John Larsen of the Sunstone and I discussed some critics of Mormonism. The most notorious is probably Mark Hofmann, who is a murderer and forger of Mormon documents.  We discussed some of Rick’s past interviews and knowledge Rick has learned in talking to people who knew or prosecuted Mark Hofmann.

John:  I mean, Hofmann is a murderer, and a criminal. But geez, that man was brilliant.
Rick:  He was brilliant.  He’s got horrible handwriting, too.
John:  We still don’t know because, you can push back, because the church wanted it to go away. So the church got involved. There’s a lot of people who’ve accused this. I’m not the one making this up. The church got involved. They wanted to cut a deal. They cut a deal with Hofmann, that if he pled guilty, he wouldn’t get the death penalty. He got a blanket pass that he wouldn’t have to talk to anybody else. So he didn’t have to answer…
Rick:  Well, that’s not exactly true. There was a deal cut and if you want to get into all the details, watch my George Throckmorton interview, because we talked about that. Also, Sandra was very angry that a deal was made because she’s like, “I think we could have got the death penalty on him.” I don’t know if people know this, but he tried to put out a hit on the Director of the Board of Pardons.
John:  Oh, I didn’t know that.
Rick:  Yeah, while he was in jail, because he should be out of jail by now. He will never leave jail.
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Rick:  But yeah, so Mark was supposed to spill the beans and he never did, due to–anyway. George talks about it. There were some mistakes done in the prosecution, and they should have had him tell the stuff before they’d cut the deal and they didn’t. So then he had no incentive to talk after that. A lot of the stuff that he was supposed to tell he never told.
John:  I would invite everybody go out there and read one of the true crime books. The one I liked was one by Sillitoe.
Rick:  Yeah, that’s the best–that’s one of the best ones.
John:  I think it’s called Salamander.
We will talk about other details of the Hofmann saga, and discuss other Mormon critics.  Check out our conversation….
Don’t miss our previous conversations!
415:  Learning from Mormon Cousins
414:  LDS Leaders and Historical Issues
413:  Intro to Gospel Tangents