Authorities are still trying to sort out the motive behind the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando that has tragically left approximately 50 people dead, with casualties expected to rise. It is the deadliest mass shooting in United States history.
The ex-wife of the suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Marteen, spoke with The Washington Post, and revealed some very harrowing details about the man believed to be responsible for these heinous acts.
The ex-wife said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him.
At first, the marriage was normal, she said, but then he became abusive.
“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”
She also revealed that while the suspected perpetrator was born in New York City, much of his family hails form Afghanistan. It was her family that saw to it that the couple’s marriage was dissolved after they learned of Mateen’s abusiveness.
Mateen’s ex-wife said his family was from Afghanistan, but her ex-husband was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida. In a series of Myspace photos, Mateen is seen taking selfies and wearing New York Police Department shirts in a couple of the shots. His ex-wife identified him as the man in the Myspace photos.
Mateen’s ex-wife said she was having a difficult time when she first met him and decided to move to Florida to be with him. The two married in March 2009 and moved into a 2-bedroom condominium in Fort Pierce, Fla., that Mateen’s family owned.
“He seemed like a normal human being,” she said, adding that he wasn’t very religious and worked out at the gym often. She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam. She said he owned a small-caliber handgun and worked as a guard at a nearby facility for juvenile delinquents.
“He was a very private person,” she said.
The ex-wife said her parents intervened when they learned Mateen had assaulted her. Her father confirmed the account and said that the marriage lasted only a few months.
Thoughts with everyone affected by this horrible, horrible tragedy.
[via The Washington Post]