26 murdered at Baptist church in tiny town southeast of San Antonio

The 26 victims of the largest mass shooting in Texas history ranged from 5 to 72 years old.

They were killed Sunday at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Few of the victims had been identified by Sunday evening, but they include the 14-year-old daughter of the church’s pastor.

An additional 20 people were wounded.

As the shooter left, he was confronted by an armed resident who chased him. A short time later, he was found dead in his vehicle. Several weapons were found inside and it was unclear if the attacker died of a self-inflicted wound or if he was shot by the resident who confronted him.

“It’s something we all say does not happen in small communities, although we found out today it does,” said Joe Tackitt, the sheriff of Wilson County, which includes Sutherland Springs.

Officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, declined to discuss a possible motive Sunday night. Abbott did attend a vigil at the church in the small town, which is 30 miles southeast of San Antonio and home to fewer than 400 people.

A woman who lives about 10 minutes away from Sutherland Springs in Floresville and who was monitoring the chaos on a police scanner said everyone knows everyone in the sparsely populated county.

“This is horrific for our tiny little tight-knit town,” Alena Berlanga said. “Everybody’s going to be affected and everybody knows someone who’s affected.”

Twenty-three church members were found dead in the building and two were killed outside. One church member died at a local hospital.

Authorities said Sunday afternoon the suspect was seen at a Valero at 11:20 a.m. Sunday, dressed in black and wearing a ballistic vest, then he walked across the street to the church.

At that point, the shooter opened fire at the church with an assault rifle. He entered the church and continued shooting.

The killer

Devin Kelley, 26, lived in the San Antonio suburb of New Braunfels. Officials told The Associated Press he didn’t appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups.

The Pentagon confirmed he served in the Air Force “at one point.” An Air Force spokeswoman said records show Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge. Multiple news outlets reported late Sunday that Kelley received a bad conduct discharge.

People who live near an address listed for Kelley say they heard intense gunfire from that direction in recent days.

Sixteen-year-old Ryan Albers lives across the road from the listed home of the suspect: “It’s really loud. At first I thought someone was blasting…It was someone using automatic weapon fire.”

Unwelcome history

Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.

“There are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed in Sutherland Springs today,” Abbott said. “Our hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those who’ve lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities.”

Among those killed was the church pastor’s 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town in two different states when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message to the AP.

“We lost our 14 year old daughter today and many friends,” she wrote. “Neither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation. I am at the Charlotte airport trying to get home as soon as I can.”

Church member Nick Uhlig, 34, wasn’t at Sunday’s service, but he said his cousins were at the church and that his family was told at least one of them, a woman with three children and pregnant with another, was among the dead.

“This is the only church here,” he said. “We have Bible study, men’s Bible study, vacation Bible school. Somebody went in and started shooting.”

Federal law enforcement, including ATF investigators and members of the FBI’s evidence collection team, swarmed the small community to offer assistance.

President Donald Trump promised his administration’s full support.

Speaking to U.S. and Japanese business leaders in Tokyo on Monday morning during his Asian trip, Trump highlighted the “act of evil.”

“Our hearts are broken but in dark times — and these are dark times — such as these, Americans do what they do best,” Trump said, adding he will continue monitoring the investigation during his 11-day tour.

The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video.

In a video of its Oct. 8 service, a congregant who spoke and read Scripture pointed to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting a week earlier as evidence of the “wicked nature” of man. That shooting left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.

Until Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas was a 1991 attack in Killeen, when a mentally disturbed man crashed his pickup truck through a restaurant window at lunchtime and started shooting people, killing 23 and injuring more than 20 others.

The University of Texas at Austin was the site of one of the most infamous mass shootings in American history, when U.S. Marine sniper Charles Whitman climbed the Austin campus’ clock tower in 1966 and began firing on stunned people below, killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others. He had killed his wife and mother before heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001.

Sunday’s shooting unfolded on the eighth anniversary of the attack in 2009 on Fort Hood in Texas, when an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 people in one of the deadliest mass shootings at an American military base.

This report includes material from McClatchy, The New York Times and The Associated Press.

This story was originally published November 5, 2017 at 10:39 PM with the headline "26 murdered at Baptist church in tiny town southeast of San Antonio."