The death toll from Sunday’s Mormon church shooting in Michigan has risen to four, as authorities have found two more bodies and described the suspected gunman as a Marine Corps veteran and a married father of one.
Police said four victims were confirmed dead and eight others were injured after the attacker rammed a truck into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, opened fire with an assault-style rifle and set the building on fire during a Sunday morning service. The suburb is about 60 miles northwest of Detroit.
Chief William Renye of the Grand Blanc Township Police Department told the press that the slain gunman has been identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford from nearby Burton, Michigan. The motive of the attack is not immediately clear, Renye said.
Renye said that one person in the hospital is in critical condition, while the seven others are stable. Crews continued to search the fire-damaged building late into Sunday evening.
The FBI said it is investigating the shooting “as an act of targeted violence.”
“This act of violence has no place in our state or anywhere else in our country,” Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, Coleman said. “The FBI is committed to continue finding out the facts, circumstances, and motives behind this tragedy.”
Authorities said the fire appeared to have been deliberately set using an accelerant, likely gasoline. Though suspected explosive devices were found, police said it was unclear whether they were used to ignite the blaze.
Sanford was killed in a shootout with officers in the church parking lot.
Marine records indicate that Sanford enlisted in the service in 2004 and was employed as an automotive mechanic or vehicle recovery operator, according to NBC News. He was deployed for seven months in 2007 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He rose to the rank of sergeant and was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before leaving the service in 2008.
After his time in the military, Sanford took on a series of jobs, including landscaping, snow removal and truck driving for Coca-Cola, reports The Telegraph.
He had been married since 2016 and had a 10-year-old son who was born with a rare genetic condition known as congenital hyperinsulinism.
A 2015 fundraising page set up to help with the child’s medical expenses quoted Sanford saying, “Don’t ever take having healthy kids for granted. … This is still the most unique thing to deal with.”
Google Street View images of Sanford’s home in Burton shows a Trump-Pence sign affixed to his garden fence, USA Today notes. And a 2019 social media post pictured him wearing a camouflage Trump 2020 T-shirt that read “Make Liberals Cry Again,” The Telegraph adds.
His recent political views remain uncertain, and authorities have not yet indicated any ideological motive behind the attack.
A former classmate, Ryan Lopez, told The New York Times he saw Sanford at the gym two weeks earlier and described their interaction as normal.
“He was happy to see me, he just seemed normal,” Lopez stated.
President Donald Trump responded on his Truth Social account, describing the shooting as “yet another targeted attack” based on religion in the U.S. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer condemned the incident, calling violence in places of worship “unacceptable” and said she was monitoring the situation closely.
Former U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called the shooting a “tragedy.”
Police responded to several bomb threats at other locations following the shooting.
