Authorities identified Thomas Jacob Sanford as the suspect in the shooting and fire at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township.
The man who officials said crashed a vehicle into a Michigan church and opened fire on the congregation has been identified by the police as a 40-year-old from Burton, Mich., who went to high school nearby and served in the Marines.
The authorities said they believed the man, identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, also intentionally set fire to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan church. They added that congregants were inside attending services when the building was engulfed in flames.
The shooter was “neutralized” in an exchange of gunfire with responding officers, the police said. Four of those in the church also died. Two died of gunshot wounds, the police said, and two more bodies were found later in the Michigan church. Eight people were wounded.
Chief William Renye of the Grand Blanc Township Police Department did not provide a motive for the attack.
Records show that the gunman, who also went by Jake, graduated from a nearby high school in 2004. He served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008, and was deployed to Iraq from 2007 to 2008.
Mr. Sanford’s father declined to comment in a brief phone conversation. Several attempts to reach the suspect’s wife and other immediate family members were unsuccessful.
Ryan Lopez, a former high school classmate who lives in the nearby city of Davison, Michigan church, said that he regularly saw Mr. Sanford around town and was still trying to process the news. He said he last saw Mr. Sanford at a gym in Davison a few weeks earlier, and that nothing had seemed out of the ordinary.
“He was happy to see me, he just seemed normal,” Mr. Lopez said. Mr. Sanford was an avid hunter of geese, turkey and deer and had seemed like a typical “country kid” while growing up, Mr. Lopez said. After high school, both men joined the Marines, where Mr. Sanford did motor transport work, Mr. Lopez said.
For roughly a year around 2010, Sandra Winter, 56, rented a room to Mr. Sanford in her home in Jeremy Ranch, Utah. She described him as an unassuming man who worked for a local business doing snow removal and landscaping. He also had creative ambitions as a sculpture artist working with Sheetrock, Ms. Winter recalled.
Ms. Winter said she was shocked to hear that he was identified as the attacker in the shooting, a situation she said she would “never in a million years” have imagined.
In 2016, he married a woman who had gone to the same high school he did, according to court records, and they have a 10-year-old son.
April Van, 66, who lives in an apartment complex near the suspect’s most recent address, said that she did not know him but she had seen the son taking out trash.
Another neighbor, Randy Thronson, 71, said he hadn’t talked to Mr. Sanford for about two years but that he “seemed like a nice guy” and would plow neighbors’ driveways in the winter for free.
“Something must have happened, snapped somehow,” he said as police secured the area around the suspect’s home.
What we know from the police update
The press conference has now ended. Officials have now updated the death toll from the incident to four people – excluding the suspect who is also deceased.Authorities also said that the entire Michigan church has not yet been cleared because of extensive fire damage, and that some people are still unaccounted for.The motive remains unclear as police continue their investigation, led by the FBI.Share
Motive for attack still unclear
Police say they would not speculate the motive of the attack.Michigan State Police Lt. Kim Vetter refused to comment on whether there was a connection between the gunman and the church, and would not address any “speculation” on possible links with other recent shootings in the US.
👤❓ Who was #ThomasJacobSanford? #Police share key details about #Michigan #Church #Shooter 📝🚓 https://t.co/rGL1mgsZf9 pic.twitter.com/AKWdsYpBg5
— Economic Times (@EconomicTimes) September 29, 2025
Four killed and some unaccounted for after attack on Michigan Mormon church
The FBI is investigating an “act of targeted violence” after four people were killed in a shooting and fire at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan.
The suspect, named as Thomas Jacob Sanford, was killed after officers “engaged in gunfire” with him in the church car park, police say.
Police told a news conference that the church had not yet been entirely cleared because of the extensive fire damage, and that some people remained unaccounted for.
US politicians have condemned the incident – the latest in a string of high-profile cases of armed violence that shocked the country.
US President Donald Trump has called the attack “horrendous”, while former governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a prominent Mormon politician, called for “praying for healing and comforting”.
Chapel building a ‘total loss’
Authorities are “trying to determine exactly when and where that fire ended up coming from and how it got started,” though they believe the suspect started the fire “deliberately,” Renye added.
Some victims were “near the fire and they were unable to get out of the church,” the police chief said.
Sanford used an accelerant, like gasoline, police believe, to light the church on fire, said James Deir, special agent in charge of the Detroit field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Evidence technicians went to process the scene after the fire was extinguished, and investigators said they found “some suspected explosive devices.”
“I’m shaken, I’m very shaken,” Walsh said. “I’ve seen a change in this world. There’s so much hate in this world. I just don’t understand it.”
The chapel, once bathed in sunlight and surrounded by greenery, is now unrecognizable. The building is a “total loss,” Renye said.
Debris piles have replaced pews; the welcoming meeting house has closed its doors; and the LDS church’s mounting grief has swelled.
And the tall white spire, which once towered over Grand Blanc worshippers as it reached toward heaven, is gone.
At least four people were killed and several others wounded on Sunday (September 28, 2025) after a shooter targeted a Mormon church in Michigan, authorities said, in the latest deadly tragedy that U.S. President Donald Trump called part of a national “epidemic of violence.”
Police in the northern U.S. state said the shooter first rammed the church with his vehicle before opening fire with an assault rifle, and then set the building aflame.
The attacker was killed by police in the parking lot eight minutes after the first emergency call came in, Grand Blanc Police Chief William Renye told a press conference.
Mr. Renye said that in addition to the two deceased victims announced earlier in the day, two more bodies had been recovered among debris at the burned-down church, with search efforts ongoing.
Earlier, he said eight people had also been wounded in the attack, one of whom was in critical condition.
AFP journalists in the adjacent town of Burton witnessed a large police presence outside the home of the suspected shooter, whom Mr. Renye identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40.
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a shooting which took place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to police, in Grand Blanc, Michigan, | Photo Credit: Reuters
Mr. Renye and other officials did not provide any further details on Sanford. US media reports said he had grown up in the area and was a military veteran.
Images of the aftermath at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, a suburb of the city of Flint, showed most of the building reduced to ashes.
Photos also showed the truck apparently driven by the attacker into the side of the building, with two U.S. flags on poles in the vehicle’s rear.
‘Targeted violence’
FBI Special Agent Reuben Coleman told the press conference that the FBI was now leading the investigation, and was looking at the attack “as an act of targeted violence.”
Mr. Renye earlier said hundreds were inside when the attack commenced, and that more victims may be found among the debris.
Mr. Trump called the shooting “horrendous” and said it was “yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose leader had died the previous night aged 101, called Sunday’s attack a “tragic act of violence.”
“Places of worship are meant to be sanctuaries of peacemaking, prayer and connection. We pray for peace and healing for all involved,” it wrote on X.
Founded in 1830, the Mormon church considers itself a Christian body, but bases its doctrines on the Book of Mormon, a text its followers say contains a fuller version of the words of Jesus Christ than that recorded in the Bible.
Based in the western U.S. state of Utah, there are Mormon churches all over the world, with millions of adherents.
‘Epidemic of violence:’ Trump
The United States, where firearms are readily available, has a long history of gun violence.
But tensions have soared in recent weeks after a series of high-profile attacks, including the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah and a deadly shooting at a federal immigration enforcement facility in Texas.
Sunday’s attack also comes a month after a mass shooting at a Catholic church and school in Minnesota, in which two children were killed while attending Mass, and several others were severely wounded.
Political divisions have grown even deeper in the wake of the attacks, with Trump launching a campaign to target left-wing groups he accuses of being “domestic terrorists.”
In his Truth Social post Sunday, Mr. Trump wrote: “THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!”
What we know about Thomas Jacob Sanford
According to a Facebook post from Sanford’s mother, he served as a US Marine in Iraq from 2004 to 2008.
Social media accounts believed to be connected to him portray him as a family man, married with a young son. Other alleged images show dead animals and firearms.
Local and federal agencies are continuing to investigate the motive behind the attack, as well as Sanford’s background.
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