Kevin Neal, Northern California Gunman: 5 Essential Facts

RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, CA — Kevin Janson Neal, the gunman who shot 14 people, killing five — including his wife — in eight different locations in his northern California community Tuesday, was mentally ill and prone to violence, family members have said in multiple media interviews. Neighbors had been complaining about “constant” gunfire from his home, police were called there on a domestic abuse complaint the day before the attack, and he was out on bail on an assault charge, the reports said.

Authorities said Wednesday that Neal's wife's body was found hidden under the floor in their home, and that killing her may have started the rampage. Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said officers had been called to Neal's residence on Monday, but didn't offer any details. Neal's relatives have said he was recently married.

The shooting, like the Nov. 5 massacre at a Texas church, raises questions about the effectiveness of the nation’s gun laws. Authorities haven’t said if the terms of Neal’s bail would have stopped him from possessing and owning the semiautomatic rifle and two handguns he used in the 45-minute rampage, which authorities said began with a revenge killing in his Rancho Tehama Reserve neighborhood.

From there, he began shooting random victims, including two children who were injured at Rancho Tehama Elementary School, where the spray of gunfire lasted six minutes, authorities have said.

Here are five things to know about Kevin Janson Neal:

Neal should never have had a gun to begin with, his older sister, Sheridan Orr, told The Associated Press. She said he had a history of mental illness, had a quick temper with a bent toward violence and may have been addicted to drugs. “We're stunned and we're appalled that this is a person who has no business with firearms whatsoever," Orr said, adding that if any good can come out of the tragedy it is that it will “make people realize there must be some gates on people like this from getting guns. This is the same story we're hearing more and more."

Neal, a pot farmer, thought his neighbors had a methamphetamine lab, Orr told the New York Daily News. In a series of phone calls with her brother, his mental health spiraled downward and he shared his growing suspicions his neighbors were making methamphetamine. “He would get wound up and I think [his wife] spent a lot of time calming him down,” Orr said. "He would be irrational, irate and uncontrollable, and scream and yell. It was difficult to manage him.” Family members prodded him to get mental health help, she said, telling the newspaper: “If he couldn’t get the health care he needed, he had zero business with guns.”

Living next to Neal was “hell,” Brian Flint, whose roommate was injured in Neal’s rampage, told The Record Searchlight. He said he and other neighbors told police that Neal had “been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines” and that “we made it aware that this guy is crazy and he’s been threatening us.” Flint said neighbors’ warnings should have prompted more effort in “potentially stopping things like this,” but complaints to the sheriff’s office were referred back to the homeowner’s association, The AP reported. Cristal Caravez, another neighbor, described the gunfire as “constant” in an interview with The AP. “You could hear the yelling. He’d go off the hinges. It (shooting) would be during the day, during the night — I mean, it didn’t matter.”

Neal was out on $160,000 bail after a neighbor accused him of stabbing him with a steak knife. Neal was charged with assault in the January dispute, and his mother posted $160,000 bond and spent about $10,000 paying for lawyers. Neal’s mother, who identified herself only as Anne out of fear for her safety, said the neighbor was only slightly cut and that Neal grabbed the knife from his hand because he was threatening him with it.

Neal called his mother to say he was done feuding with his neighbors. On Tuesday, Neal called his mother in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he had grown up, and said, according to The AP: “Mom it’s all over now. I have done everything I could and I am fighting against everyone who lives in this area.” She said he claimed the neighbors were cooking meth again and the fumes were bothering his nine dogs. “All of a sudden, now I'm on a cliff and there's nowhere to go," Anne told The AP, quoting her son’s final words. "No matter where I go for help here I get nobody who will help me. All they are doing is trying to execute me here."

Watch: California School Staff Saved Lives

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Crime tape blocks off Rancho Tehama Road leading into the Rancho Tehama subdivision south of Red Bluff, California, following a fatal shooting on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017. (Jim Schultz/The Record Searchlight via AP)