Texas church shooter 'had a lot of demons or hatred inside of him,' says ex-wife

last updated 13 November 2017

The gunman who killed 26 people at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday "just had a lot of demons or hatred inside of him," shooter Devin Patrick Kelley's ex-wife Tessa Brennaman told CBS News in her first interview since the attack.

Brennaman, 25, said on Inside Edition Friday her marriage to Kelley was abusive and frightening. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to hitting and choking her, as well as "intentionally" fracturing her infant son's skull. Once, Brennaman said, he threatened to kill her over a speeding ticket. "He had a gun in his holster right here," she said, "and he took that gun out and he put it to my temple and he told me, 'Do you want to die? Do you want to die?'"

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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