The veteran who carried out a massacre at a Michigan Mormon church may have been radicalized after a failed romance and demands to erase his tattoos to join the faith.
Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, murdered four and injured eight churchgoers after plowing his silver GMC pickup truck into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc before setting the building ablaze.
Friends said Sanford moved to Utah around 2010 after leaving the Marine Corps, where he fell in love with a devout Mormon woman and converted to the faith.
The relationship eventually collapsed – a split believed to have left him bitter and fixated on the church. Criminology experts believe those wounds may have festered for years.
‘For someone like Sanford, this could reflect an accumulation of rejection patterning,’ said Dr John Brady, a forensic psychologist with 25 years’ experience studying violent offenders.
Sanford is also said to have suffered from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which likely made him violent.
Days before the attack, Sanford’s mother posted a cryptic Facebook update about feeling ashamed of a loved one, which some speculated may have been aimed at her son.
Sanford’s resentment may also have been fueled by the church’s reported demands that he remove his tattoos, which included barbed wire and a dream catcher.
A councilman who spoke to the shooter a week before the attack said he ranted about the church’s demands to lose his ink.
Thomas Jacob Sanford (left), 40, murdered four churchgoers and injured eight others during the fiery Sunday morning attack at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Friends have claimed Sanford (pictured), who is said to have suffered from PTSD, developed an obsession with Mormons after a romantic relationship with a religious girlfriend had a sour ending
Forensic psychologist Dr. Carole Lieberman, who has studied criminology for more than 20 years, told the Daily Mail that Sanford’s tattoos may have been symbolic.
A dreamcatcher on his tricep symbolizes protection from evil, while the barbed wire by his elbow could represent his time in the Marine Corps, she said.
Tattoos can also serve as a ‘coping tool’ when dealing with traumatic experiences, Dr Lieberman added.
But Dr Brady suggested this tattoo-related tension was just one of the factors that made him feel rejected by the church and the Mormon girlfriend his friends said broke his heart.
‘It represents a suspicious, paranoid situation that suggests he’s being rejected,’ Brady said of the accused killer, who spent time in Iraq.
‘To counterbalance the rejection, he strikes back at the people who he believes are against him.’
Brady pointed to other murders in recent history that demonstrate the same unsettling pattern.
He ‘took things into his own hands,’ just as Charlie Kirk murder suspect Tyler Robinson and accused Brian Thompson assassin, Luigi Mangione, allegedly did.
‘It ties into a larger picture of these self-appointed vigilantes that want to cure society’s ills,’ he said.
Investigators have not revealed a motive for the rampage, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News he ‘hated people of the Mormon faith.’
Sanford’s childhood companions revealed details about the Mormon woman he fell in love with more than a decade ago.
Peter Tersigni, 40, said Sanford settled down in Utah after his four-year Marine Corps stint, which relatives said left him with PTSD.
Sanford (pictured), served in the Marines and suffered from PTSD, according to relatives
Peter told the NY Times Sanford’s military tenure changed him for the worse. He claimed Sanford developed a methamphetamine habit.
Peter did not wish to elaborate when contacted by the Daily Mail.
Sandra Winter, 56, who rented a room with Sanford in Jeremy Ranch, Utah, circa 2010, also remembered Sanford falling for an ‘extremely religious’ member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Winter said he had felt pressured to convert to the faith, although it is unclear what religion he practiced.
‘He wasn’t so sure that he wanted to become a member of the church,’ she told the outlet.
‘But he really wanted to be with this woman.’
Winter was not immediately available for comment.
Peter said the relationship ended poorly for Sanford, adding to his despair.
‘Mentally, he was in rough shape,’ Peter told the NY Times about Sanford once he returned to Michigan.
Francis Tersigni, Peter’s twin brother, revealed that from that point forward, Sanford was fixated on Mormons and referred to them as the ‘Antichrist.’
He said that at his brother’s wedding, ‘all he could talk about was Mormons.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to Francis for comment.
Several people who were at the scene during the deadly shooting and fire console each other after the chaos unfolded
Criminology experts believe Sanford’s emotional wounds may have festered for years
Sanford allegedly reiterated his ‘Antichrist’ sentiment just before police say he murdered several churchgoers.
Burton City Council candidate Kris Johns told journalist Dave Bondy that Sanford ‘made the position multiple times that Mormons are the Antichrist’ during a conversation just a week before his rampage.
People who said they grew up with Sanford, who went by Jake, expressed utter shock on social media.
‘This is Jake. Not Thomas Jacob. Not Thomas. Not killer. Not murderer. Not suspect. Simply Jake. That’s how we knew him,’ Francis wrote in a Monday Facebook post alongside photos of Sanford and his friends from their youth.
‘What he did is gut-wrenching. Inexcusable. Disgusting. My heart breaks for those innocent lives he took,’ Francis wrote.
‘The victims. My heart breaks for his mother and father. For his wife and son. That man that came back from Utah wasn’t the same.’
Sanford’s father, Thomas Sanford, has broken his silence on the Sunday attack.
‘I feel terrible about all the families that have been hurt and they’re under the same crap that I’m going under, that my wife and I are going under,’ he told the Detroit Free Press.
‘The only thing I can say is that it was my son that did it. As far as why? Irrelevant. It happened. We’re dealing with it. It’s been a nightmare.’
As recently as Monday, a Trump sign was reportedly seen in front of his home.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for comment.
