Family of Michigan Gunman Awed by $270K in Donations

UPDATE Oct 2, 2025 9:25 AM CDT

The family of the gunman who carried out a mass shooting at a Michigan church last month is expressing their gratitude over a fundraiser for them started by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The fundraiser has raised more than $270,000 as of Thursday morning. "I don't have words right now to express when I saw what you as a community have done and remembered us as a family in this situation," Katie Hamilton, the sister of shooter Thomas Jacob Sanford, said in a statement, per Fox News. David Butler, who started the fundraiser, said he was inspired to do so after seeing GoFundMe pages for some of the shooting victims. "They certainly didn't choose this," he says of Sanford's family, including a son who reportedly has specialized medical needs. "They certainly didn't want this to happen. And they're victims, too."

Oct 1, 2025 11:45 AM CDT

Members of the Mormon community have rallied together in the wake of a deadly church shooting in Michigan, raising more than $185,000 to support the family of the gunman at the center of the tragedy. The GiveSendGo fundraiser was started by David Butler, a self-described "ordinary" member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with no ties to the family of 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, now deceased, or to the victimized Grand Blanc Township congregation. The campaign has quickly drawn donations from fellow Mormons across the country, including in Missouri, Hawaii, and Utah, per Fox News.

Butler said Sanford's family is facing steep financial and emotional challenges following the tragedy. He noted that one of Sanford's children needs specialized ongoing medical care, and that previous attempts to raise funds had brought little success. "Every donation will go to help provide for the Sanford family's daily needs, ongoing medical treatment, and create some stability in a time of heartbreak and upheaval," Butler wrote.

story continues below

The financial outpouring comes as details of Sanford's troubled past continue to emerge. Two childhood friends tell the AP that Sanford had for years nurtured a deep animosity toward the Mormon church, an attitude that intensified following a breakup with a Mormon girlfriend in Utah after he left the Marines in 2008. Friends recall him venting about the church at social gatherings, but they said they didn't take his comments seriously at the time. A City Council candidate who visited Sanford's home in Burton six days before the shooting said he expressed concerns about Mormons for 15 minutes, painting them as the "antichrist."