Tales of Hofmann: Forgeries, deceit continue to intrigue 20 years later

Twenty years ago today, one of the most bizarre chapters in Utah history began when a nondescript man wearing a high school letterman's jacket and carrying a package went into the Judge Building and took the elevator to the sixth floor.

The two murders Mark Hofmann committed that bright October day were cold-blooded, clumsy attempts to divert attention from his life's work — hundreds of forgeries and lies that tampered with LDS and American history. For years, it turned out, Hofmann had been producing phony signatures and documents and photos and coins, successfully convincing handwriting experts and forgery detection machines that all of it was authentic.

The reach of his forgeries — from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain, George Washington to Joseph Smith — and the cunning with which he tricked a nation's document collectors continue to intrigue authors and investigators. So far, seven books have been written about him. This weekend, yet another symposium is being held to analyze his crimes, as forensic document examiners from 33 states gather in Salt Lake City to talk about the arcane details of ink and paper.

Meanwhile, Hofmann's forgeries and counterfeiting are still leaving their mark. His doctored documents continue to surface and are sometimes sold as originals even when there is proof that they're "Hofmanns." Two years ago, a penny Hofmann claims he altered sold for $48,300 at a Beverly Hills auction.

Hofmann himself sits in a 7-by-10-foot cell in the Utah State Prison, a prisoner for life, sharing those 70 square feet with convicted murderer and religious zealot Dan Lafferty. Hofmann has never granted an interview to the media and has never fully explained the murders and his motives. He does occasionally write letters to his family. As always, he prints; these days his printing has a slightly backward slant.

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. The second bomb exploded about 90 minutes later, killing Holladay housewife Kathy Sheets when she picked up a package in front of her home.

At first it seemed that someone was targeting employees of the beleaguered CFS Financial Corp., because Sheets' husband, Gary, was CFS's president, and Christensen was formerly one of the company's vice presidents. But when a third bomb exploded the next day, suddenly the motive seemed less clear.

The third victim, injured but still alive, was Mark Hofmann, a man unknown to most Salt Lakers but a minor celebrity among LDS historians and collectors.

By then he had already appeared in Time magazine as the young document dealer who had discovered a long-lost document of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Anthon Transcript, on which LDS Church founder Joseph Smith had copied Egyptian characters from the gold plates that were later translated into the Book of Mormon. Three years later, Time had written about a more bizarre Hofmann find — a letter written by Smith's close friend Martin Harris. The letter recounted how the church prophet had encountered a white salamander — that transformed itself into a spirit — guarding the gold plates. 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.

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