{"id":176790,"date":"2025-09-29T03:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T03:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176790\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T03:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T03:30:09","slug":"live-updates-michigan-church-shooting-and-fire-at-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-kills-at-least-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176790\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: Michigan church shooting and fire at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints kills at least 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thomas<\/p>\n

\n Thomas Jacob Sanford, the suspect in Sunday morning\u2019s mass shooting at a Michigan church, was an Iraq War veteran and outdoorsman, according to military records and social media posts.\n <\/p>\n

\n Police say Sanford, 40, of Burton, Michigan, killed two and injured at least eight others while opening fire on congregants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township. Sanford, who also allegedly set fire to the church, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police, authorities said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Authorities have provided no motive for the attack.\n <\/p>\n

\n A Marine Corps spokesperson told CNN that Sanford served as a sergeant and received several medals for his service, which lasted from 2004 to 2008. He was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom for several months starting in the summer of 2007.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sanford graduated from Goodrich High School in 2004 and was recognized among other veteran alumni, according to an archived page from the school\u2019s website. A local news profile<\/a> of Sanford from 2007 said he was deployed with the US Marine Corps to Japan before preparing to head for service in Iraq.\n <\/p>\n

\n Social media accounts linked to Sanford\u2019s family show he was married with at least one child, a young son. According to a GoFundMe page from 2015, the family was in need of donations to help pay for the medical care of Sanford\u2019s son, who was born with a rare genetic disorder.\n <\/p>\n

\n The newborn was diagnosed with a condition called congenital hyperinsulinism, which required a lengthy hospital stay and several surgeries to remove portions of the pancreas, according to a family Facebook page documenting the difficult journey.\n <\/p>\n

\n The child\u2019s medical condition took a financial toll on the family, with one local news article reporting Sanford took leave from his work as a truck driver for Coca-Cola to be with his son.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDon\u2019t ever take having healthy kids for granted,\u201d Sanford is quoted as saying in another article. \u201cWe are proud of our child. I spent four years in the Marine Corps and was in Iraq and this is still the most unique thing to deal with.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Other posts on Sanford\u2019s mother\u2019s Facebook page show that Sanford was a hunter, posing with deer and other game.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Jacob Sanford, the suspect in Sunday morning\u2019s mass shooting at a Michigan church, was an Iraq War…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-176790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}