The gunman accused of the worst mass murder in Texas history may have been hunting for his mother-in-law when he unleashed hell with a Ruger assault-type rifle in a small-town Baptist church, investigators said Monday.
But Devin Patrick Kelley’s potential target was not at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs when he opened fire on Sunday, killing 26 people ranging in age from 18-months-old to 77 — with almost half of the victims children.
Now the targeted woman is talking to investigators who are trying to come up with a motive for the deadliest massacre ever at an American house of worship — and police are trying to determine how a man who got a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force for assaulting his wife and cracking her infant son’s skull was able to buy four guns.
“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs,” Commander Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said at a “There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws…The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church.”
[contentcards url=”https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/texas-church-shooting/texas-church-shooter-may-have-been-targeting-his-mother-law-n817961″ target=”_blank”]