harassing him. It could have been an opportunity for them to check in with him, to get him some help. And soon there would be others. In early 2023, Rob got hearing aids and Sean says things got worse.

[guitar and piano music]

SEAN HODGSON: He started hearing stuff more. Now he just confirms it in his own head that, ‘Yep, I can hear you.’ He’d walk up, ‘Oh, I got hearing aids, I can hear everything you’re saying.’ And that just reinforced it worse. He would hear something and just direct it toward himself. It got worse and worse.

HOST: Rob had a hearing loss from childhood that got significantly worse over time. He had extensive exposure to explosives as a part-time soldier in the Army Reserve. For years, he worked as an instructor at a hand grenade training range. But unlike Sean, who was sent to Afghanistan, Rob was never deployed.

Sean Hodgson may have been the first person to tell authorities that his friend was hearing people talk about him behind his back, but, Rob’s behavior was becoming an issue for his family too.

[piano music]

HOST: Cara Lamb is Rob’s ex-wife who lives in a small town on the coast with her partner, John. She turned 40 this year and because of everything that’s happened it’s been an emotionally draining one. She says she first met Rob when they were both in high school.

CARA LAMB: We met at Friendly’s. … He was driving this ridiculous blue Ford Probe. But it was a standard and that was awesome. He was very quiet. He was hard worker. He was always there after school working.

HOST: They got married in their early 20s and had a son, Colby. After their divorce in 2007, Cara’s relationship with Rob was strained, but Colby stayed close with his dad throughout his childhood and into his teens. They went fishing and bowling together and joined a cornhole league. That’s why Cara was surprised when Colby first alerted her that his dad was acting strange. It was late April of 2023, and he sent her a text which she followed up with a conversation.

CARA LAMB: He said he didn’t want to go to his dad’s anymore, that he didn’t feel safe. And I said, ‘What happened?’ Tell me what happened. Like, as his mom, I’m ready to go nuclear if I have to.

HOST: Colby says his dad is hearing things.

CARA LAMB: You know, his dad basically was telling Colby as they’re in a big box store, Lowe’s or Home Depot or somewhere like that, that he can hear what these two 90-year-old little mom and pop couple that are four feet tall are saying half a store away. And Colby is right next to him and it’s like, ‘Dad, they are not. That’s not what you are hearing.’

HOST: Rob is adamant that they are calling him a pedophile and he accuses Colby of being part of a conspiracy against him.

CARA LAMB: He was afraid his dad was getting violent and getting so aggressive that he was going to be physically violent. And he was right. His dad answered the door multiple times holding a gun.

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HOST: Cara doesn’t want police having a violent confrontation with Rob. That seems like a bad idea. And she is also afraid that if Rob finds out they’ve reported him, he’ll blame Colby and retaliate. So, on May 3, 2023, they meet with a school resource officer — basically a cop who works inside a school. They explain the situation and the resource officer calls the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office. And this is where a crucial, missed opportunity for intervention with Robert Card occurs by both law enforcement and the Army Reserve.

Deputy Chad Carleton shows up at the school and spends the next hour working out a plan with Cara and Colby about how best to deal with Rob. In the end, they decide to lean on Rob’s command in the Army Reserve. Carleton tells Cara the options are limited.

CARA LAMB: Well, he said to us, there’s only so much you can do in this situation. Your hands are kind of tied.

HOST: “And what was the reason for that?”

CARA LAMB: Because he hasn’t actually pointed a gun at Colby or myself. He hasn’t actually said, ‘I am going to go shoot a bunch of people at this place.’

HOST: Carleton later testifies before the state commission investigating the Lewiston shootings. Here’s how he explains his actions when questioned by commissioner Ellen Gorman.

JUSTICE ELLEN GORMAN, COMMISSION: “Based upon the information that they gave you, did you believe that Robert Card was mentally ill or suffering from some sort of a mental health crisis?”

DEPUTY CHAD CARLETON, COMMISSION: “Yes, I did.”

JUSTICE ELLEN GORMAN, COMMISSION: “And did you understand that he had access to many firearms?”

DEPUTY CHAD CARLETON, COMMISSION: “Yes, I did.”

JUSTICE ELLEN GORMAN, COMMISSION: “Did you believe that he presented a likelihood of serious harm?”

DEPUTY CHAD CARLETON, COMMISSION: “Not at that time.”

HOST: What Gorman is getting at is why Deputy Carleton didn’t try to use Maine’s yellow flag law. That’s a law that allows police to take someone into protective custody and seize their weapons if they’re deemed a threat to themselves or others. Unlike other states with red flag laws that allow family members or police to petition a judge directly, Maine’s law requires an extra step: an evaluation by a mental health professional. Before the Lewiston shootings, the yellow flag law was not being widely used. The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had never used it. And Carleton told the commission he did not consider trying to take Rob into protective custody.

DEPUTY CHAD CARLETON, COMMISSION: “Protective custody requires someone to be in front of you. It requires access to a person to make that happen. … I was being told that access to the person was a bad idea. … I thought the best course of action was going to be to work with the family and with the Army to get him to the help he needed to set him on a better course in life.”

HOST: Later that day, Carleton speaks to 1st Sgt. Kelvin Mote in the Army Reserve.

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HOST: Like several others in Robert Card’s unit, Mote is a police officer. He says he is aware that Rob has been accusing other reservists of calling him a pedophile, but he didn’t realize how serious the problem had become. Mote tells Carleton that he and his commander will formulate a plan to try to get Rob some help.

Carleton, meanwhile, flags Robert Card in the computer system as “potentially armed and dangerous.”

A month later, Carleton receives a phone call from Rob’s brother, Ryan Card. Ryan says the family is worried. They want to find out how to get Rob evaluated at the local VA hospital. So, Carleton texts 1st Sgt. Mote and asks him to call him back. Mote never returns the call. And Carleton? He never follows up with Mote or anyone in the Card family.

In July, Rob is ordered to attend an annual training in New York. An Army report says his ongoing mental health problems were not considered a, quote, “detriment to his military job.”

But on the day before it starts, he accuses fellow reservists of bad-mouthing him and calling him a pedophile behind his back. During a beer run, he becomes aggressive and nearly gets into a fight with one of them. This is a turning point.

In the next episode, we’ll spend a lot of time digging into how the Army responded to Robert Card — but, for now, suffice it to say that the unit Commander, Capt. Jeremy Reamer, is concerned enough that he says he orders Rob to undergo a mental health evaluation at a military hospital and then drives all the way from his home in New Hampshire to New York so he can check on him.

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HOST: Pretty quickly, Rob is transferred to a private psychiatric facility in New York called Four Winds where he’s assessed as having psychosis and thought disorder along with active thoughts of homicidal ideation.

For members of Card’s family, Rob’s hospitalization in New York is a huge relief. They think that Rob is finally getting the treatment he needs. Their relief is short-lived. Cara says Colby speaks to his dad at least once while he is there.

CARA LAMB: And all I heard from that … was that his dad was just against whatever was being recommended. … And it was all just nonsense. .. Rob was saying and that he shouldn’t be there and he’d be home soon.

HOST While Rob is hospitalized his mental health providers tell Capt. Reamer that they are concerned about his access to firearms. They recommend that measures be taken to safely remove all of them from Rob’s home. But Reamer does not take the advice. And he never passes on this information to the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office.

In his testimony to the Commission, Reamer said when it comes to their soldiers, Army Reserve commanders have much less oversight than active-duty commanders. And he could not order Card to give up his personal guns.

CAPT. JEREMY REAMER, COMMISSION: “In the Army Reserve, we have no authority or jurisdiction over the firearms, so to have him remove the firearms, we can’t. We don’t have the authority to do so.”

HOST: Instead, Reamer says he was relying on family members to remove the guns from Card’s house. And that is another major, missed opportunity for taking an action that might have helped prevent Rob from carrying out his attacks.

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HOST: Of all the opportunities for intervention with Rob his hospital stay is one of the most unsettling. After 19 days, he is released from Four Winds. It’s not clear why or under what conditions. Hospital officials have not responded to multiple requests for comment, and they never appeared publicly before the commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting. What we do know is that on Aug. 2, Rob is supposed to have a court hearing to consider his involuntary commitment. Then it is abruptly canceled. He is released the next day.

Even Sean Hodgson says he is surprised when his friend Rob calls him and asks him to come pick him up. Rob had told him he was going to have a court hearing. So, Sean is confused about why it never happened and how easy it is for Rob to walk out the door.

SEAN HODGSON: Well, I thought I had to go talk to somebody and I pulled up and I saw him waving through the window in the door. Thought that was odd. And I was like, all right. I parked my car. I walked up. And they just let him out the door with his bags. And he’s like, ‘You want me to drive?’ After six and a half hours to get to Four Winds, I said, ‘Here you go, here’s my keys’ and we left.

HOST: “What was that ride like? How did he seem?”

SEAN HODGSON: He just started telling me everything all over again and what happened in the hospital, how he pretty much played them, played the game. And he told them straight out he knew exactly what to say to get out. … He started getting so aggravated, talking about it, he just started punching the steering wheel.

HOST: “What was he supposed to do when he got out of the hospital?”

SEAN HODGSON: They wanted him to do outpatient virtual calls, you know, video chats with either a therapist or a psychiatrist. I’m not sure which, but a doctor, nonetheless. And he would get on the phone with them and pretty much tell them, ‘I’m not talking to you’ and yell at them and hang up.

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HOST: Once Rob is released from the hospital, an Army report on the shooting says that his chain of command is not given any information about his diagnosis, prognosis or his discharge instructions. According to the commission’s final report, Capt. Reamer doesn’t complete the required form to direct Rob to maintain contact with his case management team, doesn’t follow up with Rob’s treatment providers and doesn’t ask Rob if he’s participating in treatment.

And, in fact, Rob is not.

Between Aug. 3 and Oct. 25, the commission found that he took almost none of his prescribed medication, did not answer calls or emails from treatment providers and failed to make any telemedicine appointments. No one ever alerts Rob’s command.

Instead, Rob goes back to his job delivering bread and further isolates himself.

SEAN HODGSON: He didn’t want to hear anybody. He didn’t want anyone seeing him. He just wanted to go to work, be left alone, do his job, go home.

HOST: During the month of August, Sean says Rob is increasingly aggravated and angry following his hospitalization. The two friends work on Rob’s garage, go fishing and bowling at Just in Time Recreation.

Then one night in September, Rob and Sean go to a casino. They stay late until they both run out of money. As Rob drives the two of them home, Rob’s anger boils over.

SEAN HODGSON: That’s when he started flipping about people talking about him at the casino. He was sick and tired of hearing it everywhere. They just won’t let it go. It’s been months now. Why can’t they just leave him alone?

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HOST: Sean thinks about all the things Rob has recently done or said. Brought a concealed weapon into the Just in Time bowling alley. Carried guns in his car. Said he ‘could take out 100 people’ with an expensive scope he bought for one of his rifles. And named places he could ‘shoot up’ if he felt like it.

Sean never took any of it seriously, not until that night. Rob starts making veiled threats against their unit and their command for putting him in the psychiatric hospital. Sean tries to talk him down.

SEAN HODGSON: I just kept repeating myself and telling him, ‘No one’s worth this. … It’s not worth your freedom. It’s not worth the aggravation or letting them get into your head.’

HOST: But this only seems to agitate Rob even more. At one point he reaches across the steering wheel and punches Sean.

SEAN HODGSON: He fucking laid one on me, knocked me one right in the side of the face. Just once. He told me to ‘shut the fuck up, don’t you say another fucking word.’

HOST: Sean is stunned. This is not the person he knows, the generous guy who’s loaned him money with no strings attached, who’s given him a place to stay when he was out of options, who noticed that he was not the same when he returned home from Afghanistan. Sean tells Rob to pull over at a gas station and gets out of the car.

SEAN HODGSON: I held the door open and that’s when I told him, I said, ‘Dude, I’ll always be there for ya. I love ya. I’m not gonna give up on ya.’ And he wouldn’t look at me, just staring straight and he wasn’t listening to what I had to say, basically, and then he slowly drove off.

HOST: That was the last time the two friends spoke to each other face to face. Later, in the early morning of Sept. 15, after mulling it over for two days, a distraught Sean Hodgson sends a text about Rob to their Army command. He pleads with them to change the passcode to the gate at their Saco training facility and be armed if Sgt. Card shows up for a scheduled weekend drill.

‘Please,’ he wrote. ‘I love to death but do not know how to help him and he refuses to get help or continue help.’

Sean hoped he was wrong but didn’t want to take chances with anyone’s safety. And his final words were crystal clear.

‘He still has all his weapons. … I believe he is going to snap and do a mass shooting.’

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HOST: First Sgt. Kelvin Mote of the Army Reserve unit later told the commission that Sean Hodgson’s text caused the hairs to go up on the back of his neck.

The text was sent around two in the morning. A state commissioner asked Mote about a conversation he had with Capt. Reamer concerning Hodgson’s history of late night calls.

SGT. KELVIN MOTE, COMMISSION: “Sgt. Hodgson drinks a lot when he’s not working and sometimes he calls and he’s intoxicated. And that, coupled with the fact that, you know, it comes in at 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning, You have to — what’s the old saying? — take it with a grain of salt sometimes. But my belief was that this was a credible threat and that he was not only capable of carrying out this threat but that he conveyed it to Hodgson and it’s in line with everything else that had happened since July.”

HOST: Mote and Reamer decide to ask the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a well-being check on Rob to gauge his mental health and determine if he is a threat to himself or others.

Mote also prepares a detailed narrative about Rob to share by email with the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office so that they can begin the process of seeking a yellow flag order to seize his weapons.

It’s now mid-September, about six weeks before the shootings. Rob is refusing help. He’s angry. He’s threatening the unit, and he’s still got all his guns. There have been breakdowns in response, communication and follow-up all around. But when commissioners issue their final report, they focus on the actions of Capt. Jeremy Reamer and Sgt. Aaron Skolfield of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office during this time.

I meet Sgt. Skolfield, a 26-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, at the county courthouse. I want to talk to him about what happened on Sept. 15, the day he was asked to conduct a wellbeing check on Robert Card — a person who the commission said, ‘posed a likelihood of serious harm.’ Skolfield begins by offering some context. He says there are often just two deputies on duty to cover the entire county, more than 250 square miles. And nearly every day one of the deputies is asked to do a welfare check.

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SGT. AARON SKOLFIELD: We had 316 welfare checks last year. For us, for the average citizen sitting on the sidelines watching this, this is a big deal. It’s shocking. We’re getting an average of one a day — I’ve had several today already. ‘Be on the lookout, subject armed and dangerous.’ I know this may sound insensitive and I don’t mean it to be by any way, but it kind of becomes background noise.

HOST: When the request for a welfare check on Robert Card is made, it doesn’t come directly from Mote. It’s a call from a detective in the Ellsworth Police Department who works with Mote. And Skoflied says it wasn’t clear to him that Mote’s email was meant to start the yellow flag process.

SGT. AARON SKOLFIELD: They simply wanted a welfare check. … No one once said that this was to be a yellow flag probable cause statement. I first learned of that while watching Mote’s testimony live.

HOST: “So you’re saying that … when you got the call to go for a welfare check there was nothing mentioned to you about, like, ‘you need to take this guy’s weapons, here’s a probable cause statement to pursue yellow flag?'”

SGT. AARON SKOLFIELD: Not at all, not even a hint of it, nothing of that.

HOST: On the afternoon of Sept. 15, Skolfield goes out to Robert Card’s house but no one is home. He puts out an alert to law enforcement.

“Caution, officer safety — known to be armed and dangerous. … If located, use extreme caution, check mental health wellbeing and advise Sagadahoc SD.”

[guitar music]

HOST: The following morning, he goes back. This time a car is there so Skolfield calls for a backup and another deputy arrives. They knock on the door. They can hear someone moving around inside but they feel exposed standing in the driveway. They’re potentially in the direct line of fire. No one answers, so they leave. Later that morning, Skolfied speaks by phone to Mote to try to get some additional information. The call is not recorded but according to Skolfield, they discussed Hodgson’s text.

SGT. AARON SKOLFIELD: He told me, among other things, that Hodgson, he had to take what he says with a grain of salt, or he has credibility issues or he exaggerates. He communicated that to me.

HOST: In his email to the sheriff’s office, Mote did not take Hodgson’s text message lightly. He wrote: ‘I would rather err on the side of caution with regard to Card since he is a capable marksman and, if he should set his mind to carry out threats, he would be able to do it.’

Skolfield also speaks to Mote’s boss, Capt. Reamer who tells him it’s his understanding that Sean Hodgson and the Card family were supposed to take steps to remove Rob’s guns. Reamer essentially tells Skolfield to go easy on Rob, that he just likes to be left alone. This is an excerpt of their recorded phone call.

CAPT. JEREMY REAMER, PHONE: ”If you could just — the only thing I would ask is if you could just document it. However you want, just document it. Um, just to say like he was there, he was uncooperative um, but we confirmed that he was alive and breathing, you know. And then we can go from there. But that’s kind of from our end here, all we’re really looking for. Um, obviously, I don’t want you guys to get hurt or do anything that would, that would put you guys in a compromising position.”

HOST: Reamer also suggests taking Sean Hodgson’s text with a, quote, ‘grain of salt.’ But even as he says this, another unit leader was worried enough that he called the Saco police who position themselves outside the Reserve Center in case Card shows up for drill. That’s how serious the threat is being taken.

After speaking with Reamer, Skolfield responds to a domestic violence call and does not return to the residence. On Sunday, Sept. 17, Skolfield follows up with Rob’s brother, Ryan Card, and his wife, Katie Card, and learns the guns have not been removed. Ryan says he will try to secure them. At that point, Skolfield considers the matter ‘resolved.’ The next day he leaves for vacation.

[piano music]

HOST: The commission’s interim and final reports come down hard on Skolfield, who ran unsuccessfully this year for sheriff. They say relying on the family to remove the weapons was an abdication of law enforcement’s responsibility, that Skolfield made only limited attempts to have a ‘face to face meeting” with Rob, that he failed to contact Sean Hodgson who heard Rob’s threats repeatedly and that he failed to seek assistance from prosecutors or other law enforcement agencies to determine how best to proceed. Skolfield isn’t buying any of that.

SGT. AARON SKOLFIELD: I worked on this for two days and then followed up with the family on Day Three, so I didn’t slough this off by any means and for the Commission to paint that picture is so insincere, so, so disingenuous in what they did and that does anger me.

HOST: He says Mote and Reamer, both law enforcement officers, didn’t provide him with enough information and if they didn’t like the way he was handling the situation, could have complained to his supervisor.

That man is Sheriff Joel Merry. He defeated Skolfield in the race but has consistently stood by his deputy’s actions.

SHERIFF JOEL MERRY: With the information that he was given at that time, the decisions that he made at that time were reasonable. … You know how the military may have downplayed this, how they didn’t share information. … There was a lot of gaps, you know, and I think it’s really important that we try to fill those gaps.

HOST: Skolfield says he is now considering legal action against the commission and the governor.

Despite the warnings, all efforts to contain Robert Card ended in mid-September and nobody followed up.

On Oct. 25, he went first to Just in Time Recreation where he killed eight people, then to Schemengees Bar and Grille, where he killed ten.

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HOST: Sean Hodgson spends the night of the shootings driving his tractor trailer in a state of shock, pulling over multiple times between deliveries to talk to police and fellow reservists. He says he even gets a call from Ryan Card who tells him not to blame himself for the shootings.

When Sean finally gets back to Lewiston, police and the freight company are worried Rob could be coming after him. They search his apartment and, for his own protection, arrange for him to stay at a local hotel.

Two days later, Rob is discovered dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His body is found in a trailer at the Maine Recycling Corp. in Lisbon, one of the first places that he thought people were calling him a pedophile behind his back. He’s heavily armed and may have intended to carry out another mass shooting. But because Lisbon and other towns were under a lockdown as the search for Card continued, the employees never showed up for work.

The news hits Sean hard.

SEAN HODGSON: I was drunk and bawling my eyes out. Then Reamer decided to call me afterwards which I don’t blame him, I appreciate it. And then I flipped the fuck out. I was pretty upset. ‘I warned you motherfuckers about this,’ and I didn’t hold back, not one bit.

[piano music]

HOST: The next morning, police are asked to do a welfare check on Sean. He’s taken to a local hospital where he’s placed on a psychiatric hold for a night. He’s given some medication and finally able to sleep. But this is not the end of the story for Sean. Shortly after being discharged, he says his command orders him to go to a drug and alcohol rehab in New Jersey.

SEAN HODGSON: I was in there for 30 days pissed off and the reason why I was pissed off is because all I can think of is why couldn’t you have done this to my buddy? And everyone would be alive, including him.

HOST: In October, the military began a separation process with Sean citing a, quote, ‘pattern of misconduct’ including alcohol infractions and a domestic violence charge. That charge was later dropped, and Sean says he plans to get a lawyer to fight the proceedings.

For Sean Hodgson and Cara Lamb who tried to get help for Robert Card and who wanted to prevent any violence, the tragic ending is hard to accept.

SEAN HODGSON: To this day, I can’t believe he is dead. I can’t believe that these people are dead.

[piano, horn music fades up]

CARA LAMB: It’s appalling. They all had every excuse, every reason, every bit of training between all of their jobs to do the right thing here multiple different times. And they didn’t. … Why not?

HOST: The shooting commission wonders the same thing. In their scathing final report, they found that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had sufficient cause to take Robert Card into protective custody nearly six weeks before the shootings. But they also criticized leaders of the Army Reserve.

When Rob showed up for duty in July 2023, they saw that he was troubled and ordered him to get help. What followed were months of poor communication and inaction with the worst possible outcome.

Next time on Breakdown:

TROOPER, BODY CAM: “I hope you understand that they’re concerned enough about your welfare that they called us.”

ROBERT CARD: BODY CAM: “Oh, ’cause they’re scared ’cause I’m gonna friggin’ do something ’cause I am capable.”

TROOPER, BODY CAM: “What do you mean by that?”

ROBERT CARD, BODY CAM: “Huh?”

TROOPER, BODY CAM: “What do you mean by that?”

ROBERT CARD, BODY CAM: “Nothing. No.”

HOST: We’ll take a closer look at how the Army Reserve and its mental health system failed to help Robert Card.

Breakdown is a collaboration between Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS, with support from Rock Creek Sound.

Our reporters are Kevin Miller, Steve Mistler and Patty Wight.

The producer is Emily Pisacreta.

The show is edited by Ellen Weiss and Keith Shortall.

Our executive producers are Mark Simpson and Erin Texeira.

Sound design and mixing by Benjamin Frisch.

Fact checking by Nicole Reinert.

Legal support from Dale Cohen.

Rick Schneider is the President and CEO of Maine Public Radio.

Lisa Desisto is the CEO and Publisher of the Portland Press Herald.

Raney Aronson-Rath is the executive producer and editor-in-chief of FRONTLINE.

Breakdown is produced through FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

For an upcoming video translation of the podcast in American Sign Language, go to frontline.org.

For additional reporting about Lewiston, visit mainepublic.org/breakdown, pressherald.com and frontline.org, where you can also stream an upcoming documentary.

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

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I’m Susan Sharon, thanks for listening.

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and Maine Public that includes an upcoming documentary. It is supported through FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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