LEWISTON, Maine — The Maine state medical examiner on Friday released the autopsy report for Robert Card, who shot and killed 18 people at two locations in Lewiston on Oct. 25.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta determined Card's cause of death to be a gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death to be suicide.
According to Dr. Mark Flomenbaum, the chief medical examiner, Card, a 40-year-old from Bowdoin, "had 'empty heart sign' from the trauma of the gunshot wound and the interpretation of post-mortem interval may be compromised."
In Maine, the official time of death for an individual is when they are located deceased, the medical examiner says.
Card's body was found two days after the shootings at 7:45 p.m. on Oct. 27 in an overflow parking lot at the Maine Recycling Corporation in Lisbon, about 10 miles southeast of Lewiston, according to a timeline of the manhunt released by Maine State Police.
A final version of the autopsy report "will not be released without next of kin permission, and it may be several months before the report is available due to additional studies being conducted," the medical examiner said Friday afternoon.
Authorities identified Card as a suspect around 9:20 p.m. on Oct. 25, less than three hours after the massacre at the Just-in-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant. The city of Lewiston, the twin city of Auburn, and surrounding counties were placed on lockdown as law enforcement followed leads and tracked down Card.
Eighteen people, ranging from 14 to 76 years old, were killed in the shootings. The 13 people injured in the violence were taken to Central Maine Medical Center, and of those 13, three patients died at CMMC and one was transported to Mass General Hospital. Central Maine Healthcare on Wednesday said in a news release that three patients remain in the care of CMMC; the rest have been discharged. Two of the three patients remain in stable condition, while the third is in "critical condition."