{"id":194043,"date":"2025-10-01T05:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/194043\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T05:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:54:11","slug":"michigan-church-attackers-ties-to-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/194043\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan church attacker&#8217;s ties to Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PARK CITY \u2014 Investigators say 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford attacked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel, leaving four people dead, and at least eight injured.<\/p>\n<p>According to social media posts, it appears he went by the name Jake.<\/p>\n<p>Sanford was killed by authorities at the scene of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ksltv.com\/local-news\/church-shooting-michigan-1\/825301\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">church shooting and fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>NBC News spoke with a woman who said she rented a room to Sanford back in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>In a phone call Tuesday, Sandra Winter said Sanford stayed in her Jeremy Ranch home for about one year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was just a really nice guy,\u201d Winter told NBC News. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have imagined he would do something like this \u2026 He never displayed any anger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Winter said hearing that Sanford is the suspect in this deadly church attack is very shocking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe didn\u2019t seem like a person who would go over the edge like this,\u201d she told NBC. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have recognized him by his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Winter said Sanford was dating a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said he wasn\u2019t sure about joining the church.<\/p>\n<p>Winter told NBC News they didn\u2019t stay in touch after he abruptly moved out around 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>KSL obtained a copy Sanford\u2019s mugshot when he was arrested for driving under the influence in Summit County back in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Documents shows he pleaded guilty to impaired driving, a lesser charge.<\/p>\n<p>A Michigan politician said he spoke to Sanford days before the attack.<\/p>\n<p>City council candidate Kris Johns <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/09\/29\/us\/video\/local-politician-recounts-encounter-with-michigan-gunman-days-before-attack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told CNN<\/a> that Sanford, whom he\u2019d never met before, brought up the LDS church.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did make the statement that Mormons are the anti-Christ, which is a shocking statement,\u201d Johns said. \u201cThere was anger. It was a long-standing anger that,\u00a0 I\u2019m speculating, but what he did took planning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The church building Sanford attacked is now mostly reduced to rubble.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-825864\" class=\"wp-image-825864 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Church_Shooting_Michigan_45339.jpg\" alt=\"Little remained of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel the day after a former Marine opened fire and set the building ablaze in Grand Blanc Township, Mich., Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-825864\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Little remained of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel the day after a former Marine opened fire and set the building ablaze in Grand Blanc Township, Mich., Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Vancleave)<\/p>\n<p>Michigan outlets report he was a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. According to social media, it appears he has a young child with a medical condition.<\/p>\n<p>Winter, Sanford\u2019s former landlord, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/29\/us\/michigan-church-attack.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told the New York Times<\/a>, that he did snow removal and landscaping work for a Utah company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARK CITY \u2014 Investigators say 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford attacked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2976,28998,28997,3,99,2988,2987,21,19,22,20,25,24,2986],"class_list":{"0":"post-194043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-home","10":"tag-ksltv-com","11":"tag-ksltv-com-utah-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-talk-and-community","15":"tag-traffic","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa","22":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}