Who was Jacob Sanford, suspect behind Michigan Mormon church shooting?

A horrific incident unfolded at a Michigan Mormon church during Sunday service. A gunman crashed his vehicle into the building, opened fire on congregants, and set the church ablaze.

The incident occurred during a Sunday service on September 28, 2025, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township.

The attack claimed four lives and left at least eight others injured. The Michigan Police responded swiftly, neutralizing the suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, in the parking lot.

Following the church attack, US President Donald Trump posted on X, condemning the incident as “horrendous” and praying for the victims and their families.

He wrote, “This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”

The suspect, later identified as Jacob Sanford, who crashed his pickup truck through the church’s front doors, exited the vehicle with an assault rifle and opened fire at worshippers, who included women and children.

The situation escalated when the attacker intentionally set the building ablaze.

Who was Thomas Jacob Sanford?

The man who unleashed horror at the Mormon church in Michigan was later identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, who happened to be an old veteran of the Iraq War.

The 40-year-old Sanford of Burton, as per the service records, had graduated from a nearby high school in 2004.

From 2004 to 2008, he served in the Marines and was stationed in Iraq from 2007 to 2008.

Jacob’s former high school classmate, Ryan Lopez, told the New York Times, “He regularly saw Sanford around; he was happy to see me; he just seemed normal.”

"He was an avid hunter of geese, turkey, and deer and had seemed like a typical country kid while growing up.”

The authorities are trying to establish the motive behind Sanford’s attack on the church in Michigan, and the investigators are searching the suspect’s property and analyzing his cell-phone data.

In the ongoing year, the shooting at the Mormon Church in Michigan is the 324th mass shooting incident in the US.

It happened just a few hours after another gunman opened fire at a waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina, killing three people and injuring at least eight.