Midvale, USA - Federal authorities have arrested a man they say was plotting to enter a Mormon temple in South Jordan to shoot people.
A complaint filed in U.S. District Court Tuesday said Midvale police were called to Valley Mental Health's facility on Feb. 2 and told that Benjamin Speakman, 27, had said he was planning to kill himself and others.
Speakman has been charged with one count of possession of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun.
Gregory Hopkins, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent, wrote in court papers that Speakman told an officer he was planning to go to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Jordan River Temple to shoot others and then himself.
"Benjamin Speakman told the officer he thought about shooting his wife and mother-in-law," Hopkins wrote. "Benjamin Speakman told the officer he was planning to go into an LDS temple and start shooting people in the temple with his AK-47 and then shoot himself with the shotgun."
Hopkins wrote that officers found a handgun, two loaded magazines and the sawed-off shotgun in Speakman's pickup truck.
The ATF said Speakman told investigators he had been having suicidal thoughts ever since he quit school on Jan. 12.
Speakman appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Nuffer. Nuffer appointed a defense attorney for Speakman, who sought his medical records pending a Feb. 20 arraignment.
Nuffer ordered Speakman held in U.S. Marshal's custody. He is being held in the Davis County Jail without bail.
Calls from The Associated Press to two attorneys listed in court records as representing Speakman weren't immediately returned on Thursday.