Murder Among the Mormons (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

1
Move in.
That's as far as you're going.
When did you first begin
to think about killing people?
That's a good question.
Uh
The bomb parts for the first two bombs
were purchased a week or two
before, uh, they were constructed.
Uh, my
My idea at that point was
to have those materials
to keep my options open.
So probably the same day
I made that purchase
is when I first considered taking life,
uh, to get myself out
of the jam that I felt I was in.
Uh
I felt at that time like
drastic measures were called for.
Someone would have to die.
But I didn't know who.
In Salt Lake City today,
a dealer in historical Mormon documents,
Mark Hofmann,
pleaded guilty to forgery and murder.
He admitted that he forged two documents,
supposedly dealing with the founding
of the Mormon Church.
And he admitted killing two people
with pipe bombs to escape detection.
The Mark Hofmann I knew
did not do this.
Apparently, I didn't know Mark Hofmann.
His neighbors said
he was a nice family man.
Friends stuck up for him.
Business associates trusted him.
But there was always the smile,
the quiet manner, and a secretiveness.
He fooled everyone.
I'm sorry, I gotta dredge up
Gotta dredge up this crap again.
With disbelief and shock,
associates say Flynn was the last
among them to conclude Hofmann is guilty.
Not only did he commit those crimes,
and not only did he make me
a party in committing those crimes
and used me in order
to perpetrate crimes on other people,
after the fact, he continuously lied to me
about all the aspects
and phases of those crimes.
It's easy for people to nowadays say,
"Well, couldn't you see that?
What's the matter with you?"
Well, you know, hindsight's always 20/20.
And, in the moment,
I didn't suspect 'cause I didn't want to.
Just have to be honest about it.
I didn't want to.
It's the biggest forgery case
to ever occur,
-period.
-Judge is gonna arraign
Prosecutors say
they got everything they wanted.
Four guilty pleas, and Mark Hofmann
sentenced to five years to life in prison.
-Do you understand that?
Yes.
But they got something more.
Hofmann agreed
that he'll explain, in detail,
exactly what he did and how he did it.
Mark, this happened so quickly.
How do you feel?
-I'd rather not make comments now.
What way did you plead?
I'd rather make no comments.
But this is your last chance to say
You have a lot of theories
as to why a crime has occurred.
You have evidence
as to why a crime occurred.
But what actually
went on in the person's mind
that led him up to the act of homicide,
you rarely
get to talk to a person about that.
It's hard to celebrate a victory
on a murder case
because of everything that happens.
The tragedy that's behind it
takes a toll on everybody.
Are you frightened, Mark?
Uh, not really. Pretty calm.
But the day that Mark Hofmann pled guilty,
we did allow ourselves a celebration
for the satisfaction
for the work we had done on this case.
This was the first of several meetings
between Hofmann and prosecutors,
part of the plea bargain that may
have saved Hofmann from a death sentence.
Walk right up the stairs.
Here's a man that, for eight years,
fooled the experts of this nation.
Now he has a chance to tell the world.
I think he wanted
to tell the world what he did.
US Pin Number 18186. Is that correct?
-I believe so.
Okay.
Mr. Hofmann, uh, first of all,
I'll ask questions
based on each of the crimes.
Then I'll go on to a discussion
of, uh, uh, your background,
and there will be
some questions related to that.
All right?
Go ahead with the questions.
You've been
deceiving people for some time.
Um, essentially,
what I would describe
as a life of deception.
More harmless,
yeah, experimentation,
-rather than criminal.
Mm.
Do you feel proud of yourself
at the moment?
Uh
When he was a boy,
Mark Hofmann and his friends
decided to go on a treasure hunt.
So the boys go out, and they dig about,
and nobody finds anything.
But towards the end of the hunt,
Mark Hofmann goes and digs,
and he comes up with a jar of coins.
Now, the story is that he knew
they were going treasure hunting,
went out in the woods,
buried the jar of coins,
went out the next day with the boys,
found it, held it up and said,
"Oh, yes, I found the treasure."
He spent his life finding treasure
that nobody else could find.
As far back as I can remember,
I have liked to impress people
through my deceptions.
Fooling people, uh, gave me
a sense of power and superiority.
When I was about, uh, 12 years old,
I began collecting coins.
Soon afterwards,
I figured out some crude ways
to fool other collectors by altering coins
and make them appear more desirable.
By the time I was 14,
I had developed a forgery technique
which I felt was undetectable.
Anyway, it ended up
going to the Treasury Department,
where it was pronounced genuine.
In my view, uh,
if the Treasury Department
pronounces it genuine,
then it is genuine by definition.
It's not so much
what is genuine and what isn't,
as what people believe is genuine.
Mark said something
that will give everyone pause.
Because essentially, he said,
if something seems to be true
and becomes accepted as true,
it becomes true.
Does that mean we're all living lies?
Found her. Are you recording?
Yeah.
Record light's on.
Hold him, Dorie, so he can see.
Gotta let him look at it and take it.
I have a lot of people
who would say, "How could you not know?"
I can't-- I have no argument.
I have no-- It's like, I didn't know.
That's all I can say.
More? Kiddo?
He fooled me every single day.
He did.
And he fooled my children.
Ah, boo. Ah, boo.
Yep, it's me, son.
Who'd you think it was?
It's like, even today there's a part of me
that doesn't even want to believe it.
Doesn't want to believe that it happened,
that he could do that.
Marital information,
you married Doralee Olds Hofmann.
You have four children,
and the indication is that your marriage
is likely to stay intact.
Is that correct?
I think so.
Okay.
And nothing indicates that she had
any notion of what was going on
relative to the forgeries.
That's right.
Mark Hofmann first came
to the public's attention in 1980,
when he sold this item,
the Charles Anthon manuscript,
to the LDS Church.
Now prosecutors say it's phony.
I think it's exciting to think that,
apparently, this piece of paper
was copied by Joseph Smith's own hand,
the characters were, just right from
the gold plates that were right there.
You staged
the discovery of the Anthon Transcript
in front of your wife. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Did you feel any compunction
about using your wife in that fashion?
Uh, well, as strange as it sounds,
I didn't feel like I was using her.
You know,
she didn't ask me about my business,
-and I didn't volunteer information.
-Okay.
You know,
she was always very supportive,
and no one would have guessed that
You know, the kind of man I was.
She was useful to you in that way?
-That's correct.
-Okay.
There are stories that he might've tried
to let her in
on at least one of his forgeries.
Yes, according to that 14-page addendum
about the murders,
uh, in that first Anthon Transcript
that he sold to the LDS Church
that was a big deal,
he apparently decided
to tell her that it was a forgery,
and she became very upset
He told me, "I made this.
I'm the one that put this together.
I made this."
And I remember
just being, uh, just shocked.
And just, like, "What?"
He changed his mind and said,
"No, I'm just joking. It's genuine."
She believed the other documents
were genuine?
She did. That's what prosecutors say.
There was a question
about her being allowed into the
His private room of the house.
Apparently, she was locked out.
Uh, she never got into the room.
You kept a room locked
with all of your paraphernalia in it.
Is that how that happened?
Yes.
-Okay.
And moved the paraphernalia
when she entered the room.
It was his childhood room.
It was just, to me,
a messy room that I didn't have to clean,
so I was glad.
It didn't make sense,
but there were things that didn't
make sense to me that he would do.
It was just like, we're just pretending
like this never happened.
But there was
a lot of pretending. Um
Mark Hofmann was
very, very good at storytelling.
And he would fulfill people's desires
by finding the treasures
that they had created
and wanted their whole lives,
in their own minds,
and he miraculously could find these.
The document is a letter
from Lucy Mack Smith,
mother of the Church's first president,
Joseph Smith.
Brent Ashworth acquired the letter
a month ago.
Mark said,
"Is there anything you're looking for?"
And I said,
"I'm looking for a handwritten letter
of, uh, Lucy Mack Smith."
He said, "Oh, I just happen to have one."
Mr. Ashworth,
is the reason you don't wanna go
into details of where you got it
-to protect your sources?
Correct.
Can you tell us
about the authenticity of it, or perhaps--
Uh, I guess, uh
I guess Dean Jesse
would have to tell us about that.
It seems strange that a lot
of what you did was made to order.
Someone would say,
"It'd be great to find,"
and suddenly you would've found it.
I--
I can't believe
that people didn't catch on.
I'm sure, neither can they.
Neither can I.
My wife says, "Greed."
I never liked that word.
She said I was greedy.
And, uh,
I'm always challenging her on that,
when she says that.
I think about it over time,
and I guess that's true in a way
because that was
one of the best documents.
I always wanted to build a collection
to be the best that it could be.
And because of that, uh,
I overlooked things
like lying and cheating.
Well, based on
my personal acquaintance with Mark
At one point,
right after the bombings,
I was on TV defending him.
I-- I have a great deal of doubt
that, uh, Mark is involved in--
In any way at this point.
And it's part of the reason I retained
my belief in Mark Hofmann's innocence
is because, again, I--
I felt like,
what does that mean for me as a person?
I just have no reason to believe,
despite the assertions
that have been made,
that Mark was involved
in any kind of forgery of this kind
I could not accept
that I had no suspicion whatsoever.
That was almost unacceptable to me
because it went
right to the heart of who I am.
And that frightened me,
that I could be that deceived by someone.
It's usually the greed
of the individual who is the victim
combined with the greed
of the person who is the perpetrator.
The two of 'em
get out of control pretty quickly.
And one sometimes
isn't as bad as the other,
but certainly
can lead to the, uh, same consequence.
Um,
would you have a set of beliefs,
Mr. Hofmann,
that serves as your anchor
in determining your behavior?
Uh, yes, I have a philosophy of life.
As far as their development,
it's hard for me to say
if my actions sprang out of them,
or if I have developed them
in order to justify my actions.
The reason I ask you that
is that I think most people
do have a set of beliefs,
and one of the things that
that impacted me about this
is that you seem to be so willing to toy,
if you will, with the beliefs of others.
Uh
I've always been
fascinated with the idea of
-why people believe what they do, uh
-Mm-hmm.
Toying with them, I guess, would be
more of an experimentation on my part
a way to analyze or try to figure out
why people do believe what they do.
Uh, I was always fascinated
with how the documents were believed
-or the impact they had.
-Mm-hmm.
He could come up with plausible things
that changed the history in ways
that reflected badly on Mormon belief
and that encouraged Mormons
to leave their faith.
I remember one night at his home,
he told me that he had become an atheist
when he was 14 years old.
So all of the show with church things
was purely a show.
-That was part of Mark's game plan.
The recently discovered letter
is additional confirmation
of the Book of Mormon.
This letter
You can only envision
Mark listening to a general authority,
standing at the pulpit,
declaring one of his documents
that he's forged to be proof
of the Book of Mormon's authenticity.
I can only imagine
the smile he had on his face,
watching this.
Because this was complete validation
for him of what he was doing.
When the investigation started unraveling
the duplicity of Mark,
and showing how he had fooled
the men looked to
as prophesiers and revelators,
that one assumed
would have special divine direction
that Mark was a crook,
and yet, they didn't get that.
The theological response to that is that
God gives people the agency
to choose between right and wrong.
And, as an omniscient being
who Himself knows all this,
he doesn't step in and interfere.
The idea being
that universal detection of crimes or sins
would revoke the agency
God has given to each of His children
to make their own decisions.
History is confusing enough,
dealing with real documents.
Then you throw in somebody that may be
throwing in some fraudulent ones,
and it makes it that much harder
to figure out what happened.
Experts like Tanner
say some of the documents
will require a reevaluation
of the history of the Mormon Church.
So the fallout
from Mark Hofmann's documents
was a great questioning in the community
about the very basis of their faith.
For unto you
People tend to ignore anything
that does not fit
within their own beliefs.
They reject the facts
because it means giving up their beliefs,
for which they've sacrificed so much.
will be commended
I wouldn't go as far to say
I wanted to change Mormon history.
to find some morsel of history
Let me take that back.
Uh, maybe I did.
cast doubt on the integrity of this work.
To take the historical narrative
of an entire institution
Hofmann says he originally
considered using a common toad
as the magical character,
but he said he made it a white salamander
because, quote,
"I decided to spice it up."
He's the one who's pulling the strings.
He was going to be determining
what Mormon history was.
Mark Hofmann's most famous discovery,
the Salamander letter
was a document
that he forged for a purpose.
That purpose was not only
to acquire the $40,000
for which he ultimately sold it
to Steve Christensen.
The real, ultimate purpose of that
was to serve as the comparison
for his masterpiece,
if he had been allowed
to forge long enough to create it.
And that was the 116 lost pages
of the original Book of Mormon manuscript.
You have the Salamander letter
that's in Harris's handwriting.
That lays the groundwork
for a lost document,
the 116 pages,
that's also
in Martin Harris's handwriting.
So he's going to match the handwritings
right across the board,
so that one forgery authenticates another.
My guess is, he probably would've asked
for 10 or 20 million as a starter.
But certainly
a seven- or eight-digit figure.
Hofmann had no respect for history,
especially documents
dealing with the history of the Church.
I didn't really question them for a while
because I figured
they'd been examined
by the best in the business, you know?
Mr. Hofmann, I've read, um,
a great deal of information
about the forgeries.
I was, uh
I was quite affected by the sophistication
that was involved there.
Uh
There's been a lot of stories
to the effect that
I was some sort of a genius forger
or something.
Which I don't think is accurate.
I think that,
to make themselves
look like the experts they are,
uh, they have to try to build me up.
Since I, uh, fooled them.
Mark Hofmann has a characteristic manner
of forging documents.
That's what made him so great,
if you want to say he's great,
was his versatility.
Uh, he would tackle papers,
documents, letters, books,
printing machines, money.
You name it, he would go for it.
Although I don't really
consider myself artistic,
I think I have the ability
to look at handwriting and copy it.
When I finally decided
to sit down and write it,
I would've composed it
and forged it all within a day or two.
One of the things
that happens with old documents is that
there's a phenomenon called foxing.
Refers to the fact that these very acidic
iron gallotannic inks
burn through the paper over time.
So to create the illusion,
that would mean finding some way
to pull the ink through
to the back of the document.
It'd be aged on a metal screen,
with suction pulling down
from the front of the document to the back
with an old vacuum cleaner.
The purpose is to bring the brown
of the ink through to the back side.
He did some other things
that were almost unbelievable.
This was a simple apparatus,
a five-gallon aquarium.
A piece of glass
is covering the top of it.
A plug goes into a 110-volt outlet.
One of the pieces of wire is going
into the aquarium.
The other is going into a jar
filled with water and salt.
The spark in the oxygen atmosphere
forms ozone,
and the ozone comes in contact
with the paper.
It would make the documents appear
that they had environmental damage,
consistent with a document
that was 150 years old.
As far as the ink,
this was just a simple recipe
consisting of tannic acid, ferric sulfate,
and gum arabic.
I bought them from hobby shops.
Why did that cracking occur?
It doesn't occur in natural aging,
so what was it in the Hofmann documents
that caused that ink to crack?
Bill would make the ink and send it to me.
I'd go through
using different chemicals on them
until we could duplicate the formula
Mark Hofmann may have used.
So the question then,
from a scientific standpoint, is,
how did Mark
speed up oxidation unnaturally,
that caused that ink to crack?
You can speed up oxidation with heat,
or you can speed up oxidation chemically.
I put the documents under the microscope
and watched as they dried,
and they would form this cracking,
alligatoring pattern
in exactly the same way
it appeared on the Hofmann documents.
It was like a eureka moment.
It was
nirvana, actually.
These are experts
who are quite schooled,
and that by making them appear to be
not so smart, you've
made yourself appear
to look smarter than the rest of them.
I guess, looking back on it, uh
I'm proud of some of the techniques
that I developed.
By summer of 1985,
I think that Mark came over
like he was doing very well,
and being very successful
at what he was doing.
I knew that he had high-stake items.
It was-- N-Not just living the high life,
but living a life of high risk.
He was on a quest
for the gold and silver.
He was looking for the riches.
And this was his way of doing it.
In terms of employment,
you are a dealer in antiques,
particularly historic documents.
You listed your salary,
uh, during your peak years
as being in six figures.
Uh, what happened to all that money?
I traveled quite a bit.
I bought a lot of things.
Easy come, easy go.
He would like to take people out
to dinner and go to expensive places.
I didn't like
seeing our money go out the window
when we could use it for our family.
What do you have down there?
-Our little baby, Jared.
Here we are in the recovery room.
We had three children,
so we needed to go get a van.
While we were there,
Mark said, "I like that sports car."
Oh, wow.
And we came home
with a van and a sports car.
What was your salary,
exclusive of the forgeries?
Uh, they were so intertwined
that that's hard to say.
Basically, the only reason why
I would buy or sell genuine documents
was as a cover.
-Uh
Interesting.
I had the impression
that you were initially
a dealer of authentic documents,
and the forgery was something
that slipped in afterwards,
but you make it sound
as if you were primarily a forger
and authentic things
were just useful to you.
That's correct.
Okay.
When it comes
to the McLellin Collection,
Mark assures me that,
within a week or two,
we'll have all the money back.
Coin dealer, Al Rust,
confirmed he had paid Hofmann
for the McLellin Collection.
So when Mark Hofmann gave me a check,
oh, was I thrilled.
I take the check to the bank,
and the bank says the check is no good.
Rust says, by September,
it was clear
Hofmann was in deep financial trouble.
He was distraught and upset.
I followed him out into the hallway,
and we talked, and he said,
"I am losing everything."
"They are coming
to take my home, my car,"
and he was nearly in tears.
And I never got a dime of the money back.
Not one cent.
Rust says
Hofmann told him the LDS Church had agreed
to pay $300,000 for the collection.
I trusted Mark Hofmann
as I would trust my own brother.
I owed all this money,
and I had to sell my entire collection
to pay the debt.
I remember one day,
as I was driving down the street,
I saw the MR2 sitting there.
Completely empty parking lot.
It was the only car back there.
Pulled up right next to Mark.
And I remember
that he looked at me through his window,
and Mark's face looked completely drained.
He had all these papers
that were laid out,
and he was completely flush white.
It looked like complete despair.
Al Rust and Steve Christensen
were putting
a huge amount of pressure on Mark
to get this deal with McLellin done.
But the McLellin Collection
was unlike anything else he had done.
He couldn't go out
and produce that many documents
that fast.
Rust now says he doesn't believe
Hofmann ever had the McLellin Collection.
He believes
he and the Church were betrayed.
So Mark was playing them all
against each other.
He would sell documents
to take that money to pay people off.
In the year before the bombings,
Hofmann often traded
phony documents for real ones.
It was a frenzy
of duplication and duplicity.
A juggling act
kept alive by Hofmann's ego.
And a Ponzi scheme like that
survives on time.
Hofmann said he was gambling
that The Oath of a Freeman
would sell at the last minute
for more than a million dollars,
and bail him out of his predicament.
It's when you can't pay off
that suddenly the Ponzi scheme
comes to an end.
And he was supposed
to meet Steve Christensen
to sell the McLellin Collection that week,
and he didn't have them.
So he put a collage together,
maybe to try to fool them.
But the hammer was coming down.
Steve Christensen
had been put in charge
from someone in the LDS Church,
because he was gonna go with Mark
and get the McLellin Collection
out of the safe deposit box.
Mark knew there was nothing in there.
On October 14th,
um, I went to Mark's house,
and Mark seemed,
actually, quite happy that night.
The kids were running around.
He seemed very comforted,
-at peace.
Everything was good.
I did this.
I-- I did that.
Knowing that the next day
he's going to murder people,
that's obscene.
That puts him
in the most sinister light possible.
Okay, you
You indicated,
as you constructed the bombs
the night before the killings,
you decided at that point
who would get them,
where they would be placed.
Is that correct?
That's when I made the final decision.
Okay.
Um, it-it sounds so callous
to be sitting there,
putting together these lethal
instrumentalities,
and to have not yet even decided
who was going to receive them.
Uh
My thoughts are
that's no great harm done.
You know,
might have died in a car accident.
You know, the worthlessness of life,
or whatever.
The 31-year-old documents dealer
is accused of killing
Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets
to cover up
an elaborate fraud and forgery scheme.
The LDS Church arranged Steve Christensen
to authenticate the collection
just two hours
before he died in a bomb blast.
You feel that Mark did do it,
-and for what reason?
Definitely.
Um
To keep from being exposed by Steve
as-as
a forger, as a liar, as a thief.
Was Steve going to do that?
Mm-hmm.
I think he would have. Yeah.
Steve, he was also saying,
"If you don't produce
what you say you've got,
I will have you arrested.
I will have you
kicked out of the Church.
I will" You know.
He was threatening his whole
His whole existence, I guess.
The whole idea was protection
of my family, or whatever,
-from that knowledge.
Mm-hmm.
As far as being identified
with certainty as the forger that I was.
Uh
The timed
This is hard to explain because
Well, I don't even understand fully, but
Uh
I had a lot of thoughts
in my mind, obviously.
-I knew what my teachings were.
As far as my religious teachings, I knew.
Even though I tried to justify
the taking of life as my own survival,
and that that was,
uh, philosophically,
not an inappropriate thing to do.
I had feelings of,
not guilt so much as
feelings of wondering, as far as,
you know, what happens if I'm wrong?
Uh
Or what happens if there really is a God?
You know?
Hello. You've reached
the offices of Steve Christensen.
I'm either out of the office or unable
to come to the phone at the present time.
If you would please leave your name,
phone number,
time of the call,
and a brief message if you desire,
I would be more than happy
to return your call as soon as possible.
Please wait for the beep
and then commence your message. Thank you.
Steve, I'm just calling to see
if you're all right this morning.
I just heard about that bomb up there,
and, uh, I'll be hearing from you.
Thank you.
Uh, Steve, just heard
about the, uh, explosion in your building.
I wanted to call and see if you're okay.
Give me a call back. Thanks.
Hi, Steve. We're getting in kinda
deep on the genealogy side of things,
and I just wanted
to see some payment,
-so--
-
I need to know what to do
about this Mormon History
Association newsletter.
Bye now.
Steve Christensen was
one of the most loving people
you could ever meet.
To me,
he was the epitome of Christian-loving,
and, uh, somebody
To know Steve was to love Steve,
and I just can't even imagine
the type of mindset
that would be needed to do the type
of brutal killings that have been done.
Steve, this is Michonne.
You're a hard man to get a hold of.
If you can give me a call,
I would appreciate it.
Thank you.
The bomb for Steve Christensen
was wrapped with nails.
And the thing about wrapping something
like a bomb with nails is that
this ensures, with the shrapnel,
that you're going to get a kill.
But I also understand that he had taken
and made a practice bomb,
and taken it out to the West Desert.
And he practiced to make sure
that everything was gonna work.
The bomb that killed Kathy Sheets
was a diversion.
His intent was that the police find a bomb
similar to the one at Steve Christensen's.
You said
that the detonator on the bomb
you placed at the Sheets' home
was supposed to be defective,
that you didn't believe it would go off.
Uh, I figured
there was a 50% chance it would go off,
50% chance that it wouldn't.
If it didn't,
it wouldn't frustrate your purpose?
That's true.
It seems to me
that a man who creates
the kinds of documents you've created,
with the kind
of technical know-how and ability,
could ensure that that detonator
had not gone off,
and you could have served your purpose
without killing Mrs. Sheets.
Was that even
Was that an option?
Well, it was certainly an option. Uh
It was almost
Well, as strange as it sounds,
it was almost a game.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, you claim
that the Sheets bomb was a diversion.
Uh, my thoughts were,
it didn't matter if
it was Mr. Sheets, a child,
a dog, you know, uh, whoever.
Yeah.
Do you consider
yourself a violently dangerous person?
No.
Although, I'm sure a lot of people
would disagree with that,
given the nature of my crimes.
Thank you.
You've tried to tell
us the third bomb was a suicide attempt.
That's right.
-If you intended to commit suicide,
why was it necessary
to kill Mr. Christensen and Mrs. Sheets?
Uh, I didn't decide
to commit suicide until after
uh, Mr. Christensen and Mrs. Sheets
were killed.
Then, was it in response to the
feelings that came as a consequence
of having killed those people
that you decided to commit suicide?
It wasn't so much feelings of guilt
as feelings of protection.
Okay. I--
For me. Um
-Uh--
I didn't suggest guilt.
The reason
I'm pressing about the suicide attempt
is that I'm not sure
it's going to do any good to ask you
the question that's really
in the back of my mind, that is
what were you going to do
with that third bomb?
Uh
Hofmann said,
as he was manufacturing bombs,
not knowing where they'd be used,
he thought one might be used against you.
You, indeed, were to have met with him
on October 16th,
the day of the third bombing.
Well, we normally met at that time.
Lot of thoughts
went through my mind at the time.
I even thought of the possibility
of killing people
who were associates with me.
-The whole idea
was to delay getting caught on the fraud.
Um
Do you think that bomb was for you?
-Uh, I don't know.
I haven't been able
to entirely rule it out.
That's one of
I didn't go that day. My wife said,
"I don't want you going there today."
I says,
"I'm just going up to visit Mark."
She says, "I don't know,
I just have this funny feeling
you shouldn't go up today."
So I listened,
and we stayed home and ate pizza
and watched a movie.
A witness said he rushed
to his aid and gave Hofmann a blessing.
He was wearing the LDS garment,
and, uh, I took out my oil,
uh, consecrated oil
that I usually carry with me,
and I commanded him to live,
and that proper medical help
would get to him quickly,
which it did.
You commanded him to live?
I commanded him to live.
The poor man didn't know.
He didn't know
he was giving a blessing to Satan.
But it wasn't his fault.
He was doing what
He was doing the right thing,
as far as he knew.
He had no idea it was Satan laying there.
Opinion seems to be split.
Some folks say
that you express genuine remorse.
The prosecutor and the psychologist
see no remorse at all.
Which is the true story?
Well, definitely I feel remorse.
Uh--
For yourself
and your family, or for your victims?
Uh
Part of my philosophy of life,
we were talking about earlier,
is that the victims
are not suffering at this point.
Have you met Mark Hofmann?
-Before the bombing, had you met him?
-No.
Have you met him since,
other than in the courtroom?
No.
Do you want to?
No, not really.
If-If you had a chance to talk to him,
um, what-- What would you ask him?
I really have no-- No real feelings
of bitterness or hate towards him.
I don't wanna waste
my thoughts and energy on him.
You know? I have other things,
more important things to think about.
He's not worth it.
For me, when
I discovered
that Hofmann was everything
that they said he was,
it was soul crushing.
I had introduced him to Steve
and, um
I felt like somehow, I was responsible
for what had happened.
And I went through a very long phase
where I just wished that
I had never been born.
And, um
it-it was kind of like
the It's A Wonderful Life movie,
except there's no redemption
at the end of the story.
All it is is a continuation of the pain.
And there's no way that you can change it.
It's-It's done.
I just wish that I could undo everything.
Here's your gorgeous boy.
Green light on?
Mm-hmm.
It's recording? Michael.
Do you want to see your daddy, Michael?
Say, "My daddy loves me so much.
He plays with me, and he hugs me."
It strikes me, as I look
at this case, I can't help but feel,
that there are so many victims,
the Sheets family, the Christensen family,
including some people
you've called a friend.
How do you feel about your own family?
You have a spouse, now who will be alone.
You have four children,
who will not have a father.
Uh
-Fifteen minutes old, huh?
Mm-hmm.
Aw, I wonder what he'll be like
in 20 minutes.
It's obviously harder on them
than it is on me,
the same with any of the victims.
I figure that I-- I deserve what I get.
Whew.
It's like,
if I could have stopped people being hurt,
I would have done that.
But I couldn't. It's like
I could do nothing.
There was-- It's like
I wish--
I wish I could have stopped it.
I wish I could have known.
Because people died.
When he was arrested,
and trials and things,
I was going through a tough time.
Couldn't sleep, woke up at night.
Hofmann. That's all I could think about.
And all of a sudden, it just came to me.
He's destroyed you financially,
but don't let him destroy you otherwise.
Spiritually, physically, emotionally.
Don't let him do it.
And I called his dad.
Mr. Hofmann,
is there anything you wanna say?
I said, "I want you to know
that I'm not gonna hate your son.
I'm not gonna understand
because I don't.
But will you just tell him
that I forgive him?
And I'm going on with my life."
And from that moment on,
my life changed.
And I went on.
We had a trying experience
when I got cancer.
And it was also during this special period
when Mark was blessed
in finding some documents
that gave me something to hang on to,
to live for.
After Mark had confessed,
his dad heard it from his son's mouth.
I can't--
I can't imagine what that would be like.
To stand there and know
that your son murdered two people
in a horrible way,
as cruel and as callous as it could be.
Putting those nails in that pipe bomb
for-for Steve Christensen.
Flynn hasn't spoken to Hofmann
since Hofmann's attorney
cut off contact between the two men.
Flynn says, up until then,
Hofmann claimed he was innocent.
He said he's not sure how his friend
fooled close associates, his family,
and a polygraph examiner.
In fact, he was so clever,
he fooled a polygraph machine
in a way no one has ever fooled it before.
When he was, uh, about 12, 13 years old,
he's a technologically
sophisticated individual.
And he built himself a device
to measure his skin resistance,
which is the main component
of a polygraph test.
So he had been practicing these techniques
for maybe 20 years
when he came upon the situation
to take a polygraph test.
I've never seen an individual like this.
Now, I wonder if he was like--
If he's psychotic or something.
I mean,
maybe he's a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
I don't know.
It's awful.
It's awful, what he did.
That's why I say
rest of his life.
Needs to stay in prison.
He will never atone for those sins. Never.
Given the offenses you have committed,
do you think you should
ever be free again?
I'm not asking whether you want to be.
I'm sure you want to be.
Do you think you should
ever be free again?
Uh, that's a good question.
Uh
I think that someday, I should be free.
Thank you. Thank you.
After Mark had gone
to the Utah State Prison,
I received some information
through some sources I had at the prison
that Mark
had approached other inmates
about doing a hit
on some of the Board of Pardon members.
-Getting along okay?
-Not too bad, thanks.
Mark denied the involvement.
But as I detailed some of the information
that we had learned,
what he said was that,
"This is something I should do."
A week ago, prison officials
put Hofmann on restriction
for sending threatening messages
to the Board of Pardons,
and he remains under investigation.
It was his intent
to execute the Board of Pardon members
and George Throckmorton.
I told him, at that last visit,
the divorce papers had been filed.
And at that point, he banned me,
and I could not-- I couldn't--
I cannot visit him. I can't go.
So that was the last time.
I received a call, informing me that
they had found Mark unconscious.
When the medical staff arrived, uh,
they found him in a comatose condition.
Investigators did not find a suicide note.
Hofmann showed no signs of depression,
even though he was recently divorced.
Mark had been stashing sleeping pills
that he was getting from other inmates.
And when he went unconscious,
his arm got folded underneath him,
and it cut off the blood supply
to the point that he could never use it
to forge another document again.
Who in the hell didn't he forge?
I mean,
it went from George and Martha Washington,
to Abraham Lincoln,
to John Quincy Adams,
to Betsy Ross.
He had penned a poem by Emily Dickinson.
It was everybody.
The list was unbelievable.
And we have no idea
what the extent of Hofmann forgeries
are out there in our communities.
Um, just explain
that he was very good at what he did,
possibly the best ever.
Could I ask a favor?
Don't make me answer that.
Let somebody else do it.
I don't wanna make a hero out of him.
Because he was fantastic.
No one has come close to doing
what he has done.
The depth of knowledge and understanding,
and his autodidactic ability
is unprecedented.
His ability to deceive,
unparalleled.
I should've suspected.
We all should have suspected.
We didn't.
People don't want to know.
Walkin' out for love ♪
I'm walking out really down ♪
In the cool breeze ♪
I'm gonna be late again ♪
"Driver, wait for me please!" ♪
I'm running all in vain ♪
Trying to catch this train ♪
Time, don't fool me no more ♪
I throw my watch to the floor ♪
It's gone crazy ♪
Time, don't do it again ♪
Now I'm stressed and strained ♪
Anger and pain ♪
In the subway train ♪
Now it's half past two ♪
Long gone the rendezvous ♪
Now it's half past three ♪
Time made a fool out of me ♪
Now it's half past four ♪
Oh, baby, can't you see ♪
No use in waiting no more ♪
It's a timing tragedy ♪
I think it's nine ♪
When the clock says ten ♪
This girl won't wait ♪
For the out of time ♪
Out of time man ♪
Time, don't fool me no more ♪
I throw my watch to the floor ♪
It's gone crazy ♪
Time, don't do it again ♪
Now I'm stressed and strained ♪
Anger and pain ♪
In the subway train ♪
Now it's half past two ♪
Long gone the rendezvous ♪
Now it's half past three ♪
Time made a fool out of me ♪
Now it's half past four ♪
Oh, baby, can't you see ♪
No use in waiting no more ♪
It's a timing tragedy ♪
I think it's nine ♪
When the clock says ten ♪
This girl won't wait ♪
For the out of time ♪
Out of time man ♪
Now it's half past two ♪
Long gone the rendezvous ♪
Now it's half past three ♪
Time made a fool out of me ♪
Now it's half past four ♪
Oh, baby, can't you see ♪
No use in waiting no more ♪
It's a timing tragedy ♪
Now it's half past two ♪
Long gone the rendezvous ♪
Now it's half past three ♪
Time made a fool out of me ♪
Now it's half past four ♪
Oh, baby, can't you see ♪
No use in waiting no more ♪
It's a timing tragedy ♪
Now it's half past two ♪
Long gone the rendezvous ♪
Now it's half past three ♪
Time made a fool out of me ♪
Now it's half past four ♪
Oh, baby, can't you see ♪
No use in waiting no more ♪
It's a timing tragedy ♪
I think it's nine ♪
When the clock says ten ♪
This girl won't wait ♪
For the out of time ♪
Out of time man ♪