Texas Church Shooter's Widow Says Dick's Sporting Goods Denied Him A Gun Before Massacre
SAN ANTONIO (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — The widow of the man suspected of killing more than two dozen worshippers at a South Texas church said Dick's Sporting Goods refused to sell him the gun before he bought it from Academy Sports and Outdoors.
Danielle Kelley said in an April 5 affidavit that, in December of 2015, she and her then husband Devin Kelley went to a Dick's Sporting Goods in New Braunfels, Texas.
"That day, Devin went to the gun counter to purchase a Ruger assault rifle that he had wanted for some time," Kelley said.
After looking over several guns, "he completed purchase paperwork there and the manager came over and declined to sell him the gun because of an ID issue," she said.
Her husband only had a Colorado driver's license — not a Texas ID.
They never returned to Dick's, she said. Instead, in April 2016, they went to Academy Sports and Outdoors in nearby Selma.
"There, he purchased a Ruger AR 556; that day he also purchased a magazine and ammunition. It was a quick and easy transaction," she said.
About once a month, he'd return to that store and buy more magazines and multiple boxes of ammunition, she said.
The affidavit was a deposition for a lawsuit the families of those slain and injured in the Nov. 5, 2017, massacre at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.
The families also are suing the U.S. government, saying the U.S. Air Force failed on six separate occasions to report information that could have prevented Kelley from purchasing a gun.
The Department of Defense inspector general's report detailed Kelley's decade-long history of violence, interest in guns and menacing behavior toward women. Kelley, who served nearly five years in the Air Force, was court-martialed and sentenced to one-year of confinement for assaulting his wife and step-son.
In her affidavit, Kelley said her husband did not disclose his criminal background to her.
"If there was anything I could've done or intervened to prevent the shooting, I would've done it," she said.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
