Early Life
Hofmann was reared in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) by two devoutly religious parents. Hofmann was a below-average high school student, but he had many hobbies including magic, electronics, chemistry, and stamp and coin collecting. He and his friends were said to have made bombs for fun on the outskirts of Murray, Utah. According to Hofmann, while still a teenage coin collector, he forged a rare mint mark on a dime and was told by an organization of coin collectors that it was genuine.
Like many young men in the LDS church, Hofmann volunteered to spend two years as an LDS missionary, and in 1973 the Church sent him to the England Southwest Mission, where he was based in Bristol. Hofmann told his parents that he had baptized several converts; he did not tell them that he had also perused Fawn Brodie's biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History. While in England Hofmann also enjoyed investigating bookshops and buying early Mormon material as well as books critiquing Mormonism. Hofmann later told prosecutors that he had lost his faith in the LDS Church when he was about fourteen, and a former girlfriend believed he performed his mission only because of social pressure and the desire not to disappoint his parents.
After Hofmann returned from his mission, he enrolled as a pre-med major at Utah State University. In 1979, he married Doralee Olds, and the couple eventually had four children. Dorie Olds Hofmann filed for divorce in 1987 and became co-founder of a holistic healing company.
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