Dallas - The gunman who killed 26 people at a Texas
church shooting on Sunday had a history of disturbing behaviour,
according to criminal and U.S. military records, former
classmates and a former girlfriend who accused him of harassing
her.
Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, was court-martialed in 2012 for
assaulting his then-wife and child, confined for 12 months and
then dishonourably discharged in 2014, according to a spokeswoman
for the Air Force.
A former girlfriend, Brittany Adcock, said in a phone
interview they had dated for about four months when he was 18
and she was 13 nearly a decade ago, and that he had harassed her
long after that.
After they broke up, she said, he began calling her
constantly and creating fake Facebook profiles to try to connect
with her. He last messaged her around six months ago, she said.
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At one point, she said she called police to file a
complaint, and changed her phone number.
"He just started getting really weird," Adcock, now 22,
said.
On Sunday, Kelley walked into First Baptist Church in
Sutherland Springs, where his in-laws sometimes worshiped, fired
an assault weapon and fled when a local resident shot at him. He
was later found dead, authorities said.
Kelley, who graduated from New Braunfels High School in
2009, served in the Air Force starting in 2010 and was stationed
at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
He divorced his first wife in New Mexico in 2012 and married
Danielle Shields in Texas in 2014, soon after his discharge,
according to state records.
Texas officials on Monday said there had been a "domestic
situation" involving his in-laws and that Kelley had sent
"threatening" text messages. Attempts to reach Shields and her
parents were unsuccessful.
Shields and Kelley lived for some time in Colorado Springs,
where Kelley was cited for cruelty to animals, according to
records. The misdemeanor case was dismissed after Kelley paid a
fine, according to court records.
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He moved back to New Braunfels, about 35 miles from the
church, in 2017, property records showed.
Aside from his court-martial, Kelley was cited for traffic
violations such speeding, as turning without signaling and
failing to stop at a stop sign, according to records in both
Colorado and Texas.
Mental health issues
Adcock, his former girlfriend, said he last contacted her
about six months ago via Facebook, when he sent her a topless
photo of someone else he had found online and appeared to think
it was her.
He had asked her to move in with him as long as she "walked
around topless all the time," Adcock said.
Soon after that incident, Shields contacted Adcock and
demanded that she leave Kelley alone.
"This is your last and final warning," the wife's message
from May 2014 read.
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Adcock explained that Kelley had messaged her, rather than
vice versa, and Shields apologized, Adcock said.
Former schoolmates of Kelley said he had some unspecified
mental health problems, an assertion that was echoed by Texas
Governor Greg Abbott, who told CBS on Monday that Kelley was a
"powder keg."
Kelley frequently shared posts on Facebook about atheism and
his assault rifle, according to Reid Mosis, who attended school
in New Braunfels with Kelley from 6th through 9th grades. A
cached photo of Kelley's Facebook page, which was deleted in the
wake of the shooting, showed a photo of a rifle under which
Kelley wrote, "She's a bad bitch."
Mosis, 26, said in an interview that Kelley was "always a
bit of a loner."
"I know his parents had him on heavy doses of meds in middle
school," Mosis said. "A lot of friends that knew him said he was
too sick in the head to deal with by senior year of high
school."
Another New Braunfels native, Courtney Kleiber, said on
Facebook she was close with Kelley in middle and high schools
and that he had slowly changed from a "normal" kid into one with
emotional or mental problems.
"Over the years we all saw him change into something that he
wasn't," she wrote. "To be completely honest, I'm really not
surprised this happened, and I don't think anyone who knew him
is very surprised either."