AUBURN — Johanna Carr was at home when she got the news. There was something going on in Lewiston.
A friend wanted to know if she was OK, so Carr started Googling to see what had happened and pulled up an article about a mass shooting. When a photo of the shooter was released, Carr didn’t immediately recognize him as her ex-boyfriend, Robert Card.
“I saw his picture and I didn’t even think of him to be honest,” Carr, 38, said in an interview Friday. Card had lost weight and he had grown out his hair – he had a shaved head when they were together late in 2022.
Carr said she became concerned later that night for her safety. Police came to her home and searched her garage. She asked if she could leave to go stay with a friend.
“He knew I lived here,” she said. “He had been here and yeah, I had no idea what to think but I have kids here. So I ended up going and staying with a friend until we knew he had been found.”
In the months since the Oct. 25 shootings at Schemengees Bar & Grille and Just-in-Time Recreation, there’s been much speculation about Card’s motive and whether he was trying to target anyone in particular, including his ex-girlfriend.
Carr, who dated Card for a few months before breaking up with him in January 2023, said she also asks herself that question. But ultimately she doesn’t think Card was seeking her out that night.
“I think he could have figured out I was not at cornhole, which is the one place I could have been,” she said. “I never would have been at the bowling alley. I don’t have an answer to my relation to it, I guess. I struggle because some people say it’s because he was going after an ex-girlfriend or whatever, and I don’t have that answer. I don’t think anybody does.”
Carr has mostly avoided interviews and speaking publicly about the shooting in the months since Card killed 18 people and injured 13 others. She agreed to speak about Card in an interview Friday after Maine State Police released thousands of pages of documents from their investigation, one of which said she “could easily have been” at the alley at the time of the attack.
Carr said she didn’t know where that information would have come from. She said it could be referring to someone else Card dated or could just be misinformation.
She said she broke up with Card in January 2023 after they had talked about their futures not aligning, and he briefly dated another girl they played cornhole with after that.
While they were together, Carr said she and Card often played at Schemengees and went bowling – though they bowled more often in Portland than they did at Just-in-Time in Lewiston.
Carr said she wouldn’t have been at Just-in-Time the night of the shooting and believes Card would have known that because she didn’t bowl there often. He also could have checked the cornhole league app on his phone to see if she was at Schemengees.
“At that time I was playing on Tuesday nights, and anybody can see that on the app on their phone,” she said.
NEVER THREATENED OR HURT
Before they broke up, Carr said she had noticed some unusual behaviors in Card, though he never threatened or tried to hurt her.
He talked about people, including Joe Walker, the manager at Schemengees, thinking he was a pedophile. Walker was among the 18 victims. Carr believes that might have stemmed at least in part from Card being spotted there with her children while they were dating. But she doesn’t believe anyone was actually talking about Card being a pedophile.
Card could also be irritable and “very sporadic in his behavior,” Carr said.
One time while bowling, she said they were having a general conversation about finances and how much money people spend, and Card got up and walked out.
“I really had to replay the conversation to figure out how it got to that point and I just couldn’t diagnose any reason you would just leave,” she said.
She said Card later apologized, “but there was just no rhyme or reason.”
It wasn’t until December that Carr realized the full length of a text message her ex had sent her in June. The message mentioned people talking about him, and he said he was having a hard time getting across to people.
Carr said she has asked herself if more could have been done to help Card, if she personally could have done more.
She said it has been disheartening to hear about how Card’s family members tried to get him help and were unsuccessful. And how Card’s own cries for help through his threats and warnings went unheard.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything I could have done, as much as I feel like, ‘Could I have contacted somebody when he was acting a little crazy and I broke up with him?’ ” Carr said. “But looking back, no. He never hurt me. I was never in a position where I felt threatened. I don’t think there was anything I personally could have done, and I feel bad that the people who tried were unsuccessful.”
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