The Texas church shooter once confessed he’d been buying dogs on Craigslist for ‘target practice’ and even bragged that he’d managed to purchase guns online while he was locked up inside a mental hospital.
Years before he walked into a small town church and opened fire, killing 26 and injuring 20, Devin Kelley, 26, obsession with guns and a morbid falsification with mass shooters, according to his former Air Force colleagues.
Jessika Edwards, who as a staff sergeant was Kelley’s superior at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, said he would often ‘make jokes about wanting to kill somebody’ and once claimed that he’d been buying animals online to use as shooting practice targets.
Devin Patrick Kelley (pictured left, and in a mugshot from a previous crime) walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, and opened fire on Sunday
Kelley served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010-2014. His superior Jessika Edwards said he would often ‘make jokes about wanting to kill somebody’ and once claimed that he’d been buying animals online to use as shooting practice targets
Kelley had recently posted a photo of an AR-15 style gun on his Facebook page with the caption: ‘She’s a bad b***h’
He made the ‘jokes’ so often that Edwards was terrified he would act on them in real life, she told CNN.
On one occasion when Kelley, who she said ‘was always getting into trouble’, was being disciplined she even told her bosses to ‘back off or he would shoot the place up.’
She added that he was unstable, and had even threatened to kill himself on one occasion, if she didn’t let him see a chaplain.
In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed for assaulting his wife and young stepson – the same year he was being treated at a mental health facility, the Air Force confirmed.
While in the mental hospital, Kelley reportedly bragged to other patients he had purchased multiple firearms in an online shopping spree just three days before he escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Services in New Mexico, in June 2012.
Mourning: Local residents embrace during a candlelight vigil for victims of the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas
Meredith Cooper, of San Antonio, Texas, and her 8-year-old daughter, Heather, visit a memorial of 26 metal crosses near First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Monday
Among the crowd of mourners on Wednesday was hero Stephen Willeford, who ran to the church with his own gun when he heard shots ring out
Kelley, then 21, was then caught trying to bring guns onto the Air Force Base, having made death threats against superior officers, according to the June 2012 report, which also mentioned the military charges.
The Airman, who was in the forces from 2010-2014, was being treated for depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at the time.
He was eventually sentenced to a year in confinement and released from the forces in 2014 with a bad conduct discharge – one step down from a dishonorable discharge.
Despite his issues while in the Air Force, Edwards said that she and Kelley had reconnected on Facebook in 2014 after he reached out to her for a job reference.
‘I wanted to help him, and I really wanted him to succeed,’ said Edwards, who had also left the military at that time.
But she said that their conversations took a sinister turn and Kelley even once praised Dylann Roof, the gunman who mowed down nine people during bible study at a South Carolina church.
Kelley killed 26 and injured 20 at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday before committing suicide
Hot pursuit: The route taken by Kelley after he was confronted by Willeford and subsequently chased by he and Langendorff
‘He would say ‘isn’t it cool? Did you watch the news?” Edwards said. ‘He would say he wished he had the nerve to do it, but all he would be able to do is kill animals.’
Kelley was later fined for punching a dog in Colorado in 2014.
The breaking point for Edwards was when she said Kelley told her he was buying animals on Craiglist and ‘using the dogs as target practice.’
She never reported him, writing the disturbing conversation off as Kelley ‘being weird’, but she decided to stop messaging him and block him on social media.
But before she cut off all communication, she had offered him a lifeline. She gave him her cell phone number and asked him to call her if he ever felt he was about to hurt himself or someone else.
Edwards says she never got that call. The next time she heard Kelley’s name was when she got a text message from her friend in the wake of the shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday.
She said she burst into tears after hearing that Kelley was behind the worst mass shooting in Texan history – which claimed the lives of children, pregnant women and grandparents alike. He was eventually stopped by two brave citizens who engaged him and chased him down before he took his own life.
Court martial order: The Air Force’s failure to enter his domestic charges into the federal database meant that he passed all his background checks and was able to buy four guns between 2014 and 2017
Kelley, 26, managed to purchase the Ruger AR-556 rifle in April 2016 from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store (file image) in San Antonio, according to a law enforcement official
‘It’s upsetting because you feel like we failed,’ Edwards said. ‘But in reality we did everything we possibly could do.’
However, the military has come under fire in the wake of the mass shooting after it emerged they did not enter Kelley’s domestic abuse conviction in the federal database – which would have precluded him from buying a weapon.
Involuntary commitment to a mental institution would have been grounds to deny him a weapon provided that records of his confinement were submitted to the federal database used to conduct background checks on people who try to purchase guns.
Vice President Mike Pence, who attended a vigil in Sutherland springs, Texas after the shooting, said the gunman had lied on his background check application when buying the weapons, and cited Kelley’s mental illness and bureaucratic failings within the Air Force for the tragedy.
‘He lied on his application,’ Pence explained, regarding why Kelley was able to buy the gun in the first place.
Vice President Mike Pence spoke to first responders and victims near the site of the shooting on Wednesday
‘He had a history of mental illness and there were bureaucratic failures. We will find out why this information was not properly reported in 2012 and we are working with leaders in congress to ensure this never happens again.’
Pence said President Donald Trump had authorized a full complement of federal resources to the investigation, including 100 on-site FBI agents.
Authorities recovered a Ruger AR-556 rifle at the church and two handguns from the shooter’s vehicle. All three weapons were purchased by Kelley, said Fred Milanowski, the agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Houston.
It’s believed that Kelley may have been targeting his wife’s mother on Sunday, since she is a member of the church.
Michelle Shields decided to skip church that day, so was not among the victims. But her mom attended church and was killed.