The gunman who killed 50 people at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub was emotionally and mentally disturbed with a violent temper, yet aspired to be a police officer, his ex-wife said.

Sitora Yusufiy, the former spouse of Omar Mateen, 29, identified as the shooter slain by police at the end of Sunday's massacre, also told reporters in a news conference that she was "rescued" by family members from her ex-husband after four months of a stormy marriage that ended in divorce.

Mateen was a Florida resident and U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants who a senior FBI official said might have had leanings toward Islamic State.

The FBI official cautioned, however, that proving the suspected link to radical Islamism required further investigation.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It ranked as the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech University in 2007. 

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