Analysis reveals killer’s brain showed signs of injury

A U.S. army reservist responsible for the worst gun massacre in Maine’s history had evidence of traumatic brain injuries before he shot and killed 18 people last year, according to a brain tissue analysis that was requested by the state’s chief medical examiner.

The revelations about Robert Card’s brain injuries became public just as Card’s former army colleagues testified under oath Thursday to a special commission that’s investigating the killings.

Card, a 40-year-old army reservist, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a two-day search.

He had showed signs of mentalhealth decline before the massacre; now, evidence shows that Card suffered from traumatic brain injuries, according to an analysis by Boston University researchers.

During Thursday’s commission hearing, 1st Sgt. Kelvin Mote, who is also a police officer, said he had used Maine’s yellow card law to remove someone’s weapons about a week before learning that Card had made threats.

Mote testified that he believed law enforcement could have legally removed Card’s weapons, as well, based on his declining mental health and threats he’d made.

But he said he never mentioned the yellow card law to sheriff’s deputies who had been asked by the Army to perform a welfare check. Under the law, police needed to perform an assessment to start the process to seize weapons.

“They’re still going to have to do their own face-to-face to make sure they have probable cause,” Mote said. The analysis of Card’s brain showed degeneration in the nerve fibres that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, inflammation and small blood vessel injury, according to Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center.

Card had been an instructor and had worked at an army hand grenade training range, where it is believed he was exposed to repeated low-level blasts. It is unknown if that caused Card’s brain injury.

Robert Card, a 40-year-old U.S. army reservist, shot and killed 18 people at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, Maine, last October