They advise you to keep your friends close, and most people do. Robert Card certainly did because his friend, Sean Hodgson, was close enough to him to notice when he started unraveling.
Hodgson watched, concerned, as his best friend of nearly two decades went off the deep end. His former roommate and fellow U.S. Army reservist was dealing with mounting anger and paranoia, and he had access to guns. But he refused to get help. So Hodgson took a very difficult step. He texted their Army supervisor about Robert Card.
“I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting,” he wrote on September 15, 2023. Six weeks later, Card fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston. Then he took his own life. They found his body in a trailer after a two-day search and regionwide lockdown.
In the aftermath of the massacre, it became apparent that there were many warning signs that Card could do what he did. And these signs are well documented. In May, relatives reached out to the police with a warning that Card had grown paranoid.
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They also expressed concern about his access to guns. In July, Card was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for two weeks for shoving a fellow reservist and locking himself in a motel room. In August, the Army took away his right to handle weapons while on duty and declared him nondeployable.
And in September, Hodgson raised the most obvious red flag, telling authorities to reset the passcode to the gate at their Army Reserve training facility and also arm themselves if Card turned up.
“I believe he’s messed up in the head,” he wrote. These are hardly words one would expect to hear from a friend, but he was right. Unfortunately, authorities refused to take action, thereby failing to prevent the deadliest shooting in state history.
Hodgson and Card met in 2006 in the Army Reserve and became tight friends when they divorced around the same time. In 2022, Card and Hodgson lived together in Maine for about a month.
It was around this time Hodgson first noticed an unrest in his usually sensible friend. Card had begun venting to him about his belief that people were accusing him of being a pedophile. Hodgson believed some of Card’s complaints were true.
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They were a case of mistaken identity and was because there was another Robert Card on the state’s sex offender registry. In September, Card had his first major breakdown, and two days later, he sent a text telling his training supervisor he feared what he might do.
They didn’t speak after that, even though they passed each other at work. After that text, military officials followed up, but they did not do enough to ensure things were okay, and Card could not go as far as Hodgson suggested.
Officials reportedly downplayed Hodgson’s warning, with Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer describes Hodgson saying he is “not the most credible of our soldiers” and later telling Sagadahoc Sheriff Sgt. Aaron Skolfield that his message should be taken “with a grain of salt.”
However, Stephanie Sherman, an attorney who’s represented several families of survivors of the 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, disagrees. According to her, the police had more than enough information to present to a local judge.
She believes the cops were too casual in assessing the threat level. She also noted that Skolfield referred to the Cards as a “big family in this area” and said he didn’t want people to know officers were visiting the home.
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“It was sort of balancing the safety of the public versus this family’s reputation,” Sherman said. “And that should not be a factor.” It’s been some time since the shooting, but Hodgson wants people to know he did everything he could to save lives. And he might have been able to if the authorities had taken him more seriously.
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