Investigators say they’re still looking for a motive in the deadly shooting and fire at a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Michigan but the White House attributed it to apparent animosity toward church members.
Speculation about what drove Thomas Jacob Sanford has ranged from his political leaning to religion to mental illness.
But White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt provided perhaps the most definitive direction in which the FBI is looking.
“All that is known right now is that this is 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. All of those questions have yet to be answered,” she told Fox News on Monday.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have historically been referred to as “Mormons.”
Authorities haven’t divulged what they believe drove Sanford to ram his vehicle into the church, shoot worshipers and set fire to this religious sanctuary in Grand Blanc Township that left four people dead and eight wounded Sunday morning. Police shot and killed Sanford in the church parking lot.
“Evil,” Grand Blanc Police Chief William Renye said in a Monday news conference. “This was an evil act of violence.”
Views on Latter-day Saints
Rueben Coleman, acting special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Detroit, said in the news conference Monday that the attack is being investigated as “an act of targeted violence. But we are continuing to work to determine a motive.”
Asked to clarify whether a person, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or another group was the target of the violence, Coleman said the investigation is ongoing but “when I say targeted violence, I mean targeted within our state and within our community.”
Coleman was also asked by a reporter about reports that Sanford’s ex-girlfriend was a Latter-day Saint. “That is something I cannot speak to at this point in time,” he said.
A Burton City Council candidate met a man while canvassing less than a week before the attack, according to an interview with “Keeping It Real with Dave Bondy” on X. Kris Johns said the man went on a tirade against the church, had “sharp views about Mormons” and “made the position multiple times that Mormons are the antichrist.”
Johns described him as outgoing, polite, and “extremely friendly. He said the man’s animosity toward the church didn’t seem violent. “It was very much standard anti-LDS talking points that you would find on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook,” he said.
It wasn’t until seeing photos of Sanford online after the attack on the church that Johns realized the man was Sanford.
“There’s certain things you don’t forget,” Johns said. “This is not a forgettable guy.”
Johns said Sanford spoke quickly — “it was one thing after another” — as he shared about his time in Iraq and his struggles with drug addiction when he returned home. He said Sanford told him he moved to Utah at one point to plow snow and had a relationship with a woman there whose family was “Mormon.”
Political leanings
Two American flags were flying in the bed of the Chevy Silverado that Sanford rammed into the Latter-day Saint meetinghouse.
Records in Michigan show Sanford, 40, has no recorded party affiliation, but the state has open primaries, so party registration is not required, per The Daily Beast.
The news outlet also reported that Sanford had a 2016 Trump sign outside his house in Burton, Michigan, about a 15-minute drive to the Latter-day Saint chapel in Grand Blanc.
Mark Grebner, a Democratic consultant who collects voter and petition data, told Bridge Michigan that voting records do not indicate how Sanford voted but he has voted in every November election.
Sanford signed two recent petitions, Grebner said, one for the so-called Unlock Michigan efforts to repeal the governor’s pandemic emergency powers and another supporting Right to Life Michigan’s efforts to restrict abortion in the state.
In a Sunday press conference, authorities were asked about speculation that the shooting is connected to the killing of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this month.
“That’s exactly what it is. It’s speculation,” Michigan State Police Lt. Kim Vetter said.
A record search shows Sanford lived in Park City, Utah, area around 2010. He has no criminal history in Michigan or Utah.
Sandra Winter rented a room to Sanford in her home in Jeremy Ranch, just outside Park City. She described him as an unassuming man who worked for a local business doing snow removal and landscaping, according to The New York Times. He also had creative ambitions as a sculpture artist, Winter recalled.
Winter told the Times she was shocked to hear that Sanford was identified as the attacker, a situation she said she would “never in a million years” have imagined.
Military service
According to news reports in Michigan, Sanford was a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and has a wife and son.
According to a 2007 Clarkston News article, Sanford is a native of Atlas Township in Genesee County, Michigan, and graduated from Goodrich High School in 2003. Grand Blanc and Burton, where Sanford lived before the shooting, are in Genesee County. He is identified as Thomas “Jake” Sanford in the story.
As a 22-year-old Marine, he was a wrecker driver who assisted in the recovery of damaged vehicles and had done a stint in Okinawa, Japan. He has achieved honors on the rifle range, according to the story. At the time the article was published, he was set to join his combat battalion and serve in Fallujah, Iraq.
‘I’m excited to go,” Sanford said during a gathering at his home, per the story. “I’m looking forward to seeing the culture and the people of Iraq. I’ll return with the real news of the situation. There are many changes we are making in the Middle East. We are making progress. The citizens of Iraq are beginning to step up.”
A Marine Corps spokesperson told CNN that Sanford served as a sergeant and received several medals for his service, which lasted from 2004 to 2008.
A family friend told WDIV Local 4 in Detroit that Sanford suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.
“I heard just through family events and stuff that he had had PTSD. He would make some comments about it occasionally. It was something that was kind of talked about. It wasn’t talked about in depth … so I don’t know the depth of his issues,” the friend said.
The friend also said Sanford struggled with alcohol and drugs years ago but was sober every time she saw him.
Caring for a sick child
CNN also reported that Sanford’s son was born with a rare genetic disorder, according to a 2015 GoFundMe page. The condition, called congenital hyperinsulinism, required a lengthy hospital stay and several surgeries to remove portions of the boy’s pancreas, according to a family Facebook page.
One local news outlet reported that the illness had taken a financial toll on the family and Sanford took leave from work as a truck driver for Coca-Cola to be with his son, per CNN.
“Don’t ever take having healthy kids for granted,” Sanford is quoted as saying in another article. “We are proud of our child. I spent four years in the Marine Corps and was in Iraq and this is still the most unique thing to deal with.”