Motive for Murder: The Bombs, The Mormons and the Salamander

Salt Lake City, 2005. Second printing. 202pp. Duodecimo [21.5 cm] Illustrated wrappers. Near fine. In October, two brutal murders shocked Mormondom. Steven Christensen, a prominent businessman and a devout Mormon, was killed by a nail-laden pipe bomb left at his downtown Salt Lake office. On the same day, Kathleen Sheets, the wife of Christensen's former business partner, was killed by a second bomb placed at the garage of her suburban home. Twenty-four hours later, a third bomb seriously injured Mark Hofmann, a returned Mormon missionary and a collector of documents who seemed to have an open door to the highest offices in the Mormon Church.

(truncated) The murder investigation took place from the familiar world of fingerprint and ballistics into the murky and uncharted waters of historic documents. In an investigation that lasted more than a year, George Throckmorton and Bill Flynn, forensic document examiners, pieced together the elusive motive for the murders.

The investigation led to the imprisonment of Mark Hofmann for two life terms at the Utah State Penitentiary. It also changed forever the landscape of forensic document examination. This book chronicles the investigation, as it happens, as seen through the eyes of George Throckmorton. (Inventory #: 10406)