KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire at a Unitarian church, killing two people, left behind a note suggesting that he targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal policies, including its acceptance of gays, authorities said Monday.

Associated Press

Chris Schubert and her 4-year-old son, Nick, place flowers Monday in front of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., where a gunman fatally shot two people on Sunday.

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A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson’s small sport utility vehicle indicated he intentionally targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because, the police chief said, “he hated the liberal movement” and was upset with “liberals in general as well as gays.”

Adkisson, a 58-year-old truck driver on the verge of losing his food stamps, had 76 rounds with him when he entered the church and pulled a shotgun from a guitar case during a children’s performance of the musical Annie.

Adkisson’s ex-wife once belonged to the church but hadn’t attended in years, said Ted Jones, the congregation’s president. Police investigators described Adkisson as a “stranger” to the congregation, and police spokesman Darrell DeBusk declined to comment on whether investigators think the ex-wife’s link was a factor in the attack.

Adkisson remained jailed Monday on $1 million bond after being charged with one count of murder. More charges are ex­pected. Four victims remain hospitalized, including two in critical condition.

The attack Sunday morning lasted only minutes. But the anger behind it may have been building for months, if not years.

“It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement,” Police Chief Sterling Owen said.

Adkisson was a loner who hates “blacks, gays and anyone different from him,” longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Authorities said Adkisson’s criminal record consisted of only two drunken driving citations. But court records reviewed by The Associated Press show that his former wife obtained an order of protection in March 2000 while the two were still married and living in the Knoxville suburb of Powell.

The couple had been married for almost 10 years when Liza Alexander wrote in requesting the order that Adkisson threatened “to blow my brains out and then blow his own brains out.” She told a judge that she was “in fear for my life and what he might do.”

Calls to Alexander’s home were not answered Monday, and the voice mailbox was full.

Monday night, an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 people attended a memorial service at the Second Presbyterian Church next door to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

“We’re here tonight to make sense of the senseless,” the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, told the gathering.

In Adkisson’s letter, which police have not released, “he indicated ... that he expected to be in there [the church] shooting people until the police arrived and that he fully expected to be killed by the responding police,” Owen said. “He certainly intended to take a lot of casualties.”

Witnesses said the attack was cut short after church members tackled the gunman and held him until police arrived.

A police affidavit used to get a search warrant for Adkisson’s home said the suspect admitted to the shooting.

Associated Press Writer Beth Rucker contributed to this story.