I belong on Facebook to a group called: "If you grew up in Salt Lake, then you will remember this"

People post pictures and discussion about Salt Lake City history, although it kind of gets off topic occasionally.

Today, some one asked the question "Who remembers the Mark Hoffman bombings by the church office building?" and there were all kind of interesting things brought up, nothing new. Since I'd read "The Mormon Murders" again recently, I added my two cents worth..

A true TBM posted this: "Early documents were precious to our church history...these documents were brilliant at face value. Hoffman was an evil man the devil used as a scribe. The Church is stronger because of this. Hoffman left a beautiful family, broken hearted parents...and then there is inmate Hoffman...enjoying the fruits of his labors with another man with similar motives...while the Gospel rolls forth. One of those General Authorities is now in the First President if l remember right. All are wiser..."

I guess that's the prevailing thought with many people.

Well, sure...that's a much more faith-affirming take than, "Our church leaders had absolutely zero discernment power, and so were duped into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthless frauds that they were afraid would expose the church as a con."

:)

Any normal person would think any dunce would see through mormonism after knowing about Mark Hofmann and the church response to him.

Dallin Oaks, now President Oaks, gave a talk (or should I say a legal brief) in conference explaining how a "salamander" could be interchanged with the word "spirit" to explain the Salamander Letter.

It was later exposed the Salamander Letter was a fraud but Oaks fell for the letter and looked like a fool.

The real bad guy beside MH was GBH who said he had a church to run and this Hoffman business was just a little thing he gave no real thought to. when asked for his journal, he told detectives he did not keep one and his memory was going bad inasmuch as he hardly remembered mark who had his privatephone number and made deals w/ hincster in his office. Hinckley was too busy for a deposition to testify - and two innocent people were killed. gbh was amonster.

Yup, a nice plea deal and no trial...not one church leader needed to go on record at a trial.

The cellmate is one of the Lafferty brothers, I believe.

I remember reading once that the book "Under the Banner of Heaven", written by Jon Krakauer about the Lafferty monsters (personal opinion) came about because Krakauer asked Hofmann for an interview.

He refused but suggested that he contact Ron Lafferty and the book was written. It's likely not that simple.

The movie has been in development for a long time and I haven't heard more recently to see if it will ever actually be produced.