Texas killer: Gunman was former air force logistician

As the residents of the small southern community of Sutherland Springs came to terms with a deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church on Sunday, a picture began to emerge of the suspect Devin Patrick Kelley.

The 26-year-old was raised in the town of New Braunfels, about 50km east of San Antonio and 55km of Sutherland Springs. He graduated from high school in 2009, and joined the air force in 2010, serving in logistics readiness at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, a role that involved responsibility for cargo, a spokeswoman for the air force confirmed.

However, he was discharged from the force after being court-martialled for assaulting his then wife and her child, with some US media reports stating that he fractured his stepson’s skull during an assault.

He was confined for a year and his wife, Tessa K Kelley, filed for divorce in 2012 in New Mexico. In 2014 he was dishonourably discharged from the air force and then he remarried to a woman named locally as Danielle Lee Shields. He was also charged in connection with mistreatment of animals in El Paso, Colorado in 2014 and is believed to have spent some time living in Colorado, registering his address as a trailer lot in Colorado Springs in 2014.

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In recent times he is believed to have spent time living on his parents’ property in New Braunfels, a large house on a 28-acre site with a private driveway. Unconfirmed reports say that he lived in a barn in the back of the property with his wife and their two-year-old child.

Neighbours reported hearing gunshots from the back of the property in recent days, though many added that this was not unusual given that hunting weapons were widely used in the area.

Three weapons

In June of this year, Kelley was hired as an unarmed night security guard at Schlitterbahn, a water park in New Braunfels. His contract was terminated six weeks later because “he was not a good fit”, according to a spokesman for the water park.

On Sunday, dressed in black and wearing a mask, Kelley parked across from the First Baptist Church, got out of his car and started shooting, killing 26 people outside and inside the small church. After being assailed by a local resident, who took up his own gun, he fled the scene in his pick-up truck. Three weapons were found on his person, including two handguns and one semi-automatic rifle.

Kelley is believed to have recently become estranged from his second wife, and a feud with his in-laws is suspected to be a possible motive for the shooting. His parents-in-law and his wife attended the church on occasion. His wife's grandmother, Lulu White, was in attendance on Sunday and was one of those killed during the assault.

Dave Ivey, an uncle of the gunman, spoke to US media and apologised to the shooting victims. "I never in a million years could have believed Devin could be capable of this kind of thing," he said. "My family will suffer because of his coward actions."