Gunman known as sex pest and violent
UNITED STATES: When she started spending time with Devin Kelley as a teenager, he seemed like a nice boy. Soon, he began harassing her and forced himself on her in a car down the street from her house.
‘‘I said no,’’ said Dawn, a pseudonym. ‘‘I’m a tiny person. Even if I saw him today, I would not be able to fight him off.’’
The incident between Dawn and Kelley, the gunman who killed 26 worshippers at a church in Texas on Sunday, happened in 2011 when he was facing disciplinary action in the air force. She told a friend and her parents, but a police report was never submitted. Dawn was 16 years old at the time.
Kelley, 26, who killed himself after committing the worst mass shooting in Texas, had a documented violent past. Three other women have said that he threatened and groped them. A complaint made in 2013 is being re-investigated by police.
Had Kelley been convicted of sexual assault, he would have been banned from buying a gun because federal guidelines prohibit sales to anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison.
Besides the sexual abuse, Kelley also beat his stepson, tortured his dog, dealt drugs and allegedly smuggled weapons on to his air force base in New Mexico as he plotted against his superiors. Before his graduation in 2009, he was expelled six times from New Braunfels High School in Texas for insubordination, drug possession and profanity.
He joined the air force the following year, but by November 2012 he was in a military prison for several offences, including assaulting his first wife, Tessa, whom he married at the age of 20 in 2011.
At the time of the shooting, he was employed as a security guard at a camper van park, and living on a large ranch compound belonging to his parents.
The massacre at the Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs ended when Stephen Willeford, 55, who lived across the street, began shooting at Kelley. Willeford is a former firearms instructor with the National Rifle Association. Kelley was wounded but died in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Sandy Ward, whose grandson Ryland, 5, is in hospital after being shot several times, said: ‘‘I think people need to carry firearms everywhere, the ones who are lawabiding citizens. We don’t need more gun laws. Good honest people need guns to protect themselves from the criminals.’’
Mike Pence, the vice-president, was due to visit Texas yesterday to speak to the families of the victims. Among them was the 14-year-old daughter of the church’s pastor, Frank Pomeroy, who was away last Sunday. On Tuesday, Pomeroy began preparations for the
"We don't know what he was thinking or what was in his mind. There was conflict. He was upset with the mother-inlaw." Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas department of public safety
funeral victims .
Dave Ivey, the gunman’s maternal uncle, condemned Kelley’s actions, calling him ‘‘a coward’’.
Ivey said the pair had been in touch on Facebook on the morning of the shooting and his nephew had said ‘‘he wasn’t thinking correctly and his head hurt’’.
Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas department of public safety, said the shooting appeared to be linked to a domestic dispute involving Kelley’s motherin-law, who sometimes attended services at the church but was not present on Sunday.
‘‘We don’t know what he was thinking or what was in his mind,’’ Martin said. ‘‘There was conflict. He was upset with the mother-inlaw.’’ – The Times