Mark W. Hofmann, left, and LDS Church leaders N. Eldon Tanner, Spencer W. Kimball, Marion G. Romney, Boyd K. Packer and Gordon B. Hinckley examine the Anthon transcript April 22, 1980. (Deseret News/Jed A. Clark)
LOGAN – When historian Richard Turley Jr. comes to Logan to present the Merrill-Cazier Library’s spring lecture at Utah State University, he will tell the story of former USU student Mark Hofmann who made money by selling forged documents, eventually killing people who could expose his hoax.
Turley said, at first, in the early-1980s, experts were dubious of Hofmann’s claims.
“And he gave a credible story and researchers set to work trying to verify his story,” Tulrey said. “And they never could find anything that would prove his stories wrong.
“And over time his documents were submitted to sometimes quite sophisticated forensic analysis and each time the examiners who looked at them basically said ‘we can’t see anything that appears to be wrong, they seem to be authentic’.”
Turley, who was managing director of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ history department for 22 years, said Hofmann’s scheme began to unravel because he was a poor money manager and he began to spend money before he had acquired it.
“I think he started looking at forgery as a money tree that he could tap anytime he wanted. But he began to spend the money before he got it. Then, in order to get large sums of money, he had to promise his clients larger and larger, more complicated or sophisticated or more sensational documents.
“Finally, he got to the point where the documents he was trying to pedal, the Oath of a Freeman in the Eastern United States and the McLellin collection here in Utah, those became so large he couldn’t produce them.”
Turley said that is when Hofmann tried to buy more time by setting bombs that killed two people.
Turley’s presentation, “From Utah State University to Utah State Prison: The Rise and Fall of Mark Hofmann, Forger and Bomber” is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 30 in room 101 of the Merrill-Cazier Library.