Michigan church shooting survivor says she looked gunman who killed her father in the eyes: “I forgave him right there”

A woman who survived the deadly attack on a church in Michigan on Sunday says in a letter posted on social media that she looked the gunman in the eyes after he killed her father, and “I forgave him right there.” 

In the letter shared Monday, the woman recounted the events of the shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, in which four people were killed. She said she needed to share what she went through for her dad and “for anyone who can set aside hate.”

“When he [the gunman] came over to me I felt very calm, peaceful even as I kneeled next to my dad, my hands still on dad,” she wrote. “It felt like a long time I stared into his eyes while answering his question.” 

“The only way I can describe it is I saw into his soul. I never took my eyes off his eyes, something happened, I saw pain, he felt lost. I deeply felt it with every fiber of my being. I forgave him, I forgave him right there, not in words, but with my heart,” she wrote.

Her father was one of the four people killed in the attack. CBS News is not naming the woman and her father to respect the family’s request. The victims range in age from 6 to 78 years old. Eight others were wounded in the shooting. 

The suspect was identified as 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford of Burton, Michigan. Sanford drove his pickup truck through the front doors of the church, exited his vehicle and opened fire with an assault-style rifle at around 100 churchgoers, Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said. Officials say he then set the church building on fire. Sanford died after “exchanging gunfire” with police, according to Renye. 

Law enforcement officials described the shooting as “an act of targeted violence.” Based on conversations with the FBI director, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday the attacker was “an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith.”

In her letter, the woman wrote that when she gave a description of the attacker to the FBI, she told them he had blue eyes; however, she learned that was not the case after she saw his photo.

“In the middle of the night while texting my sister I realized it was my eyes I saw,” she wrote. “I saw into his soul and he saw into mine. He let me live.”