Before becoming the alleged Texas church shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley already had domestic violence records under his belt for assaulting his wife and her infant child to the point of fracturing the baby’s skull, a new report on the former U.S. Air Force personnel revealed.
According to the New York Times , the 26-year-old who is now being identified as the suspect in the deadly shooting at a rural Texan Baptist church had been discharged from the U.S. Air Force for bad conduct after he was found guilty of assaulting his wife and child. What is more disturbing about the revelation is the fact that he admitted to intentionally trying to break his baby stepson’s head, based on a statement from the prosecutor who handled his case.
“He assaulted his stepson severely enough that he fractured his skull, and he also assaulted his wife,” former Air Force chief prosecutor and retired colonel Don Christensen told the NY Times .
“He pled to intentionally doing it.”
After undergoing court martial, he was demoted to the lowest possible rank in the force, sentenced to 12 months of confinement, and was discharged from the service due to bad conduct later on.
Since then, alleged Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley’s life went on a downward spiral which was made worse by domestic struggles that included divorce as well as an arrest due to animal cruelty.
But while he manifested psychopathic behavior just after the domestic violence charges, Kelley seemed to have already emitted a bad vibe even when he was still young. In fact, Courtney Kleiber, one of his long-time friends, admitted to seeing the drastic change in him through a Facebook post.
“I was close with Devin Kelley from middle school through high school…and I had always known there was something off about him,” Devin Patrick Kelley’s friend wrote.
“But he wasn’t always a ‘psychopath’ though. He [used] to be happy at one point, normal, your average kid. We had a lot of good times together. Over the years we all saw him change into something that he wasn’t.”
On top of that, Kleiber revealed that she wasn’t surprised that her friend had been involved in the violent attack at the Sutherland church shooting.
“To be completely honest, I’m really not surprised this happened, and I don’t think anyone who knew him is very surprised either. My heart goes out to all of the victims that should’ve never been.”
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Later in life, even alleged Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley’s neighbors had bad things to say about him. A few months after he remarried in Texas to Danielle Lee Shields in April 2014, the 26-year-old suspected Sutherland Springs church gunman became a registered voter in Colorado Springs. At the time, he listed his address as parking space 60 at the Fountain Creek RV Park.
Speaking to a neighbor named Susan, the NY Times found out that it was there that he had a standoff with law enforcement authorities that lasted about an hour due to an animal cruelty report. Based on official documents gathered by the outlet, Kelley earned a misdemeanor charge for that in August 2014.
After he moved out from the RV Park to his current address in New Braunfels, Texas, his new neighbors also experienced strange activities, noting that he kept to himself. They also attested that to hearing shots fired from his property that sent the dogs howling.
Based on a CBS report, alleged Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley has purchased a total of four weapons from 2014 to 2017. Although he did not have a license to carry firearms, one of the stores he bought from said that the sales of the weapons “were approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).”
[Featured Image by Darren Abate/AP Images]
