Mormon Documents Dealer Never Got Payment : Blasts Suspect Believed Out for Revenge

The chief suspect in bombings that killed one Mormon bishop (pastor) and the wife of another may have acted because he was never paid $40,000 for his sale of a controversial 1830 Mormon Church letter, authorities said Thursday.

The only link between Mark Hofmann, a self-employed Mormon documents dealer, and the two people killed by bomb blasts three hours apart on Tuesday was the so-called “White Salamander Letter,” authorities said.

Hofmann, 30, was critically hurt in an explosion while getting into his parked car on a downtown street Wednesday. The blast appeared to have been accidental and caused by the same type of bomb that killed the others, officials said.

Authorities believe Hofmann was planning to kill at least three other unidentified victims.

Papers Found in Trunk

Valuable Mormon documents were found in the trunk of his gutted car, Police Chief Bud Willoughby said.

Police theorized that Hofmann may have been motivated by revenge toward fellow traffickers in books and papers dealing with the 19th-Century origins of the Mormon Church.

“We’re talking probably a monetary problem here,” said Jerry Miller, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Salt Lake County Sheriff Peter Hayward also suggested forgery may be involved in the case.

“We’re also looking at the possibility of forged documents--this Joseph Smith document was one of them,” he said.

Letter Believed Authentic

Researchers believed the letter to be authentic.

Hofmann underwent eight hours of surgery at a hospital and was listed in critical condition after the blast. Officials planned to file federal weapons charges against him with additional charges possible.

Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility Hofmann was not paid the $40,000 he reportedly negotiated in his 1984 sale of the historic letter to Steven Christensen, 31, a businessman and Mormon bishop.

Christensen was killed Tuesday in the explosion of a bomb in his sixth-floor downtown office.

Hours later, Kathleen Sheets, the wife of Christensen’s former business partner who had helped finance research into the 19th Century letter, was killed in a similar blast outside her suburban home. Her husband, Gary Sheets, also a Mormon bishop, was believed to have been the intended victim of the explosive-rigged parcel.

Tied to Folk Magic

The “White Salamander Letter,” written by Martin Harris, an early associate of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith Jr., ties Smith to folk magic and treasure digging.

It describes Smith’s confrontation with a white salamander that changed into a spirit that led him to a gold Bible. The document also said Smith believed he had the ability to see visions in a stone and saw spirits with great kettles of money.

Church critics contend the letter casts doubt on the official Mormon portrait of Smith as a latter-day religious prophet who was led by an angel to a book of golden plates that he translated into the Book of Mormon, the main scriptures on which the church is based.