Texts, letters from Maine massacre suspect’s Army colleagues warned he threatened ‘shooting up places’

A member of Robert Card’s Army Reserve unit sent a series of texts on Sept. 15 saying, “I believe he’s (Card) going to snap and do a mass shooting,” with a warning to be armed if anyone sees him.

That was a little over five weeks before Oct. 25, when Card killed 18 and injured 13 more in the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history.

The text was among the trove of documents released by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office this week, including letters from Card’s friends and colleagues expressing concern for his rapidly deteriorating mental state. 

“Change the passcode to the unit gate and be armed if sfc Card does arrive. Please,” the sender – identified as “Ssg Hodgson” – said in the Sept. 15 text exchange to Cpl. Kelvin Mote, who’s an Ellsworth police officer. “I believe he’s messed up in the head. (sic) And threaten the unit … and other places.”

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“Ssg Hodgson’s” texts continued on to say, “I love (Card) to death but i (sic) do not know how to help him and he refuses to get help or to continue help … I’m afraid he’s going to f— up his life from hearing things he thinks he heard.”

Cpl. Mote included the texts in an email to the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, which described Card’s erratic and confrontational behavior, which appeared to stem from paranoia.

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“Card has been hearing voices calling him a pedophile, saying he has a small d— and other insults,” Cpl. Mote wrote in an email obtained by Fox News Digital (and included in full below).

Card started hearing voices in the spring, Cpl. Mote wrote, and it “has only gotten worse,” which led to physical confrontations with colleagues and even “a longtime friend.”

On July 15, while at West Point, he accused other soldiers of calling him a pedophile “and said he would take care of it,” Cpl. Mote wrote. “Card got in his (longtime friend) face, shoved him and told him to stop calling him a pedophile.”

The tense exchange temporarily deescalated, but Card continued to repeat “he would take care of it” during the car ride home, according to Cpl. Mote.

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“Once they got back to the motel, Card locked himself in his room and would not answer the door when they tried to make contact,” he wrote.

The next morning, Cpl. Mote and other soldiers tried to convince Card to see a psychologist, which sparked another tense exchange, according to the email.

But Card was ultimately taken to Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York, for treatment and evaluation, but Card “never spoke, just stared through me without blinking.”

Cpl. Mote noted Card spent 14 days in the hospital, left and didn’t seek out any other treatment. 

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He detailed other incidents where Card again mentioned he was being called a pedophile and he was going to get “them.”  

That phrase “get them” was in quotes throughout Cpl. Mote’s email. “Since the commander and I are the one who had him committed, we are the ‘them.’”

“He also said I was the reason he can’t buy guns anymore because of the commitment,” Cpl. Mote wrote. 

There were well-being checks on Card at his home at 941 Meadow Road in Bowdoin, Maine, where Fox News Digital detailed an all-night law enforcement raid and execution of search warrants last Thursday night. 

“I would rather err on the side of caution with regards to Card since he is a capable marksman, and if he set his mind to carry out threats made to Hodgson, he would be able to do it,” Cpl. Mote wrote. 

Two mass shootings in minutes

Card killed 18 people and injured 13 more last Wednesday during his deadly rampage at the Schemengees Bar and Grille and Just In Time bowling alley, previously known as Sparetime Recreation, in Lewiston, Maine. 

He seemingly vanished into the chaos, which sent the Lewiston and surrounding areas into a COVID-like shutdown during a two-day-long manhunt until Card was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a trailer of a recycling facility. 

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Again, he believed people in both locations were calling him a pedophile, according to witnesses, including Card’s brother and son. 

He knew people at both locations, which are well-known hangout spots in the area. 

After two days, Card was found dead in a trailer in the overflow lot of a recycling facility in Lisbon, Maine, which is along a walking trail where law enforcement found his abandoned car. 

The lot where Card was found is separated from the main facility by a street and is northwest and out of the way from the main building, so police didn’t search the trailers after they cleared the facility twice before.

He was wearing the same sweatshirt as the night of the shooting, according to law enforcement, which found him with two other guns. 

Remembering the victims

Pictures and names of the victims were shown on a screen during press briefings last week. Of the 13 injured, three remain in critical condition.

On Friday, the names of the 18 victims who lost their lives were released. 

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The youngest was 14 and the oldest was 76:

Ronald Morin, 55
Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40
Joshua A. Seal, 36
Bryan M MacFarlane, 41
Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57
Arthur Fred Strout, 42
Maxx A. Hathaway, 35
Stephen M. Vozzella, 45
Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34
Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51
Jason Adam Walker, 51
Tricia C. Asselin, 53
William A. Young, 44
Aaron Young, 14
Robert E. Violette, 76
Lucille M. Violette, 73
William Frank Brackett, 48
Keith D. Macneir, 64