Mystery of break-ins in Amish community as robbers cut off hair and beards of victims

Daily Mail 10/06/2011 13:54

Detectives were said to be searching Amish buggies and horse trailers for evidence of the hair cutting

Members of the Amish community in Ohio are being investigated by the sheriff's department after several homes were broken into and the beards and hair of fellow Amish people were chopped off.

Four different sheriff's departments - Jefferson County, Carroll County, Holmes County and Trumbull County - reported similar incidents this week involving hair cutting, with reports of groups of Amish men yanking victims out of their homes by their beards or bursting into their homes and attacking them with scissors.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Department reported the Amish men referred to themselves as being part of the 'Bergholz Clan'.

Men and sometimes women from a group of families disavowed by mainstream Amish have terrorized a half-dozen or more fellow Amish.

In Holmes County, a group of 27 men allegedly burst into a home and cut the hair off men and women inside and cut the beards off the men.

Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly told The Wheeling News Register the victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 74-year-old man.

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