Refutation by Forgery: The Hofmann Case Revisited

The pot that document forger Mark William Hofmann brought to a boil by killing two people with bombs on Oct. 15, 1985, in Salt Lake City is still simmering for the Mormon Church. Three books on this fascinating case have been published in recent months, and television specials have appeared. The biggest electronic treatments, a four-hour CBS miniseries and a 20th Century Fox film, are in the works.

The Washington Post has reported that some Mormons are trying to tone down the CBS miniseries which is partly based on “The Mormon Murders,” a rather sensationalistic account by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. The Fox film is based on “A Gathering of Saints,” a well-written book by Robert Lindsey, the able former West Coast bureau chief of the New York Times.

But if movie makers or filmgoers want a comprehensive treatment of the bizarre story of the man who has been called “the world’s greatest forger,” they would do well to read “Salamander: A Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders” by Linda Sillitoe and Allen D. Roberts (Signature Books: $17.95; 556 pp.). Sillitoe and Roberts are both from Salt Lake. Sillitoe was part of The Deseret News team reporting on these bombings.

Not surprisingly, all three of these books focus on religion. Indeed, Hofmann was a self-described “eighth-generation Mormon” who murdered two outstanding Mormons partly to divert attention from his inability to produce a collection of Mormon documents for leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).

Perhaps no American state or religion is dominated by an obsession with history as is Utah and its predominantly Mormon population. It may require such a history-haunted region to nurture such a forger of history. Hofmann has long been preoccupied with history, with documents and with books.

One book that influenced him most was “No Man Knows My History,” Fawn Brodie’s biography of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. “Hofmann seemed particularly fascinated by Joseph Smith whom he viewed much as Brodie had; a remarkably charismatic fraud. Hofmann talked at length about the way in which Smith was able to ‘create history’.” While most Mormons revere Smith, Sillitoe and Roberts write, “Hofmann seemed to admire him as a deceiver, the ultimate con artist.”

While all three recent books emphasize the Mormon tradition, they do not focus sufficiently on the personal and psychological factors that lead someone to almost casually kill those who did him no harm. After all, deranged people can come from any religion or culture. What was it in Hofmann’s life that led to murder?

“Salamander” provides the most satisfying account of his personal history. While Hofmann seemed the model kid who never sassed the teacher, he was privately entranced by fire, guns and explosives and took delight in pet torture and in duping everyone.

“As far back as I can remember, I have liked to impress people through my deceptions,” he said after confessing. “In fact, some of my earliest memories are of doing magic and card tricks. Fooling people gave me a sense of power and superiority.”

Although reared in a stable, devout Mormon family, he did not get along with his autocratic father. What experiences made an adolescent who had renounced religious belief seem a conforming Mormon to the outside world?

He expressed religious doubts in family conversations, but when discussion went too far, his father would call a curt halt. His parents didn’t seem to want to hear about his growing lack of faith. They also had trouble giving him the support he craved.

Unable to convince his family in open argument that he was right, he eventually decided to win the argument by inventing documents covertly to invalidate the position of his church and family.

Sillitoe and Roberts report that Hofmann told his first fiancee at Utah State University that, although he didn’t believe in Mormonism, “I have to remain a member in good standing so people will trust me, and I can have access to what I need. But I can make good money at this, and eventually these documents are going to show people that they believe in a fairy tale.”

In his mid-20s, Hofmann began to “find” (forge) documents that upheld Mormon history. Thus ingratiating himself with Mormon leaders, he then forged documents that discredited this history, including the explosive “salamander letter” which made Joseph Smith’s story ridiculous.

News organizations trumpeted Hofmann’s “discoveries” around the world. His ingenious forgeries fooled many experts including those at the Library of Congress and the FBI.

One wonders if he would still be producing plausible documents if he had not made the mistake of killing two people and exploding another bomb that seriously injured himself. Diligent investigation and document examination eventually made the murder case against the 30-year-old forger.

Hofmann’s warped thinking had led him to conclude that killing could protect his grandiose schemes. His world had started to collapse when he could not pay investors so he could avoid exposure of his frauds. He later confessed that he could not tolerate being exposed as “a fraud” before his family and the world. With the flurry over his bombings, he explained, “I could tell the fraud victims I was too busy with those deaths or whatever to come through on the frauds.”

While the judge and the Board of Pardons said he must stay in prison for life, there were some in Utah who said this coldblooded killer deserved death. Others argued that his life imprisonment gives an opportunity to explore what went into the making of such a talented, brutal manipulator.

In their riveting book, Sillitoe and Roberts provide important clues in understanding a confidence man who upset the Mormon Church as it has not been upset for many years.