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The calm of Salt Lake City Utah was rocked today by two booby-trap bombs that left two people dead … Murder Among the Mormons I, newscaster, Netflix 2021
A morning that brought fear and death. The first explosion ripped through a downtown office building, killing one man. The second explosion outside a holiday home claimed another life … ibid.
There was dark talk involving religious documents, hired professional killers … ibid.
The bombing’s impact has drawn the Church into an uncomfortable spotlight. ibid.
Salt Lake City, 1980: At that time I was introduced to Mark Hofmann. And I was very excited to meet Mark. He was in the Mormon document world, he was a rock star. ibid. Shannon Flynn, rare document dealer
The Anthon Transcript discovery was widely publicized and brought Mark Hofmann into contact with top leaders in the Mormon Church. ibid. reporter
I’d never seen anybody come up with the material that Mark was coming up with. ibid. Brent Ashworth, historical document collector
He takes out from his briefcase the Salamander letter. ibid. Flynn
It just changed everything. Instead of God and angels, now it’s salamanders and magic. ibid. Sandra Tannner
The McLellin Collection was potentially devastating. ibid. Flynn
Last year Hofmann sold a document known as the White Salamander letter to the men who were the apparent targets of the first attack. Murder Among the Mormons II
For more than three hours officers sifted through boxes and collected evidence they hoped to use in their case against Hofmann. ibid. news
The FBI has reportedly concluded there is no reason to believe the Salamander letter is a phony. ibid.
Every single document that Hofmann had handled had that cracked ink. ibid. document verification dude
It’s the biggest forgery case to ever occur. Period. Murder Among the Mormons III, observer
After Mark’s confessions, the Parole Board decides he will serve his entire life in prison. ibid. caption
Salt Lake City: the world capital of Multi-Level Marketing. Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires: Ellie Undercover, BBC 2019
Mitt Romney Olympic Archive Still Off Limits: More than a decade has passed since Mitt Romney presided over the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, but the archival records from those games that were donated to the University of Utah to provide an unprecedented level of transparency about the historic event, remain off limits to the public. And some of the documents that may have shed the most light on Romney’s stewardship of the Games were likely destroyed by Salt Lake Olympic officials, ABC News has learned. ABC News article Lynn Packer 23rd July 2012
Antique documents worth millions. Techniques that fooled America’s greatest experts. A masterplan so profound it takes years to unfold. And a brilliant mind driven to the absolute edge. The Man Who Forged America, BBC 2003
1980, Salt Lake City Utah. Home of the Mormon Church. The setting for a discovery that sent shockwaves around America. Mark Hofmann, a first year medical student, has bought an old Bible. Stuck between its pages is a mysterious document ... The long-lost Anthon transcript. ibid.
Hofmann sells his amazing find to the Mormon Church for $20,000. ibid.
Hofmann makes another incredibly find. He unearths three Joseph Smith letters that he sells for $95,000. The money pours in. ibid.
Over the next year Hofmann makes more apparent discoveries including documents of national importance from the hand of Daniel Boone, Abe Lincoln, George Washington and Jack London. His fame spreads. The Mormon Church believes he is touched by God. ibid.
The world’s most astounding series of forgeries. ibid.
Over six hundred extraordinary forgeries. ibid.
He creates the Salamander letter, the first in a series of controversial documents that threatens the very foundation of the Mormon Church. ibid.
Hofmann now travels east ... He creates an entirely new persona for himself. ibid.
Hofmann poses as an innocent history buff. ibid.
The Oath of a Freeman ... His asking price $1.5 million. He has reached the pinnacle of the forger’s art. ibid.
And it isn’t long before some of his disgruntled investors get ugly. ibid.
Hofmann targets [Mac] Christensen because he was about to expose Hofmann’s financial dealings. ibid.
His [Mark Hofmann] great desire in life was to fool the experts. Robert Stott, prosecutor
As investigators circle closer to Hofmann as their killer the case throws a cloud of doubt over the Church’s documents and others Hofmann has sold from coast to coast. News report cited ibid.
Mark Hofmann was a forger and shrewd observer of human behavior. Like any good con-man, he knew part of his success manufacturing and selling fake historical documents depended on willing victims – people who wanted to believe his claims.
Growing up Mormon, Hofmann realized he was surrounded by credulous people who were trained to trust those who presented themselves as authorities ...
From his years of poking around old documents and studying church history, Hofmann knew there were skeletons in the Mormon closet. Authentic LDS history is far murkier than the official version. He also knew the church was interested in acquiring potentially embarrassing documents so they could suppress them ...
So Hofmann concocted the ‘Salamander letter’, an account of Joseph Smith encountering a talking salamander that turned into an angel. The forgery neatly connected the Smith family’s occult practices with the origins of Mormonism ...
How is it that church leaders could meet several times with Mark Hofmann and never discern the dark spirit inside him? How could they not recognize the devil within their midst? And how many times before had they failed at similar challenges? How many more times would they fail? ...
What about the church’s document experts? Well, they turned out not to be so expert.
Before Hofmann started blowing up people, the church trumpeted the Salamander letter as a marvelous, wonderful new find while carefully spinning its content. After law enforcement forgery experts declared the Salamander letter a fake, however, the brethren had to spin their way back out without making it look like they had been duped and swindled. Furthermore, they resisted cooperating with the investigation out of fear their ineptitude would be further exposed.
The Hofmann case was a shameful moment of ecclesiastical bungling. I don’t imagine it’s an isolated case. The brethren work pretty much in secret, with no checks and balances, answering to no one, except each other and the still, small voices they hear in their heads. Stray Mutt, board post, ‘For Newbies and Lurking TBMs – A Review of the Hofmann Case’
Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the Mormon Church. But it’s not as saintly as it appears. Today it’s under siege, terrorised by a gang whose agenda is simple – to be the baddest around. It’s a strange place – where violence and religion co-exist ... The religion of Crippin. Gangland s3e5: From Heaven to Hell, History 2008
23rd July 1992: It was the eve of the State’s biggest celebration – Pioneer Day. Thousands of people flooded the downtown area, eating, drinking and setting off fireworks ahead of the next day’s parade. Hidden amongst the crowd were members of the Crips … Mr C noticed Crips from a rival set ... Within seconds the festive atmosphere turned to terror. Mr C pulled the gun from his trousers. ibid.
The city is perceived to be white, conservative, squeaky clean, and the last place you would expect to find gangs. But close to three hundred gangs call this valley town home ... Among them are an estimated one thousand Crips, divided into numerous smaller sects. The gangs are motivated by one thing – reputation. ibid.
Like many Crips in Utah, Mr C was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. ibid.
The city has a dark underside: with drive-by shootings, drug deals and robberies by gangs like the Crips. Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or LDS, these two worlds are strangely intertwined. Salt Lake City may seem like an unlikely place for gang activity, but the Mormon Church inadvertently brought the problem to its own doorstep. ibid.
In 1987 Salt Lake police saw the first evidence that gangs like the Crips had arrived. ibid.
The violence escalated but city officials were always in denial. ibid.
By 1993 parts of Salt Lake felt like a war zone. And the Crips were at the centre of it. The city continued to deny it had a problem ... Denial is part of the problem. ibid.