Amish bury fifth slain schoolgirl

Mourners walk down Mine Road on Friday in Georgetown, Pa., on the way to funeral services for Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, the fifth of the schoolgirls slain in Monday's school shooting in the nearby Amish community in Nickel Mines, Pa.

? Under a cold, steady drizzle, the Amish drove in horse and buggy to a farmland cemetery Friday to bury the fifth of five girls shot to death by an intruder as new details emerged of heroism inside their schoolhouse.

Two of the survivors told their parents that 13-year-old Marian Fisher, one of the slain girls, asked to be shot first, apparently hoping the younger girls would be let go, according to Leroy Zook, an Amish dairy farmer.

“Shoot me and leave the other ones loose,” Marian has been quoted as saying, Zook said. His daughter, Emma Mae Zook, was the teacher who ran from the schoolhouse to a farm to summon police.

Amish builder David Lapp said Marian’s younger sister, Barbie, who is recovering from gunshot wounds, provided one of the accounts.

Trooper Linette Quinn said investigators have not conducted any interview that confirms the story but also said the investigation is incomplete.

On Friday, more than 40 buggies splashed behind a funeral-home car, two mounted state troopers and a carriage with the body of 12-year-old Anna Mae Stoltzfus in a hand-sawn wooden coffin.

Four other girls killed during Monday’s shootings, two of them sisters, were laid to rest Thursday at the same hilltop graveyard.

All roads into Nickel Mines village were again blocked, and the funeral procession, like those Thursday, passed the home of Charles Carl Roberts IV, the 32-year-old milk truck driver who took the 10 girls, ages 6 to 13, hostage, tied them up and shot them before killing himself.

One of the surviving girls was reported to be in grave condition. The county coroner said he had been told she was being taken off life support, but her location was not known Friday. The four other girls remain hospitalized.