CHARLOTTE -- Investigators ruled out religion or race as playing any role in the deadly attack at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

They believe the attack was motivated by a "domestic situation."

We're learning more about the lives lost in the Texas church shooting.

 “Our church was not comprised of members, or parishioners, we were a very close family,” parishioner Sherri Pomeroy said.

The gunman’s family is also talking about his past.

“The suspect's mother-in-law attended this church. We know that he had made a threatening, threatening, she had received a threatening text from him,” Freeman Martin said.

According to the U.S. Air Force Records, the gunman was charged with assault in 2012 after beating his wife and stepson. He isn't the first mass shooting suspect to have a history of domestic violence.

 “That's not like oh gosh, that guy is going to be a mass murderer. But we look at mass murderers, yeah, they almost always have some form of history of domestic violence,” Ryan Kelly said.

According to various reports, suspects in the mass shootings in Washington D.C., California, last year in Kansas, Colorado in 2015, Santa Barbara in 2014 and at Virginia Tech the suspects all had some sort of domestic abuse or stalking records.

Experts told us often the violent behavior starts when they're young and it builds up.

“There's usually a history of rejection and feeling like I have no control, and I desperately want it and people will listen to me, they need to listen to me. And there's injustice, I’m envious. Maybe I also have paranoia, and maybe i have some mental issues to some degrees, maybe not necessarily clinically significant, that leads them to have a very much calculated plan. So experts suggest early intervention as part of a possible solution,” Ryan said.

At least 26 are dead at a small town Sutherland Springs Church that usually draws 50 people on Sundays.

According to a report by a group called Every Town for Gun Safety," between 2009 and 2016, there were 156 mass shootings.

They defined mass shootings as shootings in which four or more people were shot and killed and about 54 percent of those cases involved domestic violence.