Michael Brannigan: Giving the gift of mercy is a burden - and a liberation Michael C. Brannigan FacebookTwitterEmail This season of light comes with an extraordinarily heavy burden, one that is our choice to accept or not. Amidst the gift-giving, our most difficult though precious offering remains that of mercy. As in the following disturbing parable, this is no light task. On Oct. 2, 2006, 32 year-old Charles Roberts IV, a local milk truck driver in the rural community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, entered the one-room Amish schoolhouse and at gunpoint ordered the adults and all boys to leave. He nailed the doors shut, bound up the ten young girls, ages 6 to 13, and made a last call to his wife. Just as police arrived, he shot the girls at close range and shot himself. 5 girls died and the other 5 were critically injured.