The Salt Lake City Bombings | Revelations

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It's the morning of October 15th, 1985, and downtown Salt Lake City is coming to life.

Early risers make their way through the quiet streets, eager to get a start on work after the holiday weekend.

One of those people is Steven Christensen, the 31-year-old has a six-pack of tab soda under one arm and a bag of donuts in his hand.

Breakfast of champions.

Or at least, that's what Steve tells himself.

In truth, he's fighting just to keep his head above water.

Only a couple of years ago, Steve had money to spare.

All that's changed, though.

As he enters the seven-story judge building, he tries to shake off the gloom.

He knows that worrying about his money issues won't solve them.

He just has to put his head down and get to work.

He's been a success once, he can do it again.

His accounting firm is young, but he's confident it will grow.

It has to grow.

Steve rides the elevator up to the sixth floor, then heads for his small office.

He stops.

There's a brown paper-wrap package leaning against the door.

It's addressed to him, bold writing and black marker across the top of the box.

Curious, Steven bends down to pick up the package, juggling the cans and donuts in his arms.

It happens in a fraction of a second.

Steven doesn't even finish standing back up before...

The pipe bomb inside the box explodes.

Ignited by a simple electrical switch, just a tiny spark, the gunpowder carefully packed inside the pipe reacts with massive force.

The blast rips Steve's office door off its hinges.

Concrete nails shoot through the air, embedding themselves in walls, the ceiling and in flesh.

Steve crumples to the ground.

His face is blackened by soot and blood, except for the gaping hole where his eye was just seconds ago.

He doesn't see the tiny pieces of shredded brown paper and cardboard flutter through the air.

He doesn't respond to the frightened shouts of other office workers who step into the ruined hallway and rush over to help him, because it's too late.

Steve is dead before anyone even hears the sirens approaching.

Stephen Christensen's story is over, but the blast that killed him is just the beginning.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz and this is American Criminal.

When the Mormons first arrived in Utah in 1847, it was with the hope that they'd at last found a place where they'd be free to live and worship as they saw fit.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had faced often violent opposition in its early years.

But in the city by the Great Salt Lake, they found a measure of peace and even began to prosper.

But 140 years later, in October of 1985, a series of pipe bombs exploded across Salt Lake City.

As the dust settled, some faithful saints started to fear that the violence of centuries past had returned.

Investigators swooped in to solve the crimes, but found themselves caught in a mystery that was almost impossible to untangle.

There were multiple suspects for the deadly bombings and plenty of potential motives.

Some whispered that the failure of a large investment firm was at the heart of the matter.

Others suggested that a group of gay Mormons, angry at their church's treatment of their community, were striking back in any way they could.

And then there were the rumors that the LDS Church itself was to blame for the attacks.

It's this last suggestion that wouldn't die.

Thanks to some mysterious antique documents the church had been dealing in over the years leading up to the explosions.

Those documents seemed like they were at the center of the case.

But what investigators couldn't figure out was why.

Until they met a man named Mark Hoffman, and the pieces of the puzzle finally began to fall into place.

This is episode one in a four-part series about the Salt Lake City Bombings, Revelation.

It's Monday night in 1960.

Few people are out and about on the streets of Salt Lake City, because for most people, this is what's called family home evening.

The one night a week when faithful Mormons stay in to bond with those closest to them.

After all, the ties of family don't just last for this life.

They extend into eternity.

All Latter-day Saints know they'll meet their kin again in the afterlife.

So while they're on earth, it's important to ensure that the connection between parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives are rock solid.

In a tidy red brick house on Marie Avenue in the city's east, six-year-old Mark Hoffman is getting ready to wow his parents and sisters.

Family home evening isn't strictly a religious event, though it usually includes at least some prayers and hymns singing.

But in this house, scripture is king, at least as far as Mark's father Bill is concerned.

A fifth-generation Mormon, he's as devout as they come, and prefers his children stick to godly subjects for family home evening.

Mark knows all about his father's expectations, so when he walks to the center of the living room, he's well prepared.

Mark's parents expect him to sing a short hymn or maybe mutter a familiar prayer from church.

But instead, the six-year-old starts reciting scripture from the Book of Mormon, words he somehow memorized by heart.

The Hoffmans sit mesmerized by what's happening in front of them, and as Mark's recitation goes on and on, Bill starts to wonder if there's more to his son than he's previously thought, if perhaps his son is destined for greatness.

So from when he's very young, Mark Hoffman is considered something of a genius by his parents.

Along with his early passion for scripture, he takes a special interest in things like card tricks and illusions.

He enjoys trying out improvised science experiments with his cousins.

But as he reaches his teenage years, Mark's hobbies branch out in unexpected ways.

In particular, one piece of family history holds his attention, his grandparents' marriage.

His mother doesn't like to talk about it, but her parents were polygamous.

Although polygamy is one of the things the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is best known for, the practice was officially abandoned in the 1890s, something young Mark is well aware of.

So when he hears that his grandparents had a plural marriage, he's intrigued.

He knows that his grandparents married after the LDS Church disavowed the practice, and wonders how on earth that could have happened.

So he embarks on a teenage quest to find out more.

Luckily for him, history is incredibly important to Mormons.

Keeping detailed records of their lives is an expectation of all Latter-day Saints.

So Mark knows that if he wants to find out more about his family's past, there are plenty of resources he can mine.

And like all old Mormon families, their history and traditions are inextricably tied up with the story of their church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by a young man named Joseph Smith.

In 1830, when he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon.

It was a new addition to the Christian Bible, which Smith said was translated from gold plates he was led to by an angel.

According to Smith, the plates were an account of peoples God had led to the Americas from Israel hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.

Some of those people were prophets who recorded their history on the gold plates.

These were then buried so they could be discovered in the latter days.

Few people ever reported seeing Smith's gold plates for themselves, but the new religion attracted hundreds of followers off the strength of the translated text and Smith's natural charisma.

His acolytes called themselves Latter-day Saints, but the name didn't win them many fans in Smith's home state of New York.

So Smith, by then a self-described prophet, led the Saints first to Ohio, then Missouri and finally to Illinois on his quest to establish a Mormon nation.

But trouble followed the group wherever they went.

To many Christians, Smith's claims were heretical and his religious practices were even worse.

By 1841, Smith had married in the region of 30 to 40 women.

Such behavior attracted plenty of anger and violence from outsiders.

But Smith's church wasn't always a peaceful one either.

Schisms and disagreements broke out within the new religion as well.

As the prophet, Smith jealously guarded his position as head of the church, until he pushed things too far.

In June of 1844, he overstepped his authority for the last time and wound up in a jail cell where he was murdered by an angry mob.

With its founding prophet and leader gone, Joseph Smith's church splintered.

A small number of saints claimed that leadership of the religion passed to Smith's eldest son and forged a path of their own as the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

However, a larger group fell and stepped behind Brigham Young, one of Smith's chief lieutenants at the time of his death.

Young led the saints west to what is now Utah, where he set about establishing a settlement for the church.

Over time, the Mormons became a dominant force in Utah, with the LDS Church wrapped up with the political, financial and educational landscapes of the state.

But their beliefs and traditions still sometimes left the saints out of step with the rest of America.

When Utah applied to join the Union, its petition was only granted after the church officially renounced the practice of polygamy.

This was a rare accommodation to the whims of the outside world for the Mormons.

But it wasn't a signal of complete systemic change.

Because even as the church's wealth and influence grew in the 20th century, Mormon leaders kept their religion's secrets closely guarded.

In 1945, that veil of secrecy was pierced by a controversial new biography of Joseph Smith called No Man Knows My History.

Written by a Mormon, the book used diary entries and other little known historical documents to trace the church's history back to the very beginning.

Over the course of the biography, the author claimed that Smith was a fraud who invented the Book of Mormon himself and then spun that straw into gold.

The LDS church leadership immediately denounced the biography.

They dismissed it as a bitter attack from someone who wished to see their religion fail and then excommunicated the author.

But the book's ideas weren't so easily suppressed, and just a few years later they inspired an intellectual movement within the church itself.

It was driven by faithful Mormons who had a genuine curiosity about the church's history and who wanted to untangle fact from fiction.

But in response to this new movement, the church took steps to stifle individual thought and the heresy of speaking against Mormonism.

The leaders locked up the church archives.

The lucky few still allowed access to the collection were closely monitored and required to submit their notes after every visit so that officials could check that they were only copying text that the church accepted as fact.

For the LDS leadership, the episode was confirmation that they'd been right all along.

If they wanted to ensure the church's future, they'd have to keep the secrets of their past.

In the early 1970s, these restrictions on official records make Mark Hoffman's search for answers about his grandparents' marriage difficult.

He doesn't find satisfying answers to his questions about why his mother's parents broke the church's commandments on polygamy.

What Mark does find, though, as he reads through old letters and diary entries, is something in himself, a passion for Mormon documents and historical artifacts.

This hobby flourishes when Mark goes on his church-sponsored mission, something many young Mormons do when they're of age.

Mark's been looking forward to his for years, and his assignment could lead him just about anywhere in the world to spread the word of Joseph Smith.

But at 19, he's sent to the south of England, where he spends two years going door to door, telling people about the Book of Mormon in hopes of converting them.

During that time, he loves to visit secondhand bookstores and carefully searches for volumes on Mormon history.

He tells his fellow missionaries that if he's lucky, he might find a book that will make him rich.

Mark already understands that the church's obsession with the past and need to control it could make any new documents or interesting artifacts he discovers very valuable.

But despite purchasing an old Bible or two, Mark doesn't find anything that will win him a fortune.

The most interesting things he collects are anti-Mormon books and pamphlets.

When friends ask why he has them, he says it's useful to know what their enemies think about them in case they're ever lured into a debate.

And besides, if he has the material, no one else can read slander about the church.

But the truth is, Mark's growing disillusion with his religion.

And those doubts only deepen when he returns to the United States and enrolls at Utah State University.

He's struck by how his instructors encourage him to question and challenge every piece of information he encounters, to think freely.

Mark can't help contrasting that to the attitude of the Mormon Church, which discourages this kind of rigorous investigation.

To Mark, it seems increasingly like dishonest behavior, the kind of thing you only do when you have something to hide.

Mark Hoffman doesn't tell anyone that his faith is wavering.

Instead, he tries to play the part of a good Mormon boy.

He still participates in all the trappings of church life, services, community events, family home evenings, and in 1979, the 23-year-old gets married.

Dora Lee Olds is a devout Mormon.

Her faith in the Church is rock solid, and she's content to play the traditional subservient role to her husband, who's expected to become the main breadwinner.

Mark's still in college when he marries Dory.

His grades aren't great, but he's got a sharp mind and is on a pre-med track at school.

His new wife and his parents, however, remain blissfully unaware that Mark isn't as devout as he seems.

His mom and dad are still hopeful that he'll rise through the ranks of LDS leadership and maybe one day even ascend to the role of president and prophet, the head of the church and God's spokesperson on earth.

But in 1980, about a year after his marriage to Dory, Mark will go skidding off on a completely different path to the one envisioned for him.

That's when an old Bible and faded document changed the course of his life forever.

It's April of 1980, and Dora Lee Hoffman has just arrived home from the grocery store.

Her husband Mark is tinkering with their new television in the living room while Dory stacks their groceries away.

When she's done, she folds up the thick brown paper bags and takes them outside to the trash can, then returns to the kitchen to make a start on dinner.

Passing through the living room, Dory notices a handsome leather-bound Bible on the dining room table.

It's a Cambridge edition, and is clearly very old.

She calls out to Mark asking about the tome, and he gets up to join her at the table.

He tells his wife that he just picked it up from a friend who deals in rare books and currency.

In an almost reverent voice, he explains that according to his friend, the Bible once belonged to the prophet Joseph Smith's sister.

Excited to look through the centuries-old volume with such a strong connection to the church's origins, Dory sits down and carefully lifts the cover.

While Mark returns to the TV, Dory spends a few minutes turning the pages of the Bible, letting her eyes absorb the beautifully printed text, listening to the soft rustle of the tissue-thin pages under her fingertips.

She's somewhere near the middle of the book when she notices that a few of those pages are stuck together.

Not wanting to risk ruining the Bible, she calls Mark over to show him.

Together, they look closer at the binding and notice that there's something glued between the stuck pages.

It looks like a folded piece of paper, but they can't tell what's on it.

So Mark picks up a sharp X-Acto knife and methodically cuts the document free.

The yellowed paper looks very old and is sealed with another layer of glue that seems to have turned black with age.

They still can't see most of what's hidden, between the folds, but they can see a signature.

As they turn the document this way and that, they start to think that it looks familiar.

To their eyes, it looks an awful lot like Joseph Smith's handwriting.

It's an exciting thought, but the young couple are both terrified they'll rip the delicate paper if they try to open the document fully.

So they decide to leave it closed until they can get an expert to look at it.

The next day, Mark takes the folded document and the Bible to a curator at Utah State University, about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City.

With Mark's permission, the professor uses solvent and a scalpel to carefully cut away the blackened glue, then lays the paper flat on the table.

It's a page full of symbols, hieroglyphics, Greek letters, some Roman and Hebrew, all jumbled together and stacked in neat vertical columns.

Both men have heard about a Mormon document matching this description, but no one alive has ever seen it before.

Now, looking at Joseph Smith's signature alongside the writing, the professor tells Mark that he thinks that he might have just found the Anthem transcript.

Long thought lost to time, the Anthem transcript is a paper onto which Joseph Smith copied symbols from the gold plates and sent to quote-unquote learned men to see if they could translate the writing.

When they couldn't, Smith announced that he was the only one who could, which was in accordance with a prophecy in the Book of Mormon.

A prophecy he just so happened to have translated for his followers.

Now, it seems like 25-year-old Mark Hoffman has found the lost transcript in a 17th-century Bible.

Word spreads quickly through the Mormon community.

A church historian analyzes the document and confirms that the handwriting and signature both seem to match other examples of the prophet's hand.

Then, three days after the discovery, a collection of historians declares the document is genuine.

Without a doubt, this is the Anthem Transcript, one of the oldest documents in the church's history.

And it was found completely by chance.

Now, Mark just has to decide what to do with it.

On April 21, 1980, Mark arrives at the LDS Church Administration Building in downtown Salt Lake City.

He's here to meet with members of the Council of Twelve Apostles, a group of men who act as leaders and advisors at the head of the church.

After examining the document Mark has found, the apostles invite Hoffman to an audience with the president of the church later that afternoon.

The Anthem transcript is important enough that the prophet, the most powerful man in Salt Lake City, clears his schedule to see it and speak with the college senior who's brought it to light.

When Mark walks into the president's office, there are other senior officials in the room, as well as a church photographer standing by to document the occasion.

It's a lot of attention and Mark's head is spinning.

Few people get to meet the prophet at all, let alone receive an invitation to sit down and discuss historical artifacts with him.

Mark lets the older men dictate the direction of the conversation and mostly speaks only when he's spoken to.

He describes how he and his wife found the document hidden in an old Bible and eventually explains how his fascination with collecting Mormon documents really took off during his mission in England.

The group pour excitedly over the Anthem transcript and the Bible it was found in, which certainly seems to have belonged to the Smith family.

Then, the talk turns to business.

The president asks Mark what he intends to do with the transcript now that it's been verified as the genuine article.

Timidly, Mark says that he wants the church to have it as a gift.

It's common knowledge that the office of the First Presidency has a private vault full of scores of valuable Mormon documents.

No one knows for sure what's inside the vault, but it's certainly the safest place for something so important to the faith.

The president is grateful for Mark's generosity, but it's not a gift that the church intends to leave unrewarded.

They won't offer Mark money that would make the exchange seem too commercial, too tawdry and might attract unwanted attention from the media.

Instead, they'll offer Mark a generous gift in return.

After careful consideration, the president presents Mark with not one item, but several.

A first edition of the Book of Mormon, several examples of pioneer Mormon currency, and a gold Mormon coin from 1850.

It's a lavish exchange.

Altogether, historians and collectors value the assortment of artifacts at around $20,000.

This at a time when the median house price in Utah is around $110,000.

Mark leaves the meeting floating on air.

Just as he told his friends years earlier in England that it would, his obsession with antique books has paid off.

It's not made him rich, not yet.

But as Mark heads home to tell his wife what's happened, he's determined that he's just getting started.

Soon after the deal with Mark Hoffman is finalized, the church holds a press conference where they officially announce the discovery to the world.

The Anthem transcript is a once-in-a-lifetime find, they say, on par with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The beautifully copied symbols printed on the antique paper will offer scholars the chance to translate the direct text Joseph Smith said he copied from the gold plates.

This will prove that the plates were never a fiction, as some scurrilous church critics have suggested.

To the church leadership then, the transcript is a faith-promoting article that will fortify Mormonism against its many detractors.

But at the press conference, some journalists raise their hands to ask the obvious question, how do the church historians know this document isn't a fake?

How can they be sure?

But the officials on the podium eerily dismissed the concern, saying, quote, It is impossible to conclude that anyone other than Joseph Smith wrote this.

And on the whole, media outlets seem inclined to agree.

The discovery of the Ampen transcript makes headlines around the world and thrusts Mark Hoffman into the spotlight.

Newspapers publish photos of the 25-year-old posing with the transcript he discovered, a shy smile on his face.

The whole experience gets Mark thinking about his future.

He's always loved exploring his religion's history, and now he's been handsomely rewarded for his efforts.

And it was fairly simple to do.

He just had to know what to look out for.

If the church were willing to give him such a valuable reward for donating the Anthem transcript, what might private collectors be willing to pay for other such documents?

He eventually starts to think that if he turns his hobby into his profession, he could make quite a comfortable living.

Finds as important and valuable as the transcript will be rare, but he's learned just how many people are interested in old documents relating to the church.

Beyond the community of saints, there are even more people who collect all kinds of historical documents.

The possibilities are endless.

With all of that in mind, Mark sits down first with his wife and then with his parents.

To Dory, he explains that he can make just as much money as a dealer of rare documents as he could if he were a doctor.

For his parents though, he has a different story.

One carefully calibrated to their expectations for him.

He tells them that discovering the Anthem transcript felt like a message directly from God.

This is the path his life has to take.

This is his mission.

He'll devote himself to finding more faith promoting documents and bring them to light.

In both cases, Mark has judged his audience perfectly.

His wife and parents are soon on board with this new plan.

So, with his family's blessing, Mark abandons his studies for medical school and announces that he's going into the rare document trade full time.

He knows that it's his true calling and is sure that he can strike gold again.

And he's right.

But Mark Hoffman has no idea yet just how far his new career will take him, or how much damage he'll cause.

How do you solve a crime in reverse, when you believe that someone was murdered, but have no clue who the victim was?

We have to do our job, and we have to find out.

Who did they kill?

If it's possible, how are we going to do that?

I'm Jay Calpern, and this is Deep Cover, The Nameless Man.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thank It's February of 1981, 10 months after the discovery of the Amp'n Transcript.

26-year-old Mark Hoffman is in the office of Donald Schmidt, chief archivist at Brigham Young University in Provo, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.

This isn't the first time Mark's spoken with Schmidt.

The two have done a few deals recently, with Schmidt acquiring several of Mark's document finds on behalf of the church.

Today, though, Mark's visibly excited about what he has to show off.

As they sit on opposite sides of Schmidt's desk, Mark slides a piece of paper to the historian.

Schmidt pulls it closer and scans the page.

It's a photocopy of a blessing signed by the prophet Joseph Smith in 1844.

A bit of a rarity, but not unheard of.

Mark explains that he's willing to part with the original copy of the blessing if the church is interested, but they'll need to open their checkbook.

When Schmidt asks him how much he's looking for, Mark names his price $5,000.

For comparison, that's over 17 grand today.

Schmidt is a cautious negotiator and tells Mark that the blessing isn't worth anything near that.

Mark looks at his friend, wondering if he realizes what the blessing actually means.

Because this isn't just any run-of-the-mill missive from the prophet.

Its contents are a bombshell that could rip apart the foundations of the church in Utah.

For over a century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has argued that the prophet didn't leave behind any clear instructions on who his successor should be.

Hence, the fracturing into smaller groups after his murder in 1845.

The largest surviving splinter group, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or RLDS, is based in Missouri.

Its disciples still believe that the Smiths were something of a royal family for their faith and follow Smith's descendants as prophets.

Now, the blessing that Marcus found seems to prove that the RLDS is right.

The document clearly states Joseph Smith's wish that his son take over after him as leader of the Mormon faith.

If the blessing is genuine, it would invalidate Brigham Young's claim to the title of prophet and completely undermine the standing of the Utah-based church.

With all of this in mind, Mark knows that the LDS leaders will want this blessing, if only to hide it away.

But Donald Schmitt is determined not to be beaten in a negotiation, especially by a 25-year-old.

So he feigns disinterest in the document.

The most committal he gets is to ask Mark to show him the genuine article once he gets it, not a photocopy.

Then he suggests that the church might be willing to go as high as five grand, but there's no guarantee.

Mark is flummoxed by Schmitt's nonchalance.

But he has a trump card.

He suggests that if the Utah church won't bite, then the splinter group RLDS will be very excited to get their hands on the document.

Thinking this is just another negotiation tactic, Schmitt advises Mark to pursue that deal, because the LDS leadership will never pay Mark what he wants.

So Mark leaves Schmitt's office and gets in touch with the RLDS in Missouri.

It turns out he was right.

They are desperate for the Joseph Smith Blessing, and they're more than happy to do a trade.

In exchange for the blessing, they'll give Mark a copy of the Book of Commandments, a rare volume that's worth around 40 grand.

But by this stage, the leaders of the LDS have heard about the blessing from Donald Schmitt.

They're annoyed that their man let the document slip through his fingers and are determined to have the blessing for their collection.

So they reach out to Mark and urge him to do a deal with them instead of the rival church.

It's his duty as a Mormon, they say, to contribute to their collection, not to offer harmful documents to their enemies.

Proposing a trade, they offer him historical items worth around $20,000 and leave him to consider his options.

Mark mulls the decision over for a few days.

In the end, the ties of loyalty to his own church went out and he agrees to the exchange with the Utah church.

The only problem with that choice is that Mark promised the RLDS that they had the option to buy the blessing before anyone else.

And when they find out that they've been passed over in favor of their rivals, they're furious.

The RLDS called the leaders in Salt Lake City and demand a copy of the blessing and permission to make the whole affair public.

After that, the LDS know there's no way to keep a lid on this thing.

If the media find out that they're buying and suppressing historical documents, the fallout could be more damaging to the church than anything the blessing actually says.

They have to wrest back control of the narrative before it runs away from them.

Damage limitation is the name of the game now.

So, the church leaders make an unexpected decision.

They open up negotiations with the church in Missouri and offer to give them the blessing as a gift.

The leaders of the reorganized church are surprised by the move.

But they don't want to appear ungrateful, so they propose a swap.

In exchange for the blessing, the Book of Commandments they planned on giving to Mark Hoffman will go to the archives in Utah instead.

After the terms are agreed, officials in Salt Lake City call a press conference where they officially hand over the blessing.

The LDS leaders hope the show of generosity will overshadow any hint of impropriety and diminish any suggestion that this document is of groundbreaking importance to the Mormon faith.

After all, if they're willing to give the blessing away, then it can't be that important.

Despite their efforts, though, the affair makes the front page of The New York Times.

The article suggests that the Missouri Mormon Church is the real church of Joseph Smith, and that the Utah-based organization is a pretender to the crown.

In the aftermath of the small media storm, the LDS leaders try to minimize the fallout.

In April of 1981, less than two months after Mark first brought the blessing to Donald Schmidt, a church leader addresses a gathered crowd of Mormons.

He explains that other documents the church has in its possession invalidate the Joseph Smith blessing, and prove that the prophet eventually decided that the line of succession should pass down through the Council of Twelve Apostles.

It's spin at its finest, but it seems to stave off any rumblings about the church's legitimacy.

The entire incident puts the Mormon leadership on notice, however.

If they'd acted more quickly, Mark Hoffman's find could have been hidden away without anyone being the wiser.

They resolved to be far more decisive when such important documents present themselves in the future.

And they'll have to be.

Because this isn't the end of Mark Hoffman's string of success finding troublesome historical documents.

In the city by the Great Salt Lake, things are just getting started.

And eventually, the results will prove explosive.

From Airship, this is episode one in our series on the Salt Lake City Bombings.

On the next episode, a second deadly explosion in Utah sends investigators spinning in a new direction.

We used many different sources while preparing this episode.

A few we can recommend are A Gathering of Saints, a true story of money, murder and deceit by Robert Lindsay, Salamander by Linda Silito and Alan Roberts, and No Man Knows My History by Fawn M.

Brody.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details.

And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shazib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callen, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham for Airship.

Thank you.