Netflix “Murder Among the Mormons” documentary recounts the bombings that killed two and shook Salt Lakers and the LDS Church in 1985.

“Murder Among the Mormons” is about some of the most infamous crimes in Utah history — the October 1985 bombings that killed two people and seriously injured another.
The three-part Netflix documentary, which starts streaming Wednesday, March 3, feels like it was made for people who don’t live in Utah. But the people who do live here are probably going to the ones most fascinated by it.

https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/tv/2021/02/23/see-it-here-first-trailer/

The article points out that even among Mormons in the Intermountain West, a lot of people are fuzzy on the details of what happened. This is likely to be a rude awakening for some of them.

I remember it well, since I was in my mid-thirties at the time, and only recently out of LDS Inc. it was pretty jaw-dropping. It was such a bald-faced lack of honesty and integrity by Hinckley and Oaks (among others), I was amazed more people did not dump Mormonism then.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The article points out that even among Mormons in
> the Intermountain West, a lot of people are fuzzy
> on the details of what happened. This is likely to
> be a rude awakening for some of them.
>
> I remember it well, since I was in my mid-thirties
> at the time, and only recently out of LDS Inc. it
> was pretty jaw-dropping. It was such a bald-faced
> lack of honesty and integrity by Hinckley and Oaks
> (among others), I was amazed more people did not
> dump Mormonism then.

I was on a Mormon Mission in Australia at the time, so naturally, I didn't even hear about it. Whenever somebody mentions something that happened during that 2 year span of my life, it's like I have amnesia or something. Then I remember I was probably just on a mission and was cut off from the rest of the world, because I didn't read the newspaper or see a TV news report for 2 years, which isn't at all healthy, intellectually.

Yeah, I served during the Balkanization era, and had no idea what was going on. I tried to talk to a guy on the subway once, and started with an awkward "where ya from?" He replied that he was from Serbia or Croatia, I don't remember which. I of course asked "where's that?" just prior to him ripping me apart for my ignorance. His daughter was embarrassed and apologized for his rant, but to this this day I'm more embarrassed and ashamed than she'll ever be. She's probably forgotten about the whole thing, but I haven't.

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, I served during the Balkanization era, and
> had no idea what was going on. I tried to talk to
> a guy on the subway once, and started with an
> awkward "where ya from?" He replied that he was
> from Serbia or Croatia, I don't remember which. I
> of course asked "where's that?" just prior to him
> ripping me apart for my ignorance. His daughter
> was embarrassed and apologized for his rant, but
> to this this day I'm more embarrassed and ashamed
> than she'll ever be. She's probably forgotten
> about the whole thing, but I haven't.

God we were so ignorant back then. I think a lot of that was by design. Missions are like growing mushrooms, keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit and they come out perfect. Just the way Joseph's Myth designed it when he sent young, overzealous gullible men overseas so he could stay behind and have his way with their wives and teenage daughters, like he and Brigham tag teamed poor Henry Jacob's wife Zina and stole his kids and family from him over the span of 8 missions.
HE finally gave up and moved to California to chase gold instead of trying to ever win back his wife and family.
Now they use Missions more to brainwash young men to rob them of their time and money for the rest of their lives in the hopes of 'Building Up the Kingdom of Zion' (a White Nationalist CULT with hundreds of billions in their stock portfolio).
At least now the PRofit doesn't cuckold you after you've got a wife and kids.
Kind of a low bar though, haha



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2021 07:04PM by schrodingerscat.

how much OPie earns ~


from its constant click-bait threds ~


it is as follows ~


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Tier 1 ~ $5.50 per 1000 unique views

Tier 2 ~ $1.30 per 1000 unique views

Tier 3 ~ $0.25 per 1000 unique views

Tier 4 ~ $0.12 per 1000 unique views

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the more exmos click ~



the more scrode licking scat earns ~



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         "I was on a Mormon Mission in Australia at the time..."



Why is this bugging me?

Me, an internationally acclaimed 'not just any Internet Rando' and Flaming a-hole?

It's done by Mormon Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame, so it'll be interesting to see how it gets presented.

Maybe there will be some surprise dancing around the controversial parts at the end.

Yes! A “Mormon Murders Musical”.

Get Oaks and Hinkley picking up SWK and dancing with him.
Songs about “history looks best when it is swept under the rug”.
Apostles in line at Kwal Paint “whitewash! Whitewash! Whitewash! I’d like a 5-gallon bucket, please!”
Sweating over the possible release of the McClellan papers “what... do... they... really say??? What... do... they... really say???”

I’m surprised this hadn’t been done!

RG

The book "the Mormon Murders" is A really good documentary about the whole thing.
It demonstrates the true prophetic status of the big three
Mark Hoffman conned them right out of their shorts
I was 49 years old at the time and it was a real eye opener



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2021 02:29PM by thedesertrat1.

You might want to read Jerald and Sandra Tanner's book, "Tracking the White Salamander" before the Netflix presentation.

Hofmann had taken "the Salamander" letter to their store earlier. Jerald pretty much knew it was fake.

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/trackingcontents.htm

Read on line or purchase a copy for ten dollars.

Pretty impressive, no? Jerald was educated enough, and honest enough, to denounce the forgery even though it helped the church.

That goes far to prove that the Tanners are the real thing: deeply familiar with the topic, articulate, and willing to follow the truth regardless of consequences.

Would that Mormons had such character.

Yes!

auntsukey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might want to read Jerald and Sandra Tanner's
> book, "Tracking the White Salamander" before the
> Netflix presentation.
>
> Hofmann had taken "the Salamander" letter to their
> store earlier. Jerald pretty much knew it was
> fake.
>
> http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/trackingcontents.h
> tm
>
> Read on line or purchase a copy for ten dollars.

I thought I saw Sandra Tanner in the documentary.
He was awesome, she still is.

A book I read in my waning days of being an active Mormon was: 'Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders.' The lying by Hinckley, the coverups and outright fraud by the corporation was certainly eye opening. I remained active for another 6 months or so until the accumulation of personal experiences and studying actual Mormon history lead me out. That was my first so called anti book. The ugly side of this religion became very apparent.

Once I started reading "Salamander" I couldn't put it down. I don't think I have read a book so quickly in my life. Definitely an "eye opener" and a HUGE weight on my shelf. I came away with a feeling that the blood of the victims was on Hinckley's hands. Still feel that way. I even lost a friendship when a buddy of mine was idolizing Hinckley upon his death and I responded with, "No praise to that man".

He was more a hereditary mormon. He was very, very close to his parents and they were mormon, but as my sister says, "The Christensens are heretics." We've got quite the stories about our dad's family. My daughter was reading some to me from Ancestry and they weren't good little mormon stories. My dad lived as he believed himself.

SO his devout daughter left, the one they never thought would leave. Three of my siblings had already left the church. All his grandchildren were not mormon (and then my daughter went back). And after he knew I was never going back, he started to talk and THIS was one of the HUGE things that made him doubt. He brought it up often. I'll for sure be watching this. He watched a documentary about it on some cable channel several times in the years before he died.

I was the mother of a new set of twins about the time this all happened. Husband and I were already very much questioning the church, but we went on going for about 10 more years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2021 09:38AM by cl2.

If it’s the documentary I’ve seen, producers showed a picture of Steve Christensen after his murder that I would not have aired. I don’t remember if they did showed Kathleen Sheets so graphically after her death.

But I’d have been more concerned with protecting families from that proto.

Kathleen - I think it's new. Perhaps using clips from earlier productions.

I, for one, think the forensics in this case will fascinating. The way they figured out that the ink on the document was not old and the process Hofmann used to produce it, the old paper that he used - end papers torn out of old books at the library.

What really strikes me is that Hofmann was smart enough and knew enough about the origins of the church to be able to produce documents with enough credible, damaging detail to fool the apostles.

And the kicker is, it still isn't known how many of Hofmann's docs are out there being viewed as authentic.

They use quite few clips from earlier works. Some of the clips are of folks long dead.

Because I don't watch 'scripted' TV since Barney Miller was taken off the air, I need someone to let me know if, and how much, they delve into the issue of how much control of the case the State gave away in their need/desire to protect the 12 afossils and the 1st Prunedency.

Somewhere I picked up the notion that keeping any of them from having to testify in open court, exposed to cross-examination, was so terrifying to them that 'things' were done to ensure that it wouldn't happen.

Lemme know...

The whole Hoffman affair was one of the main reasons I left the church. The GA’s lack of ‘inspiration’ was a huge eye-opener for me.

Believe this I was on a temple trip to Atlanta back in 90s and went to church book store, I was just looking around and there is the book Mormon Murders, purchased and read but never did anything, just one of my ah ha moments.

This looks interesting!

Will it cover more than the Hoffman saga? (Obviously, there are more mormon Murders than those).

Gordon B. Stinky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This looks interesting!
>
> Will it cover more than the Hoffman saga?
> (Obviously, there are more mormon Murders than
> those).
I'd love to see the film adaptation of "Under the Banner of Heaven", which chronicles the Lafferty Murders in pretty graphic detail. That book was quite the eye opener for me, as a Mormon. I loved the line, "If Mormonism is what it claims to be, the one true church of Jesus Christ on Earth, then why don't they open up the President's Vault to researchers like me and let us see what they're hiding and shout it from the rooftops?"

I'd like to see that too. Lots of good potential episodes. MMM too.

They could also do an episode on JS's murder too...and all the things that lead up to it! ;)

Gordon B. Stinky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to see that too. Lots of good potential
> episodes. MMM too.
>
> They could also do an episode on JS's murder
> too...and all the things that lead up to it! ;)

I'd like to see a miniseries docudrama based upon "In Sacred Loneliness" but I know I never will, because the producers would get arrested on kiddie p0rn charges if they portrayed it accurately, starting with Chapter One, "Mormonism's First Plural Wife? Fanny Alger".

Too many of these shows focus on the boring police work and FBI-ATF connections. Hopefully they will get this right and show all the church's grand abilities as prophets and seers. They can spend a good 60 minutes interviewing Nelson and Oaks about their direct hotline in preventing the bombings. This is a perfect time for the priesthood leaders to open up the windows of heaven and showcase the mighty power of the priesthood; spiritual discernment in action!!!

And then the first presidency can expound on how their prayers, secret meetings in the holy of the holies and sucking chocolates in the temple on Thursday nights prevented 20 more bombings because the brethren were "in tune" with the holy invisible power. The church can finally show how they tracked down the bomber and not the police with their flimsy and forgettable forensic science.

[This was written with extreme sarcasm and is not to be taken seriously]

Mormon leadership will determine that it is "anti-Mormon." The First Presidency will circulate a letter among all the stakes and wards. Bishops will stand at the pulpit and read the message, that will explain that the documentary is "not factual," and that "we encourage members not to view" the documentary.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormon leadership will determine that it is
> "anti-Mormon." The First Presidency will circulate
> a letter among all the stakes and wards. Bishops
> will stand at the pulpit and read the message,
> that will explain that the documentary is "not
> factual," and that "we encourage members not to
> view" the documentary.

Like the great Oz telling Dorothy not to look behind the curtains, as Toto pulls them open.

It will be curious to see how this plays out. There is so much legitimate (i.e. convincing) anti-mormon material in the Hoffman case: greed, lies, coverups, not to mention a hard-to-ignore lack of "special discernment" at multiple junctures throughout the episode.

If Hess is on his way out, then it could be pretty damning (as it deserves to be). Plus, imagine the publicity: "see the documentary that got him excommunicated!" It could be a cool saga unto itself.

But... at the same time, mormons producing stuff about mormons usually goes the koolaide way: bogus explanations, dubious apologetics, weak arguments, but all enough to be taken on faith by the faithful. The revisionist-history, morgbot-favorable version could be that the big guys knew it was fake all along, but tried to placate a dangerous Hoffman and buy him off just to get him off the streets and protect the masses from him, but before they could fully do so (and prosecute him), the worst happened.

The former would be interesting and worth watching. The latter, not so much, and would probably suffer in ratings.

OTOH, Netflix just streams stuff, and if no one watches then it's little skin off their nose, just a little storage space on their servers. If Netflix actually produced it and/or invested in it, then it's likely to be more damning. The more TBM-friendly it is, the less money anyone but TBMs will likely have invested in it.

And along those lines, a quick online search about Hess shows that his inner circle has a lot of YBU grads, including himself and his wife.

So, it probably just boils down to whether he's on his way out or not. Perhaps he is and that's why he's doing it. It's bound to get him a lot of attention either way, but if it's negative, it will be hard to ignore.

The Hoffmann fiasco was the first thing that was in my shelf for years. I was home from my mission just a couple of years at the time.Had a conversation with my dad who was an orthodox member got short with me and told me not to speak ill of the church leaders. Church leaders looked like asses...

I'll be watching it.

Watched it. It does not put church in favourable light. It is not a faith promoting story. It is a tragically in many ways. You can tell church leaders were covering things up. The Mormons interviewed looked so clueless. Well done as I know understand Hoffman. It did not present the frustration the detectives had with church as indicated in book. It did not discuss how church leaders avoided testifying in court as explained in book. I feel that it casts a very dark cloud over church as to how it was restored with all this weird stuff going on. Mentioned to a TBM last night they should watch it. This person was not aware of story nor seemed interested that. Burch leaders got take in. They just want to live a Christ like life so don’t bother me with details

The McClellan papers were to be purchased for $185,000. One of Hofmann's connections (can't remember the name) mentioned the church was going to "buy" the collection for $300,000. Then Hinckely said they were being "donated" to the church. Which was it?

I have no doubt it was the Church ultimately doing the funding. Simple money laundering.

church department responsible for "fundraising",

the church pressures high net worth/very faithful mormons into donating funds for "things" and especially for "things" like this.

q12 members get involved when it's large sums/high stakes.

am certain that when they do donate - their calling and elections are made "sure".

This is correct. I'd wanted to write something about it to auntsukey, but the books are quite clear about the church's asking a wealthy person to buy the collection and then donate it. That way the church could deny having bought it.

That is exactly how the church approaches the rich. It's like in the Prop 8 debacle when SLC called rich people in CA and UT and elsewhere and instructed them to donate 25k each to the cause. If you are on the inside, you do what the Q15 tell you to do.

Definitely. Between encouraging wealthy members to buy specific incriminating things to "donate" (and undoubtedly rewarding them for doing so), and also apparently telling Hofmann to come in and meet the buyer, they are arranging both sides of the transaction (for their own benefit). It's tantamount to buying it themselves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2021 10:17PM by Gordon B. Stinky.

Turley came across as a total tool, Shannon Flynn, aged version, looks like a Bond Villain, Brent Metcalf was heart felt. The piece seemed to me to stay away from criticizing the church too much.

Agreed. It could have been a lot more forthcoming regarding the church and the apparent coverup.

Turley or is it Turdy (the church historian or spokesperson) gave a lame excuse for God's chosen inability to DISCERN fraud or trickery. He said "Well God couldn't give people special power because it would interfere with people's right to agency.

If you buy into that then God would have no right to do ANYTHING; from sending a guy to die on a cross or for a 14 year old to have some kind of vision.

I felt that the documentary gave a big pass on church leaders and focused on those who had been deceived as losing their trust in mankind due to the treachery Hofmann.

Underwhelmed.

My wife was over it after 1st episode.

Well, yeah!

How could it compare to being married to you!

Couldn't help but see the parallel of Hoffman and ol' Joe at the start a episode 3.
He learned that deceptive behavior and how to use it to his advantage at an early age. Fooling people was an ego builder for him.
Treasure hunting with his neighborhood friends when he was a kid and digging up a jar of coins he previously placed. He loved to trick people just like Joe.
I imagine tbm's won't see this connection. I thought it was a nice "jab" put into the program though.

Came here to say this ^^^

Hoffman’s game was pretty much the same as Joseph Smith’s. Lots of similarities between them but even just the basic crux of both men’s operations is the same thing: pass off something you made up as a valuable antique treasure, invent a story about how it came into your possession...profit! The parallels between the two are so obvious why didn’t the filmmakers make that clear in the series? If you are a TBM, or, if you are a non-Mormon and you don’t know much about Mormonism, you could watch the series and think the only deceiver here is Hoffman and that Joseph Smith is somehow vaguely legit. Very weird and disappointing imo.

The part about Hoffman’s writings while on his mission was interesting to me. It was clear from those that he was aware and critical of the deceptions of the Mormon organization. It made me wonder if it was *because of Mormonism* that he decided on a life of fraud. Maybe Hoffman just had a revelation (ha) that, given how many people fall for Golden Plates and all, he might as well have life doing something along the lines of what Joseph Smith did...humans are so easily duped after all.

Interesting how these early mormon artifact collectors wanted "rare documents" and then some angel miraculously delivered it to Mark's private sacred grove lol.

Some collector wanted a letter from Emma and wham it was delivered!

It concluded that Mark's biggest fraud was going to be the alleged lost 116 manuscript. He would have had a lot of fun if it encouraged mormons to drink coffee and tea. Maybe pitch the idea that mormons should permanently don tin foil hats in public.

The other thing that Smith, Hoffman, and many other con artists intuitively understand is that you thrive by giving people what they want. They want to believe; they want to be important; they want power and wealth. If you promise those things to your markets, they'll follow you anywhere.

I'm not, however, fully convinced that Mormonism persuaded Hoffman to take the route he did. The books describe his family situation as unhealthy, his father as dictatorial and unempathetic, his mother as a door mat. Those family circumstances increase the odds of producing narcissists and sociopaths quite considerably. Hoffman was thus a natural confidence man, a natural manipulator. He was clearly those things by the time he was 14, which despite his claims to atheism at that age seem largely pre-Mormon or at least pre-cognizant. So perhaps as he matured into the malefactor he became, he found himself in a system that emphasized historical documents and faith and hence provided a very nice outlet for his anti-social impulses.

Not entirely dissimilar, I surmise, from the Laffertys and the Daybell/Vallows. Mormonism provides a nurturing environment and ready marks for those budding sociopaths whom genetics and early childhood have engendered.

I watched this series last night and it brought back a lot of memories of how it played out in the SL media where I lived at the time. I had read books on the story so was familiar with most of the events covered. It was interesting to see how some of the players have aged over the years and how some are still impacted by those events today.

My main takeaways were the irony of a conman successfully conning an organization that is based on a con. I also could not ignore how in my mind Hofmann, without glasses, looked a lot like some pictures of Joseph Smith I have seen. This seemed especially so when he wore his hair longer and flared out at the sides. The whole process, I think, revealed him as cold blooded, dispassionate, and sociopathic.

Agreed.

Ultimately Hoffman is a cardboard character, lacking in depth. A lot of sociopaths are like that. Simple, angry, dispassionate, surprisingly unprepossessing: they derive meaning, even identity, from their cruelty to others.

I suspect that JS was much the same although more charismatic and probably not as malignant as Hoffman. But they are definitely nestled close together on the personality disorder chart.

While not explicitly saying such, this review by Andrew James Myers makes a good case that JS and Mark Hofmann might have been spirit brothers in the pre-existence.

https://www.tvguide.com/news/murder-among-the-mormons-review-netflix-true-crime-series/

A significant difference would be Smith's gregariousness and charm. Hophman* is so much more sullen, solitary. so the avenues through which they sought to dominate others were different.







*Couldn't resist.

But *Houghmann* had that disarming smile!

Jerald Tanner was shown the Salamander Letter early on and considered it a fake. Jerald and Sandra Tanner's book is available as a PDF or hard copy. http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/trackingcontents.htm

This book, "The Mormon Murders" by Gregory White Smith and Steven Naifeh is excellent in documenting the detective work that went into solving the crimes. The authors note in their acknowledgments of the contributions of over 200 people connected in some way to the case, that Shannon Flynn and Tom Wilding refused grant interviews to them without payment. The authors were unwilling to set that precedent

Also, the Church authorities answered their routine questions but "universally denied [the authors] substantive interviews".

https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Murders-Story-Forgery-Deceit/dp/1250025893


Charles M. Larson, author of "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus", "Destroying Angel", and "Numismatic Forgery", was Mark Hofmann's prison guard at the Utah State Prison. He reported that he played chess with Mark and that Mark was very "bored" in prison as he had no one intellectually equal to him to interact with. Poor baby.

Yes. Jerald was a true researcher. He defended the church on the salamander letter when the facts demanded it. He's a great man.

Those books are great, and the one thing they emphasize that the Netflix really missed was the role of the church.

As for Hofmann being bored, it wasn't because of the lack of interlocutors as much as the lack of opportunity to abuse people. It was the abuse that he found rewarding.

Excellent review, thx for the link, that enriches the series for me considerably. It makes sense: the subtlety of the Hofmann-Smith comparison in the series is completely intentional. The fact that some viewers will miss it completely is sort of a meta-commentary on the primary theme of the series.

I hate to be the grammar/spelling police but that extra "f" in Hofmann grates on my nerves now that I know it doesn't belong there.

It's "Hofmann" not "Hoffmann".

I’m related to Mark Hofmann in a very Mormon way. If I recall correctly, my great-great-great grandfather is Hofmann’s great-great-great-great grandfather, but we descended through different plural wives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2021 07:38PM by CrispingPin.

It is interesting that this documentary was produced by BBC Studios. It is surprising that no one here in the US has produced something on the story either in documentary form or as a drama. A few years after the case closed I recall there was a report that a drama was in the works but nothing came of that a nd nothing else until this three part series popped up on Netflix. I would love to know the background discussions and how it came into being through the BBC rather than any domestic studio. On a side note, was this really 30 plus years ago? Whatever happened to my life?