Mark Hofmann - Trial and Sentencing

Trial and Sentencing

During the bombing investigation, police discovered evidence of the forgeries in Hofmann's basement. They also found the engraving plant where he had had the forged plate for the Oath of a Freeman made. (Through inexperience, Hofmann had made two significant errors in his Oath, creating a version impossible to have been set in type.)

Document examiner George Throckmorton analyzed several Hofmann documents that had previously been deemed authentic and determined they were forgeries. Three letters purportedly written from an Illinois prison by Joseph Smith used different ink, paper, and writing instruments. (Because the letters had been authenticated by different experts, the inconsistencies had earlier escaped detection.) Throckmorton also discovered that some documents, supposedly written by different people, had similar writing styles and that they had been written with homemade iron gall ink that looked cracked like alligator skin under a microscope, although authentic period ink did not. Investigators also found that a poem used to authenticate the handwriting in the Salamander Letter had been forged by Hofmann and inserted in a Book of Common Prayer once owned by Martin Harris.

Hofmann was arrested for murder and forgery in February 1986. He initially maintained his innocence; but rather than risk the death penalty, in January 1987, he pled guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of theft by deception. He confessed his forgeries in open court, and in January 1988, he was sentenced to life in prison.

In 1988, before the Utah Board of Pardons, Hofmann said that he thought planting the bomb that killed Kathy Sheets was "almost a game… at the time I made the bomb, my thoughts were that it didn't matter if it was Mrs. Sheets, a child, a dog… whoever" was killed. Within the hour the parole board, impressed by Hofmann's "callous disregard for human life," decided that he would indeed serve his "natural life in prison."

After Hofmann was imprisoned, his wife filed for divorce. Hofmann attempted suicide in his cell by taking an overdose of antidepressants. He was revived but not before spending twelve hours lying on his right arm, blocking its circulation, and causing muscle atrophy. His forging hand was thereby permanently disabled.