A track and field star who intentionally mowed down a family while they were riding their bicycles, killing the father and injuring two sons, posted a video hours earlier saying, “It’s the Devil’s fault.”

Mikese Morse, a 30-year-old man who has repeatedly qualified for the United States Olympic Trials, is facing first-degree and attempted murder charges for the fatal hit-and-run on Sunday afternoon. Police say it was a “random” attack — meaning his didn’t know the family — but that it was “purposely done.”

He was taken into custody, but police are still trying to figure out the motive.

Witnesses of the crash told police they saw Morse driving his car in one direction before abruptly making a U-turn in the opposite direction, accelerating off the road at high speed and hitting the family as they enjoyed their innocuous bike ride, Dugan said. In an arrest affidavit viewed by Fox 13, Morse admitted to mowing down the family on purpose. He was arrested Sunday night at his parent’s home and police say a witness found his vehicle, patched up with duct tape to hide damage, two miles from the site of the hit-and-run. “The suspect accelerated and intentionally ran over the victim,” [Tampa Police Chief Brian] Dugan said. “He appears to be someone who is disturbed and investigators are still piercing that together.”

They say he’s “disturbed” in part because of some “disturbing” content the suspect posted on his social media in the days leading up to the fatal attack. In one such instance, Morse posted a video in which he blamed “the Devil” for everything wrong in life.

While clearly upset, Morse appears to be competent in the video. He blames the Devil and alludes to “Lilith,” who many believers think was the first wife of Adam, who fell from grace. Lilith is often represented as an evil demonic figure, but she is seen as a liberator by some feminist groups.

He says in the video:

Yeah devil, this is all your fault, all your fault because you descended to Earth. You had a choice and you knew exactly what to do. You said you don’t care about anybody down here. We don’t care about you at all. You can die right now, ho. You understand? This is all your fault. Why am I not in a state of harmony right now? Because of her evil.

He adds that he wants to “stone the devil to death now.”

It’s the Devil’s fault. It’s all the Devil’s fault. We’re going to parade the Devil around and try to destroy the devil right now.

In the text included with the Instagram video, he wrote:

It’s the devils fault, I could’ve helped save the people forever ago if it wasn’t for her! It’s all Lilith’s fault! We are cause and effect!

While it’ll be up to professionals to decide how disturbed he really is, it shouldn’t be controversial to say religion, while not the primary cause of this deadly tragedy, gave Morse an outlet. It gave him someone to blame for what was happening in his life and in his mind. He understood religious symbolism — and even philosophy — and he used that to justify his fatal attack.

Let’s hope he gets the help he needs, and that the family he went after finds justice.

