Site of Amish girls’ slaying demolished

NICKEL MINES, Pa. – Ten days after the Amish schoolhouse shootings, a demolition crew using heavy equipment tore down the bloodstained building Thursday and obliterated nearly all traces of the place where five girls were killed.

Only a bare patch of earth was left behind, and it was planted with grass seed so that eventually even the footprint of the one-room schoolhouse will be gone, too.

Any kind of plaque or memorial is unlikely. Members of the plain-living Amish community said it would be too showy and would attract too many visitors.

“They do not want to make it a tourist attraction,” said the 27-year-old brother of two of the 15 boys sent out of the schoolhouse by the gunman before the shooting.

“It’s definitely a little heart-wrenching to see it go down, but it sort of finishes things off,” said the Amish man, who like most members of the community did not want to be identified in news accounts.

The Amish are known for constructing buildings by hand, without the aid of modern technology, but for this job they arranged for private contractors with heavy equipment.

The schoolhouse, built in 1976, had been boarded up since the killings, with classes moved to a farm nearby. There are 10 other Amish school buildings around the community.