He moves through the kitchen and into the living room. His heart rate is up; he’s breathing hard. Lots of adrenaline. Is he here to steal? Or is he here to kill?

He travels up the stairs, silent and slow. The first bedroom belongs to the parents. He rouses them from a deep sleep. He holds the gun on Mrs. Plank to keep Amos under control. He binds the Amish man’s wrists first; he’s the biggest threat. He binds Bonnie’s hands next. The baby, little Amos, sleeps in his cradle beside the bed. Neither Bonnie nor Amos understands what the killer wants. They don’t know he’s going to kill them.

How does he keep them under control while he wakes and ties up the rest of the family? Does he threaten them with the gun? Does he have an accomplice? The questions come at me in a barrage, but I have no answers.

I slink back into the dark cavern of his mind, and I see him move to the next room. Ten-year-old David and fourteen-year-old Mark. He rouses them from sleep. The boys are confused and disoriented as he binds their hands behind their back. Amish children are taught to respect and obey adults. They wouldn’t have put up a fight; they would have listened to him because the killer is an adult.

Sixteen-year-old Annie’s room is next. Like the boys, she’s frightened and disoriented. He binds her hands and moves on to Mary’s room down the hall, rouses her from sleep. He’s thinking about other things now. The girls. Pretty and young and innocent. Does their fear excite him? Does he see them as objects? Are they the reason he’s here?

He herds all of them down the stairs. Does he carry the baby himself? No. The child is nothing but an annoying object to him. Does he leave the baby alone in the cradle? No. Bonnie died with the baby in her arms. The baby is crying. To shut it up, the killer unties Bonnie and lets her pick him up, carry him downstairs.

“Why did you come here?” I wonder aloud.

Did he plan to kill the entire family from the beginning? Some of them? Rape the girls? Did he wear a mask? Or did he kill them because they could identify him?

Downstairs. In the dark. A flashlight and a gun. Amos would sense what the killer had planned for the girls by now. He would be terrified, agitated, prepared to defend his family. But it’s too late for that; his hands are bound. Amos tries to fight, so the killer forces the man to kneel, shoves the gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger. An explosion of blood. The violence begins. Horror. Death.