01x03 - Episode Three

[bunniefuu]

Move in.

That's as far as you're going.

When did you first begin

to think about k*lling people?

That's a good question.

Uh

The b*mb parts for the first two bombs

were purchased a week or two

before, uh, they were constructed.

Uh, my

My idea at that point was

to have those materials

to keep my options open.

So probably the same day

I made that purchase

is when I first considered taking life,

uh, to get myself out

of the jam that I felt I was in.

Uh

I felt at that time like

drastic measures were called for.

Someone would have to die.

But I didn't know who.

In Salt Lake City today,

a dealer in historical Mormon documents,

Mark Hofmann,

pleaded guilty to forgery and m*rder.

He admitted that he forged two documents,

supposedly dealing with the founding

of the Mormon Church.

And he admitted k*lling two people

with pipe bombs to escape detection.

The Mark Hofmann I knew

did not do this.

Apparently, I didn't know Mark Hofmann.

His neighbors said

he was a nice family man.

Friends stuck up for him.

Business associates trusted him.

But there was always the smile,

the quiet manner, and a secretiveness.

He fooled everyone.

I'm sorry, I gotta dredge up

Gotta dredge up this crap again.

With disbelief and shock,

associates say Flynn was the last

among them to conclude Hofmann is guilty.

Not only did he commit those crimes,

and not only did he make me

a party in committing those crimes

and used me in order

to perpetrate crimes on other people,

after the fact, he continuously lied to me

about all the aspects

and phases of those crimes.

It's easy for people to nowadays say,

"Well, couldn't you see that?

What's the matter with you?"

Well, you know, hindsight's always 20/20.

And, in the moment,

I didn't suspect 'cause I didn't want to.

Just have to be honest about it.

I didn't want to.

It's the biggest forgery case

to ever occur,

-period.

-Judge is gonna arraign

Prosecutors say

they got everything they wanted.

Four guilty pleas, and Mark Hofmann

sentenced to five years to life in prison.

-Do you understand that?

Yes.

But they got something more.

Hofmann agreed

that he'll explain, in detail,

exactly what he did and how he did it.

Mark, this happened so quickly.

How do you feel?

-I'd rather not make comments now.

What way did you plead?

I'd rather make no comments.

But this is your last chance to say

You have a lot of theories

as to why a crime has occurred.

You have evidence

as to why a crime occurred.

But what actually

went on in the person's mind

that led him up to the act of homicide,

you rarely

get to talk to a person about that.

It's hard to celebrate a victory

on a m*rder case

because of everything that happens.

The tragedy that's behind it

takes a toll on everybody.

Are you frightened, Mark?

Uh, not really. Pretty calm.

But the day that Mark Hofmann pled guilty,

we did allow ourselves a celebration

for the satisfaction

for the work we had done on this case.

This was the first of several meetings

between Hofmann and prosecutors,

part of the plea bargain that may

have saved Hofmann from a death sentence.

Walk right up the stairs.

Here's a man that, for eight years,

fooled the experts of this nation.

Now he has a chance to tell the world.

I think he wanted

to tell the world what he did.

US Pin Number 18186. Is that correct?

-I believe so.

Okay.

Mr. Hofmann, uh, first of all,

I'll ask questions

based on each of the crimes.

Then I'll go on to a discussion

of, uh, uh, your background,

and there will be

some questions related to that.

All right?

Go ahead with the questions.

You've been

deceiving people for some time.

Um, essentially,

what I would describe

as a life of deception.

More harmless,

yeah, experimentation,

-rather than criminal.

Mm.

Do you feel proud of yourself

at the moment?

Uh

When he was a boy,

Mark Hofmann and his friends

decided to go on a treasure hunt.

So the boys go out, and they dig about,

and nobody finds anything.

But towards the end of the hunt,

Mark Hofmann goes and digs,

and he comes up with a jar of coins.

Now, the story is that he knew

they were going treasure hunting,

went out in the woods,

buried the jar of coins,

went out the next day with the boys,

found it, held it up and said,

"Oh, yes, I found the treasure."

He spent his life finding treasure

that nobody else could find.

As far back as I can remember,

I have liked to impress people

through my deceptions.

Fooling people, uh, gave me

a sense of power and superiority.

When I was about, uh, 12 years old,

I began collecting coins.

Soon afterwards,

I figured out some crude ways

to fool other collectors by altering coins

and make them appear more desirable.

By the time I was 14,

I had developed a forgery technique

which I felt was undetectable.

Anyway, it ended up

going to the Treasury Department,

where it was pronounced genuine.

In my view, uh,

if the Treasury Department

pronounces it genuine,

then it is genuine by definition.

It's not so much

what is genuine and what isn't,

as what people believe is genuine.

Mark said something

that will give everyone pause.

Because essentially, he said,

if something seems to be true

and becomes accepted as true,

it becomes true.

Does that mean we're all living lies?

Found her. Are you recording?

Yeah.

Record light's on.

Hold him, Dorie, so he can see.

Gotta let him look at it and take it.

I have a lot of people

who would say, "How could you not know?"

I can't-- I have no argument.

I have no-- It's like, I didn't know.

That's all I can say.

More? Kiddo?

He fooled me every single day.

He did.

And he fooled my children.

Ah, boo. Ah, boo.

Yep, it's me, son.

Who'd you think it was?

It's like, even today there's a part of me

that doesn't even want to believe it.

Doesn't want to believe that it happened,

that he could do that.

Marital information,

you married Doralee Olds Hofmann.

You have four children,

and the indication is that your marriage

is likely to stay intact.

Is that correct?

I think so.

Okay.

And nothing indicates that she had

any notion of what was going on

relative to the forgeries.

That's right.

Mark Hofmann first came

to the public's attention in 1980,

when he sold this item,

the Charles Anthon manuscript,

to the LDS Church.

Now prosecutors say it's phony.

I think it's exciting to think that,

apparently, this piece of paper

was copied by Joseph Smith's own hand,

the characters were, just right from

the gold plates that were right there.

You staged

the discovery of the Anthon Transcript

in front of your wife. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Did you feel any compunction

about using your wife in that fashion?

Uh, well, as strange as it sounds,

I didn't feel like I was using her.

You know,

she didn't ask me about my business,

-and I didn't volunteer information.

-Okay.

You know,

she was always very supportive,

and no one would have guessed that

You know, the kind of man I was.

She was useful to you in that way?

-That's correct.

-Okay.

There are stories that he might've tried

to let her in

on at least one of his forgeries.

Yes, according to that 14-page addendum

about the murders,

uh, in that first Anthon Transcript

that he sold to the LDS Church

that was a big deal,

he apparently decided

to tell her that it was a forgery,

and she became very upset

He told me, "I made this.

I'm the one that put this together.

I made this."

And I remember

just being, uh, just shocked.

And just, like, "What?"

He changed his mind and said,

"No, I'm just joking. It's genuine."

She believed the other documents

were genuine?

She did. That's what prosecutors say.

There was a question

about her being allowed into the

His private room of the house.

Apparently, she was locked out.

Uh, she never got into the room.

You kept a room locked

with all of your paraphernalia in it.

Is that how that happened?

Yes.

-Okay.

And moved the paraphernalia

when she entered the room.

It was his childhood room.

It was just, to me,

a messy room that I didn't have to clean,

so I was glad.

It didn't make sense,

but there were things that didn't

make sense to me that he would do.

It was just like, we're just pretending

like this never happened.

But there was

a lot of pretending. Um

Mark Hofmann was

very, very good at storytelling.

And he would fulfill people's desires

by finding the treasures

that they had created

and wanted their whole lives,

in their own minds,

and he miraculously could find these.

The document is a letter

from Lucy Mack Smith,

mother of the Church's first president,

Joseph Smith.

Brent Ashworth acquired the letter

a month ago.

Mark said,

"Is there anything you're looking for?"

And I said,

"I'm looking for a handwritten letter

of, uh, Lucy Mack Smith."

He said, "Oh, I just happen to have one."

Mr. Ashworth,

is the reason you don't wanna go

into details of where you got it

-to protect your sources?

Correct.

Can you tell us

about the authenticity of it, or perhaps--

Uh, I guess, uh

I guess Dean Jesse

would have to tell us about that.

It seems strange that a lot

of what you did was made to order.

Someone would say,

"It'd be great to find,"

and suddenly you would've found it.

I--

I can't believe

that people didn't catch on.

I'm sure, neither can they.

Neither can I.

My wife says, "Greed."

I never liked that word.

She said I was greedy.

And, uh,

I'm always challenging her on that,

when she says that.

I think about it over time,

and I guess that's true in a way

because that was

one of the best documents.

I always wanted to build a collection

to be the best that it could be.

And because of that, uh,

I overlooked things

like lying and cheating.

Well, based on

my personal acquaintance with Mark

At one point,

right after the bombings,

I was on TV defending him.

I-- I have a great deal of doubt

that, uh, Mark is involved in--

In any way at this point.

And it's part of the reason I retained

my belief in Mark Hofmann's innocence

is because, again, I--

I felt like,

what does that mean for me as a person?

I just have no reason to believe,

despite the assertions

that have been made,

that Mark was involved

in any kind of forgery of this kind

I could not accept

that I had no suspicion whatsoever.

That was almost unacceptable to me

because it went

right to the heart of who I am.

And that frightened me,

that I could be that deceived by someone.

It's usually the greed

of the individual who is the victim

combined with the greed

of the person who is the perpetrator.

The two of 'em

get out of control pretty quickly.

And one sometimes

isn't as bad as the other,

but certainly

can lead to the, uh, same consequence.

Um,

would you have a set of beliefs,

Mr. Hofmann,

that serves as your anchor

in determining your behavior?

Uh, yes, I have a philosophy of life.

As far as their development,

it's hard for me to say

if my actions sprang out of them,

or if I have developed them

in order to justify my actions.

The reason I ask you that

is that I think most people

do have a set of beliefs,

and one of the things that

that impacted me about this

is that you seem to be so willing to toy,

if you will, with the beliefs of others.

Uh

I've always been

fascinated with the idea of

-why people believe what they do, uh

-Mm-hmm.

Toying with them, I guess, would be

more of an experimentation on my part

a way to analyze or try to figure out

why people do believe what they do.

Uh, I was always fascinated

with how the documents were believed

-or the impact they had.

-Mm-hmm.

He could come up with plausible things

that changed the history in ways

that reflected badly on Mormon belief

and that encouraged Mormons

to leave their faith.

I remember one night at his home,

he told me that he had become an atheist

when he was 14 years old.

So all of the show with church things

was purely a show.

-That was part of Mark's game plan.

The recently discovered letter

is additional confirmation

of the Book of Mormon.

This letter

You can only envision

Mark listening to a general authority,

standing at the pulpit,

declaring one of his documents

that he's forged to be proof

of the Book of Mormon's authenticity.

I can only imagine

the smile he had on his face,

watching this.

Because this was complete validation

for him of what he was doing.

When the investigation started unraveling

the duplicity of Mark,

and showing how he had fooled

the men looked to

as prophesiers and revelators,

that one assumed

would have special divine direction

that Mark was a crook,

and yet, they didn't get that.

The theological response to that is that

God gives people the agency

to choose between right and wrong.

And, as an omniscient being

who Himself knows all this,

he doesn't step in and interfere.

The idea being

that universal detection of crimes or sins

would revoke the agency

God has given to each of His children

to make their own decisions.

History is confusing enough,

dealing with real documents.

Then you throw in somebody that may be

throwing in some fraudulent ones,

and it makes it that much harder

to figure out what happened.

Experts like Tanner

say some of the documents

will require a reevaluation

of the history of the Mormon Church.

So the fallout

from Mark Hofmann's documents

was a great questioning in the community

about the very basis of their faith.

For unto you

People tend to ignore anything

that does not fit

within their own beliefs.

They reject the facts

because it means giving up their beliefs,

for which they've sacrificed so much.

will be commended

I wouldn't go as far to say

I wanted to change Mormon history.

to find some morsel of history

Let me take that back.

Uh, maybe I did.

cast doubt on the integrity of this work.

To take the historical narrative

of an entire institution

Hofmann says he originally

considered using a common toad

as the magical character,

but he said he made it a white salamander

because, quote,

"I decided to spice it up."

He's the one who's pulling the strings.

He was going to be determining

what Mormon history was.

Mark Hofmann's most famous discovery,

the Salamander letter

was a document

that he forged for a purpose.

That purpose was not only

to acquire the $40,000

for which he ultimately sold it

to Steve Christensen.

The real, ultimate purpose of that

was to serve as the comparison

for his masterpiece,

if he had been allowed

to forge long enough to create it.

And that was the 116 lost pages

of the original Book of Mormon manuscript.

You have the Salamander letter

that's in Harris's handwriting.

That lays the groundwork

for a lost document,

the 116 pages,

that's also

in Martin Harris's handwriting.

So he's going to match the handwritings

right across the board,

so that one forgery authenticates another.

My guess is, he probably would've asked

for 10 or 20 million as a starter.

But certainly

a seven- or eight-digit figure.

Hofmann had no respect for history,

especially documents

dealing with the history of the Church.

I didn't really question them for a while

because I figured

they'd been examined

by the best in the business, you know?

Mr. Hofmann, I've read, um,

a great deal of information

about the forgeries.

I was, uh

I was quite affected by the sophistication

that was involved there.

Uh

There's been a lot of stories

to the effect that

I was some sort of a genius forger

or something.

Which I don't think is accurate.

I think that,

to make themselves

look like the experts they are,

uh, they have to try to build me up.

Since I, uh, fooled them.

Mark Hofmann has a characteristic manner

of forging documents.

That's what made him so great,

if you want to say he's great,

was his versatility.

Uh, he would tackle papers,

documents, letters, books,

printing machines, money.

You name it, he would go for it.

Although I don't really

consider myself artistic,

I think I have the ability

to look at handwriting and copy it.

When I finally decided

to sit down and write it,

I would've composed it

and forged it all within a day or two.

One of the things

that happens with old documents is that

there's a phenomenon called foxing.

Refers to the fact that these very acidic

iron gallotannic inks

burn through the paper over time.

So to create the illusion,

that would mean finding some way

to pull the ink through

to the back of the document.

It'd be aged on a metal screen,

with suction pulling down

from the front of the document to the back

with an old vacuum cleaner.

The purpose is to bring the brown

of the ink through to the back side.

He did some other things

that were almost unbelievable.

This was a simple apparatus,

a five-gallon aquarium.

A piece of glass

is covering the top of it.

A plug goes into a 110-volt outlet.

One of the pieces of wire is going

into the aquarium.

The other is going into a jar

filled with water and salt.

The spark in the oxygen atmosphere

forms ozone,

and the ozone comes in contact

with the paper.

It would make the documents appear

that they had environmental damage,

consistent with a document

that was 150 years old.

As far as the ink,

this was just a simple recipe

consisting of tannic acid, ferric sulfate,

and gum arabic.

I bought them from hobby shops.

Why did that cracking occur?

It doesn't occur in natural aging,

so what was it in the Hofmann documents

that caused that ink to crack?

Bill would make the ink and send it to me.

I'd go through

using different chemicals on them

until we could duplicate the formula

Mark Hofmann may have used.

So the question then,

from a scientific standpoint, is,

how did Mark

speed up oxidation unnaturally,

that caused that ink to crack?

You can speed up oxidation with heat,

or you can speed up oxidation chemically.

I put the documents under the microscope

and watched as they dried,

and they would form this cracking,

alligatoring pattern

in exactly the same way

it appeared on the Hofmann documents.

It was like a eureka moment.

It was

nirvana, actually.

These are experts

who are quite schooled,

and that by making them appear to be

not so smart, you've

made yourself appear

to look smarter than the rest of them.

I guess, looking back on it, uh

I'm proud of some of the techniques

that I developed.

By summer of 1985,

I think that Mark came over

like he was doing very well,

and being very successful

at what he was doing.

I knew that he had high-stake items.

It was-- N-Not just living the high life,

but living a life of high risk.

He was on a quest

for the gold and silver.

He was looking for the riches.

And this was his way of doing it.

In terms of employment,

you are a dealer in antiques,

particularly historic documents.

You listed your salary,

uh, during your peak years

as being in six figures.

Uh, what happened to all that money?

I traveled quite a bit.

I bought a lot of things.

Easy come, easy go.

He would like to take people out

to dinner and go to expensive places.

I didn't like

seeing our money go out the window

when we could use it for our family.

What do you have down there?

-Our little baby, Jared.

Here we are in the recovery room.

We had three children,

so we needed to go get a van.

While we were there,

Mark said, "I like that sports car."

Oh, wow.

And we came home

with a van and a sports car.

What was your salary,

exclusive of the forgeries?

Uh, they were so intertwined

that that's hard to say.

Basically, the only reason why

I would buy or sell genuine documents

was as a cover.

-Uh

Interesting.

I had the impression

that you were initially

a dealer of authentic documents,

and the forgery was something

that slipped in afterwards,

but you make it sound

as if you were primarily a forger

and authentic things

were just useful to you.

That's correct.

Okay.

When it comes

to the McLellin Collection,

Mark assures me that,

within a week or two,

we'll have all the money back.

Coin dealer, Al Rust,

confirmed he had paid Hofmann

for the McLellin Collection.

So when Mark Hofmann gave me a check,

oh, was I thrilled.

I take the check to the bank,

and the bank says the check is no good.

Rust says, by September,

it was clear

Hofmann was in deep financial trouble.

He was distraught and upset.

I followed him out into the hallway,

and we talked, and he said,

"I am losing everything."

"They are coming

to take my home, my car,"

and he was nearly in tears.

And I never got a dime of the money back.

Not one cent.

Rust says

Hofmann told him the LDS Church had agreed

to pay $300,000 for the collection.

I trusted Mark Hofmann

as I would trust my own brother.

I owed all this money,

and I had to sell my entire collection

to pay the debt.

I remember one day,

as I was driving down the street,

I saw the MR2 sitting there.

Completely empty parking lot.

It was the only car back there.

Pulled up right next to Mark.

And I remember

that he looked at me through his window,

and Mark's face looked completely drained.

He had all these papers

that were laid out,

and he was completely flush white.

It looked like complete despair.

Al Rust and Steve Christensen

were putting

a huge amount of pressure on Mark

to get this deal with McLellin done.

But the McLellin Collection

was unlike anything else he had done.

He couldn't go out

and produce that many documents

that fast.

Rust now says he doesn't believe

Hofmann ever had the McLellin Collection.

He believes

he and the Church were betrayed.

So Mark was playing them all

against each other.

He would sell documents

to take that money to pay people off.

In the year before the bombings,

Hofmann often traded

phony documents for real ones.

It was a frenzy

of duplication and duplicity.

A juggling act

kept alive by Hofmann's ego.

And a Ponzi scheme like that

survives on time.

Hofmann said he was gambling

that The Oath of a Freeman

would sell at the last minute

for more than a million dollars,

and bail him out of his predicament.

It's when you can't pay off

that suddenly the Ponzi scheme

comes to an end.

And he was supposed

to meet Steve Christensen

to sell the McLellin Collection that week,

and he didn't have them.

So he put a collage together,

maybe to try to fool them.

But the hammer was coming down.

Steve Christensen

had been put in charge

from someone in the LDS Church,

because he was gonna go with Mark

and get the McLellin Collection

out of the safe deposit box.

Mark knew there was nothing in there.

On October 14th,

um, I went to Mark's house,

and Mark seemed,

actually, quite happy that night.

The kids were running around.

He seemed very comforted,

-at peace.

Everything was good.

I did this.

I-- I did that.

Knowing that the next day

he's going to m*rder people,

that's obscene.

That puts him

in the most sinister light possible.

Okay, you

You indicated,

as you constructed the bombs

the night before the killings,

you decided at that point

who would get them,

where they would be placed.

Is that correct?

That's when I made the final decision.

Okay.

Um, it-it sounds so callous

to be sitting there,

putting together these lethal

instrumentalities,

and to have not yet even decided

who was going to receive them.

Uh

My thoughts are

that's no great harm done.

You know,

might have died in a car accident.

You know, the worthlessness of life,

or whatever.

The 31-year-old documents dealer

is accused of k*lling

Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets

to cover up

an elaborate fraud and forgery scheme.

The LDS Church arranged Steve Christensen

to authenticate the collection

just two hours

before he died in a b*mb blast.

You feel that Mark did do it,

-and for what reason?

Definitely.

Um

To keep from being exposed by Steve

as-as

a forger, as a liar, as a thief.

Was Steve going to do that?

Mm-hmm.

I think he would have. Yeah.

Steve, he was also saying,

"If you don't produce

what you say you've got,

I will have you arrested.

I will have you

kicked out of the Church.

I will" You know.

He was threatening his whole

His whole existence, I guess.

The whole idea was protection

of my family, or whatever,

-from that knowledge.

Mm-hmm.

As far as being identified

with certainty as the forger that I was.

Uh

The timed

This is hard to explain because

Well, I don't even understand fully, but

Uh

I had a lot of thoughts

in my mind, obviously.

-I knew what my teachings were.

As far as my religious teachings, I knew.

Even though I tried to justify

the taking of life as my own survival,

and that that was,

uh, philosophically,

not an inappropriate thing to do.

I had feelings of,

not guilt so much as

feelings of wondering, as far as,

you know, what happens if I'm wrong?

Uh

Or what happens if there really is a God?

You know?

Hello. You've reached

the offices of Steve Christensen.

I'm either out of the office or unable

to come to the phone at the present time.

If you would please leave your name,

phone number,

time of the call,

and a brief message if you desire,

I would be more than happy

to return your call as soon as possible.

Please wait for the beep

and then commence your message. Thank you.

Steve, I'm just calling to see

if you're all right this morning.

I just heard about that b*mb up there,

and, uh, I'll be hearing from you.

Thank you.

Uh, Steve, just heard

about the, uh, expl*si*n in your building.

I wanted to call and see if you're okay.

Give me a call back. Thanks.

Hi, Steve. We're getting in kinda

deep on the genealogy side of things,

and I just wanted

to see some payment,

-so--

-

I need to know what to do

about this Mormon History

Association newsletter.

Bye now.

Steve Christensen was

one of the most loving people

you could ever meet.

To me,

he was the epitome of Christian-loving,

and, uh, somebody

To know Steve was to love Steve,

and I just can't even imagine

the type of mindset

that would be needed to do the type

of brutal killings that have been done.

Steve, this is Michonne.

You're a hard man to get a hold of.

If you can give me a call,

I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

The b*mb for Steve Christensen

was wrapped with nails.

And the thing about wrapping something

like a b*mb with nails is that

this ensures, with the shrapnel,

that you're going to get a k*ll.

But I also understand that he had taken

and made a practice b*mb,

and taken it out to the West Desert.

And he practiced to make sure

that everything was gonna work.

The b*mb that k*lled Kathy Sheets

was a diversion.

His intent was that the police find a b*mb

similar to the one at Steve Christensen's.

You said

that the detonator on the b*mb

you placed at the Sheets' home

was supposed to be defective,

that you didn't believe it would go off.

Uh, I figured

there was a 50% chance it would go off,

50% chance that it wouldn't.

If it didn't,

it wouldn't frustrate your purpose?

That's true.

It seems to me

that a man who creates

the kinds of documents you've created,

with the kind

of technical know-how and ability,

could ensure that that detonator

had not gone off,

and you could have served your purpose

without k*lling Mrs. Sheets.

Was that even

Was that an option?

Well, it was certainly an option. Uh

It was almost

Well, as strange as it sounds,

it was almost a game.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh, you claim

that the Sheets b*mb was a diversion.

Uh, my thoughts were,

it didn't matter if

it was Mr. Sheets, a child,

a dog, you know, uh, whoever.

Yeah.

Do you consider

yourself a violently dangerous person?

No.

Although, I'm sure a lot of people

would disagree with that,

given the nature of my crimes.

Thank you.

You've tried to tell

us the third b*mb was a suicide attempt.

That's right.

-If you intended to commit suicide,

why was it necessary

to k*ll Mr. Christensen and Mrs. Sheets?

Uh, I didn't decide

to commit suicide until after

uh, Mr. Christensen and Mrs. Sheets

were k*lled.

Then, was it in response to the

feelings that came as a consequence

of having k*lled those people

that you decided to commit suicide?

It wasn't so much feelings of guilt

as feelings of protection.

Okay. I--

For me. Um

-Uh--

I didn't suggest guilt.

The reason

I'm pressing about the suicide attempt

is that I'm not sure

it's going to do any good to ask you

the question that's really

in the back of my mind, that is

what were you going to do

with that third b*mb?

Uh

Hofmann said,

as he was manufacturing bombs,

not knowing where they'd be used,

he thought one might be used against you.

You, indeed, were to have met with him

on October 16th,

the day of the third bombing.

Well, we normally met at that time.

Lot of thoughts

went through my mind at the time.

I even thought of the possibility

of k*lling people

who were associates with me.

-The whole idea

was to delay getting caught on the fraud.

Um

Do you think that b*mb was for you?

-Uh, I don't know.

I haven't been able

to entirely rule it out.

That's one of

I didn't go that day. My wife said,

"I don't want you going there today."

I says,

"I'm just going up to visit Mark."

She says, "I don't know,

I just have this funny feeling

you shouldn't go up today."

So I listened,

and we stayed home and ate pizza

and watched a movie.

A witness said he rushed

to his aid and gave Hofmann a blessing.

He was wearing the LDS garment,

and, uh, I took out my oil,

uh, consecrated oil

that I usually carry with me,

and I commanded him to live,

and that proper medical help

would get to him quickly,

which it did.

You commanded him to live?

I commanded him to live.

The poor man didn't know.

He didn't know

he was giving a blessing to Satan.

But it wasn't his fault.

He was doing what

He was doing the right thing,

as far as he knew.

He had no idea it was Satan laying there.

Opinion seems to be split.

Some folks say

that you express genuine remorse.

The prosecutor and the psychologist

see no remorse at all.

Which is the true story?

Well, definitely I feel remorse.

Uh--

For yourself

and your family, or for your victims?

Uh

Part of my philosophy of life,

we were talking about earlier,

is that the victims

are not suffering at this point.

Have you met Mark Hofmann?

-Before the bombing, had you met him?

-No.

Have you met him since,

other than in the courtroom?

No.

Do you want to?

No, not really.

If-If you had a chance to talk to him,

um, what-- What would you ask him?

I really have no-- No real feelings

of bitterness or hate towards him.

I don't wanna waste

my thoughts and energy on him.

You know? I have other things,

more important things to think about.

He's not worth it.

For me, when

I discovered

that Hofmann was everything

that they said he was,

it was soul crushing.

I had introduced him to Steve

and, um

I felt like somehow, I was responsible

for what had happened.

And I went through a very long phase

where I just wished that

I had never been born.

And, um

it-it was kind of like

the It's A Wonderful Life movie,

except there's no redemption

at the end of the story.

All it is is a continuation of the pain.

And there's no way that you can change it.

It's-It's done.

I just wish that I could undo everything.

Here's your gorgeous boy.

Green light on?

Mm-hmm.

It's recording? Michael.

Do you want to see your daddy, Michael?

Say, "My daddy loves me so much.

He plays with me, and he hugs me."

It strikes me, as I look

at this case, I can't help but feel,

that there are so many victims,

the Sheets family, the Christensen family,

including some people

you've called a friend.

How do you feel about your own family?

You have a spouse, now who will be alone.

You have four children,

who will not have a father.

Uh

-Fifteen minutes old, huh?

Mm-hmm.

Aw, I wonder what he'll be like

in 20 minutes.

It's obviously harder on them

than it is on me,

the same with any of the victims.

I figure that I-- I deserve what I get.

Whew.

It's like,

if I could have stopped people being hurt,

I would have done that.

But I couldn't. It's like

I could do nothing.

There was-- It's like

I wish--

I wish I could have stopped it.

I wish I could have known.

Because people died.

When he was arrested,

and trials and things,

I was going through a tough time.

Couldn't sleep, woke up at night.

Hofmann. That's all I could think about.

And all of a sudden, it just came to me.

He's destroyed you financially,

but don't let him destroy you otherwise.

Spiritually, physically, emotionally.

Don't let him do it.

And I called his dad.

Mr. Hofmann,

is there anything you wanna say?

I said, "I want you to know

that I'm not gonna hate your son.

I'm not gonna understand

because I don't.

But will you just tell him

that I forgive him?

And I'm going on with my life."

And from that moment on,

my life changed.

And I went on.

We had a trying experience

when I got cancer.

And it was also during this special period

when Mark was blessed

in finding some documents

that gave me something to hang on to,

to live for.

After Mark had confessed,

his dad heard it from his son's mouth.

I can't--

I can't imagine what that would be like.

To stand there and know

that your son m*rder*d two people

in a horrible way,

as cruel and as callous as it could be.

Putting those nails in that pipe b*mb

for-for Steve Christensen.

Flynn hasn't spoken to Hofmann

since Hofmann's attorney

cut off contact between the two men.

Flynn says, up until then,

Hofmann claimed he was innocent.

He said he's not sure how his friend

fooled close associates, his family,

and a polygraph examiner.

In fact, he was so clever,

he fooled a polygraph machine

in a way no one has ever fooled it before.

When he was, uh, about 12, 13 years old,

he's a technologically

sophisticated individual.

And he built himself a device

to measure his skin resistance,

which is the main component

of a polygraph test.

So he had been practicing these techniques

for maybe 20 years

when he came upon the situation

to take a polygraph test.

I've never seen an individual like this.

Now, I wonder if he was like--

If he's psychotic or something.

I mean,

maybe he's a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,

I don't know.

It's awful.

It's awful, what he did.

That's why I say

rest of his life.

Needs to stay in prison.

He will never atone for those sins. Never.

Given the offenses you have committed,

do you think you should

ever be free again?

I'm not asking whether you want to be.

I'm sure you want to be.

Do you think you should

ever be free again?

Uh, that's a good question.

Uh

I think that someday, I should be free.

Thank you. Thank you.

After Mark had gone

to the Utah State Prison,

I received some information

through some sources I had at the prison

that Mark

had approached other inmates

about doing a hit

on some of the Board of Pardon members.

-Getting along okay?

-Not too bad, thanks.

Mark denied the involvement.

But as I detailed some of the information

that we had learned,

what he said was that,

"This is something I should do."

A week ago, prison officials

put Hofmann on restriction

for sending threatening messages

to the Board of Pardons,

and he remains under investigation.

It was his intent

to execute the Board of Pardon members

and George Throckmorton.

I told him, at that last visit,

the divorce papers had been filed.

And at that point, he banned me,

and I could not-- I couldn't--

I cannot visit him. I can't go.

So that was the last time.

I received a call, informing me that

they had found Mark unconscious.

When the medical staff arrived, uh,

they found him in a comatose condition.

Investigators did not find a suicide note.

Hofmann showed no signs of depression,

even though he was recently divorced.

Mark had been stashing sleeping pills

that he was getting from other inmates.

And when he went unconscious,

his arm got folded underneath him,

and it cut off the blood supply

to the point that he could never use it

to forge another document again.

Who in the hell didn't he forge?

I mean,

it went from George and Martha Washington,

to Abraham Lincoln,

to John Quincy Adams,

to Betsy Ross.

He had penned a poem by Emily Dickinson.

It was everybody.

The list was unbelievable.

And we have no idea

what the extent of Hofmann forgeries

are out there in our communities.

Um, just explain

that he was very good at what he did,

possibly the best ever.

Could I ask a favor?

Don't make me answer that.

Let somebody else do it.

I don't wanna make a hero out of him.

Because he was fantastic.

No one has come close to doing

what he has done.

The depth of knowledge and understanding,

and his autodidactic ability

is unprecedented.

His ability to deceive,

unparalleled.

I should've suspected.

We all should have suspected.

We didn't.

People don't want to know.

Walkin' out for love ♪

I'm walking out really down ♪

In the cool breeze ♪

I'm gonna be late again ♪

"Driver, wait for me please!" ♪

I'm running all in vain ♪

Trying to catch this train ♪

Time, don't fool me no more ♪

I throw my watch to the floor ♪

It's gone crazy ♪

Time, don't do it again ♪

Now I'm stressed and strained ♪

Anger and pain ♪

In the subway train ♪

Now it's half past two ♪

Long gone the rendezvous ♪

Now it's half past three ♪

Time made a fool out of me ♪

Now it's half past four ♪

Oh, baby, can't you see ♪

No use in waiting no more ♪

It's a timing tragedy ♪

I think it's nine ♪

When the clock says ten ♪

This girl won't wait ♪

For the out of time ♪

Out of time man ♪

Time, don't fool me no more ♪

I throw my watch to the floor ♪

It's gone crazy ♪

Time, don't do it again ♪

Now I'm stressed and strained ♪

Anger and pain ♪

In the subway train ♪

Now it's half past two ♪

Long gone the rendezvous ♪

Now it's half past three ♪

Time made a fool out of me ♪

Now it's half past four ♪

Oh, baby, can't you see ♪

No use in waiting no more ♪

It's a timing tragedy ♪

I think it's nine ♪

When the clock says ten ♪

This girl won't wait ♪

For the out of time ♪

Out of time man ♪

Now it's half past two ♪

Long gone the rendezvous ♪

Now it's half past three ♪

Time made a fool out of me ♪

Now it's half past four ♪

Oh, baby, can't you see ♪

No use in waiting no more ♪

It's a timing tragedy ♪

Now it's half past two ♪

Long gone the rendezvous ♪

Now it's half past three ♪

Time made a fool out of me ♪

Now it's half past four ♪

Oh, baby, can't you see ♪

No use in waiting no more ♪

It's a timing tragedy ♪

Now it's half past two ♪

Long gone the rendezvous ♪

Now it's half past three ♪

Time made a fool out of me ♪

Now it's half past four ♪

Oh, baby, can't you see ♪

No use in waiting no more ♪

It's a timing tragedy ♪

I think it's nine ♪

When the clock says ten ♪

This girl won't wait ♪

For the out of time ♪

Out of time man ♪