Grand Blanc Church Shooting: City Council candidate says gunman called Mormons "the anti-Christ"
Gunman's controversial comments before the shooting
It was a week ago today that Kris Johns was going door-to-door campaigning when he stopped at the shooter's house here on Atherton.
GRAND BLANC, Mich. (FOX 2) - Less than a week before the deadly shooting in a Grand Blanc church, the gunman called Mormons "the anti-Christ," saying this to a man running for Burton City Council.
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It was a week ago today that Kris Johns was going door-to-door campaigning when he stopped at the home of 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford in Atherton.
"Very quickly, he just told me about himself, that he was a vet, a Marine who went to Iraq, and had drug addiction issues," Johns said. "He then moved to Utah to plow snow and met a woman. Then he got into the Mormon Bible, additional books which he doesn’t agree with—equal or above Jesus, which he did not agree with—and then, ultimately, what I remember as the takeaway—he goes, 'Mormons are the anti-Christ.' This was true religious animosity towards the LDS church, no discussion about political pieces or current events."
Dig deeper:
Johns was in his own church Sunday morning when he heard about the shooting and the fire. As he started seeing the shooter's picture, he immediately realized that this was the guy he had spent all that time talking to.
Afterward, he called the FBI and the police, telling them everything he knew. He mentioned that if he had any indication at all that this would have happened, he would have called the police right away.
However, he just thought this was someone who had strong opinions and wasn't necessarily planning to do anything like what happened on Sunday.
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