By REBECCA COOK, JOSEPH AX and ANDREW HAY Reuters
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GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The deadly weekend attack on Mormon churchgoers in Michigan was a targeted act of violence, but investigators have yet to learn precisely what led an ex-Marine to crash his truck into a house of worship before unleashing a storm of gunfire and arson, officials said on Monday.

Four people were killed and eight others were wounded in the rampage, which unfolded during Sunday morning services at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Grand Blanc Township, about 60 miles (97 km) northwest of Detroit, according to police.

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The suspect, identified as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from the nearby town of Burton, was shot dead in a parking lot outside the building about eight minutes after the carnage began, police said.

U.S. military records show Sanford was an Iraq War veteran who served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2008. Police and other officials speaking at a news conference on Monday made little else public about Sanford’s background.

Township Police Chief William Renye said Sanford had been arrested in the past but did not elaborate.

“The FBI is investigating this as an act of targeted violence, and we are continuing to work to determine a motive,” said Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program earlier on Monday that she had recently spoken with FBI Director Kash Patel about the attack. She indicated that evidence pointed to a religious bias against the Mormon faith, formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church.

“All they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith, and they are trying to understand more about this, how premeditated it was, how much planning went into it, whether he left a note,” she said.

Hundreds of people were inside the meetinghouse – the Mormon faith’s term for the place of worship they most often use – when the suspect rammed his pickup truck into the front doors of the building. Officials said he then sprayed the interior with a barrage of gunfire before deliberately setting the building ablaze.

Two victims were found shot to death, and two other bodies were discovered hours later in the charred ruins left of the building. Authorities had said late on Sunday they feared that additional remains might turn up.

But at Monday’s news briefing, Renye said the death toll remained at four and that everyone else who was at the services had been accounted for.

In a separate account published by the Detroit Free Press, a Burton City Council candidate, Kris Johns, was quoted as saying he had spoken with Sanford about a week ago, and that the suspect described members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “the antichrist.”

Johns told the newspaper that the two men did not discuss politics but that he had seen a campaign sign for President Donald Trump on the suspect’s fence. An image from Google Maps also shows a Trump sign at an address listed online as the suspect’s residence.