Admittedly shy and lacking self-confidence back then, Olds said Hofmann "had an answer for everything" when she questioned him on things that didn't add up. At the time, she believed he was much more intelligent than she, so she figured her suspicions must be baseless.

"That's where I tended to give myself away. I let go of what I was thinking and just followed him. It was part of the pattern I had with Mark to discount myself. . . . I would just think or feel what he did. That's a place where I've had healing, too, is trusting myself and knowing I have value. I went into the marriage not trusting myself, and I can't blame that on him."

Truth hits home

There were things, she said, "I was choosing not to see or was unable to see. I could have taken action if I had been where I am now," in terms of emotional health and self-confidence. But raising young children was enough to keep her attention, she said, though there was an underlying feeling that something was amiss.

Olds acknowledges her view of the marriage at that point was a misinterpreted reading of LDS teachings.

"There was an enculturation with the role of the priesthood (held by men) that's totally incorrect. In the church organization, there is a linear line of authority; but in a marriage, it's a partnership, and neither one is above the other," she said. "You need to be working together."

Back then, "It was whatever he says goes, and he is the head of a house. It's not true doctrine, but it's something that just sort of seeped in, like a smell in a room that permeates and no one really knows where it's coming from. Unless you are conscious of what's going on, you're not aware of why you are feeling that way or what is happening.

"It was too hard or I was unwilling to take a look to see the clues and things that would have told me, 'Something is off here, something needs to be changed and done.' If I had been more awake and conscious, maybe people wouldn't have died. I don't know."

She stood by her husband through the early allegations and the subsequent court proceedings, believing he was an innocent man.

The reality of what had occurred didn't begin to hit home until he actually pleaded guilty to the murders and was sent to prison in January 1987, she said. And though she had lost the bearings of her place in a culture often defined by faith and family, she did not lose sight of God or believe she was beyond his purview.

'Who am I?'

Two days after Hofmann's plea, she made a conscious and difficult decision to attend church with her children — including her 6-week-old baby — knowing everyone had heard the story and wondering how she'd be received.

But the decision to go was hers alone, and it became a turning point of sorts.