Contact: Zachary Roberts, zachary@mexico86.se

NEW YORK, Nov. 11, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- Zachary Roberts releases the following statement and is available for comment:

My name is Zachary Roberts and on Oct 2nd 2006 my oldest brother, Charles Roberts, walked into an Amish school house in Pennsylvania where he shot and killed five young schoolgirls and injured five more before taking his own life. The reason I am contacting you today is that over the last seven years my family has had to deal with the burden, grief and questions surrounding this event. My mother, who had just recovered from cancer at the time of the incident, went through the worst imaginable nightmare for a mother. Somehow she found the strength to get through it, helped by the forgiveness from families of the victims and with the help and support from the community who suffered from her son's actions. My mother who a devoted Christian believes her faith was what helped her get through this.

When this happened to my family, my instant reaction as the brother of the perpetrator was to put as much distance as I could between myself and what took place. For many years I didn't want to go back to Pennsylvania, but what eventually brought me back was my mother's strong desire to use her experience to help others and the display of forgiveness and support from the surrounding Amish community. This created a context in which the families were able to heal together.

During the last few years my mother has been telling her story in small public settings, and I have seen first-hand how her story has touched the lives of complete strangers. I personally believe that it resonates with people because we all have had some type of suffering in our lives. Now, seven years later, after so much has happened, I feel it's time to give this story a greater platform, a greater audience.

I have teamed up with a group of filmmakers who have put their free time and resources into this project since they also believe in the importance of this story being told. We shot part of the film over one week in Pennsylvania last June. We are now at a point where we need support from the public to help finance this project and bring this story to completion. We decided to turn to crowdfunding to reduce our dependence on traditional film interests. We want people to know about our project and we also want to offer an opportunity to become involved. Our project was just posted at www.indiegogo.com/projects/hope-documentary and it would be an honor to receive any coverage on this project.

Please get back to me with any questions or information you would need from me, if you feel this story would be of interest to your readers.

Regards,

Zachary Roberts