Church shooting suspect became ‘unhinged’ when talking about Mormon faith

1 week ago 7

By Ed White

September 30, 2025 — 1.09pm

Detroit: A former US Marine who allegedly shot up a Michigan church and set it on fire, killing four people, expressed animosity about the Mormon faith to a city council candidate knocking on doors just days before the attack.

Thomas Sanford, who was known as Jake, drove a ute with a deer skull and antlers strapped to the front and two large American flags flapping in the wind in the bed, according to friends and social media posts.

Sanford, 40, smashed that ute into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc Township before opening fire during the Sunday morning service, authorities said. Four people were killed and eight were injured. The suspect was killed by police officers who rushed to the scene, 80 kilometres north-west of Detroit. The building was destroyed.

The ute that was allegedly rammed into the building is surrounded by smoke at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc.

As investigators work to uncover a motive, Burton City Council candidate Kris Johns said he met Sanford while introducing himself to voters last week. He told MLive.com that Sanford was pleasant but became “unhinged” when he suddenly began talking about the Mormon church, as it is widely known. In a separate interview with the Detroit Free Press, Johns said Sanford described members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “the antichrist”.

While Sanford’s recent political views remain unclear, he had previously shown support for US President Donald Trump, according to London’s The Telegraph, wearing a camouflage Trump 2020 campaign shirt, emblazoned with the words, “Make Liberals Cry Again”, in a picture posted on social media in 2019.

Johns said the two men did not discuss politics, but he had seen a campaign sign for Trump on the suspect’s fence. An image from Google Maps also shows a Trump sign at an address listed online as the suspect’s residence.

Shortly after the shooting, Trump said on social media that it appeared to be “yet another targeted attack” on Christians in the US.

“The Trump Administration will keep the Public posted, as we always do. In the meantime, PRAY for the victims, and their families. THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends, said the FBI was learning that Sanford had a religious bias against the Mormon faith.

“All they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note,” she said.

It’s not known what ties, if any, Sanford had to the church. But Johns said Sanford indicated that some members wanted him to remove his tattoos. He also talked about “stealing”, the Mormon temple ceremony of joining a man, a woman and their children together for eternity.

Genesee County prosecutor David Leyton said his office wrote warrants to search Sanford’s vehicles, home and electronic devices to try to discover his motives.

“All this takes time,” he told The Associated Press.

Coincidentally, Sanford and his family lived next to a church, Eastgate Baptist, in Burton. Pastor Jerome Taylor said he mostly talked to Sanford about fallen trees on church property that his neighbour wanted to cut and sell as firewood.

The suspect is alleged to have opened fire on members of the church before setting it ablaze.

“He had free rein,” said Taylor, who described Sanford as a “general blue-collar person in our neighbourhood”.

“The knowledge that there was a threat, a danger, across our property line is so heinous — it’s a little bit mind-warping,” he said, adding that Sanford never attended Eastgate Baptist.

A family friend, Kara Pattison, said she saw Sanford on Friday, two days before the shooting. She and her daughter were walking in the street at the Goodrich High School homecoming parade and became startled when the driver of a ute hit the gas pedal hard.

When the window was rolled down, it was Sanford “laughing”, Pattison said.

A Michigan state trooper with a robot near the home of the suspect.

“How do you mourn the death of someone who did something so terrible?” Pattison told WDIV-TV, referring to the church attack.

After high school, Sanford served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008, including seven months in Iraq, focusing on vehicle operations and maintenance, records show. He was discharged at the rank of sergeant.

Under Michigan law, police, family or health professionals can ask a judge to take guns away from someone for reasons that include mental health. There were no petitions filed against Sanford, court administrator Barbara Menear said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, follows the teachings of Jesus but also the prophecies of Joseph Smith, a 19th-century American who published the faith’s earliest religious text, the Book of Mormon in 1830.

AP, Reuters

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