Hofmann Charged With Murder and Selling Forgeries
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
In the last issue of the Messenger we reported that Mormon document dealer Mark Hofmann was not only a suspect in the October 15th Salt Lake City bombing’s case but that police were also investigating the possibility that Mr. Hofmann had been selling forged documents to the Mormon Church. On February 4, 1986, a statement was released to the news media which contained this information: “The Salt Lake City Police Department, the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Department and the Salt Lake County Attorney’s Office today announced the culmination of a three-and-a-half-month investigation into the bombing deaths of Steven F. Christensen and Kathleen W. Sheets.
Mark W. Hofmann has been charged with two counts of first-degree homicide, a capital offense, and 26 other counts.
In the formal complaint (The State of Utah, Plaintiff, v. Mark W. Hofmann, . . .), Mark Hofmann was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mormon church leaders and other unsuspecting individuals through the sale of forged or nonexistent documents.
ULM’S Investigation
Nineteen months before local and federal investigators began working on the Salt Lake bombing’s case, Utah Lighthouse Ministry began its own investigation concerning the authenticity of the documents Mark Hofmann was selling the Mormon Church and other collectors. In this inquiry we obtained information from Washington, D.C. and ten different states. We even interviewed a convicted murderer at the Utah State Prison.
Our investigation began in March 1984 when we were first given extracts from the so-called Salamander letter—a letter purportedly written by Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps in 1830. We had just completed a book entitled, Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, in which we presented evidence linking early Mormonism to magic. We felt that the Salamander letter would provide additional evidence to support our case. As we read the extracts from the Salamander letter, however, we were shocked to find that there were important parallels to E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed, which was first published in 1834—some four years after the Salamander letter was supposed to have been penned. In the Messenger for March 1984 we wrote that we had “some reservations concerning the authenticity of the letter, and at the present time we are not prepared to say that it was actually penned by Martin Harris.”
In the same issue of the Messenger, we pointed out the “disturbing” parallels to Howe’s book and said that although “the average person would have a difficult time forging these things, there are probably a number of people who could do the job. . . . While we would really like to believe that the letter attributed to Harris is authentic, we do not feel that we can endorse it until further evidence comes forth.”
On August 25, 1984, John Dart wrote the following in the Los Angeles Times:
. . . unusual caution . . . has been expressed by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, . . . The Tanners’ suggestion of forgery has surprised some Mormons, who note that the parallels in wording could be taken as evidence for authenticity.
Robert Lindsey wrote the following for the February 16, 1986, issue of the New York Times:
Court documents indicate that some prosecutors in the Salt Lake County Attorney’s office believe Mr. Hofmann’s goal was not only to obtain money from the church through the sale of the documents but also to establish enough credibility that he could shape the world’s perception of Mormonism.
This view is shared by a man here who was the first to suggest that Mr. Hofmann was forging his documents. He is Jerald Tanner, a former Mormon who heads the Utah Lighthouse Ministry, which for decades has been challenging the truth of much of Mormon doctrine.
In an interview, Mr. Tanner said he decided . . . that the Hofmann documents might be forgeries, even though some of them, many purporting to be in the handwriting of early Mormons not previously known to have left documents, supported his own iconoclastic views of Mormonism.
In a newsletter that he publishes with his wife, Sandra, Mr. Tanner began raising questions about their authenticity, in some cases comparing the texts with known Mormon writings.
But if senior Mormon officials were award of his warnings, they apparently paid little attention. Several of the church’s highest officials have acknowledged negotiating to acquire documents from Mr. Hofmann until the day of the first two bombings.
Mr. Tanner said it appeared that Mr. Hofmann’s growing credibility as a source of documents was putting him in a position where the documents he presented were considered unassailable. If that continued, Mr. Tanner said, Mr. Hofmann “could control the direction of Mormon history.”
One of the documents that investigators list in the complaint as a forgery is the 1825 letter of Joseph Smith to Josiah Stowell. In the June 1985 issue of the Messenger, page 18, we reported that although we could not find any historical problems with the letter, the spelling seemed to be surprisingly good for the early date that is on the letter. Furthermore, we noticed that the letter did “not seem to have any words or parts of words crossed out and no words or parts of words are inserted above the lines.” We felt this was probably not consistent with other letters written by Joseph Smith and suggested that the letter “should be carefully checked by experts who are qualified to make meaningful judgments with regard to spelling, grammar and style.”
In the same issue of the Messenger we reported that George D. Smith claimed that it was his understanding that “Gordon B. Hinckley, purchased the letter in 1983 in his own name from collector Mark Hofmann . . .” We pointed out that “If President Hinckley bought the document in his own name, this must have been an attempt to give the Church deniability—i.e., the letter could be safely kept out of the hands of the public, and yet the Church could officially deny that it had it.” The complaint makes it clear that Hinckley did, in fact, purchase the letter in his own name. It says that Hofmann “exercised control over the property of President Gordon B. Hinckley by deception” when he sold him the 1825 letter. As long as Hinckley possessed the letter, the church could deny it owned the document, and even after the donation was made, the church could continue to deny that it had purchased the letter. In any case, it is obvious that there was a deliberate cover-up with regard to the 1825 letter.
Story Changed
The complaint against Mark Hofmann states that eleven documents which he sold the Mormon church and other collectors are forgeries:
All of the above documents were given to George Throckmorton an experienced questioned documents examiner formerly employed with the Utah State Crime Laboratory, presently employed by the Utah Attorney General Office.
Mr. Throckmorton has done extensive scientific analysis on all of the documents described above and has concluded that none are authentic. (The State of Utah v. Mark W. Hofmann, page 6)
The Salamander letter is among the documents listed as forgeries. Originally, Mark Hofmann and Lyn Jacobs claimed that the Salamander letter was discovered and purchased by Jacobs. Writing in Utah Holiday, January 1986, page 54, Allen Roberts and Fred Esplin reported: “It was from a New England postmark collector that Jacobs said he obtained . . . the Salamander letter. . . . Without disclosing his interest in the content of the letter, Jacobs said he purchased it for about $25, the value of the postmark.” After investigators began raising the question of forgery with regard to the letter, Lyn Jacobs claimed that it was actually Mark Hofmann who originally purchased the letter. In an interview published in Sunstone magazine, Jacobs stated:
JACOBS: Unfortunately, my involvement in the discovery of the Martin Harris letter has been somewhat exaggerated . . . it was Mark who actually acquired it. . . . I found out that a dentist in Cortland, New York, had a little group of Palmyra letters dating from the 1830s that might be of historical interest. So I called Mark and gave him that tip. Soon afterwards Mark purchased the Martin Harris letter . . .
It was about the middle of December 1983 and I was about to come home for Christmas vacation, so we waited until I got to Utah to discuss what to do with it. He turned the letter over to me and told me he did not wish to become involved with the publicity he felt the letter would probably generate. (Sunstone, vol. 10, no. 8, page 15)
When Jacobs was asked if it were true that he “did not see it [the Salamander letter] until Mark showed it to you,” he replied, “Yes” (Ibid., page 19).
The “dentist in Cortland, New York” has been identified as William Thoman. Unfortunately for those who would still believe in the authenticity of the Salamander letter, Dr. Thoman undercuts the entire story by claiming that he never had any dealings with Mark Hofmann after 1982 when Hofmann ran up a bill for $60 which he never paid. Mr. Hofmann, therefore, could not have obtained the letter from him in “December 1983” as Jacobs maintains. Even Kenneth Rendell, who originally authenticated the Salamander letter, now feels that there is a “high likelihood” that it is a forgery. In an interview on KUTV, February 6, 1986, Mr. Rendell commented: I could find no evidence of forgery. I could not prove it was authentic because there was no handwriting of Martin Harris to compare it to. . . . The FBI report has confirmed . . . there is no evidence to prove it’s a forgery. However, given the circumstances now that the history of the letter apparently is changing this week and that the person [Lyn Jacobs] is saying that it originally came from Hofmann, not from him, and given the circumstances of all these other forgeries, I think whether there is ever any physical evidence to prove it is a forgery, there is a high likelihood that it could be a forgery.
When Mr. Rendell was asked if he was “more suspicious now about the origin of the Salamander letter than you were when you first examined it,” he replied: “Certainly I am. There’s considerably more information now and considerably more evidence now.”
It now appears that both Lyn Jacobs and Mark Hofmann conspired to hide the truth concerning the origin of the Salamander letter. If Jacobs had knowledge that the letter was forged, he would be as guilty as Hofmann of “THEFT BY DECEPTION.” Mr. Jacobs claims that Hofmann was willing to “share any profits” that came from the sale of the document and that he was involved in its sale to Steven Christensen: “. . . I met Steve for the first time at Coordinated Financial Services. By that time, the sale contract had already been written and Mark and I signed it along with a few witnesses. It obligated Steve to pay $40,000 . . .” (Sunstone, page 15). Since Jacobs was deeply involved with Hofmann and was a party to an erroneous story concerning the origin of the Salamander letter, some have suggested that he may be a co-conspirator with Mark Hofmann in forgery. We find the following in the interview with Jacobs in Sunstone (page 19):
SUNSTONE: So as far as you know, no one living can claim to have read it [the Salamander letter] before it came from Mark Hofmann’s hands. You don’t have any first hand knowledge of its actual origins.
JACOBS: If you’re suggesting Mark forged it, it is not possible. Mark Hofmann is not a forger. . . .
SUNSTONE: Some have suggested that you might be a forger.
JACOBS: That’s ridiculous. . . . To my knowledge, such a thing has never been perpetrated either by Mark or myself. . . .
SUNSTONE: How do you suppose these questions of forgery arose?
JACOBS: The reasons for that are difficult for me to ascertain except that people just simply don’t like certain documents. . . . It seems to me it’s only when a document becomes particularly offensive to people or in any way controversial that people decide it’s a forgery. What’s the matter with everyone? . . .
SUNSTONE: One of the most outspoken proponents of the forgery theory has been the Utah Lighthouse Ministry. One would think that with their anti-Mormon mission, they would not question the Martin Harris letter’s authenticity without good reason, especially since it supposedly supports their case against the Church. What do they have to gain?
JACOBS: I’ve always wondered that. . . . So often such documents get stashed away; nobody talks about them anymore, and they just sort of fizzle out of public attention. That’s really what started happening to the Martin Harris [letter]. . . . Well the anti-Mormons may have wanted to keep the thing going by claiming it to be a forgery.
The other possibility is that because certain individuals were crying forgery from the beginning, the anti-Mormons may have become apprehensive about using a document in their ministry which might not be authentic. If it were a forgery, it would make them look like fools.
Lyn Jacobs seems to imply that because “certain individuals were crying forgery,” we were extremely cautious about endorsing the Harris letter. Actually, the truth of the matter is that we were the first to raise the question. Furthermore, Mr. Jacob’s assertion that we wanted to keep the “thing going by claiming it to be a forgery” is absolutely ridiculous. In any case, Sunstone has done a real service for researchers in providing this revealing interview with Jacobs. If any of our readers have additional material or information concerning Jacobs we would be happy to receive it.
As we indicated in the last issue of the Messenger, just before the bombings Mark Hofmann claimed he found a Book of Common Prayer which has a Martin Harris inscription in it. We suggested that this inscription may be a forgery created for the purpose of validating the Salamander letter. It is interesting to note that investigators now say that it is not authentic. It is included in the list of charges as one of the forged documents which were sold to the Mormon church. The list of forgeries also includes the “E. B. Grandin Contract.” This is very interesting because this contract purports to contain one of the earliest and best signatures of Martin Harris. This signature was probably used to validate the Salamander letter.
Investigators indicate that the forgeries began as early as 1980 when Hofmann “discovered” the Anthon transcript. This was a sheet of paper believed to contain copies of the characters which appeared on the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. After we became suspicious of the Salamander letter we reasoned that the Anthon transcript could also be a forgery. In The Money-Digging Letters, Part 1, page 9, published on August 22, 1984, we commented: “. . . a number of important documents have come to light during the 1989s. The questions raised by the Salamander letter have forced us to take a closer look at some of these documents.”
When the Anthon transcript first came forth historians were very excited about what it might reveal. Some people felt it might contain magic characters. We tried very hard to find evidence to support this idea, but we were finally forced to conclude that the “similarities” were not “sufficient to prove the case” (Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, page 42). We compared the Anthon transcript with many documents and samples of ancient writing, but in the end we found ourselves feeling frustrated and disillusioned with the transcript. Instead of containing anything related to any language, the Anthon transcript appeared to be composed of meaningless doodlings.
In the beginning, Mormon scholars were rejoicing over the new find. Dr. Richard L. Anderson, of Brigham Young University, claimed “ ‘This new discovery is sort of a Dead Sea School [sic] Equivalent of the Book of Mormon,’. . .” (The Herald, Provo Utah, May 1, 1980). The noted Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley was quoted as saying: “ ‘This offers as good a test as we’ll ever get as to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon,’. . .” (Ibid.). In the same paper, Dr. Hugh Nibley triumphantly announced: “Of course it’s translatable.” According to The Herald:
Nibley also said he counted at least two dozen out of 47 characters in the Demotic alphabet that could be given phonetic value.
“This offers as good a test as we’ll ever get. Nobody could have faked those characters. It would take 10 minutes to see that this is fake.”
On May 12, 1980, the Provo Herald reported:
The Herald called Hugh Nibley to see if he was still confident about his earlier assessments.
“I still say just what I said before. It can be translated.”
In the last issue of the Messenger we related that the story which Mark Hofmann told concerning how he acquired the Joseph Smith III Blessing document did not check out. We first publicly questioned the source of this document on August 22, 1984, when we printed The Money-Digging Letters. Prosecutors now claim that this document is also a forgery.
Too Sensitive
Allen Roberts and Fred Esplin reveal that “Police sources indicate that Steve Christensen’s personal journal records that Elder Hugh Pinnock asked Hofmann to find for him two important items: the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon and something ‘too sensitive to mention,’ that the late ‘Elders Mark E. Petersen and G. Homer Durham were most involved in prior to their deaths’” (Utah Holiday, January 1986, page 58). It has been suggested that the item that is “too sensitive to mention” may be the gold plates of the Book of Mormon or a “seer stone.” Both of these suggestions appear unlikely.
One thing that might qualify, however, is evidence that Solomon Spalding or Sidney Rigdon wrote material which Joseph Smith used for his Book of Mormon. Although we have never put a great deal of stock in the theory, many critics of the Mormon church have maintained that Sidney Rigdon stole a manuscript written by Spalding and that this was used to create the Book of Mormon. If this idea could be proven, it would destroy the claim that the Book of Mormon was divinely inspired. Any hard evidence on this subject would certainly be “too sensitive to mention.” Like the 116 lost pages of the Book of Mormon, such “evidence” might be sold to the Mormon church for millions of dollars. This, combined with the secrecy that would surround its transfer to the church, could very easily lead to disagreements and perhaps even to murder.
We have recently learned that investigators have been looking into a document which was in the possession of Hofmann or Jacobs which has the signatures of both Solomon Spalding and Sidney Rigdon on it. The document apparently bears clear evidence of falsification. It has been reasoned, however, that this document could have been used to promote a swindle. In this scenario, the forger would show the buyer the document and point out the evidence of falsification. After establishing his reputation as a good detective with regard to old documents and a seeker after truth, the forger could then say that he had acquired a legitimate document relating to Spalding and/or Rigdon.
However this may be, the fact that Hofmann and Jacobs had an interest in Spalding-Rigdon documents reminded us of a series of events that occurred in 1983. A reporter from one of the largest newspapers in the United States asked us if it was true that the Mormon church had bought the long-lost Spalding manuscript for $6,000,000. We replied that we had no information to support such an accusation. Some time after this, we received a phone call which seemed to explain the source of the rumor. The woman on the phone told us that if we would call a Mr. D____ in St. James, N.Y., within half an hour, he could give us the details concerning the discovery of the Spalding manuscript. The number we were given was 516-862-6448. At first Mr. D. seemed rather indignant about the intrusion and was reluctant to talk about the matter, but with some prompting, he finally told us that he had discovered the lost manuscript. In this and other phone conversations he revealed that he had found the 339-page manuscript in an old piano. He not only claimed he found the manuscript, but he maintained that he also had a sixteen-page document written by Sidney Rigdon in which he confessed the part he played in the whole deception. This was not all, however; he also found an 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon which was marked to reveal the portions which were plagiarized from the Spalding manuscript!
We, of course, concluded that these fantastic claims were ridiculous and published an article concerning this in the Salt Lake City Messenger in November 1983. Later we discussed the matter with Mark Hofmann. He told us that Mr. D. was a “kook” and no credence should be given to his story. Hofmann said that the noted document dealer Charles Hamilton could tell us all about Mr. D.’s bad reputation. Some time later we heard that Mark Hofmann had found the 116 lost pages of the Book of Mormon—i.e., the book of Lehi. We were told that the contents of the book of Lehi were “dynamite.” The manuscript was supposed to contain information about money-digging interwoven with material that reads like the book of Nephi—one of the books appearing in the published Book of Mormon. When we discussed the matter with Mark Hofmann, he admitted that a manuscript purporting to be the 116 missing pages had been found in Bakersfield, California. He claimed, however, that it was a forgery. In telling about this manuscript, Mr. Hofmann said that a Book of Mormon was found with the manuscript which was marked to reveal which parts of the printed Book of Mormon were the same as those appearing in the unpublished book of Lehi.
Mr. Hofmann’s story concerning the marked Book of Mormon sounded strangely similar to Mr. D.’s claim that he found a Book of Mormon which was marked to show the portions which were plagiarized from the Spalding manuscript. We felt that the two stories were so similar that we were almost forced to the conclusion that one was borrowed from the other. This, of course, also raised the question of whether there was some connection between Hofmann and Mr. D. We later wondered if it were possible that Mr. D. was trying to get us to print an article on the matter so that the Mormon church would become concerned and try to buy up the purported Spalding manuscript.
It is also interesting to note that about that same time Church Archivist Donald Schmidt called us on the telephone. He seemed very concerned that we had the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon and were preparing to print them. He claimed that he had been told that one of the editors of this newsletter (Jerald Tanner) had boasted in the library of the Utah State Historical Society that he had the missing pages. We, of course, assured Mr. Schmidt that there was no truth in the statement. In retrospect, we wonder if someone told Schmidt this story to stir the church leaders up so that they would pay a higher price to buy a forged copy of the manuscript.
In his interview in Sunstone, page 13, Lyn Jacobs tells of the report of the discovery of the book of Lehi manuscript in “southern California”:
Mark decided not to attempt to go after the stuff when he found out exactly what it is. It may have something to do with a fictional account supposedly written in the nineteenth century by Sidney Rigdon called “The Book of Lehi.” I suspect that’s what it is. It is certainly not the 116 pages, or Mark would have gone after it.
It is possible that someone could have been making plans to forge as many as three important manuscripts relating to the Book of Mormon. The first is the long-lost Spalding manuscript. The second might be Sidney Rigdon’s rewritten version of the Spalding manuscript, which Jacobs refers to as “The Book of Lehi.” The third, of course, would be the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon in the handwriting of Martin Harris and Emma Smith. Any one of these manuscripts would be worth millions of dollars.
While at first glance it would seem unlikely that the Mormon church leaders would be gullible enough to buy more than one of these manuscripts, if a common thread ran through all three manuscripts, such a swindle might be rather convincing. For instance, the Spalding manuscript could be more of a secular history of the Nephites. The Rigdon version of the “Book of Lehi” might contain a great deal of the same material with some religious information interspersed. The final product (the lost 116 pages in the handwriting of Martin Harris) could contain essentially the same material as Rigdon’s manuscript with changes made to fit the vocabulary and style of Joseph Smith.
While this all may be just a matter of speculation, an individual who talked privately with one of Mark Hofmann’s close associates just before the bombings informed us that he was told that a manuscript “like” the 116 missing pages of the Book of Mormon had been discovered. Moreover, the fact that police have been investigating a Spalding-Rigdon document makes us even more suspicious.
Cover-Up Feared
Many people are concerned that when Mark Hofmann comes to trial there will be some kind of a cover-up to protect the Mormon church. One fear that has been expressed is that prosecutors might give preferential treatment to the Mormon leaders. Our greatest concern, however, is how Mr. Hofmann’s lawyers will handle their side of the case. From all indications Hofmann is deeply in debt and would have no way of paying for his defense. Since the case is so complicated, his legal fees could mount to a million dollars. While his lawyers were originally talking about setting up a public defense fund, they have now indicated that funds have become available to them.
Our fear is that the church could either directly or indirectly provide funds for Hofmann’s defense. While there would be nothing illegal about this, the church certainly has its own vested interest in how the trial is conducted. If Hofmann’s lawyers were to receive money from the church or its leaders, they might feel somewhat obligated not to cause the church any embarrassment with regard to Hofmann’s document dealings with them. Such a move could possibly influence what witnesses Hofmann’s lawyers called and how Church leaders would be questioned. Furthermore, it might make it hard to subpoena documents the church has in its possession. For instance, if the Oliver Cowdery history really talks about salamanders appearing to Joseph Smith, it could be subpoenaed in an attempt to support the claims for the authenticity of the Salamander letter. If the church were paying the legal bills, however, it is unlikely that the lawyers would want to embarrass church leaders by demanding that it become a part of the public record. (It would, of course, be of no help if the prosecution could show that Hofmann had access to it.)
At this point we have no evidence that the church is paying any of Mr. Hofmann’s legal bills. We do know, however, that the church was willing to pay a great deal of money to get rid of embarrassing documents. It is also reasonable to conclude that church leaders would like to keep their secret dealings with the documents from coming to light. The General Authorities, therefore, will probably do their best to keep on the good side of Hofmann. He knows too much with regard to their secret document deals.
Although church leaders could not resist the temptation to suppress embarrassing documents, we hope they have learned their lesson and will not try to influence the course of the trial with their money or power. In any case, the cancellation of Hofmann’s public defense fund is certainly another mystery in this bizarre case. Even if some persons or organizations were willing to give a large amount of money for Hofmann’s defense, we would think that they would let the defense fund be set up first and then pay only the amount which was over that raised through the publicly supported fund.
Charges Available
The Salt Lake County Attorney’s charges against Mark Hofmann are now available in a pamphlet we have published entitled, The State of Utah v. Mark W. Hofmann. This 24-page booklet also contains the “probable cause” statements which were deleted when the information was first released by the County Attorney’s Office.
Besides the accusation that documents have been forged, the charges filed against Mark Hofmann contain other important information. For instance, in the last issue of the Messenger we demonstrated that Hofmann obtained a piece of papyrus from Kenneth Rendell and later claimed that it was part of the so-called McLellin collection—i.e., papyrus which Joseph Smith had in his possession and claimed were written by Abraham and Joseph in Egypt. The charges show that Hofmann misrepresented this papyrus to different individuals and tried to sell it to Curt Bench “for $40,000.” Pages 23-24 of The State of Utah v. Mark W. Hofmann, contain some very revealing information concerning Hofmann’s document dealings:
On May 9, 1985, Mark Hofmann completed an agreement with Thomas Wilding wherein Thomas Wilding agreed to put up $160,000.00 in order to have Mark Hofmann purchase a Charles Dickens “Haunted Man” manuscript. . . . Later, Mark Hofmann assured Mr. Wilding that the manuscript described above had been purchased by Mr. Hofmann and re-sold to an investor in Japan. Your affiant has learned from Justin Schiller, that Mr. Schiller has possession of the above described manuscript due to the fact that Mr. Schiller invested $170,000.00 of his own funds to purchase the manuscript. Mark Hofmann never gave the monies given to him by Mr. Wilding to Mr. Schiller for the acquisition of the manuscript. . . . Thomas Wilding . . . gave the following information: On September 12, 1985, Mark Hofmann completed an agreement to purchase the “Oath of a Freeman” from Lynn Jacobs in New York State. This is the first time Mr. Wilding had heard the name, Lynn Jacobs. Mr. Wilding gave Mark Hofmann $170,000.00 in order to purchase the “Oath of a Freeman” from Lynn Jacobs. The next day, Thomas Wilding tried to verify if Mark Hofmann had traveled to New York and found that he had not. It has been determined by your affiant that the monies received by Mark Hofmann in this above described transaction did not go to Lynn Jacobs and that when this transaction was orchestrated by Mark Hofmann, he already had the “Oath” since he purchased it for $25.00 in a rare book shop.
Your affiant was told by Thomas Wilding that on or about the first week in August, 1985, Mark Hofmann completed a sale of what he maintained were Brigham Young Papers and received from Thomas Wilding over $10,000.00 in cash. . . .
On the evening of September 13, 1985 . . . Syd Jensen, Tom Wilding and Mark Hofmann met in Tom Wilding’s office. Mark Hofmann admitted to Mr. Wilding and Jensen that the “Oath of a Freeman,” had not been purchased by Mark Hofmann nor sold by him. Mr. Hofmann further confessed that the money purported to be obtained by Mr. Hofmann to purchase the Charles Dicken’s manuscript as described above had not gone for the purpose intended.
Lastly, that there were no “Brigham Young Papers” and the money obtained to purchase the nonexistent documents had gone elsewhere.
As far as the charges of murder are concerned, the legal papers do not reveal any “smoking gun.” They do, however, have some circumstantial evidence which could place Mark Hofmann in the vicinity of both Christensen’s office and the Sheets’ residence prior to the bombings. Lorie Loftin, one of the witnesses to the explosion of the bomb in Hofmann’s car who is spoken of in the complaint, has charged investigators with distorting her statements concerning what happened prior to the blast (see Salt Lake Tribune, February 8, 1986). While it appears that she will not be able to provide any meaningful evidence for the prosecution, the complaint indicates that the bomb was on the seat of the car when it exploded. This would appear to support the charge that Hofmann was transporting the bomb when it exploded. On page 14, the complaint states:
The defendant stated to detective J.F.G. Bell that when he opened his vehicle door, a package fell on to the vehicle floor and he went to grab for it, then there was an explosion. . . .
Investigation by agent Jerry Taylor, an explosives technology expert and reconstruction expert for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reviewed all the physical evidence and laboratory reports and concluded that the position of the bomb at the time of detonation in defendant’s car was on the drivers seat, against the console in contrast to defendant’s statement that it was on the floor.
In the last issue of the Messenger we reported that the relationship between Steven Christensen and Mark Hofmann was strained by Hofmann’s failure to repay a bank loan and that Hofmann may have strongly resented Christensen’s “parental-like intrusion into his affairs.” The complaint against Mark Hofmann alleges that Christensen was threatening Hofmann with legal action and criminal charges before the bombings:
. . . Curt Bench knew that Mark W. Hofmann’s personal debts exceeded the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to several groups of people as a result of document dealings. Around the middle of September, 1985, Mr. Bench saw Mr. Hofmann and observed that Mr. Hofmann was [in a] highly agitated and distraught condition. When Mr. Bench inquired of Mr. Hofmann the reason for this condition, Mark W. Hofmann told Curt Bench that he owed a great deal of money and could be facing serious consequences, including criminal charges, if he could not get his financial problems solved.
Curt Bench was also an acquaintance of Steven Christensen and had been informed by Steven Christensen that he needed Mr. Bench’s assistance in contacting Mark W. Hofmann over a very serious matter which could result in “legal action,” possibly “criminal charges,” and Hofmann would lose his membership in the L.D.S. Church as well as lose his ability to do business with anyone in the L.D.S. Church forever. Steve Christensen told Curt Bench that he wanted Mr. Bench to relay this information to Mark Hofmann even though Steven Christensen had already told Mark Hofmann this as well. . . .
Your affiant has been informed by police investigators and reports that Mr. Robert Pitts, a business associate of Steven Christensen, . . . overheard Steven Christensen say to Mark Hofmann in a loud and agitated voice “You can’t hide that!” This is the only part of the conversation that was overheard due to its loud nature. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Pitts saw Mark Hofmann leave the office in a “solemn mood.” (The State of Utah v. Mark W. Hofmann, pages 16-17)
If Steven Christensen had uncovered illegal activities on the part of Mark Hofmann and was threatening criminal charges against him, this could give a motive for murder. Although investigators claim they have a very good case against Mr. Hofmann, they are not revealing what else they know. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 14, and more information will undoubtedly become available at that time. One of the prosecutors has said that it will take two weeks just to present the evidence against Hofmann at the preliminary hearing. It is claimed that 20,000 pages of material have been prepared by the prosecution and turned over to Hofmann’s lawyers.
Mark Hofmann’s lawyers still refuse to allow police to question their client. While Hofmann’s silence does tend to make us suspicious, we will try to keep an open mind. There is always a possibility that he is being framed.
Mark Hofmann’s trial for possession of an unregistered machine gun has been delayed because of the murder charges against him. His friend, Shannon Flynn, has changed his plea from innocent to guilty but has not been sentenced.
Tales of Hofmann
In the last three issues of the Messenger we have discussed the possibility that the Oliver Cowdery history (which has been suppressed in the First Presidency’s vault) may have been the source for the reference to a salamander in the Martin Harris letter. A historian who has talked to Lyn Jacobs claims that Jacobs told him that Mark Hofmann had read the entire Oliver Cowdery history.
Another possible explanation for the appearance of a white salamander in the letter, might be that the forger read E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story “The Golden Flower Pot,” which was reprinted by Dover Publications in 1967 in the book, The Best Tales of Hoffmann. This is a story about “the Student Anselmus” who worked for “Archivarius Lindhorst” In this story a rope magically turns into a “white serpent” and attacks Anselmus (page 12). This is similar to the portion of the Salamander letter which tells of a “white salamander” that transforms itself into a spirit and strikes Joseph Smith three times. The Salamander letter speaks of “the old spirit.” The tale of Hoffmann refers to the “old earth-spirit” (page 29). Archivarus Lindhorst is also referred to as “the Old One” (Ibid.). As it turns out, the Archivarus was originally “a Salamander” in the “Fairyland Atlantis” (page 45). As punishment for his folly in Atlantis, the Salamander was turned into a man. Anselmus fell in love with the Archivarus’ daughter who was a “green snake.” On page 57 of The Best Tales of Hoffmann, Anselmus commented: “But of course you do not believe in the Salamander, or the green snake.” The whole story is filled with magic, and at one point Anselmus tells a witch that “the Salamander will catch you, you vile beet!” (Ibid., page 58).
Since E.T.A. Hoffmann originally wrote this tale in German in the early 19th century, some people have suggested that Joseph Smith may have heard about it. If there is a connection between the Salamander letter and the tale of Hoffmann, it would seem more likely that it came through the paperback edition of The Best Tales of Hoffmann, which was printed in 1967.
Although we do not know whether Mark Hofmann traces his roots from E.T.A. Hoffmann (Mark Hofmann only has one f in his name), the name Hoffmann on the cover probably would have caught his attention.
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