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Texas Church Shooting Motive Domestic? Devin Kelley Threatened Former Mother-In-Law Who Attended Church

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 03:53 PST, Nov 6, 2017

Devin Kelley is dead. After killing more than half of the parishioners who had gathered in a small Baptist church in Texas on Sunday, he took his own life. He cannot unravel the mystery surrounding this horrific act of carnage, but authorities are doing everything within their power to get the answers to the many questions that are still unanswered today.

The 26-year-old shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, lived in New Braunfels, which is about 35 miles away from the Sunderland Springs church that he targeted with carnage on Sunday morning, according to Business Insider. He was not a member of that church and has never been a member there, the authorities report.

Kelley’s ex-in-laws were known to attend Sunday services at this church, but they weren’t there on Sunday. From the details that have emerged so far today, his former in-law’s attendance at that church wasn’t on a regular basis, according to Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr. Despite Kelley’s in-laws attending the church from “time to time,” it still wasn’t clear to Tackitt why Kelley targeted this church, he told reporters.

At the press conference on Monday morning, it was revealed that there was a domestic situation going on within this family, and Kelley’s former mother-in-law did attend this church. There were threatening messages involved, but the authorities would not elaborate any further. This incident was not a random act or religiously motivated, according to the officials at Monday morning’s press conference.

“He expressed anger toward his mother-in-law,” said the officials when pressed for details about the messages.

The officials at the press conference also clarified that the ages of those who were killed in the church ranged from 18-months-old to 73-years-old. Those in the hospital who are wounded range from 5-years-old to 72.

According to the Statesman today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott stated, “I don’t think this was just a random act of violence.”

He also called Devin Kelley a “very deranged individual.”

The authorities suggest that Kelley didn’t just pick out any church for his shooting rampage — he had this one in mind. Governor Abbott said that he expects people will learn about that link between Kelley and this church within the days that follow.

Kelley did not have the most stellar of history when it came to family life and military life. According to the San Antonio Current, he was in the Air Force at one time, where he was stationed at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. It was while he was at this base that he was court-martialed back in 2012. This court-martial followed Kelley’s conviction for assaulting his wife and child.

He was sentenced to a year in prison for this charge. When he got out, he lost his ranking in the Air Force and was discharged under “bad conduct.” Records indicate that he was divorced in 2012, the same year as he was court-martialed.

Ed Davis, who is the former Boston Police Commissioner, spoke with Fox News during their live coverage of the Texas church shooting aftermath. He suggests that the information the investigators find out about this case can help identify the precursor to this tragedy.

The Statesman suggests, “It’s become so common that the greatest predictor of who will commit a mass shooting is identifying people who’ve committed domestic assault.”

They back up their statement by highlighting the men who have been charged with mass shootings in recent years.

The Statesman reports, “The men behind the fatal mass shootings at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, D.C.’s Republican Congressional softball practice, Sandy Hook Elementary, Virginia Tech, and, most recently, a concert on the Las Vegas strip — they all had a history of domestic abuse.”

[Featured Image by Eric Gay/AP Images]

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