Before the gunshots, before the fire, before the deaths of four people at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Genesee County’s Grand Blanc Township on Sept. 28, Thomas Jacob Sanford was just another boy in the 2004 Goodrich High School yearbook.
In a childhood beach photo Sanford’s parents submitted to the Martians yearbook, the boy beams with a squinty-eyed smile.
“What we wouldn’t give to turn back the hands of time … ” his parents wrote with the picture. “We will miss you so much when you venture out into the world.”
More than twenty years later, police believe 40-year-old Sanford smashed an explosives-laden tan pickup decorated with two U.S. flags into the wall of the church before opening fire on worshippers. Two people were fatally shot. Two more people died in the