PROVO, Utah — Ryan Roos is a young rare book expert who recently earned newfound respect for his mentors who bought forgeries from infamous murderer Mark Hofmann 30 years ago.
"I was fooled by Mark Hofmann; I was fooled two years ago," Roos said Thursday night during a panel discussion about the lasting impact of Hofmann's forgeries and killings.
Roos was driving out by the Great Salt Lake when he turned on a radio show in the middle of a clip and wondered who the bright, confident, young go-getter he heard was, "wheeling and dealing in a way that would make Donald Trump weep."
As the clip continued, Roos realized it was Hofmann.
"It was bone-chilling," he said. "I just couldn't tell. This guy knows he's lying, and he's just as cool as can be. .. The problem is he was a great forger, but he was a master manipulator and a master at pressure. With him, you always had to a make a decision and make it now."
Another Hofmann is coming, Roos predicted, even as the other panelists said "the Hofmann Effect" continues to influence the LDS Church history department, where his fakes helped launch a new era of transparency, as well as a narrow demographic of Mormons who experience faith crises because of Hofmann history.
Hofmann killed Steve Christensen and Kathy Sheets in separate bombings on Oct. 15, 1985. The next day he injured himself when a bomb went off in his car as he continued a ruse to try to cover up his forgeries. He pleaded guilty to murder, theft for forging and selling the Salamander Letter and fraud for selling the McLellin collection, which didn't exist but which he said he could produce.
Hofmann forgeries continue to circulate today, Roos declared at the event at the business he co-owns, Writ & Vision Rare Books and Fine Art, 274 W. Center in Provo.
And copycats will follow.
"It's not a question if another Mark Hofmann will find us," Roos said. "The question is when. Ebay has created a Wild West on documents. ... Another Hofmann will emerge, and he won't come through the front door. He won't walk into Benchmark Books or this establishment, but through items that creep into the market through Ebay."
BYU's Mike MacKay, a professor of Church History and Doctrine who helped develop new forensic techniques to detect forged documents, said more than 400 Hofmann documents remain in the possession of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"I've tested most of (those held by the church), and most are likely not fake," he said.
The forgeries were good.
"If you're untrained and you think you can identify a Hofmann, you're wrong," MacKay said.
Hofmann was exposed because the LDS Church history department acquired documents and did due diligence on them, said Brad Kramer, Roos' business partner. Hofmann also influenced a new transparency that with the vision and work of former official Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen, assistant Church Historian Richard Turley and historian Dean Jessee developed into the Joseph Smith Papers Project.
MacKay said he teaches hundreds of young Mormon students a year at BYU, and few have heard Hofmann's name, but he is a stumbling block for some.
Kramer, a LDS anthropologist and historian, said his ethnographic research shows that for a demographic of English-speaking, literate, male Mormons who leave the church, Hofmann shows up often when they list reasons they left.
Too few Mormon scholars are addressing the issue, Kramer said.
"I can't make sense of the lack of interest in it on the faith-promoting side. Scholars dedicated to using their scholarly tools to neutralize criticism owe it to themselves to figure out why Hofmann is such a big deal."
Hofmann has been in the Utah State Prison for nearly 30 years now, but the terror felt on the Wasatch Front in October 1985 hasn't fully receded.
"In the Mormon collecting world, whenever suspicion is cast on a piece, there is actual fear," Kramer said. "That's the most sinister thing Hofmann did to us."
Roos said American culture tends to romanticize outlaws, but that spirit wasn't evident in the full, small back room of Writ & Vision, where the 50 onlookers included some major collectors of rare Mormon books and documents.
"There is no romance here," Roos said. "Mark Hofmann was a murderer, Mark Hofmann was a fraud, and Mark Hofmann ruined lives."
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com