SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — The gunman who killed more than two dozen at a small-town Texas church briefly escaped from a mental health facility in New Mexico in 2012, police reports indicated.
The reports also noted that Devin Patrick Kelley was once caught trying to bring guns onto a military base and threatened superior officers there. Kelley was also named as a suspect in a 2013 sexual assault in New Braunfels, about 35 miles from the scene of Sunday’s church attack in Sutherland Springs.
The records that emerged Tuesday add up to at least three missed opportunities that might have offered law enforcement a way to stop Kelley from having access to guns long before he slaughtered much of the congregation in the middle of a service. Authorities said the death toll of 26 included the unborn baby of one of the women killed. Kelley died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he was chased by bystanders and crashed his car.
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