Utah: A Salamander Murder Case

After Salt Lake City Businessman Steven F. Christensen and Housewife Kathleen Sheets were killed by pipe bombs last October, Utah authorities almost immediately named Mark W. Hofmann, a dealer in rare Mormon documents, as their prime suspect. Last week they finally charged Hofmann with the two first-degree murders, as well as 26 other felonies. In building their case, moreover, prosecutors claimed to have not only established a motive for the killings but also to have uncovered a bizarre religious fraud.

Hofmann, 31, first won attention as broker of the so-called White Salamander Letter, which purportedly traced some of Mormon Founder Joseph Smith's beliefs to folk magic, rather than to divine revelation as the church teaches. Prosecutors claim that the letter and many other documents that Hofmann peddled to the church were forgeries, and that Christensen learned of the scam. Sheets, they believe, was killed in a diversionary effort to connect Christensen with her husband's controversial business dealings. Hofmann, who was injured a day after the slayings in a car bombing that police say was accidental, maintains that he is innocent of both murders.