A trip to Manchester, England, first got Mark interested in Mormon documents. After all, Dorie still supported him, unable to believe that he was a cold-blooded killer. 1988 letter to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole. [5]:298 Salt Lake County District Attorney's investigator Michael George believed that, after Hofmann had successfully forged the blessing, his ultimate goal was to create the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon, which he could have filled with inconsistencies and errors, sell them "to the church to be hidden away" and then as he had done often with embarrassing documents "make sure its contents were made public. Their first romantic date was in April 1979, their engagement was in July and by September they were married. [h][5]:8081 Nevertheless, he also ensured that the document would be made public. He wrote that he chose to commit murder and die in favor of being exposed, The Salt Lake City Tribune reported after obtaining his letter in 2011. His forging hand was thereby permanently disabled. A scramble to acquire the document occurred, and Hofmann, posing as a faithful Mormon, presented it to his church in exchange for items worth more than $20,000. What youre implying is the absurdity that any criticism of someone not white is racist: a gross caricature even of identity politics, and a cheapening of criticism of authentic racism, which you should reflect on if you really care about it. $17.09. This second letter, known informally as the Salamander Letter, had called into question the origins of the church, because no mention of anything that fantastical had ever appeared in church writings. Hofmann, for a while, shared a cell with another infamous Utah killer, Dan Lafferty, a religious zealot convicted of murdering his sister-in-law and her infant daughter in 1984. I am not ashamed to admit that we were victimized. According to the Mormon scripture Joseph SmithHistory, the transcript and its unusual reformed Egyptian characters were copied by Smith from the golden plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon. Well yes! Police also released a composite drawing of the man. The LDS Church publicized this Hofmann creation through a press conference on August 23, 1982. "[14]:252 After Hofmann's exposure, the LDS Church tried to correct the record, but the "public relations damage as well as the forgery losses meant the church was also a Hofmann victim. [5]:243, After Hofmann returned from his mission, he enrolled as a pre-med major at Utah State University. Dr. Hoffman's role is to accelerate and improve all types of research at the Children's Mercy Research Institute through resources such as data, applications and technology. NU47OE000105 (HOFFMAN, MARK A.) [q] As Hofmann had intended, police initially suspected that the bombings were related to the impending collapse of an investment business of which Sheets's husband, J. Gary Sheets, was the principal and Christensen his protg. She was killed Oct. 15, 1985, by a bomb in Holladay. These deceived not only members of the First Presidency notably Gordon B. Hinckley, then the de facto president of the church due to the poor health of more senior leaders[d] but also document experts and distinguished historians. Money was not the object.. Underneath, though, Olds felt something amiss. Hofmann agreed to confess his forgeries in open court, in return for which prosecutors in Utah and New York dropped additional charges against him. Hofmann is imprisoned at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah, in the Monroe unit, according to his inmate records. Today, Hofmann is serving a life sentence in. After Hofmann returned from his mission, he enrolled as a pre-med major at Utah State University. He is survived by his wife, Diane, six children, 18 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. When I say this was the most important thing I mean it literally. As the news unfolded on the nation's television screens, reporters camped out on her lawn in Millcreek, peering in the windows at the distraught woman, trying desperately to care for her young children. By age 14, he developed a forgery technique he believed was undetectable. Hofmann concluded the letter writing, This is only a simplified summary of some of my crimes and feelings. The letter recounted how the church prophet had encountered a white salamander that transformed itself into a spirit guarding the gold plates. Twice a week, she went to see her husband in prison once alone and once with their kids. In 2011, it was revealed that Hofmann had tape-recorded himself pitching the bogus document to the RLDS Church archives. But in the letter, he traces his interest in deception back to his childhood. You need to dial this back right now. [5]:260,27071,27475 Investigators also found that a poem used to authenticate the handwriting in the Salamander Letter had been forged by Hofmann and inserted in a Book of Common Prayer once owned by Martin Harris. Hofmann's crimes are fictionalized in the episode "The Saint", Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2004). shelved 1,705 times Showing 30 distinct works. The second bomb intended for Gary Sheets that his wife, Kathleen Sheets, picked up instead was a pure diversion.. She spoke for 25 minutes without notes, telling her story to many who didn't know anything about it. And just like other young men in the church, Hofmann even volunteered as a missionary. [5]:95,98, In addition to documents from Mormon history, Hofmann also forged and sold signatures of many famous non-Mormons, including George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Boone, John Brown, Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, Francis Scott Key, Abraham Lincoln, John Milton, Paul Revere, Myles Standish, and Button Gwinnett, whose signature was the rarest, and therefore the most valuable, of any signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was almost successful; and he was successful in undermining the church prophets and leaders by convincing them his forgery was truthful. He was the first to determine that the widely publicized. I am also a professor at Montserrat College of Art in the illustration department. I felt like I would rather take human life or even my own life rather than to be exposed, Hofmann wrote. he asked. The first bomb exploded a few minutes after 8 a.m. on Oct. 15, 1985, killing Steve Christensen when he reached down to pick up a package in front of his office in the Judge Building. Not only did the letter intimate that Smith had been practicing "money digging" through magical practices, but it also replaced the angel that Smith said had appeared to him with a white salamander. Stay-at-home mom, who baked bread and quilted. Her children visited their father from early on and continue to do so regularly. "[14]:254 Robert Lindsey has also suggested that Hofmann "stimulated a burst of historical inquiry regarding Joseph Smith's youthful enthusiasm for magic [that] did not wither after his conviction". Youre so perpetually awful that I avoid reading comments on this very well written blog because I know you will always be at the top. When McLellin was visited by this same Joseph Smith III, McLellin asserted: Emma Smith told him [McLellin] that Joseph was both a polygamist and an adulterer. After completing two years at Dixie in St. George, in fall 1978, Olds went to study nutrition at Utah State University, where Mark Hofmann lived in an apartment above hers. [5]:56 He later told prosecutors that he had lost his faith in the LDS Church and become an atheist around age 14. In Stock. the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a mythical being thought to be able to live in fire, "Dealer in Mormon fraud called a master forger", "Early years: Mark Hofmann, the Salamander Letter, and the bombings", "30 Years After Mormon Bombings, Mark Hofmann's Ex-Wife Finds Peace and Herself", "Mark Hofmann tape-recorded RLDS scam while it was in progress", "Mormon document raises doubts on succession of church's leaders", "1985 CES Doctrine and Covenants Symposium", "Recent events involving church history and forged documents", "The Truth is the Most Important Thing: A look at Mark W. Hofmann, the Mormon salamander man", "Introduction to the Signature Books edition of the McLellin Papers", "Mormon leaders suppress 'key' item in murder case", "Mac Christensen, founder of Utah-based Mr. Mac men's clothing chain, dead at 85", "Notorious bomber Mark Hofmann moved to Gunnison prison", Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, "Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents", "Netflix Sets 'Murder Among the Mormons' Docuseries on 1985 Utah Bombings (Exclusive)", "Fraudulent documents from Forger Mark Hofmann noted", "Mark Hofmann letter to the Board of Pardons", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Hofmann&oldid=1147137236, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Improvised explosive device bombings in the United States, People excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Utah, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2021, Articles with incomplete citations from May 2020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox criminal with motive parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 March 2023, at 02:14. He also forged an 1830 letter from Martin Harris known as the Salamander Letter which described Joseph Smith being involved in folk magic. In 1985, Mark Hofmann became one of Utah's most prolific killers after spending years committing fraud that might have landed him a jail sentence, but wouldn't have put him in prison for the rest of his life. Sheets,[r] a child, a dog whoever" [was killed]. In October 1985, three bomb blasts in Salt Lake City, Utah, shook the local authorities and the residents to their very core, primarily because of its connection to the Latter-day Saints Church. "Unknown to me, Mark had forged his first coin at age 14, long before we were married," Olds told a recent gathering of women. [18][j] Document expert Kenneth W. Rendell later said that while there was "the absence of any indication of forgery in the letter itself, there was also no evidence that it was genuine. Mormon document forger and bomber Mark Hofmann is no longer serving a lifetime prison sentence from a maximum-security prison cell. Marc Hoffmann. Mark Hofmann was the mastermind behind deadly bombings that served as the focal point of the new Netflix docuseries, Murder Among the Mormons. You also called a woman who has called herself a black woman a dual race which isnt a thing., Dual heritage: the fact of having parents from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Supposedly written by Martin Harris to W. W. Phelps, the letter presented a version of the recovery of the gold plates that contrasted markedly with the church-sanctioned version of events. Dorie Olds Now: Where Is Mark Hofmanns Ex-Wife Today in 2021. Hofmann hinted that the McLellin collection would provide revelations unfavorable to the LDS Church. It was long believed that the third explosion was an accident. The murders and his forgeries are the subject of the three-part Netflix documentary, which was released today, Wednesday, March 3, 2021. With the white salamander letter, he hoped to dismantle the LDS Church by changing its history. "When I first met Dorie, she was very mousy," McNeil says. She was very friendly when we did things socially [as couples] sometimes," Bench recalls. The reach of his forgeries from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain, George Washington to Joseph Smith and the cunning with which he tricked a nations document collectors continue to intrigue authors and investigators. Yet, she says it was for their own good. Slowly, though, Olds developed a few close friendships, a deep mysticism and a knack for analysis and therapy. [8][28] Hofmann initially maintained his innocence. Utah Department of Corrections A colleague has written a piece on what Latter-day Saint history experts thought of "Murder Among the Mormons." The 48-year-old man serving as president of the Philippines Iloilo Mission died on Tuesday. Frannie, thanks for your message. She felt largely alone, rejected by many, including her in-laws and some of her own family members. He sounded just as boyishly earnest when lying to the media about discovering valuable historic Mormon documents as he did when confessing to the police that he committed fraud and double murder in the 1980s. Dorie Olds is the ex-wife of Mormon bomber Mark Hofmann, who killed two people on Oct. 15. I've never seen anything like this in a homicide investigation. "[9]:514. Mark made photocopies of the fake documents he created to prevent the church from doing catch-and-kills. Over the years, he writes articles on cinema - his second passion - as well as self-taught scripts. He delighted in traveling around the world to collect rare copies of children's books, but he made a living as a seller of historical documents. However, at a preliminary hearing, prosecutors produced voluminous evidence of his forgeries and debts, as well as evidence linking him to the bombs. The ascription of (nauseating) foolishness is not racist: anyone and everyone could be a fool. Proper disagreement is through proper that is, substantive argument, not epithet (racist; mansplaining; vomit work cloud (whatever that is), etc. When I read this article I did not expect to find this in the comments, quite interesting to read. You wouldnt need to go on these kinds of flip-outs if it werent based in racism. She is working on a book, "The Forger's Wife," and hopes to help women who look and act like her former self. Utah Department of CorrectionsMark Hofmanns prison record. [5]:6869 Appraised by the LDS Church for US$25,000, it was purchased on October 13 in exchange for several artifacts the church owned in duplicate, including a $5 gold Mormon coin, Deseret banknotes, and a first edition of the Book of Mormon. Two Mormon wives sat on opposite sides of the Salt Lake City courtroom, staring intently at images on a screen as a witness described Steve Christensen's body after a pipe bomb shredded it. The church acquired several documents from Hofmann. When Olds awoke that morning, she says, her husband was already dressed and, strangely, in the backyard, wearing his green Olympus High letter jacket. "During our nine-year marriage, he created historical documents and signatures, coins, antique Mormon money and much more selling them for millions of dollars.". Devout grandparents. Netflixs Murder Among the Mormons is a limited docuseries that chronicles the life and actions of the criminal mastermind behind one of the most shocking crimes to have transpired in the Mormon community. Hofmanns forgeries were intended to embarrass The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in hopes of extorting the church for money to keep the fake documents private. [m] In an effort to clear his debts, he attempted to broker a sale of the "McLellin collection" a supposedly extensive group of documents written by William E. McLellin, an early Mormon apostle who eventually broke with the LDS Church. Finally, after consulting with Ph.D. chemists and trying formula after formula, (Salt Lake City forensic examiner George) Throckmorton was at a toy store one day buying a present. The next day, Olds planned to clean her house, she says, when she got a call from Hofmann, telling her that she and the kids were in danger and that she should take them to her mom's house. [p] Later the same day, a second bomb killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christensen's former employer. [5]:8081, During the race by the Utah and Missouri churches to acquire the blessing document, Hofmann discovered "a lever to exercise enormous power over his church", a power to "menace and manipulate its leaders with nothing more sinister than a sheet of paper". For a while, Dorie did feel like her children no longer respected or listened to her, which is why she had to separate and ship them away. Without a college degree or means of supporting herself and her four children, Olds had to give up the house they lived in and eventually farmed out the youngest kids to relatives, when she felt the children no longer respected or listened to her. [5]:17982, The following day, Hofmann himself was severely injured when a bomb exploded in his Toyota MR2. The Mormon world was rocked by Hofmann's double-dealing and deceit, but even more horrified by the deaths of Christensen and Kathleen Sheets, wife of Christensen's business partner, Gary Sheets. He violated his religions ban on alcohol at least once drinking hard liquor with a pal and promptly throwing up. While there, she heard that her husband was wounded and rushed to the hospital after a bomb went off in his car. The updates include a new intake area and transportation building, plus a facility to house up to 12 K-9s. I don't believe in God. In the next eight years, they welcomed four children into their lives; one son and three daughters. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. On one side was Terri Christensen, widow of the businessman, who was murdered Oct. 15, 1985. She spoke about her life experience Thursday October 8, 2015. Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Olds' life, too, had exploded with her husband's bombs, shattered like shards of glass. You dont need to justify why you didnt cancel me (for thats what you mean, and she wants, by censoring); on the contrary, she needs to argue her case, which she hasnt. I felt I would rather take human life or even my own life rather than to be exposed.. Sometimes the church received these as donations, and others it purchased. I think life is basically worthless. All four of Mark Hofmanns children prefer to stay away from the media and the spotlight. [23]:13234, Despite the considerable amounts of money Hofmann had made from document sales, he was deeply in debt, in part because of his increasingly lavish lifestyle and his purchases of genuine first-edition books. American murderer who forged Mormon documents, For other people with this name or with similar spellings, see, That his grandmother "was the product of a, Hofmann decided that if experts said the coin was genuine, then it, Hofmann was a "hands-on father who pushed strollers, changed diapers, and attended local, "At seventy-two, Hinckley had begun filling the role that would increasingly dominate his life: His role as, Some LDS apologists dispute the fact that the church was deceived by Hofmann's forgeries. Go do something else with your time. The Utah Department of Corrections releases few details publicly on its inmates, but his profile describes a man who could be easily overlooked as a double murderer: a 66-year-old man, 5-feet 9-inches tall and weighing 180 pounds. 5. She continued to visit him twice a week in prison, once alone and once with her children. [8]:42 He expected the church to "buy the blessing on the spot and bury it. As the witness detailed her experience of finding Steve Christensen,. Mark Hofmann was the mastermind behind deadly bombings that served as the focal point of the new Netflix docuseries, Murder Among the Mormons. The blue haze, it turned out, came from blue household ammonia; ammonia increases oxygen levels, and oxygen speeds up the aging process. A few months later, he came home with a 17th-century Bible and urged her to look through it something he had never done before. This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. Who is Mark Hofmann? I am currently working as a children's book author/illustrator, editorial illustrator, and fine artist. Hofmann had become an atheist when he was 14, and had been creating successful forgeries even longer.

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