First Blast
It was a Tuesday morning, October 15, 1985, when the police in Salt Lake City, Utah, were called to the Judge Building in the business district. They were to check out an explosion that had occurred on the sixth floor just after 8:00 a.m., with an apparent fatality. It was not clear if this was an isolated incident—a single bomb—or whether there might be more bombs in the building, so to ensure that the area would be safe for a search, the dispatcher called for the bomb squad to bring bomb-sniffing dogs.
Patrol cars and fire engines arrived at the building, but everyone had to wait for the special team to go inside first. This incident had occurred before terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden found violent ways to promote their agendas in the U.S., and while the Unabomber had sent several random mail bombs, only during that year had he actually killed someone, so no one in Salt Lake City that day was quite certain what was going on. Some officials thought the explosion came from a boiler in the building—an accident, not a planned act. They would soon learn the worst. In The Mormon Murders, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith describe the situation:
The building’s elevator was turned off, just in case, so arriving police officers took the stairs. On the ground floor, several witnesses described for investigators the people they had seen in the building that morning, including a man who had gone up the elevator at about 6:45 a.m. with a package clearly addressed in black ink to Steve Christensen. A father and son who had been on the elevator said the man had been dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a green letter jacket without a letter. They had gotten off before him, but according to Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts in Salamander, he had requested that the button be pressed for the fifth floor, not the sixth. The two men offered details for a composite drawing, but could not agree on whether or not he’d had a moustache.
A secretary who had come into the office early had seen the package propped up by the door of room 609 and had spotted a man in the hallway who looked back at her in an unsettling way. The man made her nervous, so she had locked herself in her office. An hour later, the package was still there, and she was about to pick it up when she remembered a phone call she had to make first. Just as she went into her office, she heard the explosion. Flying glass came through the door and cut her leg. She rushed into the hall and saw a wounded man lying there. She recognized him as a man who worked on the floor, not the original man she had seen. He must have come into the hallway the moment she’d walked into her office. Frightened, she instructed someone to call for an ambulance and then left.
A quick appraisal indicated a single victim, with the primary damage in the hallway, rather than in any offices. After ascertaining that the victim was beyond assistance, the bomb squad organized its approach to preserving the crime scene.
Bombs are cheap to build and easy to hide or disguise as something else, like an innocent package. Yet theyre potentially more lethal than most other types of weapons. The explosion is the result of a rapid expansion of gases from a chemical charge. A power source causes a shock, heat or friction to start the reaction. The substance breaks its chemical bonds to release the gases. Until it equalizes with surrounding air, a powerful wave of pressure shoots out and destroys everything in its path, except perhaps objects very close to the point of explosion. But its not over. Then comes a negative phase in which the gasses draw back and that can cause further damage.
The explosive limit is the upper and lower concentrations of air and gas mixture that will support combustion. The most hazardous fuels are those with the broadest explosive limits. Yet the impact will depend more on the bombs actual placement than on its size. A bomb that fits inside a transistor radio, if taken aboard a plane, will do more damage than a thousand-pound explosive placed in a building with a dense structure that may hinder its force.
There are many types of explosives available, from weed killer to picric acid, and they can be triggered by raising the unstable compounds component temperature with a shock, a match, or an electrical discharge. The detonation waves may rise to thousands of degrees Fahrenheit and produce pressure up to 1,200 tons per square inch.
To control a bomb until it is placed, its put into some type of casing. Bombs are commonly placed inside metal pipes, called pipe bombs. Completing a circuit between the power source and the explosive compound, the bomb maker uses relays, shunts, timers and switches.
When investigating, the bomb squad follows a specific procedure, as outlined in Barry Fishers Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation.
They will try to determine
- the materials used to make the bomb
- the skill level of the bomb maker
- the bombs target
- the degree of criminal intent
- the location of the bombs construction
- the means by which it was conveyed to its location
- the place from which the bomb maker acquired the parts
- how the bomb was detonated
- where its seat is
The crime scene itself is marked off at the farthest point of the debris scatter, plus another 50% of that measurement for a safe radius. Since bombs tend to obliterate evidence, the crime scene technicians must be extra vigilant in their search, especially with photographs. But before they even get in there with their equipment, the scene must be determined safe. That is, the bomb has detonated and no other bombs are evident in the area. There are also no fires associated with the explosion, raw electrical wires or leaking gas mains.
At the Judge Building, the squad finally gave the all clear indication and took the dogs out, allowing investigators into the danger zone.
The sixth floor hallway appeared to have been the target of several bombs. A doorframe was blown apart, the ceiling had crashed down in one area, and walls had collapsed. Pieces of plasterboard lay everywhere, and the walls that still stood appeared to have been used for target practice. That was the effect of the shrapnel. It had been a powerful explosion. Yet after a search of the floor, there appeared to be only the one fatality and he lay with debris on his back. No one knew who he was yet, but it seemed possible that he had been briefly aware of his extensive injuries before he died. A black substance, like soot, coated his face, obscuring his features, along with blood spatter from his injuries. But that was the least of the damage.
The mans right thigh was torn open through his pants, which had been ripped clean away; pipe shrapnel had hollowed out his chest; and a sturdy nail flying off the bomb had gone into his eye and pierced his brain. Other nails had pierced his body as well, and the tips of the fingers from his right hand appeared to be missing. His right foot was mangled, with both his heel and the heel of the shoe he was wearing blown away. Blood pooled around his eyes and dripped down his face to the floor.
Apparently, hed been on his way to the office with treats. Two six packs of Tab and ginger ale cans were exploded and smashed all around him, along with a bag of doughnuts. Amid this debris were pieces of the bomb, which they would now have to gather and piece together.
The steps in this part of the investigation, after photographs are taken, include:
- Find pieces of the bomb to identify the components
- Determine the size of the bomb and how it was transported to where it was found
- Decide if the bomb has a signature (the way it was made, initials on a piece, etc.) and check databases for similar incidents
- Look for a transport vehicle and possible accomplices
- Search for the means of entry for whoever placed the bomb
- Identify possible motives to determine a suspect type
To take command, Special Agent Bob Swehla from the ATF arrived, as this was now a federal case. They used a nearby office for a control center and began to map the bomb scene. That involved a grid in which each piece of evidence could be located and marked on a map as it was photographed, mapped and picked up for preservation. It was carefully labeled, with a label placed on the grid area. This was the initial step of crime scene reconstruction. They would have to know exactly where each item lay, what its position had been, who had handled it and where it had been sent.
The pieces, it turned out, consisted of a cardboard box that had been used to carry and deliver it; wires, batteries and nails.
At the same time, they had to identify the victim and try to determine if this person had been an inadvertent victim, just being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or the bombers actual target.
The investigators soon learned that the office on the floor where the bomb had been placed was rented by Rigby-Christensen, Inc., a partnership consulting company, and that Steve Christensen, one of the partners, had been spotted in the building that morning.
They found someone in the building who knew him, but the man had a hard time identifying the victim because of all the soot and disfigurement on the face. However, he confirmed that the hair color and body build were right.
By 1:30, the medical examiner had gone over the body and had it removed. They could now look at the wallet, and indeed, it proved to belong to Christensen.
That left the scene free for painstaking analysis with adhesive rollers, tweezers, screens, hand shovels, rakes and vacuums with special filters.
To determine a bombs size, investigators analyze the color of the flash (if possible from witnesses), the placement of the soot, the smell in the air afterward (possibly collected and processed with a vapor device), the type of damage done, and the extent and direction of flying debris, as well as its speed. Approximately 95% of a bomb can be collected, since most does not vaporize, and there is always the hope that some piece may retain a fingerprint, tool mark or the manufacturers label.
The bomb pieces are generally jagged and covered with soot. The way to pick them up is with a magnifying glass and pair of tweezers, and sometimes with a sifting screen. In this case, each part was placed into a plastic bag or a vial, and by the time the job was done hours later, they had catalogued 164 pieces of evidence. It would not take long to put together the bomb used. They had found a mercury switch, many two-and-a-half-inch carpenter nails, and a rocket igniter. The nails had been driven into a lot of different directions and had to be pulled from the floor, ceiling, and wallseven the sub-flooring. Pieces of paper that had wrapped the package were also collected to piece together a label.
Once everything was collected, the detective cut away pieces of the carpet and collected residue from the bomb for lab analysis. When the technicians had collected all of the pieces that could be seen, a vacuum was used to pick up anything remaining.
The blast had been centered just inside the doorway of office 609.
To try to understand who might have done this and why, they also took a computer and numerous files from the office that appeared to have been the bombers target. It couldnt be ruled out that the victim himself was the bomber, since sometimes bombers get caught by their own devices or use the bomb for suicide. It would depend on the persons injuries, and that was for the medical examiner to analyze.
More evidence had to be collected from Christensens body. From inside the exploded chest cavity the chief medical examiner extracted wires, nails, bomb parts, metal pipe shards, and pieces of a battery. The nail that had gone through the victims eye into his brain had been fatal. Each piece was removed and placed into a separate bag for examination in the lab.
Yet even as they concentrated on this grisly task, they learned that a bomb in another area had killed a second personthis one a woman.
At the country home of Gary and Kathleen Sheets in Holladay, Utah, a package had been left that morning at Naniloa Drive on the wooden walkway near the three-car garage. Neighbors who heard the explosion at about 9:30 a.m. later admitted they had ignored it, but an hour later, a friend coming up the driveway found Kathy, 50, lying face-up with eyes wide open in the driveway. Pieces of the splintered garage overhang lay scattered on top of her. Apparently, when she had picked up the package, she had set the bomb mechanism in motion, triggering the explosion. It had ripped out her stomach and left breast, and severed her right arm. Pieces of her ripped clothing were caught up in the tree, and her stomach had been opened up by a severe laceration. Neighbors quickly identified her for the investigators.
A scrap of brown paper recovered from the scene indicated that the bomb package had been addressed to Kathys husband Gary, and his name had been written with black felt tip pen.
To determine how sophisticated a bomb like this is, the lab does an analysis. The substance is analyzed by means of whats known as gas, liquid or thin-layer chromatography. Each of these methods involves a different process, but they all work to separate the elements of a compound to compare them against the readings of known substances for identification. There are many ways to make a bomb. Watches and clocks are often converted into timers. Wires are attached to the moving hand and to a pin stuck at the time at which the bomber wants the device to activate. One wire connects to the power source and the other to a detonator. The moving hand ticks along until it makes contact with the pin and detonates the bomb.
Many bombs are movement sensitive, so they must be carefully placed. Homemade bombs are generally made from materials that can easily be bought in hardware or agriculture stores. More sophistication in a device and the use of material that is difficult to purchase can indicate someone with skill and a possible position with the military.
By the end of the day, the investigators had found the mercury switch.
Investigators had quickly learned that Steve Christensen was a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints and was considered to be an upright and honest businessman with an interest in Mormon history. That morning, hed been scheduled to meet with church officials over a rare collection of documents related to the church. Nothing about that seemed amiss. He was also going to meet with business partner Randy Rigby, who arrived shortly after the bomb had detonated. It was Rigbys contention when questioned that the bomb was associated with the Mormon document deal on which Christensen was working, but the church elders had assured everyone who asked that it must be about Christensens former employer, CFS Financial.
With that in mind, something was beginning to make sense.
What appeared to join these two incidents was that two months earlier Christensen had left his boss and mentor at CFS Financial Corporation, a real estate venture that had badly floundered and lost investors a lot of money. Gary Sheets was its founder. But then, he was also involved in the Mormon church (also a bishop) and was a longtime friend of one of the elders engaged in the document deal. He had even stood outside the Judge Building with many others, awaiting word on what had happened, even as his wife was picking up the other bomb.
Sheets was now a good suspect.
But there were other possibilities cropping up as well. It was the belief of other document dealers that this could have been the work of Mormon fanatics who had learned about the controversial documents that Christensen had bought to put into the churchs care. Of note was something called the salamander letter, purchased in January 1984, which offered an alternate version of the story of Mormonisms founder Joseph Smiths discovery of the golden plates that became the basis for the Book of Mormon. Smith claimed that when he was 14 years old, an angel revealed the plates location to him, but the alternate version in the salamander letter indicated that something quite different had happened, and it wasn’t positive.
In the Mormon church, there had long been fear that a document might turn up one day that would verify past rumors that Joseph Smith had been a “money-digger,” which would mean that he had asked farmers to pay him to go over their land with a “seer stone” to try to locate buried treasure. It was a fraudulent and illegal activity, and even worse, it involved Smith in occult pursuits. Apparently there was a record from 1826 that some Joseph Smith had been arrested for money digging, but the elders insisted it was not the Joseph Smith. His many revelations had come from God, not from the use of the dark arts.
But the rumored salamander letter indicated that what they hoped was not true about their founder might indeed be the real story. And then it had turned up. Document dealer Mark Hofmann had located it and brought it to the churchs attention. Radical splinter groups from Mormonism did not want the church to have it. Fundamentalists did not want to believe it was real. Enemies could be counted on both sides.
The salamander letter, supposedly written by Martin Harris, a close friend of Smith’s and the farmer who had funded the Book of Mormon‘s initial printing, was dated 1830. It did indicate that Smith had found the golden plates, but also said that when he reached for them, a white salamander that was guarding them had transformed into an “old spirit” and struck Smith three times. Apparently this creature did not want Smith to take the plates, but he did anyway. If this rendition of events was true, it undermined Smith’s testimony about what had occurred and also implicated him in something more wicked. Even worse, it threatened the entire foundation of Mormonism.
Hofmann claimed that the letter was authentic, and he proved it by comparing it with the farmers handwriting in the back of an old prayer book. Christensen had then purchased the controversial letter to donate to the church, where the elders would keep it in the vault reserved for what many believed were the church’s great secrets.
Nevertheless, word about this documents existence had leaked out and its contents made available in renegade publications. Many people were alarmed about the letters discovery. Christensen certainly could have been murdered over that. Someone warned dealer Mark Hofmann that he could be targeted as well for even finding the piece, so he told his wife they might have to leave town.
On the other hand, Gary Sheets faltering company was the beneficiary of an insurance policy taken out on Christensen for half a million dollars. And they could not dismiss the puzzling bomb at the Sheets residence. The bomb that had killed Kathy Sheets had apparently been meant for her husband, Gary. He did not have any clear part in the document deal. He also did not have much life insurance on Kathy. His own fear was that some disgruntled investor who’d lost money with his bankrupt corporation had used the bomb to make his statement to those who had run the company. Theyd had a serious downturn recently, and people were angry. A computer readout showed that they had a long list of 3,000 investors, and the police would have to go through them one at a time, as well as through the companys complicated financial records. Apparently the recent losses were in the millions.
The way the first bomb had been constructed with such deadly nails indicated to investigators an intense degree of rage. The media that evening emphasized the CFS connection and even hinted at hired assassins from New York, where Gary Sheets recently had visited. Some media outlets also mentioned the salamander letter. The investigation was picking up speed, but in no clear direction.
The next afternoon, as the city was buzzing about the two murders, a florist went to deliver a shipment of tulips in downtown Salt Lake City. He parked his truck in front of the McCune Mansion on North Main Street, just north of Temple Square. He went down the hill to the Crossroad Mall, according to Naifeh and Smith, and had lunch. Then he left the mall and went back up the hill, at about 2:45. Halfway up, in front of the Deseret Gymnasium, he saw a white male of average height and brown hair open the door of a blue Toyota sports car. The man leaned inside as if to grab or shift something in the passenger seat. The florist passed by, looking away, and was then startled by a loud explosion.
He turned and saw smoke and debris in the vicinity of the blue car, some of it flying through the air. The man whod been leaning inside was now lying on his back, legs bent, in the street, deathly still. The florist went back to check him. He saw numerous injuries, including a missing finger, a metal piece embedded in the knee, a bloody gash on the face and another on the chest. The victim appeared to be covered with burns, his clothing torn, and since he wasnt moving it was not clear whether he was even alive.
The car was burning. Two other people arrived to help the florist drag the victim across the street, into a safer area. The car was soon engulfed in flames, but not before the witness saw a cardboard box on the floor of the passenger side. The top was gone, and there were crumpled papers in the back seat, but all of the contents were soon lost to the fire.
The victim was breathing, and people began to apply towels from the gym to his wounds. It was clear that he wore his temple garments beneath his clothes, which required certain Mormon healing rituals to be performed.
An ambulance and the police arrived, and investigators attempted to discover the victims name. Three bombings in two days had to be the work of a serial killer, some mad bomber who was getting revenge for something. They could only hope this man was connected to the others.
The victim was taken to the hospital. He had sustained a number of injuries and burns along his right side, and lost his kneecap and a finger.
The car was hauled away for close examination by a forensic bomb expert, who would determine if it was the same type of bomb as had killed the two earlier victims.
At the hospital, the police questioned the victim, whose name was Mark Hofmann, the Mormon document dealer. He was conscious and surprisingly aware as he was being X-rayed. Although he had trouble hearing, he agreed to answer questions. He said he had been about to meet with an attorney in town representing a man to whom he was selling some documents. He had gone to his car and seen a package on the seat, so hed opened the door, the package had fallen to the floor and exploded.
Hofmann seemed unable to recall what hed done all morning. He was driving around a canyon outside town, thinking. He didnt know where, he said, and wouldnt say what he was thinking about. Yet he had told another officer that a brown pickup truck had been following him that morning, with a middle-aged white man driving. He had not seen the truck when he had finally parked in town, but he was frightened enough over what had happened to ask the officers to warn some of his friends to leave town.
Checking into Hofmanns background, the detectives recalled that he had been a business associate of Steve Christensen. He was never involved in CFS, so the link with Gary Sheets was not clear, but whoever was going after these three men appeared to have specifically targeted them. It was difficult at that point to know whether there would be a fourth bombing, or even more, since the motive was still not clear.
Hofmann proved to be a dealer in rare documents, and had built a thriving business. People the police questioned spoke about him as an awkward, amiable guy who was a bit of a wheeler-dealer. He had a family, had just purchased a nice home, appeared to have a good marriage, and was in good standing with the Mormon church. In fact, his associates said, he’d been collecting controversial documents for the church to keep them out of the hands of anti-Mormon dissidents. He had no criminal record. All in all, he appeared to be an upstanding businessman with an expensive new house and a nice family.
But Hofmann was supposed to have met with Steve Christensen the day before to close a deal on some rare Mormon documents known as the McLellin collection. Mutual acquaintances that knew about the collection were now quite worried. The salamander letter as an inspiration for the bombs had been mere speculation. This third bombing indicated a real connection with the documents. Given some of the rabid factions in the church, from purists to doubters, there was reason to be concerned. It would not be the first time that internal strife among the chosen would end in bloodshed. Mormon history offered several such incidents.
In fact, it turned out that the meeting on the morning Hofmann was injured had involved the same collection. It was the same arranged meeting to turn over the documents, but with a replacement for Christensen.
Now things were getting interesting. A meeting had been scheduled, a bomb had been planted. Another meeting had been scheduled, another bomb had been planted. Hofmann had been evasive. Something was up, and it involved this third victim.
The car and surrounding area were now a crime scene and had to be investigated like any other bombing, although the investigators were sure that, once the car had burned, much of the evidence had been destroyed. Bomb expert Jerry Taylor came in from San Franciscos ATF offices to assist. He joined Swehla at the smoldering car, still parked where it had burned, although the incinerated brake system had let loose and the Toyota had rolled a few feet down the street. They could still see the impact rut on the asphalt, and from the way fragments and pellets had shot from it they could tell the direction of the explosion.
The scene was divided via chalk marks on the ground to map and tag in the same manner as the first two incidents. A team went over the scene, getting items for the lab. Taylor picked out the pieces that seemed like evidence, and sent men far and wide searching for any randomly blown fragments. He even checked into the storm drains.
They were told that Hofmann had said that he had opened the door and when the package had fallen out of the drivers seat to the floor he had reached to catch it.
First they examined the bomb fragments to decide on the type of bomb they were dealing with. All three from the past two days had been made with smokeless gunpowder, and a model rocket igniter had been inserted through a hole drilled into the cap, connected to a mercury switch. When the switch was tilted in such a way that it contacted the battery pack, that action completed the circuit and detonated the explosive. Taylor determined from this signature, or unique construction, that the same person had designed all three bombs and that they were different from any other bombs in the country. Yet in some ways, they were also different from one another. The first one had nails, the other two did not. The one in the car had been a different size from the other two, slightly larger, and because of the fire it was difficult to determine if the package had been addressed like the others to a particular person. But they all shared the same type of pipe for a casing, the same type of gunpowder, switches, battery packs, igniters, wiring components, and brown paper packages.
After he examined the scene, Taylor concluded that Hofmann had lied.
Based on an indentation on the right side of the seat, at the time of the explosion, the package had been there, tilted against the console that separated the front seats. It had not fallen to the floor. The scenario that made the most sense to him was that Hofmann had picked up and dropped the bomb by mistake and then had made up the story he was telling now. If the bomb had been on the floor when it detonated, it would have blown straight down and there wouldnt be an impression on the seat. The door had to have been ajar or else Hofmann would have gone right through the roof. Taylor had seen it many timesvictims inside cars who went straight up.
He figured that the bomb had probably been in the back. Hofmann had knelt on the seat, reached into the back to arm it and pick it up, but by mistake had moved it in the wrong way or jarred it and that set the detonation into motion.
Taylor quickly declared that the third “attack” had been an accident and that this victim was himself the bomber.
Witnesses questioned at the scene confirmed that Hofmann had been inside the car when the bomb had exploded, not outside as he had claimed. One woman even said that she had seen him lift something up from behind the front seat on which he was kneeling.
A search of what was left of the trunks contents turned up a pipe elbow of the same material used in the three bombs, a black magic marker (like the one that had been used to address the other two packages), two rubber surgical gloves, a crinkled piece of paper (papyrus), and many other papers that were now burned and drenched from the fire hoses.
But where had Hofmann been taking the third bomb? Who had been his next target? The water-damaged car yielded no clues. He had mentioned an attorney. They needed to find out who that person was. And if Hofmann was in fact the bomber, they needed to determine his motive and get some evidence. That meant they needed a warrant to search Hofmanns home in Holladay, the same town where Kathy Sheets had met her tragic fate.
The warrant specified that they could look for bombs or bomb-making materials, and for the letterless letter jacket. Hofmanns photo was compared to the composite drawing made at the first scene and it looked similar. They conducted the search with some degree of confidence.
The police went into Hofmanns office in the basement and found many documents, but left them alone. They seized a tape recorder (could be used to construct a bomb) some gun parts, and an Uzi machinegun manual. They dismantled the security system, because those parts could be used in the manufacture of bombs. Then they found a nice surprise: in a closet hung a green letter jacket without a letter, turned inside out. Just as the witnesses had described.
They believed they had their man, but they did not have a motive. Hofmann appeared to have a lot going for him and too much to lose, with little at stake. To get a capital murder conviction, Sillitoe and Roberts point out, they had to link him to the bombs and provide a compelling motive. No one realized then just how complicated it would all become.
However, the focus of the investigation had shifted. Whereas they had been looking at disgruntled CFS clients and professional hit men, now they were looking more closely at the nature of the documents, specifically the controversial document that Hofmann had sold to Christensen—the notorious salamander letter.
It wasnt long before they turned up the fact that Hofmann was deeply in debt. Hed bought a half million-dollar house, had run up bills on numerous trips at expensive restaurants and hotels, and he owed a lot of people money. He clearly had creditors trying to get paid. But what did that have to do with Christensen and Sheets? Especially after Sheets, when asked, claimed he had never met Hofmann.
Somehow it all came down to those documents, but it wasnt clear yet just how.
The detectives put Hofmann under surveillance and started some complicated background work, which included speaking with church elders.
The church quickly issued a statement saying it did not know Hofmann, but upon learning that the Library of Congress was to pay him a substantial sum for a document called the Oath of a Freemansupposedly the first document printed on an American press—the church had quietly approved a 30-day loan for the McLellin collection, which had historical value for the church. Steve Christensen had vouched for Hofmann and was monitoring the deal. The parties involved had discovered that the loan had expired without payment and that the collection had not been forthcoming. The bank and the church were worried, especially with Christensens death. The church agreed to send the salamander letter to the FBI for analysis.
In the meantime, investigators seized Hofmanns van to search it for possible traces of the bombs. Inside was a receipt for a facsimile copy of the Oath of a Freeman for $25 from Argosy Bookstore and a grain of smokeless gunpowder like that used in making the bombs. They also found a man, Shannon Flynn, who had once purchased blasting caps for Hofmann and a book, The Anarchists Cookbook, which detailed the construction of bombs. Flynn admitted they had made and exploded fertilizer bombs together and indicated that Hofmann had a lot of debts.
The church then called a press conference to explain its dealings with Mark Hofmann as a document collector and its acquisition of the salamander letter. The elders distanced themselves from the entire affair and made it appear as if their involvement had been peripheral.
But the McLellin deal turned out to be more important than the elders were admitting. Christensens relatives indicated he had rearranged his life and even upset family members over this collection. It was their impression he was making sacrifices on behalf of the church, but the church was not acknowledging that.
It seemed to detectives that there was a lot of double-dealing going on. Then a church leader quietly repaid the debt that Hofmann owed from his own pocket. Investigators were puzzled and still could not figure out what charges to file against Hofmann.
Document dealers across the country were streaming to Hofmanns defense, aware that the investigation was moving toward discrediting his discoveries. That would be bad news for all of them. Hed been selling documents all over the place for the past five years.
On October 31, Hofmann was released from the hospital. Investigators still did not have a motive for the double homicides, but they intended to keep a close eye on him.
Another search warrant was issued for Hofmanns home and the police removed felt-tipped pens, wires, drill bits and a Radio Shack catalog with batteries circled, bringing their total items to sort through from the various searches and crime scenes to more than 5,000. While Hofmann took and passed a polygraph, another team of detectives started to piece together Mark Hofmanns complex document dealing.
Then an expert in questioned documents from the attorney generals office read the story in the newspapers. He was Special Agent George Throckmorton. He felt sure that something was amiss with the authentication process for the salamander letter. Knowing that authentication experts tended to hedge by acknowledging that ink or paper was consistent with the right type for the age, he was aware that they rarely made definitive pronouncements. And anyway it wasnt that hard to find paper that could be dated back. He went to a dealer he knew and asked to look at those documents that had come through Mark Hofmann. He scanned three letters alleged to be from Joseph Smith, all written from prison at about the same time, and decided that something was definitely wrong.
Throckmorton saw that the letters were different from one another in a number of ways. He knew that a man writing three letters on the same day from the Carthage, Illinois, jail in 1844 would not have used different paper, a different writing instrument and different ink for each one, and would not have had reason to change the style of his handwriting. Yet thats what he saw in these documents. It was likely that each letter had been authenticated individually by different dealers, without comparisons made, because another expert would have spotted these elementary flaws. He had also discovered that these dealers who had purchased the letters had not contemplated forgery because they did not see any reason for someone to forge a religious document.
On the other hand, Throckmorton examined letters and documents purportedly by three different authors and saw similarities in the handwriting. To some extent, he realized that similarities could be attributable to a similar system of writing being taught in a specific culture, but there are ways to determine the uniqueness of an individuals style. He felt sure these letters were forgeries, which could mean that many of Hofmanns other sales were forgeries as well. Had Hofmann done this himself or just passed on things he had discovered? Getting the answer to that question would involve a much more complicated operation.
At about the same time, a journalist found the actual McLellin collection in Texas, which contained nothing controversial, and discovered that its owners had never heard of Mark Hofmann. So at the least, he was caught in another lie, as well as fraud.
A murderer and a dealer in fraudulent documents. How did they go together?
Meeting with documents expert Bill Flynn from Arizona, Throckmorton worked with him to figure out what Hofmann may have done. They had to get down to the basics.
Most people learn to write by imitation. Theyre taught a certain style, but eventually they develop idiosyncrasies that set their writing apart and stamp it as individual. Repetition crystallizes a specific style that over the years will show only slight variation. The same odd characteristicsways of spelling a word, the particular slant or spacingare expected to be evident across samples by the same person, even when someone may be trying to conceal his or her identity.
Handwriting experts study the variations in writing samples to try to determine if two (or more) different documents were written by the same person and thereby identify the known author of one sample as the author of a similar one.
A known specimen written by an identified person is called the “standard” or “exemplar,” and it should be as similar as possible to the questioned writing, specifically containing similar words or letter combinations. The primary factors for handwriting analysis are divided into four categories: form (shape and proportion), line quality, arrangement of letters and spaces, and content.
Documents examiners also analyze the material on which something is written, and the medium used, such as a typewriter or ink. In forgeries, whenever there are attempts to alter a document, the paper’s surface generally shows the erasure, sandpapering, or razoring that has been applied. Any alteration made with a different color of ink will be detected by alternate or infrared lighting techniques.
Paper is generally classified according to the materials in its composition, specifically additives, watermarks and the surface treatments used, such as heat or resins. Specialists can determine the date a particular type of paper was introduced.
Modern ink can be one of four basic types: Iron salts in a suspension of gallic acid, carbon particles suspended in gum Arabic, synthetic dyes with a range of polymers and acids, and synthetic dyes or pigments in a range of solvents and additives.
Questioned ink is tested with microspectrophotometry to determine the absorption spectrum or with thin-layer chromatography to reveal the exact elemental composition, and is then compared to the database of more than 3,000 ink profiles at the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
There was plenty of work to do now, but among Hofmanns effects taken during a search, Throckmorton and Flynn found a copy of a book by Charles Hamilton called Great Forgers and Famous Fakes.
Using the book, Throckmorton and Flynn figured out the recipe and method Hofmann had used for making iron gall ink that had so far defied tests for determining its age. Using a control group of non-Hofmann documents, they also noticed that unique to all Hofmann-handled documents, and to no others, were two characteristics that showed up under microscopic and video spectral compactor ultraviolet examination: ink that ran in a single direction and that cracked like alligator skin. That came from the artificial aging of homemade ink. The downward running of the ink was explained by the fact that the document was hung to dry, and once that was understood, the faint clip marks on the documents could be spotted.
To duplicate the phenomenon, Flynn made quill pens from turkey feathers, as Sillitoe and Roberts describe it, and duplicated some of the handwriting on both modern and aged paper. He oxidized the ink in an oven, and then used a fuming method on it in another sample. He found that when iron gallotannate ink was used on old paper and aged, there was no way to determine that it was not as old as might be claimed. A chemical reaction on the ink, if its on paper of the right time period, shows no difference from ink of that age. Throckmorton realized that was why so many experts had been duped.
Only two of the non-Hofmann documents showed these effects and when they asked the archivist to check the provenance, or chain of possession from collector to collector, it turned out that Hofmann had indeed sold these documents. The records had been wrong. On the 461 non-Hofmann documents examined from the same period as those purported to be, the cracking did not show up.
Worrall says that Throckmorton and Flynn examined nearly 600 Hofmann documents over a period of 16 months, and their analysis proved again and again that they could tell a Hofmann document from other documents.
Thus, the anomalies specific to many of Hofmanns documents indicated forgery. In addition, the smudges he had made to duplicate the effects of Joseph Smith’s left-handed writing style had failed the test. Hofmann was right-handed, and under the microscope, his smudge marks went the wrong way.
In addition, on documents sold to the church in 1981, the ink behaved differently on different sides of a single page. That meant at least one part had been forged, written at a different time than the other. In another instance, a document that Hofmann claimed to have found pressed between the pages of an old Bible did not show the right uniformity of browning and the Bible pages did not show any acid-burning from the text, though the text had burned through the paper it was on.
A new test that tracked ions in ink to show how long it had been in contact with the paper was applied to many of the Hofmann documents. Although the aging process affected the results, the examiner concluded that none could have been dated earlier than 1920, yet all were purported to have come from an earlier time.
Still, the FBI technicians completed their extensive tests on the salamander letter and pronounced it authentic. Throckmorton was unconvinced. He believed the tests they had used were insufficient and were merely duplications of the same types of tests used before, so he redoubled his efforts to show how Hofmann had been one of the cleverest forgers in the world.
The other investigators closed in on a few other interesting pieces of evidence. They found an engraver who had made printing plates for the signatures found on several Hofmann documents, as well as a plate for the Oath of a Freeman. He even still had the photographic negatives for them all, off of which the plates were made. One had been ordered by a Mike Hansenthe same person who had purchased items used in bombs, and another by Mike Harris, but with Hofmanns unlisted home phone number. Aside from making a false copy of the Oath, it appeared that Hofmann had been raising the value of first editions by adding fake signatures.
He was clever, but not clever enough.
On one order form, signed by Mike Hansen, a fingerprint examiner had lifted a print matched to the left-hand ring finger of Mark Hofmann, tying this pseudonym conclusively to the suspect.
They also located Frances Magee, whose first husband had been a descendent of Martin Harris, the supposed author of the salamander letter. She had owned the Book of Common Prayer from which had come the handwritten poem with which Hofmann had proven that the salamander letter was authentic. There was no doubt that the handwriting in the salamander letter and the Harris poem matched. That should have been sufficient, but the investigators wanted to take one more step.
In fact, Magee did tell investigators that while she had read the prayer book many times and was familiar with its contents, she had never before seen the poem written in the back that the police now showed to her. She insisted it had been written after she sold it.
Still, the investigators now needed to find a calligrapher who could have reproduced the handwriting in such an elegant, unhurried manner. They needed to find Hofmanns accomplice. It wasnt long before they discovered that Hofmann himself had taken a calligraphy class. His teacher told investigators that he already had quite an artistic mastery and had even impressed her.
With all this evidence, in February 1986 Mark Hofmann was charged with 27 felonies, including multiple counts of fraud and forgery and two counts of homicide. It wasnt just the Mormon documents that were items of interest, either. Hofmann had apparently duped buyers of pieces by Charles Dickens, Daniel Boone and other historic figures.
Hofmanns lawyer, Ronald Yengich, pointed to the poor memory of eyewitnesses in the Judge Building and in Holladay, and the fact that there were no fingerprints on the bomb fragments and no conclusions from handwriting experts that Hofmann was the person who had written the names on the bomb packages.
Apparently confident, Mark Hofmann went for a preliminary hearing on April 14, which lasted several weeks as prosecutors vigorously presented their most damning evidence about the bombs, his lies, his forgeries and his debts. It had an impact. At the hearing Hofmann still claimed he was innocent, but within months discussions were under way between the two sides for a plea deal, and on January 7, 1987, Mark Hofmann agreed to plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, second-degree theft by deception in the sale of the salamander letter, and second-degree fraud for the McLellin collection. In return for reduced charges, he had to tell the prosecutors everything and accept a judges sentencing of up to life in prison, with a hearing before the Board of Pardons for possible parole.
Hofmann agreed to tell them whatever they wanted to know.
_____________
This marks the end of the quiz. What investigators learned about and from Hofmann follows.
Once Mark Hofmann began to talk, he spoke freely of his many deals. As a kid, he had loved explosives and magic. He also liked to enrich himself and had shown a streak of dishonesty. He learned quickly how to fool people and he enjoyed that sense of power. Then he turned to outright fraud. By age 12, he had acquired an electroplate machine and learned to build up the mintmark–a ‘D’–on a Denver dime, because it made the otherwise ordinary coin worth thousands of dollars. Then he located a coin dealer to authenticate it through the U.S. Treasury, says Simon Worrall in The Poet and the Murderer, where they pronounced it genuine. For Hofmann, that meant it was authentic. Experts said so and people paid real money.
Value, he instinctively understood, writes Worrall, is not absolute but relative. He realized how gullible people were and became himself an authenticator of coins. He enjoyed conning them.
In fact, he later told a college girlfriend, he admired Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church for his ability to dupe people on a large scale. Despite Hofmanns facade of concern for the church, he did not believe a word of their doctrines. To his mind, Smith was an illiterate man who had persuaded many people to follow an absurd fantasy, including giving up their daughters to be one of his many celestial wives. Hed manipulated gullible people for his own advantage. He might not be a role model for spiritual purposes, Hofmann apparently decided, but he was a great one for self-enrichment.
When he was 13, Hofmann began to collect Mormon memorabilia, and then to manufacture them on his own. As he learned how to trade these items, he grew obsessed with the church’s history and he went on to become a dealer in rare documents. At first he created and sold only fragments, but then he worked on longer pieces and invited investors into Ponzi schemes, borrowing from one to pay another.
During his intense studies of religious history, Hofmann had developed a fundamental distrust of the hierarchy in the Mormon church. Sillitoe and Roberts attribute this to the fact that he had a shameful family secreta polygamous marriage involving his grandmother that took place after the Mormon decree against plural arrangements. Yet the sustained nature of his calculated deception of the church was personal.
“The real reward of the whole business,” he told one feature writer, “is being able to see things that no one else knows about.” He apparently reveled in the sense of power he had over others.
He had set out to deliberately prove that the church was a fraud, even as he told others he was protecting his heritage. In fact, as soon as he made an important “find” that he insisted must remain a secret for the churchs sake, word often leaked out and embarrassed the church. It was a game.
As he made his confession, Hofmann explained to investigators that he had won the elders’ confidence by producing the “Anthon Transcript,” a faith-enhancing document that supposedly affirmed an authentication by an expert named Charles Anthon of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the golden plates on which the Book of Mormon was based. The transcript had disappeared and Hofmann had “found” it. That got him access to the church archives, which gave him more fodder.
He described how he had removed blank pages from 19th century books, learned how to age ink, and then developed a way to forge someone’s handwriting from other extant samples or from that person’s signature. He immersed himself in the other person’s perspective and trained himself to write without hesitation. So many documents came from him that when the FBI later used 17 samples to authenticate one of his “historical signatures,” Hofmann had done fourteen of them.
To make the Oath of a Freeman, as recounted in Bodies of Evidence by Brian Innes, he had bought a facsimile of the Bay Psalm Book from 1640, which had been printed on the same press as the Oath. He cut out the letters, laid them down in the manner of copies of the Oath and created a pattern for a printing plate. He removed paper from a book of the right date, so that paper testing would show that it was the right age, and pressed his plate onto that. To get the right ink, he burned a leather binding from another antique book. He let mold grow on the paper and then oxidized it to fade the ink.
It was impressive enough to get an offer from the Library of Congress after they subjected it to many tests. (In the end, an expert on printing presses had declared this document to be a fraud because things did not align as one would expect and the border was incorrect for something actually set in type.)
Among his many significant religious forgeries was the salamander letter. To get the right “voice,” Hofmann had read old newspaper accounts and letters from the time period. He made up the salamander itself, and he included in the letter references to some of the people who “authored” his other forgeries. It was clever, painstaking and certainly amusing to him. He had written the poem in the back of the prayer book to authenticate the letter. So much for the FBIs analysis.
Hofmann then “discovered” a cache of papers and diaries potentially embarrassing to the church known as the McLellin collection (William McLellin being a renegade Mormon apostle and a former friend of Joseph Smith’s), which Steve Christensen was going to help to authenticate for the church. These papers had been lost for almost a century and they allegedly showed the early days of Mormonism to be far different from official descriptions. A religion of some 12 million members worldwide, according to Worrall, with assets of more than $30 billion and a substantial daily income could hardly afford to have those papers made public, so the elders had sanctioned the unsecured loan to Hofmann of $185,000 for purchasing the collection. Steve Christensen was going to arrange for its purchase and donation to the church.
But things had quickly unraveled. While Hofmanns many duplicitous deals form a complicated narrative, his fate hinged pretty much on what happened with the McLellin deal.
The McLellin deal had been complicated, with Hofmann giving one story after another about why he couldn’t deliver the papers on the agreed upon date. Christensen had pressured him to deliver, but he couldnt because the collection did not really exist. The loan had come due, the papers were not there, and Christensen had had to vouch for Hofmann to bank officials.
Hofmann kept asking for time. He was showing a new discovery of Americana to the Library of Congress and expected to get at least $1 million for it, but the purchase had been delayed. He’d already sold an original letter from Daniel Boone that proved certain legends to be true, poetry by Emily Dickinson, and pieces from Mark Twain. Recently he had found a long-lost, postcard size document called the Oath of a Freeman, dated to 1639 in Massachusetts. A copy of the text was available, but the original had long been lost. That is, until 1985 when it “came into” Hofmann’s hands. He hoped that if they paid him, he could pay off the McLellin loan, along with another impending loan that he owed to someone else, and then claim he was unable to get the nonexistent McLellin collection. All would be well.
But he was gambling, and because the Library of Congress was not going along as expected, reducing its offer to $350,000, it was becoming clear to him that he was losing. He would have to pay up the $185,000 loan, but could not. He was also being pressed by a group of investors in his other forgeries for half a million dollars, which he also did not have, and he would have to start paying $4,000 a day in interest. He tried to borrow from business associates, but his credit had run out. It was too late to find other investors. He had purchased a piece of papyrus (the one found in the trunk of his car) to try to make a forgery as a token of good faith, but then Christensen contacted his New York seller of that piece to come to Salt Lake City to authenticate it. Things were not going well. He was going to be exposed once and for all. He would lose everything.
Since Hofmann was known as something of a double-dealer with a history of writing bad checks, the bank was nervous and the church wanted that collection, so Christensen set up a meeting with everyone in his office for the morning of October 15. He expected Hofmann to be there. Hofmann had to do something drastic. He had an idea, and by 8 that morning his problems had diminished: Christensen was dead.
That afternoon, Hofmann met with church leaders and they assured him that Christensen could be replaced. They assumed, as Hofmann hoped they would, that, with the second bomb getting Kathy Sheets, the violence was related to some business transaction unassociated with the church. That had been Hofmanns sole motive for setting a bomb at the home of Gary Sheets. It bought him some time while they sought a replacement for Christensen.
But that happened faster than he expected and he had still not collected from the Library of Congress. By the next day, he had to come up with the McLellin collection. In a dilemma, he made a third bomb, but this one got him, and that was the end of his career as a forgeror as anything. Since there were burned documents in the trunk of his car, it was assumed that he had expected to say it was the McLellin collection, now damaged beyond repair. However, the entire scheme eventually went bad and he had to admit to his part. But he insisted that the third bomb had been intended for him. He was going to commit suicide. (He told someone in prison it had been meant for a business associate, but then he reverted to his original explanation.)
Once he was finished with his confession, Mark Hofmann pleaded guilty to several counts of murder and fraud in exchange for a life sentence instead of the death penalty. At the age of thirty-two on January 23, 1987, he went into Utah State Prison. He was convinced that within seven years he would be out, but his smug attitude as he talked about his crimes diminished any chance of a quick parole.
With the successful forging of documents by 129 different people and of some 450 Mormon documents that deceived the experts of one of the most powerful religions in the world, its clear that Hofmann was something of a skilled genius. He’d cheated associates by trading his fakes for some of their genuinely valuable documents, and then selling those documents to enrich himself.
Yet even after Hofmann was exposed, collectors continued to buy and sell his work as if it were the real thing. Some just wanted their investment back but some did not know what had happened. Even as late as 1997, as described at length in The Poet and the Murderer, his forgeries were still showing up. The Amherst, Massachusetts, library purchased a two-stanza poem from Sotheby’s for $24,150 that they believed Emily Dickinson had penned. There was a neat little inscription on the other side of the paper, “Aunt Emily,” that seemed to have originated with a relative of the poet’s. It was only when someone decided to find out who might have written it that the fraud was exposed.
Although the poem was written on the correct paper for the period, with the correct writing instrument and the right literary themes and style, it was nevertheless traced to Mark Hofmann. As usual, he had taken delight in seeing others enthusiastically appraise it as an undiscovered Dickinson work. Later he said that he thought the “Aunt Emily” inscription had been a nice touch.
Worral quotes Throckmorton as saying that Hofmann comes up for parole in 2006. In prison, he keeps mostly to himself. His wife divorced him and took the children, so he may not have much to look forward to if he does get out. You can bet the documents examiners will be watching for him.
Evans, Colin. The Casebook of Forensic Detection. New York: John Wiley, 1996.
Fisher, Barry A.J. Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, 6th Edition. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2000.
Genge, N.E. The Forensic Casebook. New York: Ballantine, 2002.
Innes, Brian. Bodies of Evidence. Pleasantville, NY: Readers Digest Press, 2000.
Miller, Hugh. Proclaimed in Blood: True Crimes Solved by Forensic Science, London: Headline, 1995.
“Literary Hoaxes,”
Naifeh, Steven and Gregory White Smith. The Mormon Murders. New York: New American Library, 1988.
Nickell, Joe & John Fischer. Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Owen, David. Hidden Evidence: Forty True Crimes and How Forensic Science Helped Solve Them. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 2000.
Saferstein, Richard. Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science. 6th Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Sillitoe, Linda and Allen Roberts. Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders. 2nd Edition, Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1989.
Worrall, Simon. The Poet and the Murderer. New York: Dutton. 2002.