Texas Church Shooting: Authorities Eye Possibility That Gunman's Motive Was Family Dispute
A few days after the horrifying mass shooting at a South Texas church, authorities are now considering the possibility that the gunman's motive for the act may have involved a familial dispute with his mother-in-law.
The gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, fired at the members of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday using a Ruger assault-type rifle and killed 26 church attendees while seriously injuring 20 more individuals.
According to reports, the ages of the victims killed range from 18 months to 77 years old, with almost half of them identified as children.
As authorities work to determine Kelley's motives, they told the public that one of the possible reasons they were looking into as to why the mass shooting occurred was because he had reportedly threatened his mother-in-law who attended that particular church.
During a Monday press conference, Texas Department of Public Safety regional director Freeman Martin told media outlets they had learned that "there was a domestic situation going on" between Kelley and his mother-in-law which had started even before the shooting took place.
The authorities confirmed that Kelley's mother-in-law was a member of the First Baptist Church. However, she was not there at the time of the mass shooting.
Martin also revealed that their department learned of Kelley's threatening text messages sent to his mother-in-law where "he expressed anger" prior to the mass killing.
Although authorities cannot conclude yet whether Kelley's violent and deadly acts were to get revenge against the unnamed mother-in-law or for other reasons, this has led them to believe that the mass shooting "was not racially motivated" and that "it wasn't over religious beliefs."
Meanwhile, authorities confirmed that Kelley purchased four guns on different occasions in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, according to CBS News. Three of them were found at the mass shooting scene - a Ruger AR-556 rifle, a Glock 9mm and a Ruger 22.
Meanwhile, authorities also revealed they had found three gunshot wounds in Kelley's body, where one appeared to be a self-inflicted head injury.
