The September attack at a Michigan church in which a gunman opened fire and set the building ablaze was motivated by anti-religious beliefs, the FBI announced Friday.
Four people were killed and nine others were wounded in the Sept. 28 attack at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township. The suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, a former Marine, was killed by law enforcement.
One month after the devastating shooting, the FBI's Detroit field office disclosed the suspected motive behind the attack.
Jennifer Runyan, the FBI special agent in charge of the Detroit field office, said in a video statement on Friday that the attack was a targeted act of violence "believed to be motivated by the assailant’s anti-religious beliefs against the Mormon religious community."
She said the motive was "determined based upon countless hours of investigative efforts."
Runyan said the FBI continues to pursue "all credible leads" in the case. Since the attack, the FBI has provided more than 100 personnel to investigate the case, including special agents and intelligence analysts, she said.
Sanford was from Burton, a city of nearly 30,000 people roughly 6 miles from Grand Blanc Township, both suburbs of Flint.
In the attack, police said he rammed the church with his vehicle, then got out and started to shoot with an assault rifle. He also used an accelerant to start a fire, officials said. Minutes later, he was killed by officers in a parking lot behind the church.
Sanford had joined the Marine Corps in 2004, according to Marine records, and held titles of organizational automotive mechanic and vehicle recovery operator.
His service included a deployment from August 2007 to March 2008 under Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Marines. Sanford achieved the rank of sergeant and had his last duty assignment at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before he left the Marines in June 2008, according to the records.
His father, Thomas Sanford, said in a statement following the shooting that close relatives were “completely in shock” and “have no answers” regarding a possible motive.
Interviews last month with friends and those who spoke with Sanford reveal he was introduced to the Latter-day Saints when he lived in Utah following his deployment.
After some time, he returned to Michigan.
In September 2015 he welcomed a son who was diagnosed with congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare condition in which too much insulin is produced in the pancreas, according to local news reports at the time. Sanford and the child’s mother married in 2016.
Garry Reynolds Jr., a former colleague in Michigan who spoke to NBC News last month, couldn’t recall any red flags at work or negative comments about the Latter-day Saints church.
Kris Johns, a candidate for the City Council in Burton, said last month, before the motive was revealed, that he spoke to Sanford for about 20 minutes about a week before the attack as he was canvassing his neighborhood.
Sanford told Johns that he was an Iraq War veteran and that he once lived in Utah and had been addicted to drugs.
The conversation then turned to the Latter-day Saints and Sanford allegedly explained his belief that “Mormons are the Antichrist.” Johns noted that Sanford wasn’t angry as they spoke and “nothing he said was indicative of a threat.”
