epocrates
Maine mass shooter likely had 'traumatic brain injuries,' post-mortem study finds
Maine mass shooter Robert Card, 40, was a U.S. Army Reservist and certified firearms instructor thought to have been exposed to "thousands of low-level blasts" in his time at an Army hand grenade training range, according to a statement released by the Concussion Legacy Foundation on Wednesday.
The Maine Chief Medical Examiner’s Office requested a postmortem study of Card’s brain from the Boston University CTE Center due to Card's combined history of military experience and actions.
“Robert Card had evidence of traumatic brain injury. In the white matter, the nerve fibers that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, there was significant degeneration, axonal and myelin loss, inflammation, and small blood vessel injury. There was no evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE),” said Dr. McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center. “These findings align with our previous studies on the effects of blast injury in humans and experimental models. While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms.”
In 2023, after eight years of being exposed to thousands of skull-reverberating blasts on the training range, Card's family said he'd grown increasingly erratic and violent before the rampage in Lewiston on October 25, in which he killed 18 people and then himself.
About three months before the shootings, Card began hearing voices and suffered from paranoid delusions, resulting in his being hospitalized and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
He died of a self-inflicted gunshot, and his body was found two days after the shootings.
Sources:
Dillinger, Katherine. (2024, March 6). CNN. Maine mass shooter's brain tissue showed signs of traumatic injury but not CTE. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/06/health/robert-card-brain-study/index.html
Philipps, Dave. (2024, March 6; updated 2024, March 7). The New York Times. Profound Damage Found in Maine Gunman's Brain, Possibly from Blasts. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/us/maine-shooting-brain-injury.html
Manning, Julia. (2024, March 6). Concussion Legacy Foundation. Family of Robert Card II releases findings of his brain tissue analysis in effort to prevent future tragedies. https://concussionfoundation.org/news/press-release/family-of-Robert-Card-II-releases-findings-of-his-brain-tissue-analysis-in-effort-to-prevent-future-tragedies