Devin Kelley held gun to ex-wife’s head over traffic ticket

The Texas church shooter’s first wife broke her silence Friday to detail the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of Devin Kelley, who once held a gun to her head over a speeding ticket.

Four years before Kelley killed 25 people and an unborn child at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, he admitted to choking, kicking and pulling Tessa Brennaman’s hair, along with fracturing the skull of her two-year-old son.

Brennaman, speaking to Inside Edition, said Kelley threatened to kill her and her whole family.

He once flew into a rage over a speeding ticket, according to the 25-year-old, who said, “He had a gun in his holster...and he took that gun out, and he put it to my template and he told me, ‘Do you want to die? Do you want to die?’”

“He just had a lot of demons or hatred inside of him," said Brennaman.

Brennaman and Kelley divorced in 2012, after less than two years of marriage.

Kelley, who was convicted of assaulting Brennaman and her son while serving in the U.S. Air Force, was confined for 12 months before he received a bad-conduct discharge in 2014.

While that alone wouldn’t have barred him from buying a gun, the Air Force failed to report the court martial convictions to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Investigation Services Division, allowing him to pass background checks to buy guns.

On Nov. 5, Kelley burst into the church about 35 miles from his home in New Braunfels, killing 26 people and injuring about another 20 before he shot himself in the head while he was pursued by two bystanders.

A motive for the mass shooting remains unclear, but Kelley appears to have targeted a church that was long attended by his second wife Danielle Shield’s family.

Leading up to the shooting, authorities say, Kelley had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law. Among the victims was Shield’s grandmother Lula Woicinski White.

A resume posted online linked to an email address associated with Danielle Kelley identifies her as a teacher at the church from 2009 to 2013.

Among the responsibilities it listed at the church were to “teach the children about GOD” and “be a positive influence in their life.”

With News Wire Services.