Mark Hofmann: Master Mormon forger and murderer

Mark Hofmann is perhaps the most notorious forger of them all. Not only did his forgeries fool experts and members of his church, but they also caused the death of two people.

Hofmann began his criminal career early. While in his teens, he forged a rare mint mark on a dime and fooled a coin collecting organization into believing it was genuine. That forgery started Hofmann's long and complex career of faking documents, coins and photographs which included the likes of everyone from LDS church founder Joseph Smith to Emily Dickinson, George Washington and Mark Twain.

Hofmann's most notorious forgery was known as “The Salamander Letter.” This letter recounted how a church prophet encountered a white salamander that transformed into a spirit that guarded the Gold Plates (the source from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon). It set off frenzy in LDS circles, as it had not been mentioned in any previous church writings. Hofmann “discovered” numerous previously unknown documents and writings pertaining to the LDS, which earned him a lot of money while fulfilling his "desire to embarrass the church by undermining its history."

Eventually, he created a Ponzi scheme of asking for loans to purchase false documents like the “McLellin Collection” and donate them to the church. When facing pressure of repaying the loans or coming up with the documents, Hofmann tried to strike a deal with the Library of Congress for his fabricated “Oath of a Freeman” document to repay his investors for the McLellin Collection. Needless to say, the deal went sour.

Hofmann's debts continued to mount and in a desperate effort to buy more time he constructed bombs, which killed collector Stephen Christenson and Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christenson's former employer. Hofmann was also seriously injured when a third bomb went off.

During the bombing investigation, police found evidence of Hofmann's forgeries in his basement. He was arrested in January 1986 and charged with 27 counts of murder, forgery and fraud. In an ironic twist, Hofmann later took an overdose of antidepressants and fell asleep on his right arm, causing muscle atrophy that permanently disabled the hand that forged so many documents.