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STORY: Harrowing details have emerged about the gunman who murdered 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday… in what Governor Gregg Abbott called an act of ‘evil.’

ABBOTT: “Evil swept across Uvalde yesterday…”

Eighteen-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos lived with his grandmother – who he shot in the face just moments before the deadly school rampage. After fleeing their home, he crashed his car near the Robb Elementary School – which he entered through a back door carrying an AR-15 assault-style rifle and wearing tactical gear. Ramos’ grandmother survived her wounds and called the police.

Governor Abbott said Ramos had telegraphed his deadly intentions moments earlier in messages he wrote on Facebook.

“He said, ‘I’m going to shoot my grandmother.’ The second post was, ‘I shot my grandmother.’ The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school was, ‘I’m going to shoot an elementary school.’

Once in the school, Ramos barricaded himself in a fourth-grade classroom and killed students and teachers before he was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer. An additional 17 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities said that Ramos, a high school dropout, did not appear to have any criminal record or history of mental health problems. He had purchased two rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition at the Oasis Outback sporting goods store in Uvalde in March.

The small town of Uvalde sits about 80 miles west of San Antonio. Nearly 80% of its residents are Hispanic or Latino, according to census data.

The community now is left to try to make sense of the massacre.

Mario and Irma Chacon spent an agonizing few hours waiting for news of their great granddaughter, a student at the school, before finally learning she was safe.

IRMA: "We were very concerned because we didn't know if she was there, or was involved in any way. We just didn't know anything. [FLASH] We were living with, how can I describe it... with a lot of anguish. Because it was children who were dying."

The Texas rampage stands as the deadliest U.S. school shooting since a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012.