The suspected shooter in the killing of at least four people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan on Sunday bore a virulent hatred of the Mormon religion which he frequently referred to as the antichrist, local people have reported.
The hostile views of the suspect, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, who was shot and killed by police minutes after he opened fire inside the church in Grand Blanc Township, have emerged as the FBI continues to search for a motive in the mass shooting. The authorities have labelled the incident as a “targeted act of violence”.
Days before the shooting, a candidate for the local Burton city council, Kris Johns, had a doorstep encounter with Sanford lasting for about 20 minutes. Johns told the Detroit Free Press that the conversation quickly turned to Sanford’s disdain for the Mormon faith.
Sanford went on a tirade against the church, describing its worshippers as “the antichrist”, the newspaper reported. He asked the candidate a number of questions that grew more pointed, on the history of the church and its Mormon bible.
Close childhood friends of Sanford’s, Peter and Francis Tersigni, told the New York Times that he had become fixated on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he lived in Utah following a four-year stint in the US marines. He had fallen in love with a member of the church and had been distressed when the relationship ended.
“He got this whole fascination with Mormons, and they are the antichrist, and they are going to take over the world,” Francis Tersigni told the newspaper.
Sanford is suspected of having rammed his silver pick-up truck into the front doors of the Grand Blanc church before opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle on the hundreds of congregants inside. Two people were shot and killed, and two others were found dead in the wreckage of the church – which was burnt to the ground using gasoline.
The first victim of the church shooting has been identified as John Bond, 77, a veteran of the US navy who had served in Vietnam. He had six children and 10 grandchildren, Fox2 Detroit reported.
The father of the suspect, Thomas Sanford, apologized to the families of those who died in the shooting. “I feel terrible about all the families that have been hurt, and they’re under the same crap that I’m going under, that my wife and I are going under. I apologize for that,” he told the Detroit Free Press.
The shock of the attack on worshippers at the Mormon church has reverberated across Michigan, which has suffered repeated mass shootings in recent months. According to the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive (GVA), there have been 12 such cases in the state so far this year.
Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, lamented that “as a state, we know the pain of this too well. We’ve seen gun violence in our schools, stores, parades, festivals and our houses of worship”.
She added: “This community is reeling right now.”
The US is wrestling with an exceptionally high level of gun deaths fueled by easy access to guns. According to the GVA, there have been 327 mass shootings across the country this year – cases in which four or more victims are killed or wounded, not counting the shooter.
The carnage at the Mormon church was one among six separate mass shootings that erupted over the weekend. On Saturday, a gunman opened fire from a boat on the American Fish Company restaurant in Southport, North Carolina, killing three people and injuring eight.
Nigel Edge, 40, has been charged with murder, attempted murder and assault. Like the suspected Michigan shooter, Edge was a Marine veteran who served in Iraq.
He was awarded a Purple Heart, a medal granted to those wounded or killed in action.
Edge, who changed his name from Sean DeBevoise in 2023, wrote a book under his previous name in which he described how he learned how to handle a rifle while out hunting with his father in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation also describes how he had suffered four bullet injuries while in Iraq and incurred friendly fire from his own troops.
One of the four bullets struck him in the head, he wrote.
The suspect’s mother, Sandra Lynn DeBevoise, is reported to have said that her son’s war injuries had led to “delusions and PTSD”.
Notably, after escorting her to the event in 2012, DeBevoise filed a lawsuit accusing Kellie Pickler of trying to harm him by giving him a poisoned glass of whiskey. The judge overseeing the case – which was filed in February – dismissed the claims as “so delusional that they are simply unbelievable”, the culture news outlet Complex reported.
One of the three victims in the Southport shooting has been identified as Joy Rogers, 64, who had recently moved to the town from California in retirement. A statement from her family said that “she lived up to her name–her spirit radiated joy, light, and kindness everywhere she went”.
