SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex. – The man credited with preventing additional deaths at the South Texas church massacre said he’s no hero, was “scared to death” at the time he exchanged gunfire with the killer outside the church and certain he struck him with a bullet.

Stephen Willeford rushed to the scene barefoot with his loaded rifle when his daughter told him she heard gunshots coming from the church less than a block away at 11:20 a.m. Sunday. 

He crouched behind a nearby vehicle, shot at the gunman after he had emerged from inside the church, then jumped in a parked pickup truck and joined the driver in chasing the gunman for nine miles before he struck a highway sign, and ran off the roadway into a ditch.. 

“The people in that church, they’re friends of mine. They’re family. And every time I heard a shot, I knew that that probably represented a life. I was scared to death,” Willeford told CNN in an interview.

“I was scared for me, and I was scared for every one of them. And I was scared for my own family that just lived less than a block away. I’m no hero. I think my God, my Lord protected me and gave me the skills to do what needed to be done. I just wish I could have gotten there faster, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was happening.”

Authorities identified the gunman as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of New Braunfels, a town 35 miles north of the massacre scene. They said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, which may have caused him to lose control of his vehicle. They did  not say if they found any other bullet wounds on Kelley’s body, deferring to the autopsy report that has yet to be released.

But Willeford, a former National Rifle Association instructor, said he knows he hit Kelley with at least one shot before the gunman got into his SUV and sped from the scene. Police said Kelley wore a bullet-proof vest, with open sides. 

President Donald Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and residents of this tiny  rural community of 400 near San Antonio agreed Willeford’s sharpshooter skills prevented other deaths by scaring off the church gunman. They described Willeford as a hero, a good Samaritan who didn’t hesitate  to put his own life on the line in the time of crisis. . 

Twenty-six people, including three generations of residents, were shot to death by the gunman during Sunday services at the First Baptist Church. Twenty more were wounded, with several remaining in critical condition. Authorities said nearly everybody in the church was killed or wounded.  

Investigators said the massacre appeared to stem from a domestic disagreement between Kelley and his ex-mother-in-law, a regular church congregant who didn’t attend services on Sunday, and was not racially or religiously motivated.

Police research into Kelley’s background turned up information Tuesday that he briefly escaped from a mental health center in New Mexico in 2012 while stationed at Holloman Air Force Base. He was under treatment at the center at Santa Teresa for trying to smuggle guns into the base, threatening to kill his superior officers, and assaulting his then wife and cracking the skull of his baby stepson. 

Kelley was subsequently convicted of domestic assault by a military tribunal, sent to a Navy prison for a year and then booted out of the Air Force for bad behavior. He was later named as a suspect in a 2013 sexual assault in his hometown of New Braunfelds, but not charged. 

Air Force officials Monday acknowledged a records foul-up prevented his military conviction and bad behavior discharge from being entered into the national criminal background data base used to determine if a person should be allowed to purchase a firearm. 

As a result, Kelley purchased the semi-automatic rifle used in the church shooting as well as three other guns without being flagged for a background that would have made him ineligible to purchase the weapons, authorities said. 

Freeman Martin, regional director for the Texas Public Safety Department, said investigators believe Kelley acted alone in carrying out the church massacre. The only reason for the shootings, Martin added, appeared to be that he was angry with his former wife’s mother. 

“We don’t know what he was thinking or what was in his mind,” said Martin. “There was conflict. He was upset with the mother-in-law.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.