Amish Cope With Murder, Free of Anger : Mennonites: Woman’s slaying by another of her faith was second in the sect’s 275-year history in this country. Their religion prohibits doing anything to stir up feelings of anger or vengeance.

Jacob Stoltzfus’ red-rimmed eyes stared hard at the ground when he was asked about his wife’s murder.

“We put it in God’s hands and we leave it at that,” the Amish farmer said, turning away.

It had been just a week since a teen-age farmhand shot Hannah Stoltzfus, then killed himself. The murder was only the second case of one Amish person killing another in the sect’s 275-year history in this country, experts say.

But Stoltzfus and the rest of this small Amish farming community about 30 miles southeast of Washington, D.C., have quickly returned to their everyday lives, milling grain for their animals and preparing the fields for spring planting.

They show no anger. They shed few tears. And they don’t ask why.

“They are comfortable to say, ‘We don’t know and we don’t understand but that is OK,’ ” said Donald B. Kraybill, director of the Center for Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College and author of “The Amish Struggle with Modernity.”

The Amish religion prohibits them from doing anything to stir up feelings of anger or vengeance. One of Stoltzfus’ neighbors compared the murder to a barn burning or a house collapsing--just something that happens. Another said most of his sympathy is for the killer.

“They have a deep sense of comfort, assurance that things are in God’s hands and in the long run everything will come out OK,” Kraybill said.

The Amish were founded in 1693 by Swiss Mennonite bishop Jacob Amman, who believed Mennonite doctrine and practice were too relaxed. The Amish began arriving in this country about 1720 and settled first in Pennsylvania. There are now about 150,000 Amish living in 22 states and Canada.

The 140 Amish families in southern Maryland belong to a conservative branch called the Old Order Amish. They don’t use modern conveniences, such as cars, televisions or telephones, and they avoid the company of outsiders.

Hannah Stoltzfus was only the second Amish person in this country to be killed by another Amish, according to John Hostetler, an authority on the Amish and professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at Temple University.

The only other case was that of Edward Gingerich, who beat his wife and gutted her with a knife in 1993 at their home 100 miles north of Pittsburgh.

If there have been any other cases, they haven’t been documented, said Steve Scott, a researcher at the People’s Place, an Amish and Mennonite educational center in Intercourse, Pa.

Stoltzfus found his wife’s body in the kitchen after returning from chores on the morning of Feb. 2.

Amos, their 3-year-old son, lay close to his mother, beaten on the head. Two-year-old Omer lay dazed on a couch. Eight-month-old Rebecca lay bruised in her crib.

The body of Thomas Ballard, a 16-year-old farmhand, was found out back. He had put a 20-gauge shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.

“I don’t know why this happened,” said Stoltzfus’ uncle, Ruben Hertzler, choosing his words carefully as he peered from beneath a wide-brimmed black hat. “There is no anger. We hold no grudge against nobody. We want to be left alone.”

Then he jumped up behind his team of horses, slapped the reins and rolled away on his flatbed wagon.

Joe Stauffer, a Mennonite owner of a feed mill in nearby Loveville, likened the murder to a barn burning or a house collapsing. “If something likes this happens, we just try to accept it as it comes and move on,” he said.

Police say they may never know Ballard’s motive. Autopsy results were not yet available, but there were no signs of sexual assault, said state police Detective Sgt. Bobby Rawlings.

The Stoltzfus family harbors no anger toward Ballard, whose parents were converts to the Amish sect and whose father had later fallen away from it.

The most sympathy must be felt for Ballard, said Terry Zimmerman, a 23-year-old Mennonite carpenter who stopped by the feed mill.

“If somebody was to kill a loved one,” he said, “I would feel sorry for that person because they couldn’t help themselves and haven’t come to the light yet.”