The Texas shooter who opened fire at a church service had been fed by the congregation on several occasions before he gunned down parishioners in a deadly rampage, church leaders said.
Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, had visited the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement before to receive food handouts prior to the shooting Sunday that killed two congregants, The Christian Chronicle reported.
“We’ve helped him on several occasions with food,” minister Britt Farmer told the outlet. “He gets mad when we won’t give him cash. He’s been here on multiple occasions.”
Kinnunen was wearing a beard and disguise when he walked into the church around 10:50 a.m., attracting the attention of the church security team in its video room, the report said.
“When he came in, he was under observation … this was (a case of) ‘maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it’s worth looking into,’” church elder John Robertson told the outlet. “We had put him on isolation on one of the cameras back here so we could see that he was behaving at the moment.
During communion, Kinnunen fired a modified, 12-gauge shotgun and killed Richard White and deacon Anton “Tony” Wallace, news station KTVT reported.
He was then was shot dead by a volunteer security guard, Jack Wilson, a former FBI agent, and a reserve deputy sheriff, officials said.
The FBI is still working to determine a motive for the shooting.