When Mark Hofmann's deadly bombs left SLC in terror
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The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 17, 1985. Image via the Utah Digital Newspaper Archives, the University of Utah
Forty years ago, Salt Lake was reeling in terror as multiple bombs exploded in deadly attacks around the city, stemming from a forgery spree involving purportedly historical Mormon documents.
- This is Old News, where we process patterns of trauma and healing in Utah's past.
What drove the news: Two people were killed Oct. 15, 1985, when they picked up packages wrapped in brown paper and rigged to explode.
- The first blast, around 8am at the Judge Building downtown, killed financial adviser Steven F. Christensen, 31.
- Two hours later, 50-year-old Nancy Sheets died after picking up a package left outside her home in Holladay. Her husband was a former business associate of Christensen — and the company they had once built was rumored to be nearing collapse.
That was the motive police suspected until a third bomb exploded the next day, critically wounding a rare documents dealer named Mark Hofmann.
- Yes, but: Hofmann's injuries didn't match his account of the blast, police said. They also found checks and other evidence showing Christensen had just paid Hofmann more than $100,000 in connection with "rare historical documents pertaining to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
Catch up quick: Hofmann had gained notoriety in previous years for historical records he claimed to have found, some of which challenged church narratives of its origins.
- A lapsed believer, Hofmann presented himself as a faithful Latter-day Saint and offered to sell the documents to church officials and other members like Christensen so they could be suppressed — only to leak their "existence" to the media.
Between the lines: Although Hofmann's documents had been scrutinized by historians, investigators later found irregularities in the ink on Hofmann's documents, revealing them to be forgeries.
The bottom line: Hofmann said he had amassed debts and obtained advance payment to provide Christensen documents he didn't possess and hadn't forged.
- He told investigators he killed Christensen to buy time and avoid exposure. The Sheets bomb was a red herring.
- He pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and other charges related to deception.
The big picture: The Wasatch Front filled with panic in the days following the bombings.
- BYU professors and other historians feared they would become the next targets; some fled for safety.
- Police received hundreds of calls over benign packages and other false alarms. One deliveryman said he'd become the town villain; another was chased and beaten.
- The only three bomb-sniffing dogs in the region began to succumb to exhaustion, the LA Times reported.
The latest: The saga of the bombings has spawned multiple retellings in books and on screen, the most recent hit being Netflix's "Murder Among the Mormons" in 2021.
- Hofmann remains in the state prison in Gunnison.