Mark Hofmann

Also known as: Salt Lake City bombings, Mormon forgery murders

Active: 1985–1985
Region: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
State: UT
Kind: Spree
Status: Pleaded guilty
Victims: 2

Mark Hofmann, a Salt Lake City dealer in rare documents, forged and sold historical papers on early Mormon history, including the "Salamander letter," to the LDS Church and collectors. As his finances and schemes collapsed, he planted bombs: on October 15, 1985, one killed businessman and document collector Steven Christensen at his office in the downtown Judge Building, and a second killed Kathy Sheets at her home in Holladay. The next day a third bomb went off in Hofmann's own car, injuring him and leading investigators to him. In January 1987 he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and to fraud, and the Utah Board of Pardons later ruled he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

Steven Christensen · October 15, 1985
A businessman and amateur historian who collected early Mormon documents.
Kathy Webb Sheets · October 15, 1985
A Holladay homemaker, mother and wife of businessman Gary Sheets.

Timeline of locations

October 15, 1985
Judge Building, downtown Salt Lake City (Crime scene, approximate area)
Shortly after 8 a.m., a bomb disguised as a package killed Steven Christensen as he picked it up outside his office in the Judge Building.
October 15, 1985
Sheets home, Holladay (Crime scene, approximate area)
About 90 minutes later, a package bomb addressed to Gary Sheets killed his wife, Kathy, at their home in Holladay, south of the city.
October 16, 1985
Hofmann's car, downtown Salt Lake City (Other, approximate area)
The next day a third bomb exploded in Hofmann's car on a downtown street, badly injuring him. He claimed to be a target; investigators came to see him as the bomber.
January 1987
Court in Salt Lake City (Court / trial, approximate area)
Hofmann pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and to fraud charges in January 1987 and was sentenced to five years to life.
January 1987
Utah State Prison, Draper (Prison, approximate area)
Hofmann served most of his sentence at the state prison in Draper; in 1988 the Board of Pardons ruled he would never be paroled.
2016
Central Utah Correctional Facility, Gunnison (Prison, approximate area)
He was transferred to the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison in 2016.

Watch, listen, read

Watch

Murder Among the Mormons (series, 2021, Jared Hess and Tyler Measom (Netflix))

Read

Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders (1988, Linda Sillitoe and Allen D. Roberts)
The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death (1988, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith)

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.