The former Air Force airman who shot dead 26 people in a Texas church had been jailed by the military for beating his wife and child, and had ranted against God and the church on his social media pages.
Devin Patrick Kelley, a white 26-year-old who was dressed head-to-toe in black combat gear when he carried out the deadliest shooting in Texas history, appears to have killed himself after the attack. His church-going victims were aged between 18 months and 77 years.
As photos of America's latest mass killer -- round-faced and unsmiling, with thinning dark hair and, in one shot, holding a small child -- started circulating in the US media Monday, more questions than answers remained as to why he attacked the First Baptist Church, killing an estimated four percent of the tiny community of Sutherland Springs, near San Antonio, in a matter of minutes.
Kelley lived in New Braunfels, a small town around 35 miles (55 kilometers) from Sutherland Springs.
The only connection he had to the church appears to have been that his mother-in-law, who had received threatening text messages from Kelley, was a member of the congregation, although police said she was not in the building when he stormed it.
Kelley had been court-martialed and jailed by the military for 12 months in 2012, two years after signing up for the Air Force, on charges of assaulting his wife and their child. He left the service in 2014 with a bad conduct discharge.
Like many other mass shooters, he had vented his rage at the world on social media, writing Facebook diatribes against organized religion, the church and believers.
Before being deleted, his Facebook account featured a quote from Mark Twain: "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
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