“Murder among Mormons” unfolds, most of the time, as a direct police crime.
A day later, a bomb exploded in a car parked in downtown Salt Lake City, seriously injuring document dealer Mark Hofmann and triggering an investigation that lasted more than a year.
But the three-part series, which starts airing on Wednesday, March 3, on Netflix, is not just another true crime tale – because the story is so intertwined with Utah culture and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It is a story that took place in a relatively small city, in which a human being was able to use culture to perpetrate his crimes,” said filmmaker Tyler Measom.
Decades later, the bombings and their backstory still hang over Salt Lake City and the LDS Church as a black legend.
“I think this story, even now, still makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” said filmmaker Jared Hess. “And it’s because they don’t really know what happened. They assume that some bad things have happened, possibly with regard to their faith, but they really don’t know. “
Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite”) partnered with Measom (“An Honest Liar”) as executive directors / producers of the documentary, which they built as a mystery – although it was solved in 1987 and a quick search on Google or the O archives Salt Lake Tribune will tell you the details. (Warning: old “spoilers” ahead.)
But they are convinced that most people, even in Utah, do not know what really happened.
“I am frankly shocked at how few people, even in this state, know,” said Measom, who estimated that 10% of the people he told about the documentary while working on it knew the story. “So I think that when it comes out, there will be a surprised Utah.”
“It’s kind of lived in this strange semi-mythological space,” said Hess. “… And it was such an isolated and regional story. She went through the news cycle nationally and then it kind of came and went. ”
The narrative strives to “keep as many secrets as we can, while we can,” said Measom. “We try to tell the story the way it was revealed to the people who lived it.”
“And then, when the bombs went off – it really put the viewer in a position of how these people were experiencing it in 1985,” added Hess.
(Tribune photo) Mark W. Hofmann, left, and LDS Church leaders N. Eldon Tanner, Spencer W. Kimball, Marion G. Romney, Boyd K. Packer and Gordon B. Hinckley examine Anthon’s transcript in April 22, 1980.
Explaining the salamander
One of the biggest challenges of “Murder among Mormons” is that most Netflix viewers are not Latter-day Saints and do not know much about the church or culture that surrounds them – which is an integral part of the mystery of the historical documents tied up bombings.
“The feedback we received from people” who watched the first cuts of the documentary “was: ‘I don’t know anything about Mormonism. I need more, ‘”said Hess.
The filmmakers had to “kind of educate viewers about the fundamental principles of faith and the origin stories of Mormonism – enough to understand that when the Salamander Charter came to light, how it is really told a completely different story. “
The letter was intended to reveal that a magic salamander guided church founder Joseph Smith to the gold plates that faithful church members believe were translated into the Book of Mormon.
It is a striking contrast to the orthodox account of the faith, which says that the angel Moroni appeared to Smith and took him to the gold plates.
For many viewers, inside and outside the church, the history of the salamander will be difficult to understand. To give viewers context, the documentary includes excerpts from old church films – incredibly extravagant by 2021 standards – on the official version of Smith’s First Vision.
Hess and Measom wanted to “make sure that we were communicating enough information to [viewers] I was able to understand the disturbance that the Salamander Charter caused in the community, ”said Hess.
“You go from familiar terms like God and angels to folk magic and salamanders,” he said. “I think for faithful Christians, it’s a big leap.”
Hofmann said he found the Salamander Charter and then sold it to Christensen, a faithful Latter-day Saint who planned to donate it to the church.
Exploring faith, motives and deception
Measom and Hess, who live in Utah, recognize that anything that concerns the LDS Church will be delicate. And “Murder among Mormons” is not just about church members, but also about high-ranking leaders.
Gordon B. Hinckley – who was the second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church at the time and became president of the Church in 1995 – unknowingly bought forged historical documents from Hofmann before the attacks.
Those who defend and those who question the church’s motives are given a voice; there was a perception that the church was buying controversial documents to hide them.
“I think there will be some preconceived notions about this documentary,” said Measom. “That it is an attack or defamation on the church, or that it is a sheet of paper for the church. And Jared and I followed that line very carefully. “
(Hess is a member of the LDS Church; Measom was raised as a member, but left the church years ago.)
“I think the church has made it its duty over the years to collect and own its history, no matter what it is,” said Hess. “And, as we talk to the people directly involved, they want to take the material and research it to find out the context before presenting it to the public.
“But from a different perspective, it looks like, ‘Oh, wow, you’re buying things so you can bury that controversial past. There are definitely two sides, and we touch both. “
But Hess, at least, is not believing obscure motives on the part of church leaders. And with the documents at the center of this story later exposed as forgeries, he is not swayed by questions about how LDS Church leaders like Hinckley, who faithful church members believe to be “prophets, seers and revelators”, could have been misled.
“The church is completely avenged” for any connection to any crime, he points out.
“I think when people are in these high stress situations, when they try to get their bearings about what’s going on, it’s like people make mistakes,” said Hess. “But at the end of the day, we are all human. We are all vulnerable to deception. “
Photo from the Tribune archive, Mark Hofmann, being pushed in the wheelchair by his father.
A complicated story in just three hours
The two Utah filmmakers presented “Murder Between the Mormons” to Netflix as a six-hour documentary, but were “forced to make some choices” when Netflix wanted it to be done in three hours. In the end, that focus “really helped the storytelling,” said Hess.
“Murder among Mormons” details how investigators fought adversity and “experts”, who proved wrong, to bring Hofmann to justice.
He did not go to prison right after the attacks – it took more than a year. There were several roadblocks and, in fact, he almost got away with it.
“The amount of archival material we had after four years of intensive research was staggering,” said Measom.
There are some scary crime scene photos showing the bodies of Christensen and Sheets, who came from the files of the late Ken Farnsworth, one of the Salt Lake City detectives who investigated the case and kept more than two dozen boxes of supplies.
“He kept everything, every piece of paper,” said Measom. “Every message he had, every note, every letter he wrote, every phone call. And he had some pictures that were never seen. Many of them are horrible and we chose not to include them. “
(Photo courtesy of Netflix) Mark Hofmann’s car after a bomb went off.
‘It happened on the same street’
The idea for the documentary came up five years ago, when Doug Fabrizio – host of KUER’s “Radio West” – gave Measom a book on the crimes and suggested that he make a film. Measom read and jumped.
Hess heard about Measom’s plans; the two had lunch; and they decided to come together. “The stars kind of lined up for that,” said Measom.
Hess said he was always interested in history because he is “a huge fan of Mormon history. And that story was so complex and fascinating on many levels. And tragic. “
And that story still reverberates in Utah, he said. “It really shocks him,” said Hess. “Like, ‘Wow, that happened on the same street’. You don’t have to look long before you find someone who has a story directly connected to what happened.
“… The other day, I met the LDS stake president in my neighborhood. And it turned out that he was the boy in Holladay who delivered the newspaper to the Sheets family the morning the bomb was placed. “
It is also a story that many people have tried to tell before, Measom said. The debris from the bombs “had not yet been removed when Hollywood was seething, trying to do this project,” said Meason.
“I have a folder with literally dozens and dozens of companies that tried to make this story, both narrative and documentary, from the 80’s to the 90’s until now.”
When Hess and Measom started working on their documentary, they didn’t expect it to resonate as it did in 2021.
“There are many themes in the story that I think are relevant to today’s zeitgeist,” said Hess with a laugh, “just as it relates to disinformation. And again, I think anyone is vulnerable to deception. “