Man who attacked Michigan church became ‘unhinged’ when talking about Mormon faith

DETROIT (AP) — The man who shot up a Michigan church and set a fire that killed four people was a former U.S. Marine who 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 pickup truck 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 truck into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc Township. He was killed by police officers who rushed to the scene Sunday, 60 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. The building was destroyed.

Kris Johns, a council candidate in Burton, 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.

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

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” said the FBI was learning that Sanford “hated people of the Mormon faith.”

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 neighbor wanted to cut and sell as firewood.

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

“The knowledge that there was a threat, a danger, across our property line 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 pickup truck hit the gas pedal hard.

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

“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.

In 2015, Sanford’s baby son received groundbreaking treatment at a Fort Worth, Texas, hospital for a condition called “hyperinsulinism,” or abnormally high levels of insulin. The boy’s stay at Cook Children’s Health Care System lasted for weeks and was promoted by the hospital in a news release.

Sanford told the hospital that a doctor’s willingness to help his son was a “sign from heaven.”

“We put our faith to the wind and it took us to Texas,” he said.