JVDGE Building Bombing - Salt Lake City, Utah - Infamous Crime Scenes on Waymarking.com

On the morning of Oct. 15,1985, an explosion shattered the quiet of a hallway in the Judge Building about 8:00am in downtown Salt Lake City. A secretary rushed out to find 31-year-old businessman Steven F. Christensen sprawled on the floor, dying.

Within a few hours, another bomb went off, this one in a tree-lined Salt Lake City suburb. Kathleen Webb Sheets, wife, mother, grandmother, had picked up a package addressed to her husband, Gary Sheets. She died instantly.

News of the bombings consumed the community with fear and dread.

At first it was thought to be the work of a disgruntled investor in Coordinated Financial Services, where Christensen and Gary Sheets had been partners. Bomb squads were on alert, looking for brown paper packages. Some wondered, though, if it might have anything to do with Christensen's dealings in Mormon historical documents.

The next afternoon, a bomb went off inside Hofmann's car, and attention immediately focused on him.

Hofmann had stepped into the spotlight five years earlier, when he claimed to have found a piece of parchment stuck between the pages of a 17th century Bible. On one side of the page were hieroglyphic markings similar to the ones LDS Church founder Joseph Smith said he copied from gold plates in 1830. Smith had given a page with such markings to an early Mormon convert, Martin Harris, to show to Charles Anthon, a scholar of ancient languages. The document became known as the "Anthon transcript," and Hofmann gave it to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for $20,000 in trade.

No one suspected it was a forgery.

From there, Hofmann launched a lively business in bogus documents. The clean-cut returned missionary's specialty was Mormonism, which seemed to generate plenty of sales. He quickly discovered that buyers had particular interests. Some bought documents that substantiated their historical claims. Others wanted documents that undercut LDS beliefs. He provided both.

Hofmann also forged letters from Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Boone and Betsy Ross. He even penned an Emily Dickinson poem. It may have been doggerel, but it fooled Dickinson scholars in Amherst, Mass.

Money rolled in. Each Hofmann find seemed to top the earlier ones, boosting prices.

In 1984, he claimed to find a Martin Harris letter that described Smith's experience of finding the gold plates upon which the Book of Mormon was written. In the official version, Smith got the plates from an angel. In this letter, "the spirit transfigured himself into a white salamander in the bottom of the hole."

Hofmann offered the document, which became known as the "salamander letter," to LDS Church leaders. But they declined, so Christensen bought it for $40,000 and donated it to the church.

Then Hofmann got greedy. And a little careless.

In 1984, he was trying to peddle a purported collection from William E. McLellin, one of the first 12 apostles in the newly formed LDS Church in 1835. He eventually became embittered and left the church. Hofmann hinted the collection might discredit the church, including information about Smith's early polygamist relationships.

The plan was for LDS investors to buy the collection and donate it to the church. Christensen was the intermediary. He introduced Hofmann to an LDS general authority who helped Hofmann get a $185,000 loan from First Interstate Bank.

Meanwhile, Hofmann was also trying to sell the Library of Congress a copy of "Oath of a Freeman," believed to be the first printed document in America, for more than $1 million. But the process of authenticating was taking too long. Hofmann's investors were pressuring him to produce the McLellin Collection, which did not exist, and Hofmann had sold it more than once.

Pressure from Christensen and others began to build.

Finally, Hofmann could see no way out. He decided to kill Christensen and plant a bomb at Sheets' house as a way to divert attention from his double-dealing and deceit.

Within days, police believed that Hofmann was the perpetrator. But it took months to unravel all his forgeries and build a case against him.

On Jan. 23, 1987, Hofmann plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to five years to life at Utah State Prison.

Since then, he has attempted suicide twice.

Now he shares a cell with Dan Lafferty, a Mormon fanatic who murdered his sister-in-law and niece. Rebuffed by the parole board in 1988, Hofmann is likely to be in prison for the rest of his life.

(Source: Twenty years ago, a forger killed two people in an attempt to cover up his crimes
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune)

Date of crime: 10/15/1985 Public access allowed: yes Fee required: no Web site: [Web Link]

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