Archives West Finding Aid

Linda Sillitoe (b. 1940) a University of Utah graduate, has worked as a journalist for the Deseret News, Utah Holiday magazine, and the New York Times. She has won awards from the Utah chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press as well as three nominations for a Pulitzer Prize for her stories about life in Salt Lake County. She has written three important books on aspects of Utah history: Banking on the Hemingways: Three Generations of Banking in Utah and Idaho (1992);Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders, and Friendly Fire: The ACLU in Utah (1996). She wrote the official centennial history of Salt Lake County, which was published in a popular format as Welcoming the World: A History of Salt Lake County (1996). She also has published a collection of poems Crazy for Living (1993), a short story collection Windows on the Sea (1989), and two novels Sideways to the Sun (1998), and Secrets Keep, (1995). Her creative works have won multiple awards from the Association for Mormon Letters. She has co-produced a PBS-affiliated documentary, "Navajo and American" (2003), and taught classes in journalism and writing on several college campuses. She currently works as public outreach coordinator of Weber State University's Stewart Library.

Allen Dale Roberts is an award-winning architect specializing in historical restoration. He is the co-founder of Sunstone magazine, co-editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and is a contributing author to Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience: A Mormon/Humanist Dialogue. He has been published in the Utah Historical Quarterly and elsewhere and is the recipient of a Best Article Award from the Mormon History Association. He is a board member of the Utah Endowment for the Humanities and is the Utah Advisor for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Mark William Hofmann (b. 1954) a Utah native, forger, counterfeiter, and murderer, became one the most infamous criminals in the State's history. Especially noted for his creation of documents related to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (L.D.S. Church), Hofmann is considered by many forensic experts to be the best forger yet caught. His specialty was in Mormon holographs and currency but he also forged other American historical documents. Hofmann successfully duped manuscript experts nationwide, including those within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Library of Congress, the American Antiquarian Society, and the L.D.S. Church.

On 16 October 1985 Hofmann was critically injured by an exploding pipe bomb in his sports car. He quickly became the suspect in two bombing murders the previous day which had killed Steven F. Christensen, thirty-one years old, and Kathleen Webb Sheets, fifty. Investigators learned that Hofmann and Christensen had been scheduled the morning of the murders to close the "sale" of the McLellin Collection, a purportedly controversial document collection that turned out to be non-existent. Hofmann had been selling various non-existent collections in lucrative scams that were threatening to topple. The "white salamander letter" that Christensen had earlier bought, authenticated, and donated to the Mormon Church, had projected a revisionist view of history that stimulated historical review and attracted wide media attention. In the spring and summer of 1985, the LDS Church had endured a series of embarrassing document-related media stories, including news reports that an inflammatory collection was headed for secret church vaults.

The murder investigation which ensued uncovered the forgery/fraud scheme. Forensic history was made in detecting Hofmann's method for chemically aging ink that was then applied to old paper. Hofmann was up for trial on thirty felonies, including two capital murders. Hofmann was arrested for murder and forgery in February 1986. In January 1987, he pled guilty to second-degree murder and theft-by-deception to avoid the death penalty, confessing his forgeries in open court. In January 1988, he was sentenced to life in prison.