01x01 - Episode One

[bunniefuu]

Can I ask a favor?

Don't make me answer that.

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.

Officer?

-One male fatality.

The calm of Salt Lake City, Utah,

was rocked today by two booby-trap bombs

that left two people dead.

a morning of fear and death.

The first expl*si*n ripped through

a downtown office building, k*lling a man.

The second expl*si*n outside

a Holladay home claimed another life.

There was dark talk involving religious

documents, hired professional K*llers.

A Watergate-style cover-up,

and one of the wealthiest,

if not most wealthy,

church in America involved,

the Mormon Church.

There is a common thread

that seems to connect all the victims.

A mysterious Salamander letter.

The Salamander letter challenges

the Mormon Church's account

of its own origin.

The bombing's impact has drawn the Church

m*rder among the Mormons.

What I love the most

about treasure stories,

they're always about lost treasures,

you know?

Whether we're looking for Atlantis

or the Titanic or whatever,

there's a lot of treasure out there.

But the thing is, treasure stories

always have the same ending.

The treasure is temporarily found.

But then some calamity happens,

and the treasure's lost again.

You know,

the old airplane pilot joke about,

"Ladies and gentlemen,

we're landing in Salt Lake City.

Set your watch back ten years."

It's an old chestnut.

-It's a very conservative community.

The state of Utah has long been

the home of the Mormons.

Mormons are members

of a worldwide church,

headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

We'd like you to meet the Mormons.

Mormonism is relatively young.

It was founded only 150 years ago

by Joseph Smith.

In 1829, a young man named Joseph Smith

translated a set of gold plates

to which he was directed by an angel,

into a volume called "The Book of Mormon."

This is the true story

of Joseph Smith's valiant mission

in bringing forth "The Book of Mormon."

I am a messenger

sent from the presence of God.

My name is Moroni.

There is a book deposited,

written upon gold plates.

Joseph Smith formed a church

called The Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-Day Saints,

abbreviated to "LDS."

Translate these ancient writings

and bring them forth to the world.

The real treasure

is not the gold in those plates,

but what's written on them.

The LDS Church believes it has

a divine mandate to preserve its history.

For Latter-Day Saints, the history

is integral with the faith itself.

Joseph? Is this where you saw

Heavenly Father and Jesus?

Yes, Lucy.

This is the very place.

Early Mormonism is full of treasure tales,

and it really carried over

into the '70s and '80s.

You've got a growing LDS religion

and a growing market for Mormon artifacts.

So the Mormon people have always

had a propensity

to seek those kind of treasures out.

It's a thinking man's game,

dealers who know history well enough

to purchase old books and pieces of paper

and sell them for a profit.

There are only a handful of men

who've acted as dealers

for these pieces of high-prized history.

Shannon Flynn's one of them.

There's a certain amount

of detective work.

There's a certain amount of excitement,

high stakes, valuable pieces.

I had taken an interest

in LDS Church doctrine,

probably since those late teenage years.

I remember clearly

the first collectible item I bought.

It was a third edition of a pamphlet

by B.H. Roberts.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I paid $10 for it.

But I was interested in the history,

and in the Salt Lake area,

it was centered mainly on bookstores.

And that kind of became

the Mormon history coffeehouse,

if you want to think of it in those terms.

You would go, meet people.

"Hey, come over here.

Let me show you this.

Let's see that book."

And it was at that time

that I was introduced to Mark Hofmann.

And I was very excited to meet Mark.

He was

In the Mormon document world,

he was a rock star.

Mark Hofmann,

a student at Utah State University,

found the document.

It appears to be

the earliest Mormon document

and the earliest Joseph Smith holograph.

Also, I think it's exciting

just to think that

apparently, this piece of paper was copied

by Joseph Smith's own hand,

the characters were, right from

the gold plates that were right there.

It's covered

with carefully drawn symbols.

On the back,

a statement signed by Joseph Smith.

"These characters were diligently copied

by my own hand from the plates of gold."

Well, I feel pretty lucky.

Mark bought an old Bible

from a man in Salt Lake.

The man said he'd purchased the Bible

from the granddaughter

of Joseph Smith's sister.

Uh, Dorie walked in.

She just got home from work.

He had this Bible,

and I started flipping through the pages.

And there was this part

that was folded up and had

this sticky gum on the end of it.

I think it was black,

and I called to him, saying,

"There's something in here."

She was there when I finally

succeeded in prying off the top page

that revealed a folded piece of paper.

Well, the Anthon Transcript.

Things in that document

validated The Book of Mormon

and Joseph Smith

And it was thrilling.

That's when he said

he wanted to do this as his job.

He said, "I'm gonna be going

into the document business.

Is that okay with you?"

The LDS Church and its members

are world-renowned

for their zeal in collecting

historical documents.

Dozens of researchers and collectors

are committed to finding

tidbits from the past.

That Joseph Smith's first encounter

with the Divine

was his experience with the coming forth

of the Book of Mormon.

At the time, my particular interest

was the origins of Mormonism.

And the first time

I heard about Mark Hofmann

would have been seeing the picture of Mark

surrounded by major figures

of the Mormon hierarchy.

Here they are, gathered to see

what this young man has found.

The Anthon Transcript discovery

was widely publicized

and brought Mark Hofmann into contact

with top leaders in the Mormon Church.

Mark wanted to be

the ultimate document dealer,

and so, Mark would ask me

to do the genealogical research,

where we would research the descendants

of certain mission presidents

and see if they had any of these

family documents or books on hand.

I was so enthusiastic,

and it just started

snowballing at that point.

A 137-year-old letter

was found and proved authentic

by a Mormon Church historian.

The document was found by Mark Hofmann.

I'd never seen anybody come up with

the material that Mark was coming up with.

The first time I actually read the letter,

I think I about fell off the chair

I was sitting in.

The letter is from Lucy Mack Smith,

mother of the Church's first prophet

and president, Joseph Smith.

He'd track

old letters down by postage stamps,

wax seals, and all that.

He always had some inside track

on how he was getting things.

Part of the collection

I bought

a lot of them over the years.

There haven't been a lot

of dealers in this kind of thing before.

It was almost like a new era

for Mormon collectibles.

The buying and selling of Mormon documents

has attracted so much attention lately,

they're commanding top dollar.

It's become a lucrative business

because many new items

come from a period of Mormon history

for which very little is known.

Mark would travel to different places,

including New York City,

and discovered a number of things.

Hofmann's dealings soon branched out

from selling only Mormon-related documents

to letters and signatures

by some of the most prominent names

in American history.

It certainly smacks of Indiana Jones.

He didn't look the part.

He looked like a nerd, and he was a nerd.

He was able to remember minute,

who-could-give-a-care details

that somewhere along the line

would make a lot of difference.

We had a friendship

that extended to his wife

and our families.

One of the times I was there,

we played Celestial Pursuit,

Trivial Pursuit for Mormons.

One by one, Mark sat there

with the cards, every one right.

Never missed one.

And so, I started working

on document deals for him.

It was like I was given the opportunity

to play along Michael Jordan,

or, um, Brett Favre or Ryne Sandberg.

I worked in the genealogical archive

doing research

on the beginnings of Mormonism

and contemporaries of Joseph Smith,

people like Martin Harris,

David Whitmer

Back then, I spent a lot of my time

in the historical archives,

uh, researching documents and working

for the LDS Church security department.

I'd come across a book.

Um, how can I put it?

It became a lightning rod

for a number of general authorities

because they felt that

that material was damaging to the Church,

and they were concerned

that I would publish it.

I was called in by my supervisors,

and was terminated.

And so the Church is

in kind of an ironic situation.

On the one hand,

they are driven by history,

and they want to preserve documents.

Their appreciation for the builders

of the past will be enhanced.

But on the other hand,

what do you do with documents

that have the potential

of destroying someone's faith?

I remember it specifically

because it was my birthday,

December 27th, 1983.

Mark said, "Come here.

I'm gonna show you something

that no one has seen."

He takes out of his briefcase

the Salamander letter.

"That was in the box

where the gold plates were."

What?

What?

Wow.

And he says,

"We don't have any photographs of this.

Can you photograph it?"

And so I was the first person

to take those photographs,

and he was keeping it

under tremendous secrecy.

I was one of a select group, this big

that was privy to the bombshells.

But that was his world,

and there was a reason for it,

because everybody did that

to a certain extent.

They would never reveal

where they were getting

their best materials.

So that world,

it was not that odd to keep secrets.

Throned on the mountain's crest

In robes of statehood dressed ♪

Utah, we love thee! ♪

-Rod Decker, KUTV News.

Thank you, Rod.

That's a nice way to end the news, right?

I've been a journalist

in Utah for 45 years.

Among the people who are interested

in Mormon documents and Mormon history

If you look at the '80s,

Mark Hofmann

found document after document,

and he made a huge reputation for himself.

Then one of the documents he had found

was called the White Salamander letter.

It was a letter from Martin Harris,

an important man in early Mormonism,

and the letter said

that Joseph Smith had told him

that Joseph Smith

was led to the Golden Plates

by a white salamander.

This contradicted the Church version

of what had happened

and struck deeply at Mormon belief.

This new Salamander letter

gave a far different story

of the Church's earliest roots

and took that context

of Christian familiar terms, like angels

My name is Moroni.

and twisted them towards

a kind of folk magic context.

And the contents of the Salamander letter

got a lot of attention from scholars,

who argued about it and began to say,

"Wait a minute.

Is the history that we learned about this

from Joseph Smith not correct?"

Now, the LDS Church does, in fact,

keep documents from the public,

so some people say

that the LDS Church hides its history.

One of Mark's concerns was that the Church

would try to hide documents

that proved embarrassing to them,

and I think that's why you find him

giving copies of the documents

to other people.

I remember one day,

Mark Hofmann approached me

with the Salamander letter.

And I remember that,

as I read it, I said,

"Have you talked

to Steve Christensen yet?"

Okay, and you're a collector

of this kind of thing.

Well, uh, actually not.

-I collect a lot of books

Mm-hmm.

and the way I became aware

of the document

was through, uh, Brent Metcalfe

Steve had a genuine interest

in Church history,

and while he loved the Church,

he also felt that there was a need

for intellectual transparency

when it came to the history of the Church.

I know when Steve first saw

the Salamander letter,

he recognized there were some issues

in there that were very much, um

controversial to many members

of the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-Day Saints.

His first concern was,

number one, is this authentic?

A few select individuals

actually read the contents of the letter,

and look at the handwriting,

uh, early in '84.

I received

the authentication reports back

uh

shortly thereafter, uh,

made the purchase of the letter

from Hofmann

I remember

going with Mark to Steve's office,

and the price that they negotiated

was $40,000 for the document.

So at that point, the Salamander letter

began to create some real concerns

on the part of, particularly,

President Gordon B. Hinckley.

When we are called before the bar of God

to give an accounting of our performance

Hinckley released

the letter with a disclaimer.

He said, "We'll have to accept,

for the time being,

the scientific evaluations

of the examiners,

but that does not mean

that it could not have been

a forgery from that time period,

that was created for the purposes

of hurting the Church."

I think it unlikely that any of us will be

commended for wearing out our lives

in an effort to find

some morsel of history,

incomplete in its context,

to cast doubt

on the integrity of this work.

When the Salamander letter got publicized,

and newspaper stories were written on it,

it just changed everything.

The letter generated a lot of controversy,

some saying it alters

traditional views of Mormon history.

Others say it merely sheds new light

and doesn't change a thing.

The Church is not

eager to retell its story,

but I think the story

is gradually going to be altered

in light of new evidence.

The Salamander letter

challenges the Mormon Church's account

of its own origins.

It sent historians scurrying

to reinterpret the Mormon past.

Instead of God and angels,

now it's salamanders and magic.

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."

The letter accuses Smith

of dealing in folk magic

and treasure hunting.

This Mormonism,

it's an outgrowth of magic.

It's just boogeldy-boogeldy.

Religion sometimes breeds

amongst people some extremes.

It was a striking blow

at the belief in the Church.

Mormon leaders came under fire

from critics

when the Salamander letter came to light

The Church is not in a crisis of faith.

We do not feel

whatever the commentaries may be,

that the Church's foundations

are in any way being battered or crumbled.

I love the gospel with all my heart

Steve began to recognize

that document dealing

wasn't just a gentle pastime

for those

who have a passing interest in history.

Do you still have the letter?

No, I donated the letter

to the LDS Church,

which had really

been the plan for some time.

Those documents are reportedly

in the possession of the Church Archives.

Examination by historians

outside the Church is forbidden.

At that point,

Steve Christensen donated

the Salamander letter to the Church,

and in a letter that he wrote

to President Gordon B. Hinckley,

one of the things he said was,

"It appears

that dealing in Mormon documents

-can be a dangerous business."

I think that's what I need.

-Okay.

I came to Utah

and joined a bowling league.

And one of the bowlers there

brought out a tool chest of coins.

My eyes got that big.

I bought it,

and it got me started in coins.

And Mark Hofmann saw that I was

interested in Mormon-related money items.

So he was coming in

all the time with new items.

The notoriety

of the Salamander letter

has increased the odds that even more

of these rare Mormon documents

might soon be found.

Dealers and collectors

are especially conscious

of the possibility

of finding these rare Mormon papers.

Knowledgeable dealers believe

unfound LDS documents

may number in the hundreds

or even thousands.

One day, Mark comes into my store

and says he's located

a large collection in New York City

that is by far

the largest, uh, Mormon money

and, uh, documents of the Church

in existence.

And he says, "They've contacted me

and are interested in selling it."

Mark says,

"I don't have the money to buy it.

Would you help finance the item?"

And I say, "Well, how much is it?"

And he says, "$185,000."

And I had credit with the bank,

so I gave the money in an advance to Mark.

Stories got around

that Mark is offering this collection.

I remember talkin' with him.

"What's in the collection?"

"It's got five little diaries.

They're written between 1831 and '38."

It became the McLellin Collection.

Well, the McLellin Collection.

There was a letter in there

of potentially a devastating nature.

A letter that was written

by Joseph Smith's wife,

which detailed that it was, in fact,

Joseph Smith's older brother

who first met Moroni,

lifted the stone, saw the gold plates.

And after the Salamander letter

had significant impact for the Church,

the McLellin Collection

was potentially devastating.

Devastating.

When Mark was marketing

the McLellin Collection,

he talked about it with Steve Christensen,

who was representing

the Church's interest at that time,

and hearing about this, began to think,

"Well, the Church ought to own that."

Steve Christensen had sort of been put

in charge from someone in the LDS Church,

and he was gonna go with Mark

and get the McLellin Collection.

Mark took it

through Steven Christensen

directly to the LDS Church,

and they're gonna buy it for $300,000.

And meanwhile,

I should say that I had guaranteed

to not mention this to anybody.

He told me, on this collection,

that the Church

didn't want it to be exposed

until they could go through

the entire collection

and find out what it's about

before it was released to the public.

You know, secrets just can't be kept.

Every--

Well, there's an old story.

If-- The only way to keep a secret

between two people is to k*ll one of 'em.

It's kind of true.

There's an emergency

in the Church building

on the corner of Main

An APB He's been cut.

-and Third South.

231, we've got an echo.

Let's notify homicide.

We have one male fatality

It's the kind of terror

that so often

grips other parts of the world.

But today, the violence we associate

with the Middle East or Northern Ireland

struck tragically along the Wasatch Front.

All of a sudden, we heard a boom.

It shook the building.

And there was debris

out in the hallway, cans.

Looked like a wastebasket.

The b*mb went off in the east side

of the Judge Building shortly after eight.

The office building

was already full of workers.

I was sitting up in my bed,

uh, watching TV,

and I got a call from Curt Bench.

-I was driving to work downtown

and I always listened to the news.

still searching through the debris,

waiting for the victim's body

to be brought out of the Judge Building.

The newscaster said that

there had been an expl*si*n downtown,

and that a man had been k*lled.

And I only knew one person

that worked in the Judge Building.

It was all over the news.

Every network station

was running it at that point.

a powerful blast rocked

the sixth floor

of the Judge Building in Salt Lake.

Police believe

it was a sophisticated b*mb.

blown the door off the hinges,

thrown shrapnel

Here's the secretary that found a box

addressed to our victim.

And, uh, then I got

a call from a reporter, and, uh

He said, um

"What can you tell me

about Steve Christensen

now that he's died?"

In downtown Salt Lake,

a local financial consultant,

Steven F. Christensen,

died in that expl*si*n.

Witnesses say

he had stopped to pick up a package

in the doorway of his office

when the booby trap went off.

A search dog from the airport was

brought in to look for more expl*sives.

So far, no other bombs have been found.

The morning of October 15th,

Steve and I decided we were gonna

get together at eight o'clock.

at the Judge Building.

I called Steve to tell him

I was running ten minutes late,

because I had stopped

to get these documents,

and I'd be walkin' down.

Uh, the phone rang and rang,

and I just got our answering machine.

Hello. You've reached

the offices of Steve Christensen.

And as I'm walking down,

I see police and firetrucks

right out in front of the Judge Building.

Literally, as I walked in the building,

I walked in the same time

that the property manager

was also walking in,

and we ran up the stairs together.

And I'll never forget looking down

at the hall to our office,

and our door was totally

blown away.

There was no door.

There were Tab cans.

There was debris all over in the hallway,

and it just was unbelievable to me.

And I'll never forget the building

manager turning to me and saying,

"What in the hell type of business

were you guys running?"

The Sheriff's Department

reports another expl*si*n

at a home on Naniloa Drive

in Holladay within the past hour.

County Sheriff is now

investigating the possibility

that this second expl*si*n, once again,

could be linked to this morning's b*mb

at the Judge Building downtown.

Police say both bombs were

triggered by an electrical timing device

and were the work

of professional assassins.

Yes. It was quite loud, a big pop, bang.

The first victim

was Steve Christensen.

The second was the wife

of one of Christensen's

former business associates.

Kathy Sheets died by the blast,

apparently intended for her husband, Gary.

My mind was just racing

with what I just experienced.

I looked over in the corner of my eye.

There's my former partner and boss,

Gary Sheets, just standing there,

wondering what's going on.

The connection

between Christensen and Sheets.

Both served as officers

in a financial consulting company

The b*mb was apparently

meant for Gary Sheets,

but the k*ller missed his mark,

and Sheets' wife Kathy

Kathy Sheets died instantly

when she picked up a b*mb

placed on a wooden walk.

Police say the device was equal in power

to two sticks of dynamite.

The headlines were

Salt Lake City was like Beirut, Lebanon.

It's like, "What on Earth's going on?"

And panic began to ensue

because one b*mb is an anomaly.

Two bombs suggests a serial k*ller.

If there were two bombs,

there could be three, four, five,

or a dozen or more.

A secretary at the Salt Lake Tribune

received a call that said

the b*mber wasn't finished.

"I suggest you listen carefully.

There's four more bombs

from here to South Temple."

It was very disturbing and frightening,

and there was

all kinds of speculation going on.

If there is a reason for today's madness,

the answer probably lies

buried in the business records

of Christensen and Sheets.

theories revolved

around high finance

and big losses in the CFS company.

There was dark talk

of disgruntled investors,

hired professional K*llers,

and Las Vegas connections.

Sheets helped

bombing victim Steve Christensen

finance the purchase and study

of the so-called Salamander letter

before it was turned over

to the Mormon Church.

My feeling is that

some disgruntled investor

somewhere hired someone to do this.

We didn't know

who the targets were going to be next,

if there was anybody

that was gonna be next.

Chief Willoughby has been meeting

the past hour with other officials,

and we're going to go to him

right now for this briefing.

At this moment,

we have a task force put together

because, uh, we definitely feel

that there is a direct tie

between both of the bombings here

in Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City.

There are two areas

that we're centering our efforts on,

and one is the financial dealings,

uh, both Mr. Sheets

and Mr. Christensen were involved in.

The other motive, uh,

we're getting information on

has to do

with the White Salamander letter, uh,

which is now in the possession

of the LDS Church.

Hold on.

Now, my mind immediately

started turning elsewhere.

This has something to do

with that crazy document deal

that Steve was dealing with.

Welcome now to Primetime Access.

I'm Bruce Lindsay.

On this day of extraordinary news

in Salt Lake City,

we're going to devote

most of the rest of this hour

to questions emerging from the murders.

The violence began

as downtown was opening for business.

A morning of fear and death

for much of the Wasatch Front.

an anonymous caller warned

there were even more bombs

in surrounding buildings.

Police say that that call

could have been a copycat prank,

but the department was taking no chances

at that point.

I would, uh, work with Mark,

and it was always on Wednesday afternoon.

And we would just meet at Walden Book.

That was our spot.

But on October 16th,

I didn't go up that day.

Uh, I tried to get ahold of Mark,

but I couldn't reach him.

I guess he was

running around town that day.

But I did run into Curt Bench, I think,

and Curt told me that, uh,

he had talked to Mark or something,

and he also made it sound

like Mark was, uh

really nervous.

Okay?

Really nervous.

An associate of Christensen said,

"We're filled with absolute terror."

The houses were cordoned off,

families evacuated,

and dogs brought in to sniff for bombs.

None were found.

I called Mark,

and I warned Mark

and told him that he ought to get

his family out of their house.

Mark tells me,

"Christensen has been k*lled.

Kathy Sheets has been k*lled.

I don't know what is happening here.

Your life may be in danger.

You need to leave the house."

We don't know if the attacks had

something to do with religion or business

or even possibly both

We knew that the people involved

in the Mormon document business

could be potential targets.

And Mark did tell me

that he had concerns

about the McLellin Collection.

People had heard things about it,

and it was becoming

more of a controversial subject.

Lawmen in Salt Lake City

are going all out now

to come up with the "whys" in the tragedy.

They have come up

with some startling information.

It now turns out

that there's another collection

of early Mormon documents

that are reputed to be far more expl*sive.

They're the McLellin Collection.

Books, diaries, and revelations

from the era of Joseph Smith.

One of the would-be buyers

turns out to have been

bombing victim Steve Christensen.

LDS officials

have yet to confirm or deny reports

that Gordon B. Hinckley

had agreed to buy the documents,

which are believed to contain

controversial information

about the founding of the Mormon Church.

Alvin Rust says the LDS Church had agreed

to pay $300,000 for the collection.

Who at the Church had agreed

to purchase these for $300,000?

It was, uh, Gordon B. Hinckley.

I get on the phone to call the prophet

of the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-Day Saints.

The man that took the call says,

"What is it about?"

And I said,

"It's about the McLellin Collection."

He says, "Yeah, you and Hofmann

were to bring that right now."

A Church spokesman confirms

that Hofmann met with LDS apostles

on Tuesday afternoon,

just hours after the first b*mb

k*lled Steven Christensen.

He said he wanted to donate

the collection to the Church.

There was no discussion

of our purchasing it.

He says,

"We've got people here right now

waiting for the McLellin Collection,

to examine it.

They want to purchase it for the Church."

Hofmann was to turn over

the collection to Christensen

the morning Christensen was k*lled.

Hofmann didn't show

for the 10:00 a.m. appointment,

but called and asked to meet

at 2:00 p.m.

Sources tell Channel 5

Hofmann had at least two meetings

set up to peddle the papers.

signature and have it

witnessed, or something like that.

Yeah, I can tell you also that, uh,

the LDS Church is interested in it also.

Yeah, well,

that may tend to complicate things.

They've already acquired,

in fact, uh, some other pieces

they got from me,

-but they don't have this one yet.

-Mm-hmm.

I don't know

what they're interested in it for,

if they just want to lock it up or

I can't imagine them publishing it

or anything.

Well, be hard to say.

Yeah.

-Um

Shannon Flynn is believed

to have been working with Hofmann

on the sale of those papers.

I don't know.

He had an appointment

at two o'clock with an attorney

that represented

a well-to-do Church member

that was going to buy

that McLellin Collection,

give Mark the money,

and kind of keep it for the Church.

And then the shock came.

We saw the expl*si*n,

and the window in the back

flew up in the air.

Was it loud? Yeah.

It shook this whole building, right here.

I drove out to Mark's house

because we had set up a lunch.

Went and knocked on his door.

No one answered.

No one was home.

And, while I was there,

there's news of another bombing coming in.

A b*mb was placed

under the seat of a sports car

It's a car that's been bombed.

It's a Toyota MR2.

All three explosions

may be connected to a controversy.

I mean, I immediately said,

"That's Mark Hofmann's car."

he's pretty banged up.

He was missing some fingers

that I could see,

had a hole kind of on top of his head,

had a hole in one of his legs.

I remember distinctly

that I had to pull over my car,

and slamming my hand

against the steering wheel

and saying aloud,

"Why didn't you listen to me?

Why didn't you listen to me?"

When officers searched

Hofmann's car,

they found a collection believed to be

early Mormon historical documents.

They're known as the McLellin Collection.

I remember

running out the door as fast as I could,

driving up to the police line,

and just

jumping out of my car and leaving it

in the middle of the street,

and running over to an officer

who was standing there,

and saying, "Excuse me,

but I think I know whose car that is."

Mark Hofmann was trying to sell

historical Mormon documents.

The original appointment

included Steven Christensen.

He said, "What's your name?"

And I said, "Brent Metcalfe."

And he said,

"I want you to come with me right now."

And he tells me,

"We have reason to believe

that somebody may be trying to k*ll you."

I get a call

from a gentleman who said,

"Randy, you need to take

your family and leave.

We're gonna have b*mb dogs

and people come over

and actually go through your home."

I'm now looking underneath my car.

I mean

And this is where my mind was.

I mean, you didn't dare trust anything.

Our lives had been

totally, uh, torn apart.

They informed me

that I was in extreme danger

and that my family and I

should take every precaution.

"Please take cover.

Call your wife immediately,

and be very careful right now.

We don't know what's going on."

I was at my mother's house,

and a phone call came in

that said Mark had been hurt in a car,

with a car b*mb.

And I immediately started shaking.

My sister drove me down

'cause I couldn't drive.

I was too upset.

So she drove me down to the hospital.

I went into the hospital,

told them I was Mark's wife.

Um

He was on a table in a gown.

He had glass all over his face.

None of it made sense to me.

Why would these people want to

Why would they wanna k*ll Steve or Kathy?

Why would anybody wanna k*ll them?

It didn't make sense to me.

Why would they wanna k*ll them?

It just didn't-didn't make sense.

Throughout this day,

Salt Lake lawmen rushed to check

several b*mb threats

and suspicious situations.

Even tonight, it has extended

to the heart of our city.

Temple Square is at this moment

under lockdown.

Everyone on the square,

including the Mormon Youth Symphony,

was evacuated after

what was believed to be a b*mb threat.

Canine units were called in

to patrol the grounds.

At the Mormon Church

for a prophet ♪

To guide us in these latter days ♪

I didn't think the Mormon

document world was a dangerous business.

I thought it was an exhilarating business,

but there was definitely an underbelly

-to Mormon document dealing.

More than any crimes in memory,

these bombings

have given rise to speculation,

theories, and public guessing.

Security has been beefed up,

and b*mb searches carried out.

The university's archives have

Some documents vanished or disappeared.

Uh, we don't really know

what might have happened to them.

Whoever had committed these murders,

they're somehow related

to these Mormon documents.

Police are refusing to comment

on reports that Hofmann had other letters

believed to be

even more damaging to the Church

At this time, I will not comment on that.

That's still part of the investigation.

And a k*ller is still on the loose.

Most likely, it was somebody who was LDS,

who knew the details

of what we were doing.

Ties to m*rder and intrigues

have given the Mormon Church

the kind of attention it doesn't want.

It could have been

someone who had a loved one,

who had a crisis of faith

as a result of all of this.

To have the Church

involved in the acquisition

of a collection at this time

would simply fuel speculation

that the Church was trying to acquire it

in order to suppress it.

They wanted

to inflict damage and harm.

A Mormon Church official

said there was, quote,

"Nothing sinister in the Church's efforts

to acquire historical documents

from Mark Hofmann."

Hofmann was hospitalized

It seemed clear to me

this was retaliatory.

We thank thee, O God

For a prophet ♪

To guide us in these latter days ♪

We thank thee for sending the gospel ♪

To lighten our minds with its rays ♪