Monday, September 29, 2025 - A man who killed at least four people and wounded eight others on Sunday, September 28, at a Michigan Latter-day Saints church is a 40-year-old Iraq War veteran who served in the US Marines.
Iraq War veteran Thomas Sanford rammed his Chevy Silverado
truck into the church building before opening fire on worshipers at a Sunday
service of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc
Township, Michigan, USA.
The vehicle had two large American flags behind the cab and
a set of deer antlers attached to the bumper.
He also set the church ablaze, causing the entire structure to burn down. Authorities fear there may be more victims in the fire.
A Facebook post by Sanford’s mother says the gunman — who
di£d at the scene in a shootout with cops — served in Iraq from 2004 to
2008.
He was k!lled minutes after the first 911 call came
in.
A Department of Natural Resources officer and a local
township cop responded to the scene in about 30 seconds, authorities
said.
Authorities later confirmed that Sanford, from nearby
Burton, Michigan, is the lone suspect.
The source of the blaze was not immediately known, but
sources told The Post that authorities found improvised explosive devices on
church property, which a bomb squad was investigating.
A bomb squad was also searching Sanford’s house.
Cops said there were hundreds of worshippers inside the
church when the attack began, with aerial footage showing an enormous plume of
choking black smoke rising up from the structure as it burned.
Social media accounts believed to be connected to Sanford
show he’s a family man, with a wife and young son.
A dormant GoFundMe page from 2015 raised more than $3,000
for the couple’s now-10-year-old son who was born with congenital
hyperinsulinism, or CHI, a rare, genetic condition where the pancreas releases
too much insulin.
Pictures from the Sanfords’ Facebook page show the family
smiling, posing in the beds of pickup trucks or in a field of tall
sunflowers.
An unnamed witness told Fox 2 Detroit that the attack
started at about just after the congregational hymn, when hundreds of people
were inside the building for the 10 a.m. service
Churchgoers reportedly heard a loud bang as the attacker
crashed his truck into the church.
“We at first thought someone had accidentally crashed into
the church, so we went out to help him,” the man told the local TV
station.
Paul Kirby, 38, who also ran outside to render assistance
believing it to be an accident, told the New York Times he saw the man getting
out of the truck from about 10-20 yards away before he realized what was
happening.
“He started shooting at me,” Kirby said, saying a bullet
whizzed through a nearby glass door, clipping his leg with a piece of
shrapnel.
He then rushed inside the church to find his wife and two
sons before they fled through the back of the church and loaded as many people
into their car as they could before speeding away.
Grand Blanc resident Tony Deck told USA Today that he drove by the church after hearing sirens and saw “at least four yellow canvases over de@d bodies.”
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