Two days before the massacre at a Mormon church in Michigan, the mother of suspected shooter Thomas Jacob Sanford made a cryptic post on Facebook about someone in her life who refused to take “accountability” and who always “twists everything”.
That is according to reports from The New York Post and The Daily Mail, which identified the now-deleted Facebook profile as belonging to Sanford’s mother Brenda.
It’s not clear who her post was referring to and the words were not originally hers. Instead they seem to have been part of a copy-pasted meme that has been circulating on social media since at least August.
Police have named Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, as the man who killed four people and injured at least eight others in an attack on a Mormon Church in Grand Blanc, Michigan on Sunday morning.
“People lack accountability, then say, ‘you could’ve talked to me.’ No, I couldn’t. Because talking to you isn’t really a conversation,” the post read in part.
“You don’t listen to understand, you listen to reply. You deflect the moment any responsibility comes near you, you twist words until they lose their meaning, and then you turn yourself into the victim while painting everyone else as the villain…
“Conversations with you don’t heal, they hurt. They don’t resolve, they escalate. They don’t build, they break. I leave them more drained, more frustrated, and more unheard than before.”
The Independent has not been able to confirm the account’s identity, but has reached out to a woman listed in public records as Sanford’s mother for comment.
According to authorities, Sanford rammed his pickup truck through the front doors of the building, jumped out of the vehicle, and began firing a semi-automatic rifle at the worshippers inside, before setting fire to the church and being shot dead in a gunfight with officers.
Sanford had formerly served in the Marines in Iraq, rising to the rank of sergeant, and later raised money for his son, who suffers from a rare condition called congenital hyperinsulinism.
Though his motives are unclear, a local political candidate who met Sanford told The Detroit Free Press that he had ranted about Mormons being “the antichrist”.
Facebook posts and photos suggest he was a fan of President Donald Trump who stridently opposed Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccines in 2020.
