Mark Hofmann Morman Forger
Mark Hofmann is credited as one of the most accomplished document forgers in history. He is also one of the most brutal forgers as he turned to murder when his fraud was close to being uncovered. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and followed the LDS Church until he lost faith around the age of 14. He studied pre-med, got married and had four children. But his life took a very different turn in 1980.
In 1980 he claimed that he had found a 17th century King James Bible that had a strange paper tucked inside. Hofmann claimed that the paper was the Anthon Transcript which was believed to be proof that the Book of Morman existed and it was purchased by the LDS church for $20,000. With the successful sale of his first forgery, he dropped out of school and started a business as a dealer in rare books.
In 1981 he forged a document that brought the succession of the church into question. Both the LDS church and RLDS Church scrambled for the document with Hofmann selling it to the LDS church for $20,000 while also releasing it to the press. He continued to forge documents including the Salamander Letter, a letter from Joseph Smith’s mother and other documents that were relevant to the LDS church. He made his forgeries out of greed and a desire to embarrass the church.
The scheme started to fall apart when he fell into debt due to a lavish lifestyle and therefore tried to sell more forged documents that he was not in possession of or documents that people questioned authenticity of. In order to buy time from those who were after him for money he started constructing bombs to get rid of those he owed money to or who might discover his forgeries. His bombs killed two people and he was arrested in 1986 on 27 different counts. In 1988 he was sentenced to 5 years to life in prison.