SPRINGFIELD, MO. ? A man accused of fatally shooting his half brother and mother told a newspaper he acted in revenge for years of sexual abuse by the half brother.

“I know what I did was illegal. I know a lot of people will say what I did was wrong. But I was justified,” Brian E. Kelly told the Springfield News-Leader for a story in Saturday’s editions.

Wayne A. Grubb and Janis C. Owen were shot April 23 at the Springfield home that Kelly, 35, shared with his mother. Kelly is charged with two counts each of second-degree murder and armed criminal action and is being held at the Greene County Jail.

Kelly said he shot his stepbrother first, then turned the shotgun on his mother — partly in rage, he said, and partly because he thought she hadn’t done enough to stop the alleged abuse.

After killing his mother, he said, he returned to find his brother still alive.

“I shot him again because I didn’t want him to suffer like he made me suffer,” Kelly said. “I just wanted him dead.”

Kelly said he first planned to kill himself but changed his mind after he started to compose a suicide note.

“It turned from a suicide note to a ‘Wayne-must-die’ note,” Kelly said.

“I don’t want to say I was on a mission. I was just in rage,” he said, adding that he killed his mother “partly because I didn’t want her to see what I’d done to Wayne.”

Kelly’s family declined to comment at length on Kelly’s actions or possible motives.

“I do not support anything Brian has done or said. The family is grieving heavily at the loss of its members,” said his half sister, Marilyn Levan.

Court records from Boone County appear to support Kelly’s story of assault.

Prosecutor Kevin Crane said Grubb was convicted of deviate sexual assault on a minor — who was then 14 or 15 years old — in 1983. Kelly would have been 14 then.

Grubb was sentenced to one year in prison but served only 52 days before being placed on probation, according to documents.

The victim is not named because of his age, but Grubb’s probation required him to stay away from Owen’s home when the victim was present.

“He caused most of my problems. I’m not saying I would have been perfect, but had I not been sexually abused, it would have been better,” Kelly said, sobbing.

Kelly has given similar statements to Springfield police since the shootings, Sgt. Mike Owen said.

A jury will have to decide how much weight to give Kelly’s story, Greene County Prosecutor Darrell Moore said.

“The reality is he still killed them. To say it absolves him from the crime, that’s up to a jury,” Moore said. “But it could mitigate the punishment a jury might give you. The more time you give them to talk about it, the more it might change their mind.”

Kelly said that his mother loved him, but he also felt she had chosen Grubb over him.

“I told Mom about the abuse. She didn’t call the cops. Instead, she called the therapist,” Kelly said.