Tessa Brennaman said she felt "disgusted" when she learned about the killings at the Sutherland Springs church.
Tessa Brennaman, the first wife of Texas gunman Devin Kelley, said she felt "disgusted" when she learned he was responsible for killing 26 innocent victims.
She was home – just 30 minutes from the site of the shootings – when she found out about the massacre inside the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.
“I was just crying so hard,” she told Inside Edition in an exclusive interview. “I couldn’t even breathe. I felt so disgusted.”
Inside Edition’s Steven Fabian asked her, “Were you surprised to learn he was capable of doing this or did you suspect it all along?”
“I never suspected he would be killing random people,” she said through tears.
Kelley pleaded guilty to assaulting Brennaman in 2011 and leaving her baby son with a fractured skull. He was sentenced to a year in a military prison and discharged from the Air Force.
Brennaman divorced him and he went on to marry his second wife, Danielle Shields, in 2014.
Eight months ago, Brennaman ran into his new wife at a grocery store where she worked. Even though it was a chance encounter, Brennaman received a scathing message from Kelley warning him to stay away.
"He had said, 'you need to stop showing up at my wife's work,'" she said, reading the Facebook messages he sent her. "'You don't want to play that game with me.'"
He also told her: "Consider this you first and final notice of harassment."
She didn't take the messages too seriously, she said. "I just kind of like brushed it off cause I'm like, this was just about control for him."
She’s trying to understand how and why her husband turned into a mass killer. She refuses to blame his parents – “His mom's an angel and his dad was really caring” – and instead thinks he was simply born evil.
“Was Devin Kelley a psychopath?” Fabian asked her.
“Oh yeah, most definitely,” she said. “He just had no regard for anyone except for himself.”
Brennaman, whose son made a full recovery, said she hopes by sharing her story, she’ll give other women in abusive relationships the strength to get out.
For more of Inside Edition's exclusive interview with Tessa Brennaman, visit here.
