Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case

by Richard E. Turley Jr.

Three pipe bombs exploded in Salt Lake County in 1985, killing two people. Behind the murders lay a vast forgery scheme aimed at dozens of other victims, most prominently the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mark Hofmann, a master forger, went to prison for the murders. He had bilked the church, document dealers, and collectors of hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years while attempting to alter Mormon history. Other false documents of Americana still circulate.
The crimes garnered intense media interest, spawning books, TV and radio programs, and myriad newspaper and magazine articles. Victims is a thoughtful corrective to the more sensationalized accounts. More important, Richard Turley adds substantially to the record with previously unavailable church documentation and exclusive interviews with church officials, giving this book greater depth and resonance. He also goes beyond the Hofmann case, illustrating how forgeries have hampered the church's efforts to document its history.
Victims includes a complete appendix of every known document the church acquired from Hofmann, reviews of trial transcripts and police reports, as well as dozens of photographs, some never before published.
Turley, who gave up the practice of law to become a historian, has managed the delicate task of exposing the myths and complexities of this case with skill and objectivity. His unique access to church documents and personnel, together with his understanding of the legal system and Mormon history, afforded him an unparalleled view of how the case affected the church as well as the many others who were involved. Victims will fascinate anyone who does archival work, who cares about the historical record, or who likes to read compelling mystery.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Lds, Religion, Mormonism, American History, Church History

520 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Richard E. Turley Jr. retired in March 2020 as Managing Director of the Church Communication Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served previously as Managing Director of the Public Affairs Department, the Church Historical Department, the Family History Department, and the combined Family and Church History Department. He also served as Assistant Church Historian and Recorder. An innovator by nature, he helped oversee the creation of the four-volume history Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, the launch of FamilySearch and FamilySearch Indexing, the building of the new Church History Library, the development of the Joseph Smith Papers, and the formation of the Church Historian’s Press. He acquired key books, documents, and artifacts for the Church’s historical collections, including the 1829 Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon. He also served for many years on the Church’s Historic Sites Committee.

He has authored or edited numerous books and articles on Latter-day Saint and Western U.S. history, including Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy; Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case; How We Got the Book of Mormon; and How We Got the Doctrine and Covenants. He was the general editor for The Journals of George Q. Cannon print volumes, as well as coeditor of the series Women of Faith in the Latter Days.

Mr. Turley is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis award and the Historic Preservation Medal from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Mr. Turley received a bachelor’s degree in English from Brigham Young University, where he was a Spencer W. Kimball Scholar. He later graduated from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as executive editor of the law review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and received the Hugh B. Brown Barrister’s Award, given to the student who demonstrates the highest standards of classroom performance.

In September 2023, the First Presidency announced that it had commissioned a new biography of the Prophet Joseph Smith to be written by Mr. Turley.

Reviews

[Louise Hartvigsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this after watching the Netflix series about the Hoffman bombings and then hearing the author on a podcast (about another book) say that he had written Victims to give another perspective about what happened. The bomb that injured Hoffman went off less than a block from where I lived in Salt Lake City at the time, so it was all very close and relevant to me when it was playing out. So much detail in this book, as others have mentioned, it was dry, tedious reading at times. But it had some interesting insights. I thought it was funny that the detectives who interviewed Gordon B Hinckley thought he must not have been totally honest with them because he certainly would have documented all of his interactions, since Mormons had been told by prophets to keep a journal. Even church leaders acted on that admonition in various ways.

[Britni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very interesting and so detailed! I had been taught a little about Mark Hofmann and the Salamander letter as a kid and recently watched the Netflix special, Murder Among the Mormons. I wanted to learn more after watching the special and learned about this book. This book reads almost like a murder mystery. I will say that this book is specifically focused on the perspective of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It gives a tremendous amount of detail, including meetings between Mark Hofmann and LDS leaders, which filled in a lot of gaps that the Netflix special left (at least for me). There’s also a lot of detail and direct quotations from the murder trial that were interesting. What a crazy story!

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this before watching Netflix's Murder Among the Mormons documentary, and I must say that I think the documentary is better. This book is incredibly thorough and very dry, but suffers from a severe lack of breadth. It exclusively focuses on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which means we only find out about developments in the Mark Hoffman case as the church finds out. The "characters" here are all the LDS members and leaders who were involved, so it never follows the investigators, the forensic scientists, the non-LDS lawyers and officials and policeman, etc. This myopic focus is useful for those who want to know how the LDS church handled all the hubbub, but if you want a more thorough book about the murders, this is not it.

[Gable Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book felt like a murder mystery novel! Setting the scene with all the document exchanges and then finally the murders themselves. It was crazy suspensful! So well written. Then the book kind of slowed down a bit but it was still able to keep my interest.

Richard Turley is a very talented author and can make non-fiction engaging!

[Gwen Ruebush · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a child when Hofmann was in the headlines, so I knew very little about what he did. This book was well written and informative. I usually read history books slowly and get distracted by easier reads, but this one really caught my attention. I read it in less than two weeks.

[Curtis Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written from a perspective that few others have. It also gives a glimpse into the psyche of a truly evil man, as well as a description of the good people his victims were.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating. Well researched.

[Aj Ormond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating period of history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This book presents the story in a factual, easy to read format.

[Jeff Crosby]

Disturbing and fascinating.

[Dlora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story watching brilliant Richard Hofmann scamming the historical world, playing a shell game with forged documents and lies until he gets so mired he ends up killing two people in an attempt to cover up his fraud and forgeries. Author Richard E. Turley, Jr., does an excellent job presenting all the facts, though, as he says, there are so many people involved it's hard to keep them all straight. Perhaps a bit tedious and dry in the telling but because I lived through this time, I was quite interested. I also was tickled to see Richard Lindsay and George Throckmorton appear in the narrative because they live in my neighborhood. In the long run, I think archivists and historians are better off now having learned some hard lessons from Hofmann's scams.

I liked Elder Dallin Oak's comments quoted in the book: "When it comes to naivete in the face of malevolence, there is blame enough to go around. We all need to be more cautious" (p.342) And yet at the same time he also said, "Ministers of the gospel function best in an atmosphere of trust and love. In that kind of atmosphere, they fail to detect a few deceivers, but that is the price they pay to increase their effectiveness in counseling, comforting, and blessing the hundreds of honest and sincere people they see. It is better for a Church leader to be occasionally disappointed than to be constantly suspicious" (p. 344).

[Stephen Cranney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed, you get the sense that the author was trying to cover every possible iota of the case. There's still so much speculation surrounding the matter that it was nice to see all the pieces put together; a good deal of the innuendo one hears about the case even years after it all happened has some pretty solid explanations that I wasn't even aware of (shows you what tends to rise to the top in the absence of clear, methodical research). For the parts that don't have good explanations and reflect poorly on the Church (like the Stowell letter being placed in the First Presidency vault) he forthrightly faces up to them. Many will undoubtedly automatically disparage the validity of this book simply because it's author was connected to the LDS Church, but I don't get the sense that there would be anything concrete/specific in the book that they would really be able to hang their complaints on.
However, a surprising number of typos early on the book.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in almost excruciating detail (reads like a legal document a lot of the time), this book is--nonetheless--a powerful statement on the disturbed life and pathological mind of Mark Hofmann, and his desperate attempts to sell the LDS church so-called 'historical' documents, later proved to be brilliant forgeries. The fact that he convinced so many otherwise intelligent people that his documents were authentic speaks to his amazing gifts, however misapplied. Really, in the end, it's a tragic story, not only because it led to the bombing deaths of two innocent bystanders who happened to "get in the way," but because of the inherent tragedy of his own downfall. I also thought it was interesting how this case led to a greater level of security and suspicion in authentication in today's world of historical documents (and not just within the LDS church). Interesting read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated Turley's impressive efforts at including every detail of every single event but at the same time his style of writing made it difficult to follow on and keep all the players straight. I think he could have edited certain parts out. I was hoping for more information on the forgery techniques. He does use the actual transcriptions of the court proceedings which was interesting but I would have liked to have learned more about Hoffman's forgeries and skills in this area than anything else since it was the reason I read the book. I suppose maybe at the time (or still) Hoffman didn't give many details so in that case this book is the best source on his crimes.

[Danae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This all happened when I was really too young to understand what was going on, so I found the story quite interesting. The writing, however, was a bit dry for my taste. Very, very, very thorough, but not all of the details added to the story, and it was a bit trying to have to remember all of them, not knowing which would prove to be important later. I would recommend it to anyone particularly interested in the subject matter, but not necessarily to someone just looking for a fun read.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed, fascinating, and fair-minded account of the Mark Hoffman incident, told by an author who isn't trying to attack the Church or its leaders. I found the glimpses into the actions of the general authorities very interesting, including the very high price Hugh Pinnock personally paid for his dealings with Mark Hoffman. An excellent and interesting history.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a mystery novel and got me to learn some history along the way.

[Layne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because it was the book of the month for our book group.
I doubt I would have ever read it.
I did find it quite interesting how someone could be so deceitful. The bombings still don't make much sense, but I guess that is because they were the work of someone who's mind didn't see the world like normal people.

[Glenn H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent work by the author

It was nice to read what actually happened, without all the lies and misrepresentation of the Church that usually happens. Thanks for writing this! Very well done!

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it.

[Gaylene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is historically acurate, but reads like a murder mystery. It is fascinating to hear what was going on behind the scenes throughout this ordeal.

[Quinn]

Interesting part of church history

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book! It gives great background and insight into the events surrounding the Mark Hofmann case. It also is a must read for anyone involved in Church History.

[Elana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so well researched. It did feel a little tedious at times, but fascinating especially the updated Afterword.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERY interesting and well researched and well written

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was well-written and compelling, but very disturbing. Hofmann gives me the creeps.