By Rebecca Cook
GRAND BLANC, Michigan (Reuters) -Authorities on Monday were working to determine why an ex-Marine drove his pickup truck into a Michigan church during a Sunday service, opened fire and set the building ablaze, killing at least four people before he died in a shootout with police.
Hundreds of worshippers were inside the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, when the suspect rammed his pickup truck into the front doors on Sunday morning, officials said. Two victims were shot to death, and two other bodies were discovered hours later in the rubble of the church, which officials said was deliberately set on fire.
Officials warned late on Sunday that some people remained unaccounted for, and that more bodies could yet be found as investigators sifted through the burned-out ruins of the building. At least eight people were wounded.
The suspect was identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from the nearby town of Burton. U.S. military records show Sanford was an Iraq War veteran who served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2008.
Authorities did not offer a possible motive, saying they would search the suspect’s home and phone. Grand Blanc Township, a suburb of Flint with a population around 40,000, is about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program that she spoke with FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday about the attack.
“All they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note,” she said, using a common term for the church. “All of those questions have yet to be answered.”
Leavitt said the shooter’s family was cooperating with the FBI.
“My heart is breaking for the Grand Blanc community,” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement.
President Donald Trump said on social media that the shooting “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians.”
“THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!” he added.
The Michigan violence came a month after a gunman fired through the stained-glass windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, killing two children and wounding 17 other people.
Sunday’s rampage marked the 324th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.
Coincidentally, another 40-year-old Marine veteran who served in Iraq is a suspect in a North Carolina shooting that killed three people and wounded five others less than 14 hours before the Michigan incident.
Police in Southport, North Carolina, accused Nigel Max Edge of firing on a waterfront bar from a boat on Saturday night. Edge has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder, police said.
A federal lawsuit that Edge had filed against the U.S. government and others described him as a decorated Marine who suffered severe wounds, including traumatic brain injury, in Iraq. The lawsuit, which was dismissed, showed Edge was previously known as Sean William DeBevoise before changing his name.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, follows the teachings of Jesus but also the prophecies of Joseph Smith, a 19th-century American. It is informally known as the Mormon Church, a term that its leadership discourages.
“Places of worship are meant to be sanctuaries of peacemaking, prayer and connection,” Doug Andersen, a church spokesman, said in a statement. “We pray for peace and healing for all involved.”
(Reporting by Rebecca Cook in Grand Blanc; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Daphne Psaldakis and Rachael Levy; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Joseph Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty)
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