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.

Immediately after the third bombing, Hofmann became a suspect in the Oct. 15 pipe bomb murders. But the case was so complicated the district attorney's office, for the first time ever, had to use a computer to keep track of the information. Investigators also began constructing a timeline, posting pieces of information on the blank walls of a "war room." At first they couldn't figure out how the stuff on one wall related to stuff on another wall, remembers prosecutor Bob Stott. Eventually, though, they zeroed in on the apparent motive: a tangled web of lies and debts, forgeries and frauds, that had made Hofmann feel backed into a corner, stalling for time.

Steve Christensen was a target because of his involvement with several of the document transactions. An amateur historian, Christensen had bought the controversial Salamander Letter from Hofmann for $40,000 and had donated it to the church in 1983. What apparently got him in trouble with Hofmann, however, were some 1985 transactions, including the "McLellin collection" that Hofmann said contained damning information about the church's early history.

Hofmann peddled the McLellin collection — sight unseen because, in fact, it didn't exist — to several potential investors. With Steve Christensen's help, he convinced the late LDS general authority Hugh Pinnock to help secure a non-collateral loan for $185,000 from First Interstate Bank so that Hofmann could buy the collection and donate it to the church to keep it from falling into "enemy hands." He negotiated a separate $154,000 deal with Salt Lake coin collector Alvin Rust for the same collection.