I was disappointed in your publishing an AP article on Mark Hofmann's forgeries.
Disappointed because you have needlessly brought up sorrow that his parents bear every day, just like the families of those who were killed.We were neighbors to his parents when this occurred and watched them with tortured agony as they endeavored to continue living with this heavy burden. They are some of the finest people I have ever known. Their friends are legion, and I would be very surprised if 99.8 percent of them didn't echo these sentiments.
We are the ones who watched his father always by his side. We also watched him age and get sick, never rejecting his son, only the things that he did.
His mother aged in a few weeks two-score years. It was painful for her friends to see this gracious, magnificent, saintly, kind and serving person all but perish under her personal load. I say almost, because this woman has the strength of soul to continue on long after faint hearts have cursed and given up. None of us, let me again say, none of us, would have survived as these special parents did.
The injured families were never forgotten in the heart, thoughts and prayers of his family.
Again our hearts are ruptured on the all-important "news" of the 10th anniversary of the tragedy. Can't you understand the victims go beyond the dead? You continue to make them the living dead when you rehash, sensationalize and harrow up such tragedies and count the anniversaries like some ghoul.
Mark is paying for his actions in this life. Bill and Lou Hofmann and family still bear the punishing of a wayward offspring. Why don't you print something good and positive? Have you ever run a story about how his mother takes his children to see him every weekend? Can you understand the patching of psyches and faith that must go on continually in such a case, and still reprint and reprint and reprint to remind them of what they live with daily? Leave those who are still here with dignity and grace. The better part of understanding is forgiving. Please, stop hurting my friends.
Noal C. Newbold
Sandy