Texas also botched church shooter’s priors

HOUSTON — Sheriff ’s deputies didn’t pursue a sexual assault investigation against the gunman in a mass shooting at a Texas church, even though the woman reporting it signed a complaint detailing the alleged attack, according to records released Friday.

The records also contradict the reason previously given for why the case stalled against Devin Patrick Kelley, four years before the November 2017 massacre at a tiny church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Had Kelley been prosecuted for sexual assault, a conviction could have stopped a trail of violent allegations that culminated in the shooting.

Authorities acknowledged Friday that the alleged victim was not given a forensic exam in June 2013 after reporting the assault, which she said had occurred three days earlier. And the investigation was listed as inactive because a detective at the Comal County sheriff ’s office couldn’t contact Kelley, thinking he had moved. It remained inactive even after deputies were called to Kelley’s home in February 2014 to investigate a separate domestic violence complaint against him.

“This was an error on the part of the sheriff ’s office,” Comal County Sheriff Mark Reynolds said Friday.

Kelley shot and killed 25 people on Nov. 5, 2017, at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Authorities have put the official death toll at 26, because one of the victims was pregnant. Kelley died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two residents when he was leaving the church, authorities have said.

Kelley should have been arrested in 2014, Reynolds said.

The Air Force has also said it failed to report Kelley’s court-martial and the resulting sentence of 12 months’ confinement to the FBI.