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- [00:00]
A
Hey there, Scamfluencers fans want to be the first to know how these wild scams unfold. Join us on Patreon to get early access to episodes, ad free listening and exclusive content that reveals even more of the drama. Just search for Scamfluencers on Patreon and dive deeper into the scandal.
- [00:17]
B
A heads up to our listeners. This story includes a brief mention of suicide. Please listen with care. Sarah, have you been watching all the Mormons in our pop culture lately? Like, I'm sure you're watching Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, right?
- [00:38]
A
Well, of course, Salt Lake City. I mean, Jen Shaw. And yes, I definitely am very fascinated by this rise of Mormonism in pop culture.
- [00:48]
B
I am watching all of it and I think what I love the most is how they're always fighting while holding like a 90 ounce cup of soda.
- [00:56]
A
They drink so much soda in the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives because they have that thing swig that I'm like, are they just constantly, like burping and gassy and like, I think they're just vibrating. It's just. It must be crazy, right?
- [01:10]
B
Well, I asked because I'm about to tell you about another story that made headlines all over the world about the Mormon Church when one of its members made his crisis of faith everyone else's problem. On January 6, 1984, days before his 30th birthday, Steve Christensen is about to buy himself a big present. Steve lives in a suburb of Salt Lake City. He's got a broad frame and thick, dark brown hair that hangs over his forehead. He's a financial consultant, a father of three, and a Mormon bishop who collects documents and rare books related to the church. And today, he's about to buy one of the rarest, most important church documents in the world. The document is known as the Salamander Letter. It was supposedly written by an early member of the church, and it totally upends the church's origin story. According to Mormon doctrine, the angel Moroni led the prophet Joseph Smith to a box of golden plates engraved with a new book of the Bible, the Book of Mormon. But this letter tells a different story. It claims it wasn't an angel at all. It was a white salamander. Mormonism, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has long pushed to be recognized as a legitimate branch of Christianity. But practically since the church's founding, critics have accused Joseph Smith of practicing pagan folk magic. In Smith's time, salamanders were considered creatures with magical powers. So if he was guided by a salamander instead of an angel, it would be a huge revelation, one that would fuel critics and undercut the church's ties to mainstream Christianity. Sarah, can you read this quote from a Mormon history expert explaining the significance of this finding?
- [02:52]
A
Yes. The expert says it's as if someone came up with a document in which Moses said, I got the Ten Commandments from the ghost of Elvis Presley. You know, when you put it that way, it's kind of like God can do anything. Why not? You know? Yeah.
- [03:09]
B
The document almost strains belief, but Steve has good reason to think it's real. It was discovered by famed rare document collector Mark Hoffman. Mark has been a major figure in the Mormon history world over the last few years, ever since he discovered a seminal religious text written by the founder of the LDS Church. He's seen as a kind of Indiana Jones, but for Mormon stuff. Mark offered to sell the Salamander Letter to the church, but its contents are so explosive, the church doesn't want to be seen as having anything to do with it. That's where Steve comes in. Steve has done well for himself. He's almost a millionaire, and he deals in rare books and documents often. His personal library is nearly 13,000 volumes. So church officials asked if he would buy the Salamander letter and donate it to the church. This way, the church can own the document without officially acquiring it or appearing to endorse what it says. Steve agrees right away with one condition. Mark can't tell anyone about the letter's contents. Mark agrees, and Steve buys it for $40,000, or more than $125,000 today. But what Steve doesn't know is that Mark is less salamander and more snake. Because the letter is a fake, Mark forged it in his basement. And now Steve is caught up in Mark's elaborate forgery scheme. And as their business relationship deepens, he's about to get pulled into another con, a Ponzi scheme. When the truth about Mark starts to come out, it'll lead to betrayal, broken faith, and eventually deadly violence.
- [04:53]
A
Have you ever found a $20 bill in your jeans when you weren't expecting it?
- [04:58]
B
The best feeling. And honestly, that's what it felt like when I remembered that I had an old retirement account worth way more than I thought.
- [05:06]
A
Exactly. Most of us have random accounts floating around 401ks from old jobs, savings scattered in different banks, mutual, maybe even investments we forgot about.
- [05:16]
B
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- [05:22]
A
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- [05:41]
B
Use code scampodonarchmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with code SCAMPOD. Morning, Zoe. Got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you.
- [06:03]
A
Teach me. So, Dana.
- [06:04]
B
Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Wow, impressive. Let me try.
- [06:18]
A
T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
- [06:23]
B
Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them. T Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch? Dude, my work here is done. The 24 monthly bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers. Plus tax and $35 device connection charge, credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier. Canceled finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs 1,099 9.99 a new line minimum $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Ooklab speed test intelligence data 1H 2025 visit t mobile.com from Wondery I'm Sachi Cole.
- [06:58]
A
And I'm Sarah Haggie.
- [06:59]
B
And this is Scamflancers.
- [07:01]
A
Come and give me your attention. I won't ever learn my lesson. Turn my speakers to 11. I feel like a legend.
- [07:09]
B
Mark Hoffman was born into the Mormon Church and became a local celebrity in Utah for uncovering historical documents about the early days. He sold some of these potentially scandalous documents back to the church, framing it as a way to protect the faith from damaging revelations. On the surface, he appeared to be a Latter Day Saints success story, a devoted family man with close ties to church leadership. But underneath, Mark was something else entirely. A closet atheist with a knack for forgery, he faked dozens of documents that cast doubt on the very origins of Mormonism, raking in millions of dollars that funded his decidedly non Mormon double life of debauchery. And indulgence. But when his scheme starts to unravel, Mark will protect his lies in the most drastic and deadly way possible. This is Mark Hoffman, the Mormon murderer legend. By the time Mark is born in 1954, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is growing rapidly. And the church has been making a lot of changes in an effort to go more mainstream. Mark's parents are super devout and stellar examples of the new Mormonism. But by the late 60s, teenage Mark has a crisis of faith. He learns that his mother was a product of a polygamous marriage that took place after the church banned the practice. His grandfather got permission to take a second wife because his first wife couldn't have children. Some of Mark's relatives dispute how much of a secret this was inside the family, but young Mark sees it as a symbol of the church' hypocrisy. Mark confronts his father, who tells him he just needs to have faith in the church's teachings. But Mark has also been reading about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. And by the time he's 14, he identifies as an atheist, though nobody in his family knows.
- [09:00]
A
I figured that would be kind of something you can't talk about in a very religious family, Especially back then. Of course, no one would know he's an atheist, right?
- [09:10]
B
Yeah. I also feel like being a teenager and having an atheist phase is just part of it.
- [09:14]
A
Yes, big time.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah. And another thing that Mark gets into in his teen years is magic. Other hobbies include chemistry, electronics, and stamp and coin collecting. When he's around 15, he learns a skill called electroplating, which is basically using electric current to add fake markings to metal. With the right tools, things like alligator clips, a battery, and a container of acid, he can add markings that make ordinary coins look ra. Invaluable. Mark takes one of these forged coins to a dealer who says it's worth thousands of dollars if it's real. The dealer is skeptical. He doesn't believe a teenager could possibly have such an expensive item. But when the dealer asks the US treasury to authenticate it, they confirm the coin is genuine. Mark is elated and validated. Sarah, can you read what he says about this?
- [10:05]
A
Years later, he writes, my rationalization was that if the Treasury Department pronounces it genuine, that it is genuine by definition. I mean, yeah, sure. If you're lying to someone and they believe it, does that make the lie true? I don't really know.
- [10:21]
B
Yeah. Well, Mark has managed to create his own reality, and he's gotten others to believe in it. Or at least that's the story he tells about it. We don't know what's actually true, but it's clear that Mark gets a thrill out of this sort of manipulation. Later, in a letter to his sentencing board, Mark writes, as far back as I can remember, I have liked to impress people through my deception. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of doing magic and card tricks. Fooling people gave me a sense of power and superiority. Forging old coins is only the beginning. Soon, Mark won't just be tricking collectors, he'll be rewriting history itself. It's 1974 and Mark is walking the streets of Bristol, England, spreading the good news about the Book of Mormon. He's 19 years old and on an overseas mission, a traditional rite of passage for young Mormon men. Mark is still an atheist, but his family doesn't know that, and he doesn't want to disappoint them. So he's still going along with their expectations and those of his community. Mark's faith doesn't grow during his mission, but his interest in the history of the church does. It was common practice for missionaries to hunt for anti Mormon materials and remove them, sometimes replacing them with the Book of Mormon. But when Mark looks around libraries and rare bookstores in the UK, he's amazed by what he finds. Mormon missionaries arrived in Northern England shortly after the church was founded and left artifacts behind with information about its early history. Mark finds documents that contradict Mormon teachings, like a critical biography of Joseph Smith. He starts seeking out more documents that question the church's narratives and stashes them in a box under his bed. Mark returns from his mission in 1976. At this point, his family expects big things from him. They even dream that one day he could join the small elite circle of men who basically run the church's affairs. Mark enrolls at Utah State University as a pre med student. Shortly afterward, he meets a popular, stylish classmate named Judy. They quickly get serious, and less than a year later, Mark proposes. Once Judy accepts, Mark starts sharing his real feelings about the church with her. Judy later tells investigators that Mark confessed he was an atheist and said he wanted all Mormons to know that they are being misled, that there's no God. Mark is devastated when Judy says that she doesn't agree. She returns the ring, saying she knows the marriage wouldn't last. Mark continues to struggle with his lack of faith, and over easter weekend in 1979, he gets into an argument with his mom. He criticizes the church for burying historical documents that could be embarrassing. His mom disagrees. If there are documents that could shake someone's faith, she doesn't think they should be made public. In response, Mark writes an essay in the form of a letter to his mom. Can you read how he ends the essay?
- [13:19]
A
Yes. He writes, why should I be inquisitive and doubting at the university and not at church? The individual's conscience and the weight of authority or public opinion are thus pitted against each other so that the individual either denies them to himself at the expense of personal honesty or hides them from others and lives in two worlds. To me, what he's saying is that he's in university and he's taught to be thinking critically about the world. But then there's this other world of the church where you're expected to just accept what you're told. And I do understand that. And I think it is a very common crisis of faith for younger people or people who are kind of entering the real world when they grew up. Very religious.
- [14:03]
B
Yeah, it feels right on schedule. And Mark wrestles with admitting that he's an atheist, disappointing his parents, and effectively blowing up his life, or trying to live in two worlds. Just a few months later, he makes his choice. Mark marries a devout Mormon woman named Dora Lee Olds. Dora Lee, who goes by Do Dory, is a home economics student with dark blonde hair who just turned 22. Mark's parents love her. To them, she's the perfect wife for a man on track to become a leader in the church. And Mark has learned from his mistakes. He never tells Dori about his real beliefs. Dori quits school to pay their bills and have children, while Mark keeps studying. After all, he'll need a good job to support a big Mormon family. But secretly, Mark has another plan, and it's not becoming a doctor. Mark starts forging old Mormon money. He figures out the right ink recipes and learns how to oxidize and age the paper bills so they look authentic. It's the natural evolution of his teenage coin scam. About a year later, he's ready to pivot to a new fabricating documents. Mark's about to go all in on forgery and make good on his dream of shaking the faith of the church itself. It's late at night, and Mark is holed up in a room he keeps Dory locked out of. He's hard at work forging documents. It turns out that Mark's childhood love of chemistry was perfect preparation for his con. Mark mixes his own ink from old recipes he finds in the library and uses Heat and chemicals to speed up natural oxidation processes. He makes an old fashioned quill pen using a turkey feather and a razor blade. And he runs a vacuum cleaner over his documents, transferring the ink to the underside of the page, making it look like it's settled there over hundreds of years.
- [15:56]
A
I'm kind of tickled by this because I feel like in our stories there are so many episodes where we deal with people who are trying to make something look old, like a document look old. And they usually just literally do the tea bags and paper things.
- [16:11]
B
I was gonna say that you do.
- [16:12]
A
When you're a child.
- [16:13]
B
It's the same thing we were doing when we were making old maps.
- [16:16]
A
Yeah, this is a little bit more sophisticated. They're usually not thinking about the natural oxidation process.
- [16:21]
B
Yeah, new strategy for sure. A few months after his wedding, Mark makes his first major play by forging a document called the Anthon Transcript. It's a copy Joseph Smith supposedly made of the original hieroglyphics found in the Book of Mormon. According to church lore, the copy was shown to a Columbia Classics professor named Charles Anthon back in the 1820s. And it's been lost for over a century until now. We actually have a picture of the document Mark fabricated. Sarah, can you describe it?
- [16:50]
A
Yes. So this is a black and white, I guess, like photocopy or image of it. And it looks ancient for sure. The text, I don't know how to even describe it, but it looks like it's hieroglyphics. Yeah, it looks like Mormon hieroglyphs. If I saw this, I would think like someone going through something is writing secret messages from a paranoid delusion. Yeah, but if someone told me it was ancient, I'd be like, sure. I've never seen anything like this. And it looks old as hell.
- [17:21]
B
It's a believable forgery. And once the document is done, Mark uses a sticky black gum to place it inside the pages of an old King James Bible. Then he meets with a curator of rare documents at Utah State University. The curator offers him five grand, which tells Mark that this forgery is good enough to make him some real money. Mark takes his fake Anthon transcript to the Church's historical department so an in house handwriting expert can analyze it. Three days later, he receives good news. They've concluded that the document is real. Mark is brought to the office of the three highest leaders of the Church to tell them what he found. They understand the significance. These hieroglyphs are supposedly the actual markings on the gold plates Joseph Smith discovered. If they can be translated by modern scholars. It would prove the validity of the Mormon Church's origin story for good. Six days later, the Church makes a formal announcement that the Anthon transcript has been found. Overnight, Mark becomes a Mormon celebrity. Here he is in a TV interview talking about his big find.
- [18:26]
A
It appears to be the earliest Mormon document and the earliest Joseph Smith hologram. Also, I think it's exciting just to think that apparently this piece of paper was copied by Joseph Smith's own hand. I mean, this is all happening really fast. I would think it would take a lot longer and a lot more verification for this to become a news story in the center of their religious world, Like Utah is the center of Mormonism. And it was that easy. I'm a bit shocked by that. I feel like there's a level of almost like wishful thinking happening here where they're foregoing really looking into how valid this is and going about this very quickly and making announcements really quickly because they kind of want it to be true. Almost.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah. They're too excited to properly vet this. The church rewards him with a first edition copy of the Book of Mormon and several rare coins. Mark tells his parents he's abandoning medical school. He wants to make a career out of dealing in rare documents. Mark can hardly believe how quickly his life has changed. Or maybe he can. After all, the Anthon transcript is actually his handiwork. Mark found a way to fake old documents so believably, even actual professional historians can't tell. And because he made the audacious choice to forge one of the Church's most high profile documents, he's gained their trust. Now he can focus on his two favorite deceiving people and undermining the origin story of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Throughout the early 80s, Mark becomes a big name amongst Mormon history buffs. These are professionals and amateurs, believers and skeptics who meet up in local bookstores to discuss their shared interest in church history. They call themselves the Mormon Underground. Two of these enthusiasts are Gerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah historians in their early 50s who both come from prominent Mormon families. Sandra is literally descended from Brigham Young, but by this point, they both left the church. They now run a Mormon skeptical bookstore out of the foyer of their house in Salt Lake City. Gerald and Sandra have watched with amazement as Mark found document after document, including ones that actually undermine church doctrine. One even suggests that church leadership should have passed to Joseph Smith's son rather than the church's recognized successor, Brigham Young. Gerald and Sandra have no reason to question Mark's String of incredible discoveries. He claims to be the world's only full time collector of Mormon documents, which means he can spend long hours going through public records, perusing rare bookstores, and even going door to door in rural Utah to hunt down his finds. Sure, he's cagey about his sources, but that's not unusual in the world of rare documents. And Gerald, Sandra and the rest of the Mormon underground want to believe that all of his finds are real.
- [21:31]
A
I feel like this is such a common theme when someone has fake documents or created like a fake source of history changing information. Like we saw it with the guy in the Hitler diaries, where there are these people who should know better because they dedicate their lives to facts and figuring out what is real, what isn't. But they always shut their brains off when they want something to be real so badly. It's so interesting to see people shut themselves off just to think something's real, which is kind of what he hates about religion.
- [22:02]
B
Yeah, it's true. Mark is at his core, a huge hypocrite. And In November of 1983, Gerald and Sandra hear about the White Salamander Letter, the document we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, which claims that a white salamander led Joseph Smith to the Golden Plate. At first they're really excited. Earlier that year, they published a book supporting the long standing theory that Joseph Smith and his family were into folk magic and the occult. So the White Salamander Letter should be huge for them. But as Gerald digs into the letter, he can't shake the feeling that something is off. First he notices that the Salamander Letter is suspiciously similar to other early Mormon documents, and it doesn't really sound like the guy who supposedly wrote it. So he starts to wonder, what if? Mark has been forging documents to try to shape the narrative of Latter Day Saints history.
- [22:57]
A
I mean, yeah, you're onto something. He kind of is. I'm glad that someone is opening their eyes at least a little bit.
- [23:05]
B
Yeah. Huge relief. In August of 1984, Gerald publishes a pamphlet that questions the Salamander letter and all of Mark's finds. Sandra isn't totally convinced, but she wants to support her husband. So she joins him at a Mormon theological symposium where they distribute the pamphlet. And at least one of the other attendees is pretty unhappy to see Mark. The next day, Mark shows up at their house, Sandra's home. So she sits down with him and he's upset. Mark says he can't share the source of the Salamander Letter because he's already sold it to Steve and promised to keep it a secret. He tells Sandra he can understand doubt from the church, but not from critics like them. Sandra later says that Mark gets so worked up, he's almost in tears.
- [23:52]
A
I could see how this performance would work. Mark probably is genuinely emotional, just not for the reasons they think, because he really wants him to believe this, because, again, he's trying to undermine the church. But I think this is one of those things where, like, their instincts should take over what they see in front of them. I think if you do have doubts about something like this, it's worth exploring until the end, right?
- [24:19]
B
Yeah, I think so. Mark's frustration actually makes Sandra more convinced that the letter is real. But Gerald stands firm, and he does manage to draw some attention to his concerns. His pamphlet gets press coverage in the Los Angeles Times, as well as an influential Utah paper called the Desiree News. But people close ranks around Mark, defending the authenticity of his documents. A couple of months later, church elders warn that Mormons should stay away from doing historical research that could threaten people's faith, essentially validating the letter. And a couple of months after that, physical testing also seems to confirm that the letter is real. Gerald should be relieved, thrilled even. But he can't let go of his doubts. And soon enough, he'll be glad that they only got one visit from Mark Hoffman.
- [25:14]
A
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- [25:28]
B
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- [27:40]
A
I feel like a legend.
- [27:45]
B
In April 1985, the church publishes the Salamander Letter. They acknowledge that it seems authentic, but argue it could have been forged back in the 1830s to discredit the church. By this point, Mark has become one of the most important dealers of Mormon documents in the world. But he isn't just focused on church history. He's also fabricating secular items, including documents he claims were written by George Washington, Betsy Ross, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens. His work is so convincing that one of his fakes, a supposedly undiscovered poem by Emily Dickinson, actually gets published and analyzed by literary scholars. Mark makes frequent trips to New York to sell his pieces and acquire more rare books and documents. But he's also living a double life in the Big Apple. At home in Utah, Mark appears to be an observant Mormon who doesn't drink alcohol or coffee. But when he's on the road, he pounds glass after glass of whiskey to a lot of outsiders, and this is pretty tame stuff. But for a Mormon, it's downright scandalous. And while Mark is off drinking and dealing, he expects Dory to manage their home and take Care of their three small children. At this point, Mark is pulling in six figures by forging documents. At least that's what he says later. But he's also found another way to make money. Mark knows plenty of collectors willing to pay a premium for rare documents. But it's expensive to buy these documents in the first place. So Mark starts recruiting investors. He tells them that if they pony up some cash, he can acquire documents, flip them, and cut them in on the profits. In some cases, he promises investors special perks like first dibs and other rare documents he finds. But in reality, it's a classic Ponzi scheme. He uses their money to pay other investors and then spends whatever's left over.
- [29:40]
A
You know, it is pretty innovative to add a Ponzi scheme when you already have, like, a whole forgery operation. I don't know. It really is adding a pretty crazy layer to all this.
- [29:52]
B
Yeah, sounds about right for our show. Well, Mark blows hundreds of thousands of dollars on trips to the east coast and fancy toys like a home video camera and a hot tub. And when it's time to buy a new car, Dory wants to get a minivan to accommodate their growing family. But Mark wants a flashy sports car. So he buys both. And he promises Dory that they'll move into a huge half a million dollar house with a swimming pool, tennis court, and a guest house in a ritzy Salt Lake City suburb. But his big ticket items are rare books, real ones. He pays more than six grand for a first edition of the Lord of the Rings, which is about $19,000 today. He also builds an impressive collection of rare children's books for his kids. Mark's spending is totally out of control. So it's no surprise that by the spring of 1985, he's running out of cash. When Dori asks for money to buy groceries, he says no and tells her to dig into the emergency food supplies in the basement. Mark is in a tough situation, but he has a solution. A forgery so valuable it can make all his financial problems go away. By this point, Mark is more than a million dollars in debt. Desperate for cash, Mark decides to forge something even more ancient than the founding of Mormonism. He goes all the way back to 1639, when the very first printing press in the British colonies was established in the Massachusetts Bay colony. The first document produced there was called the Oath of a Freeman. It's a landmark text about religious and political freedom, and it's probably the most famous missing document in US colonial history. Only about 50 copies were ever printed and none have been found. Until now. Mark claims he found it in a rare bookstore in New York and bought it for just 25 bucks. To get away with something this brazen, Mark has to invest in new tools. He orders special printing plates from a local printing shop. And it pays off because Mark hooks a huge buyer, the Library of Congress. But the Library of Congress balks at Mark's asking price of $1.5 million, and the deal stalls.
- [32:07]
A
It is totally batshit that now the Library of Congress is involved in this somehow. Even if the deal does stall, that it got to that level is just, ugh, God, this guy.
- [32:21]
B
Stressful, isn't it? Well, luckily, the oath of a freeman isn't his only forgery. Hail Mary. He tells church leaders he's come across a trove of documents from William McClellan. McClellan was an early follower of Joseph Smith who eventually broke with the church. When he left, he took tons of secret documents with him. This cache of anti Mormon goods is known as the McClellan Collection, and it would be Mark's most dangerous find yet. Mark says the collection includes a letter from Joseph Smith's wife that contradicts Joseph's account of being visited by God three years before an angel revealed the golden plates. If the letter exists, it would massively complicate the church's origin story. The church naturally wants to see these documents and control what happens to them. Mark is betting they'll snap up the McClellan collection to avoid a wave of negative publicity. It turns out he's right. Steve even steps in to help make it happen. In June 1985, at Steve's urging, A church elder helps Mark get a Bank loan of $185,000 to acquire the collection, and the church agrees to buy it from him for the same amount. But Mark is double dipping. He's already gotten another dealer to give him $150,000 to buy the collection. But months pass and Mark can't come up with the goods. His ambition got the better of him. Even someone as skilled as he is can't produce this many authentic looking documents this quickly.
- [33:50]
A
It seems like he's really letting go here. He's spending a lot of money. He's over promising and spiraling in this way because there was a time where he was making sure they seemed really authentic to me. It just like shows how delusional he is that he just can't keep up with his own grandeur.
- [34:08]
B
In a way, yeah, he's getting sloppy and he's starting to panic. His creditors want Their money. And the world of Mormon document collectors is small and tight knit. So he knows it's only a matter of time before the wrong people talk to each other and find out that he's been conning them. Finally, in early October 1985, six months after announcing that he'd found the McClellan collection, Mark's finances catch up with him. The check to pay up on his church backed loan bounces. Steve keeps pressing Mark to show him the collection so the church can close the deal. And he warns Mark that if he doesn't deliver the documents, he could face criminal charges for defrauding the church. Steve sets a deadline. On October 15, 1985, Mark has to finally hand over the McClellan collection. Mark freaks out. If he shows up empty handed, his reputation, his business and his standing in the community will be ruined. So Mark takes a drastic step to buy himself more time. One which will cause tragedy for everyone involved. It's the night before Mark is supposed to hand over the McClellan documents. But Mark isn't creating last minute forgeries. Instead he's working on a pair of pipe bombs. He built them with parts he picked up at Radio Shack. He's already built a Test bomb, driving 20 minutes outside of the city to detonate it, so he knows they will work. After assembling the bombs, Mark put them in packages addressed to Steve and Steve's business partner Gary Sheets. Then a little before three in the morning, he drives to Gary's house and puts one of the bombs outside of his garage. When he gets home, his daughter is crying. Dory finds him and asks him to take care of her so she can go back to bed. A few hours later, he heads to downtown Salt Lake City where he places the other bomb outside of Steve's office. Mark has two to stop Steve from discovering his scam and exposing his forgeries and to throw police off of his trail. He hopes it'll look like someone is targeting the financial company that Steve and Gary run which has been struggling. Mark is willing to kill innocent people to cover up his fraud. But he settled on using bombs because this way he doesn't have to come face to face with any of his victims.
- [36:29]
A
I didn't see this going from forgeries being potentially exposed to the only solution being like I just have to bomb. It is such a jump and I can't really get a proper grasp on his mind like how it works and what he thinks is normal.
- [36:51]
B
It's a wild, wild leap. At 8am Steve arrives at the office and picks up the package. Detonating. The bomb. He is killed instantly. Nearly two hours later, Gary's wife Kathy picks up the package addressed to her husband. Husband. It explodes, killing her in the driveway. This is a huge local news story, and Mark assumes that with Steve gone, the church will delay any discussion of the McClellan papers. But he's done too good a job of throwing people off of his scent. Since the church doesn't see Steve's death as related to the documents, they simply find another Mormon leader to handle the deal and reschedule a McClellan handoff for the following day. Mark is back where he started before committing murder, and now he'll have to come up with the goods or face the music. So he comes up with a frantic new plan, which is about to blow up in his own face. The day after the bombings, Mark's wife Dorrie is shocked, sad, and afraid. She's worried the killer is still at large. There have been more bomb threats called in, and Salt Lake City is full of frightening rumors about religious death squads and mafia assassins. Some people have even fled the city. Then Mark calls and tells Dorie that she and the kids are in danger. They need to go to her mom's house. Later, she gets another call. A third bomb went off. This one was in Mark's car, and he's severely injured. Horrified, Dori rushes to the hospital. And Mark is lying on a hospital bed wearing a gown, and his face is covered in glass. He's getting X rays and a CAT scan, and he's lost some hearing in one ear. Dory can't believe what's happening. Why would anyone want to hurt her husband? Then the situation goes from scary to strange. A police officer approaches her and asks for a key to their house and the alarm codes. They have a warrant to search the home because Mark is now a suspect in the murders. Dori's mind is racing. She doesn't understand how that could be possible. The officers ask her if Mark was home the night before the first two bombs went off, and she says yes. She remembers finding Mark in the middle of the night and asking him to tend to their daughter. And he was home when the bombs went off later that night. She sits in the hospital and watches on the news as the cops search her house. She cringes as she realizes that she didn't even finish cleaning and she forgot to close the dishwasher. Somehow things get worse when Mark's parents show up at the hospital. They tell Dori that the bombing is somehow her fault. Then Mark's dad says that if Mark is guilty, he has to confess and agree to be executed according to an ancient Mormon doctrine. Some crimes are so awful that the blood of the guilty party must be spilled for them to join their families in Mormon heaven. The modern day church has disavowed the doctrine known as blood atonement. But Mark's dad believes in it. Dori's world is turning completely upside down.
- [40:00]
A
It's really telling of where his mind is that, like he remains in the church that he actively undermines, secretly does all these things that are against the church to make money, but also is so scared of the consequences of people figuring him out that he's willing to kill at that point. Leave. Like, I just feel like it's such a weird jump.
- [40:23]
B
Yeah, he really is acting as if he's trapped, but he could have left. And now Mark swears he isn't guilty, but the police investigation sure seems to point to him. Dory learns that a witness saw someone at Steve's office building the morning of the bombing carrying a package with Steve's name on it and wearing a green high school letterman jacket. When the police search Dory and Mark's house, they find a similar jacket and they find bomb making materials in Mark's car. When Mark gets out of the hospital, Dorie is happy to have him home, but she can't shake the feeling that something is off. When they watch the evening news, Mark doesn't seem horrified by the media naming him as a suspect in the bombings. Instead, he seems excited to see his face on tv.
- [41:07]
A
You know, I feel like I started out kind of understanding Mark's initial feeling, but seeing how far this has gone where, like, he's a suspect here and there's no real reaction, like there's no indication here that he feels like he's gotten too far to me is so scary.
- [41:27]
B
Yeah, it's all really uncomfortable to think about. Dory understands that the evidence is circumstantial and the cops don't have enough to make an arrest. They also don't have a motive, and Mark passed a lie detective test. But when a new investigator comes on the case, Dory and the world are about to learn about Mark's forgeries and how far he's willing to go to cover them up. It's a few weeks after the bombings, and George Throckmorton is sitting in a recliner in his Salt Lake City living room, poring over a copy of the Salamander Letter. George is in his early 40s, tall and thin, with close cropped gray hair and a Mustache. He's a forensic document examiner with the Utah Attorney General's office. He's not officially working on Mark's case, but like everyone in Utah, he's been following the story closely, especially since everyone involved was buying and selling rare documents. The police investigation into Mark seems to have stalled. The cops can't figure out the motive, But George is pretty sure he knows what happened. He's also Mormon, and he recently asked a church historian to let him review some of the historical artifacts they got from Mark. After spending a few hours with the material, he's even more convinced about his theory. Mark sent the bombs to cover up the fact that he was forging documents. Most of the Mormon document collecting world believed the east coast experts who were reported that Mark's finds were genuine. But George is shocked to learn that these quote unquote experts don't actually have a background in forensic science. They're historians, and he doesn't trust their conclusions.
- [43:07]
A
I think this is the part of the story where someone using real logic enters and is like, wait a second, you're foregoing this very crucial step, like you need a background in forensic science to do forensic work.
- [43:21]
B
Yeah, when someone with a level head shows up, that's usually not great for any of our scammers. Well, George calls the district attorney, who invites him to formally join the investigation. He and his partner begin examining Mark's papers, and they notice something. All of the documents he sold have ink that appears cracked. Other documents from that time period don't. George isn't a chemist, so he can't explain why this is happening. And it isn't necessarily evidence of forgery. But he knows that this can't just be a coincidence. In February of 1986, Mark is finally arrested for the bombings on the strength of other evidence. But the cops still need a motive. So as the investigators build their case, George approaches the task of exposing Mark's forgeries with the same level of technical obsession Mark used to produce them. When they went through Mark's belongings, the police found a book called Great Forgers and Famous Fakes. The book contained a recipe for iron gallatinic ink, the kind that would have been used in 18th and 19th century documents. But the chemicals mentioned in the recipe were pretty obscure things like gum arabic, Roman vitriol, and green Copperas. Then in November 1986, about a year after the bombing, George gets lucky. While Christmas shopping, he notices a toy chemistry set complete with instructions and all of the ingredients needed to make this old fashioned ink. Later on, he found out that Mark Got these same chemicals at a toy store. And amazingly, this homemade ink was good enough to fool even the FBI's lab.
- [44:59]
A
Wow, that is such a stroke of luck to just be able to see that, like to put that together when buying Christmas gifts for your kids.
- [45:08]
B
It's pretty impressive. You gotta give it to them. Well, George and his team use the ink recipe and lo and behold, it cracks. After solving the mystery of the cracked ink, George identifies one more smoking gun. Mark got lazy and didn't make his own plates to print the oath of a Freeman. Instead he had them made at a print shop under an alias, which later gets linked back to him. George ultimately concludes that Mark forged about a quarter of the documents he sold and possibly even more. Up until now, Mark has maintained his innocence. But with the results of George's investigation, he and his lawyers are in a tough spot. So on January 23, 1987, Mark walks up to a federal courtroom in Salt Lake City wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit and his 80s style glasses. When a reporter asks how he's feeling, Mark says, obviously I feel sorry for what happened. Obviously I feel worse for my, my family. But I think we'll all live through it all right. Inside, more than 20 members of the victim's families gather around the jury box. Mark had agreed to take a plea bargain, admitting to two counts of second degree murder and two counts of theft by deception. The prosecution dropped 26 other felony charges. Mark chooses not to make any comments at the hearing. He was supposed to get a chance to say goodbye to it, his family. But at the last minute, he requests not to face them and asks to be taken directly into custody. His lawyer hands letters of apology to the victims families. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Mark agrees to tell prosecutors how and why he killed Steve and Kathy. But for someone like Mark, a confession might just be one more chance to do what he does best. Manipulate everyone around him.
- [46:59]
A
Cooler days call for layers. And quints is my go to for quality essentials that feel cozy, look refined, and won't blow your budget.
- [47:07]
B
Sarah, as you know, so much of my wardrobe is quints. I have a lot of people who stop me on the street because I look so good in all of my Quinn stuff. I have all these dresses from there that I'm so excited to wear for fall that I had, I think like two years ago and they are still in my closet and I still look good in them. Would you believe it?
- [47:25]
A
I would. Because you are beautiful. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall. Think 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50 premium denim that fits like a dream and luxe outerwear you'll wear year after year. These are the pieces that'll turn into your fall uniform.
- [47:43]
B
By partnering directly with ethical top tier factories and cutting out the middlemen, Quince is able to deliver luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands. It's the kind of wardrobe upgrade that feels smart and stylish and effortless.
- [47:55]
A
Find your fall staples at quints. Go to quints.com scampod for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com scampod to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [48:13]
B
With multi View from Xfinity, you can watch up to four football games at once, which can lead to some tough choices. French toast nibblers or breakfast nachos.
- [48:21]
A
Actually, I was thinking about heading out only because I want to beat the traffic.
- [48:24]
B
The best part of the sleepovers. Next day I was going to throw the games on Bobby Big Wheels. I mean, how can you call yourself a sports fan without Xfinity? We got the multi View best college.
- [48:32]
A
And pro games all in one place. I'm not going anywhere.
- [48:36]
B
This is how football was meant to be watched. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Multiview requires Xfinity 4k capable TV box.
- [48:47]
A
I feel like I.
- [48:52]
B
Mark spends the spring of 1987 in Utah State Prison, and while he's there, he sits down for a series of interviews with prosecutors as a part of his plea deal. These conversations cover a ton of ground, from his early coin forgeries as a teenager to losing his faith to his thought process plotting the murders. Mark tells prosecutors that he intentionally blew himself up with the car bomb in a failed suicide attempt. He says he put some of the fake McClellan papers in the car so people would think that the collection had been destroyed along with him, even though it never existed in the first place. But even now, Mark is still lying. Later, investigators say that he was trying to deliver the bomb in his car to a third victim, another Mormon document collector, but he accidentally set it off instead.
- [49:42]
A
That's such a desperate lie to pretend you were trying to commit suicide and instead destroyed all your documents. He knows that this stuff can be recovered in some form. Like, you know, it just doesn't make any sense.
- [49:55]
B
No, it's just a really bad plan. About a year later, in January 1988, Mark is set to have his state mandated sentencing hearing before the Board of Pardons. So he writes down his explanations and reasonings. In a letter, he claims he committed murder to protect his family because he was desperate to keep his lies from coming out and negatively impacting them. But while he's trying to appear sympathetic, Mark's letter does not help his case, because in it, he also describes the pleasure he takes in fooling people and the sense of power it gives him. The parole board upholds Mark's sentence of life behind bars and outside the prison walls. The most intimate victim of his betrayals is left to pick up the pieces. Dory has a hard time after the bombings. She gave birth to her fourth child with Mark before he was sentenced. And people in their community take Mark's crimes out on her. She loses friends, and her kids are bullied at school. One of her local church leaders won't even shake her hand. At first, Dori believed Mark was innocent and stood by her husband. She held hands with him in court, visited him in in prison, and brought the kids to see their dad. But before long, she accepts the truth. In August 1988, a few months after the parole hearing, she files for divorce. After that, she struggles to raise four children on her own. Mark left her with a million dollars of debt. She loses her house, and eventually, things get so difficult, she sends her kids to live with relatives.
- [51:28]
A
That is so sad. And that he never set it up that she wouldn't be in debt is also, just, like, so telling of how evil and careless he is.
- [51:38]
B
Yeah, this is like, some of the worst of what Mark has done. And Dory doesn't speak to Mark after the divorce is finalized, which means she's left to follow the news like everyone else. She reads that he tried to kill himself through drug overdoses in 1988 and 1990. Mark also sends letters from prison threatening to kill George and members of the Board of Pardons and Parole. Over the years, Dori pulls herself back together. She spends decades processing what her husband did and learns to stick up for herself. In the process, she gets help from a surprising source. In 2000, 15 years after the bombings, her son is planning to go on his own overseas Mormon mission. Dory struggles to cover the costs. But when Steve's father, who owns a clothing store, hears about her money problems, he provides Dory's son with free suits. Meanwhile, more and more information comes out about Mark's crimes. His fake Emily Dickinson poem isn't discovered until 12 years after the bombings. Hundreds of his fakes are still out there, and experts say that some may never be detected. In 2009, a collector finds a real McClellan notebook. It contains criticism of the church, but nothing as earth shattering as what Mark mark promised. In 2021, 36 years after the bombings, Dory is finally ready to talk about her ex husband. She's in her 60s and her blonde hair is streaked with gray. And she's sitting down for an interview for a Netflix documentary called Murder among the Mormons. As Dory speaks to the filmmakers, you can see that she's a different person than the compliant young wife that she was in the 1980s. Back then, she didn't know what her husband was up to in the locked room he forbade her from entering. Now Dori is outspoken and clear eyed. She works as a life coach and hypnotherapist, helping other women work through their trauma. Like many in the Mormon community, Dorie is learning to forgive. But she'll never forget. Sarah, I know you're a woman of God. You must have a lot of thoughts about all of this.
- [53:47]
A
I do. You know, I think it's really interesting how this started with a crisis of faith that's like really, I think, relatable for anyone who has grown up religious. It's very common and understandable. I feel like I just can't let go of how far it went. Just because he didn't believe in Mormonism, Right? Yeah. Like how close he stayed to the church itself. It's so confusing.
- [54:13]
B
I feel like Mark's story is quintessentially about somebody's terror at stepping out. Cause like, okay, so he says that he's figured it out. Mormonism is a lie. Whatever. Fine. Instead of just leaving and accepting the risk, you know, accepting that you're gonna have conflict with your family and with your community, it's not gonna be the same. You're gonna be sort of viewed as a disappointment. Instead, his plan was to make everybody who loved him and who he loved feel stupid by tricking them into thinking that he had stuff that wasn't real. Him being able to like, laugh behind their backs, like all the way into brutal violence, like the worst possible decision you could make. It's such a story of cowardice. Like, he's so weak.
- [54:59]
A
Yeah. And also so sinister to believe that he is so above all of these people in every way and that they're all idiots and he's the only. Religious trauma aside, he behaved in such an evil and manipulative way. It also had nothing to do with changing or holding the Mormon faith or the institution of it accountable for anything real. It was More just his angst directed towards how he grew up. It's not like he was like, oh, better rights, better, this better. Like, it had nothing to do with improving anyone's life, but for him to take advantage of. Of people he found too stupid.
- [55:38]
B
Yeah, he just wanted to make everybody feel stupid for his own gain. It's also interesting to think about just how angry he continued to be. Like writing letters to the parole board, threatening them, leaving his wife in so much debt, you know, not being present for their kids. Presumably he did a lot of awful, awful, awful stuff. But that is, like, high on my list. That poor woman.
- [56:04]
A
You know, I think in a lot of situations you're really, you know, did the spouse know? Did this person know? But I feel like she probably was raised to kind of honor and believe her husband above anything else. Right. So it's not like it would have been really easy for her to question anything.
- [56:22]
B
I think that's also true of, like, how the church responded to all of this. Like, the scam got this far because there were people in power who really wanted to keep this. You know, like Steve and the Mormon Church wanted to protect the legacy of the church. And then the people who verified the documents, they wanted the documents to be true. Everybody had a vested interest in maintaining these lies.
- [56:43]
A
Yeah. And everyone had their own motive as well, where it was like more about what was, again, good for them rather than all these people who were influenced by them.
- [56:53]
B
You know what, Sarah? Here's what I'm gonna say. I think a lot of children of immigrants, a lot of children of people of color, children in families in non dominant religions, let's say. I think we learned how to have a double life, to go to temple with our families and still be able to, like, do whatever we want, you know, oh my God, on a Saturday night. And if this guy could have just fucking figured that out, his life would be different.
- [57:18]
A
That is so funny.
- [57:20]
B
But you know what I did? I took my makeup to school and I put it on at school and I took it off before we went to temple that night to do pooja. Cause I understood that I needed to live like that. And that was his issue.
- [57:31]
A
Thank you so much for saying that.
- [57:33]
B
You're welcome.
- [57:34]
A
Because yes, everyone figures it out, whether they continue figuring it out or they kind of just have a teenage phase.
- [57:41]
B
Whatever it is, just have a double life. Grow up.
- [57:44]
A
Everyone knows how to be like, listen, mom and dad don't understand. I'm just gonna test the waters here, and you gotta get creative. And I don't mean that kind of creative.
- [57:52]
B
No, no, no, no. This is the problem. Listen. If you are listening to this and you are having conflict with your family about about something very fundamental and you don't know how to create a comfortable double life, just find the nearest brown girl and she'll help you. It's like not that hard. We've been doing it for a really long time.
- [58:10]
A
I mean, what else can I even say? That is really the exact point? Yeah.
- [58:19]
B
Loving Scamfluencers get exclusive episodes and early access to new ones. All ad free on Wondry Plus. Join now in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, help us out by taking a quick survey@wondry.com survey this is Mark Hoffman, the Mormon Murderer. I'm Sachi Cole.
- [58:39]
A
And I'm Sarah Haggie. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us@scamfluencerswondery.com we use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were the Netflix documentary Murder among the Mormons, interviews with Dory George and Mark's cousins on the Gospel Tangents podcast, and the books the Mormon A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death by Steven Nyfay and Gregory White Smith and Robert Lindsay's A Gathering of Saints.
- [59:11]
B
Susie Armitage wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagie. Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact checking by Kalina Newman. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Plews. Janine Cornello and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our producer is Julie McGruder. Our senior producers are Sarah Enny and Ginny Blume. Our executive producer is are Jenny Lauer, Beckman, Marshall Louie and Aaron O. Flaherty for wondering.
- [59:56]
A
On Boxing Day 2018, 20 year old Joy Morgan was last seen at her church, Israel United in Christ or iuic. I just went on my Snapchat and.
- [60:06]
B
I just see her face.
- [60:08]
A
Plus Trusted everywhere. This is the missing sister, the true story of a woman betrayed by those she trusted most.
- [60:16]
B
IUIC is my family and like the best family that I've ever had.
- [60:20]
A
But IUIC isn't like most churches.
- [60:23]
B
This is a devilish cult.
- [60:25]
A
You know when you get that feeling.
- [60:26]
B
Where you just I don't want to be here. I want to get out.
- [60:29]
A
It's like that feeling of like, I.
- [60:31]
B
Want to go home now.
- [60:33]
A
I'm Charlie Brent Coast Cuff, and after years of investigating Joy's case, I need to know what really happened to Joy. Binge all episodes of the Missing Sister, exclusively and ad free right now on Wondery. Start your free trial of Wondery on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or in the Wondery app.