by John Zenoni
I really enjoyed the fascinating docuseries, ‘Murder Among the Mormons’, about the 1985 bombings in the Salt Lake City area that unfortunately took the lives of two people. The story is about Mark Hofmann, who supposedly found a letter of great interest to the LDS (Latter Day Saints or Mormon) church as it would have changed the history regarding the church’s founder, Joseph Smith.
The way the story is presented is well done in that it starts first with the history and founding of the church then goes into the bombings and when/why they occurred. Initially it was determined that the ‘salamander’ document, as the letter founded by Hofmann is known, was real and not a forgery and he sold this letter to the LDS church. It goes into detail about how Hofmann works with several other dealers/historians in rare documents and together were prepared to sell another group of documents, called the ‘McLellin Collection’, to the LDS church. It's been said that this group of letters would challenge the church from a historical perspective and cause significant damage.
Well, before the letters were able to be sold, the bombings took place, killing Steve Christensen, a partner of Hofmann’s, and a Bishop’s wife, who was not the intended victim. A third bomb went off in a car, injuring initial victim-turned-suspect, Mark Hofmann.
The story about Hofmann and his life and how and why he did what he did is indeed fascinating. It's hard to tell though from the information given if he's a psychopath or pathological liar or what. I do wish that more insight into his mental state and a diagnosis had been given (not that it's not obvious that he has mental issues, with the crimes he committed). Certain questions came up though such as: How did his wife not have any clue as to what he was doing? How long exactly had he been engaged in forging documents? And most importantly, how could he have fooled so many experts? Yes, come to find out Hofmann had forged the documents, shocking the church, rare document experts and his family.
While the series is short, only 3 episodes, it's absolutely fascinating.
No comments:
Post a Comment