Dealing with the Devil (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. At 6:45 a.m. on a regular Tuesday in Salt Lake City, Utah, a father and son lugged a heavy jewelry case into the lobby of a high rise building. They ran a jewelry store together on the third floor, and they had come in early to set up their new display.

They heard the lobby door open up behind them, and so they turned and they saw a man holding a cardboard box. The man said he was making a delivery and asked them where the elevator was. The father and his son were heading towards the elevator anyways, so all three of them just got on the elevator together.

As they stood in the elevator car as it brought them up, the father looked over at the box that the man was carrying. There was a name written on the top of it in black marker, but there was no return address, which seemed odd. And also, the man didn't really look like a delivery driver. He was wearing a green letterman jacket like a high school athlete would wear. But the father just kept his thoughts to himself, and when the elevator doors opened to the third floor, he and his son carried their jewelry case out and went on with their day.

But later that morning, a firefighter pounded on the jewelry shop door and said the building was being evacuated. The father and son rushed outside where they saw fire trucks, police cars, and a crowd of other people who worked inside the building. As a woman in the crowd filled them in about what had just happened, a horrible realization dawned on the jewelry shop owner. That delivery man they saw on the elevator was not who he claimed to be, and the cardboard box he had contained something far more sinister than anything the shop owner could have imagined.

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please go to the Follow Buttons office and break the lead tips off of all their pencils and then hide their pencil sharpener. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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Monday, October 14th, 1985 was Columbus Day, and Steve Christensen was marking the holiday by chasing his three young sons around his big sunlit living room. His wife Terri stood next to the fireplace smiling with a hand on her very pregnant belly, and every time Steve looked over at her, he couldn't believe how beautiful she looked. She was absolutely glowing. Steve stopped running around to catch his breath. He was only 31 years old, but everyone said he seemed older, and today he felt older too.

He was tall and broad-shouldered with thick brown hair and an air of seriousness about him. Steve's number one goal in life was to provide for his family, and he'd worked hard so they could have their nice home here in Salt Lake City, Utah.

As his boys crowded around him, still wanting to play, Steve suddenly felt a pang of guilt. He knew he had not been spending enough time with his family lately because he had been so consumed with work. But Steve didn't feel like he had any other options. Two months ago, the financial consulting company that he had helped build had gone under, leaving Steve almost bankrupt. Now he was trying to launch a new consulting business with a friend, and he was working overtime basically every week to get this new company off the ground.

Steve told his sons they could play for a few more minutes, and so they did, and then afterwards he stood up and he walked over to Terry to rub her shoulders. He knew she was exhausted from the pregnancy and that she didn't like him working all the time, but Steve also knew he and his wife could make it through hard times. Not only did they have each other, but they also had their faith in the Mormon church. Steve was a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are officially known, and Terry was a devoted member.

Literally half the population of Salt Lake City was Mormon, and Steve loved it. He and his growing family were surrounded by a big supportive community. But Steve's interest in Mormonism went well beyond his faith. He also collected historic Mormon artifacts like letters, books, and other documents that cataloged the church's past. Before his financial problems began, Steve used to buy and sell these 19th century antiques all the time. He'd even donated rare historical documents to the church.

These days, though, he mostly helped arrange document sales for other people. He'd recently helped his friend Mark Hoffman, who was a professional antiques dealer, get a $185,000 USD loan to buy some early Mormon letters. Not only that, Steve had tracked down a lawyer whose client was interested in purchasing the letters from Mark at an even higher price. Steve, Mark, and the lawyer were going to meet tomorrow morning to make everything official.

But Steve didn't want to think about business right now. He just wanted to enjoy this rare day off with his family. He kissed his wife's shoulder and went back to playing tag with his boys. The next morning, Steve's alarm went off at 7 a.m. He dragged himself out of bed, got ready for work, grabbed his briefcase, and headed to the kitchen.

Terry was in there making waffles for the boys, and she asked if Steve wanted to sit down and eat, but he told her he didn't have time. He was just going to grab breakfast on his way to the office, and so he gave his wife and sons each a kiss before heading out the door. Steve drove his Jeep towards downtown Salt Lake City, stopping to buy a box of donuts and a couple of cans of ginger ale on the way.

Then, he parked his car outside a huge, eight-story high-rise building called the Judge Building, where his office was located. The Judge Building was filled with other shops and offices, and even though it was only 8 a.m., there were already plenty of people milling around. Steve waved to some of the familiar faces as he strode toward the elevator.

Steve took the elevator up to the sixth floor, and as he approached his office door, he noticed a cardboard box sitting on the ground. It sort of looked like a box that might contain a big cake, like a big square. And on top of this box, written in black marker, it just said, "To Steve Christensen." Steve balanced the two cans of ginger ale on top of the box of donuts, and then he carefully bent down and used his free hand to pick up this box.

At that same moment, Steve's new business partner, Randy Rigby, was weaving through traffic trying to get downtown. Randy was about 10 minutes late for work, and he'd been trying to page Steve and let him know he was on the way. Steve was not answering.

And as Randy approached the Judge building, he was quite surprised to see all these fire trucks and police cars outside parked everywhere with their lights flashing and sirens going off. People were gathered around the building looking curious and concerned. Randy scanned the crowd for Steve, whose tall, broad frame was always easy to spot, but he couldn't see him anywhere. Then he started looking for Steve's Jeep and noticed it parked nearby.

Randy walked up to a woman who obviously was from the judge building and he asked her, you know, what's going on here? And she said the whole building had just been evacuated because of some emergency. She said she had no idea what this emergency was. Suddenly, Randy had an unsettling thought. What if Steve didn't know that he needed to get out of the building and he was still in there? Randy needed to make sure Steve was okay. So even though he could see police officers shooing people away from the main entrance, he decided to sneak in.

Randy drove his car to the back entrance of the building and quietly slipped inside. He sprinted up six flights of stairs, burst into a long hallway, and looked at his and Steve's office door. Except there was no door. The entrance to their office was now a gaping hole framed by splintered wood and chunks of broken drywall. The hallway was littered with debris and coated in dust and ash. Randy's eyes looked to the floor and he saw there were chunks of burned donuts and also two ginger ale cans that had been bust open.

Then, he saw his partner's mangled body lying amidst the wreckage. His business partner was so obviously dead that the emergency medical workers standing nearby weren't even trying to revive him. The scene was so horrible that Randy could barely process it. Staring at his lifeless friend, all he could think was, "Who's going to tell his wife?" But then, a police officer grabbed Randy's arm and pulled him away from the area. He told Randy the building had been evacuated and he was not supposed to be here.

Moments later, Salt Lake City Police detectives Jim Bell and Ken Farnsworth reached the same hallway that Randy had just been kicked out of. The men made a good team. Bell was quiet and analytical, while Farnsworth was more talkative and outgoing. The veteran homicide investigators had worked a lot of cases together, but they'd never seen anything like this.

Looking at the devastating scene, both detectives were at a loss for words. The victim, who they had learned was 31-year-old Steve Christensen, was unrecognizable. His chest had been blown open, his right foot was nearly severed off, and there were long, heavy nails lodged in his face. Farnsworth cleared his throat and said what both men were thinking. It looked like a bomb went off.

The detectives put on gloves and spent the next hour combing the hallway and bagging potential evidence. They found a number of wires, a rocket ignitor, and also a motion sensor switch, all items a person could use to build a homemade bomb. Just then, Detective Bell heard the elevator ding, and he turned and saw a scruffy man in a gray sports coat walk out.

Jerry D'Elia was unique in the Salt Lake City Police Department. He was a prosecutor, he was also an arson expert, and he was an investigator. A native of New York City, D'Elia had more experience with bombing cases than anybody else on the force. Bell explained what they'd found so far, and D'Elia agreed that it seems like Steve had been the victim of a homemade bomb.

But, D'Elia said that whoever made it knew exactly what they were doing. Not only did they use a motion sensor switch so the bomb would go off whenever somebody moved it, but they had also wrapped the explosives in nails that virtually guaranteed the bomber's target would be killed in the explosion. In fact, D'Elia said the bomb was so sophisticated that he wondered if maybe this was the work of a professional hitman.

But, as they discussed the possibility that Steve was killed by a murderer for hire, another police officer came running up the stairwell accompanied by two men who looked very shaken. The men said they owned a jewelry store on the third floor of the Judge Building and just that morning at about 6:45 am they had rode the elevator up with a man who claimed to be delivering a package. And this man was carrying a cardboard box and on the box it said "To Steve Christensen." And so now that the jewelry shop owners had heard what happened,

They were pretty certain they'd been inside the elevator with the bomber. Detective Bell asked if they recalled anything about the man's appearance. And the witnesses said he was Caucasian, with brown hair, maybe in his 30s. And they remembered that he was wearing a green letterman jacket.

Bell looked over at D'Elia. A 30-something-year-old guy in a letterman jacket didn't exactly sound like a professional hitman, because that kind of stands out quite a bit, and if you're a hitman, you want to be kind of under the radar. But then again, who was really to say what a real hitman looked like? Before they could talk it over, though, yet another police officer came barreling through the door from the stairwell, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, and he looked directly at Detective Bell and said, "'We have another one.'"

Shortly after 11:00 a.m., about two hours after this first explosion, prosecutor D'Elia pulled up outside a home in the upscale Salt Lake City suburb of Holiday. He saw county sheriff's deputies, TV news reporters, and frightened neighbors crowded outside, all trying to make sense of the horrific scene. D'Elia parked his car, stepped out, and looked over at what was left of a nice brick house. An entire side of the garage had collapsed, and the carefully mowed yard was now covered with debris.

D'Elia pushed through the crowd, and then he saw what everybody was staring at. There was a woman's body lying on the front porch. She had wavy gray hair, but her face was obscured by burns and soot, and her left arm had been blown off, and her abdomen had been ripped open.

D'Lea didn't know this woman, but seeing her shattered body and destroyed home made him feel furious. Bombings were rare in Salt Lake City, and back-to-back bombings were basically unheard of. So D'Lea was quite certain that the same killer or killers were responsible for both.

Delia approached one of the deputies who was already on scene and asked what they knew so far. The deputy told him that the victim's name was Kathleen Sheets. She was a 50-year-old school teacher and mother, and she was married to a financial consultant named Gary Sheets. Gary was the founder of that failed investment company where Steve Christensen used to work, and the men had a close professional relationship until about two months ago when their business went under.

Then, the deputy showed D'Elia a piece of cardboard from the box that the bomb came in. There, in black marker on the cardboard, was Gary's name. Apparently, the deputy said, Gary was the bomb's intended target, not his wife.

D'Lea thought this over. Two partners whose business recently failed had both been targeted by devastating bombs within hours of each other. D'Lea wondered if someone who had lost money when Steve and Gary's company collapsed might be out for revenge. But D'Lea also thought it was possible that maybe Gary killed his former business partner and his wife and only wrote his name on the box as a diversion. Either way, D'Lea knew exactly who investigators needed to speak to next. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Maybe you'll find inspiration in the incredible true story of black female mathematicians at NASA in Hidden Figures, or the fantasy world of Throne of Glass. There's more to imagine when you listen. As an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog,

New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500. That's audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500. Later that morning, Detective Farnsworth sat in an interview room at the Salt Lake City Police Station across from Gary Sheets. Gary was in his 50s with white hair and even whiter teeth, but his eyes were red from crying.

Farnsworth tried to be gentle while asking questions, and Gary was very forthcoming despite his obvious shock and grief. He explained that he and Steve used to run a financial consulting company together, working with wealthy investors. They'd done well until some bad investments left the company on the verge of bankruptcy. Then, two months ago, Steve had decided to leave and start his own consulting company with a new partner, leaving Gary to try to deal with the mess of their failed business. But Gary said he didn't have any animosity towards Steve.

and he was heartbroken to hear about Steve's violent death. As for his own wife's murder, Gary said he couldn't believe any of this was real. Detective Farnsworth felt sorry for the guy and knew Gary should be with his family right now, but there was a bomber who was loose in Salt Lake City and his questions just couldn't wait. He asked if Gary knew anyone who might want to hurt him. Gary paused for a moment and then said, "Well, yeah."

When his and Steve's company failed, a lot of investors lost a lot of money. Maybe these bombs were a spurned investor's way of getting revenge. But if this was the case, Gary wondered, why target his wife? Detective Farnsworth swallowed hard and told Gary the bomb had actually been inside a cardboard box and his name had been written on the box. As far as police could tell, someone out there had actually wanted Gary dead, not his wife.

Hearing this news, Gary began to cry not only at the thought of his wife being murdered by mistake, but also because the reality that somebody was out to kill him was terrifying. And he began shaking like he was just so scared he couldn't help it. And so seeing this, Farnsworth immediately offered to place him in protective custody until the police solved the case. In the meantime, they needed Gary to put together a list of all the investors who'd lost money when his and Steve's company dissolved. Any one of them could be the bomber.

While Detective Farnsworth wrapped up his conversation with Gary, his partner, Detective Bell, was a few miles away on the couch in Steve Christensen's living room. Steve's very pregnant wife, Terry, sat across from him looking totally numb. A few members of the family had come over as soon as they heard the news, and they took care of Steve and Terry's boys while she spoke with the detective.

Her voice was flat as she told Detective Bell that she didn't know how she was going to live without her husband. Beyond the shock and grief of losing someone she loved so much, Terry was now going to have to find a way to support four children on her own, and the family's financial situation was not good. She sighed and sort of muttered under her breath that she wished Steve hadn't been so generous with the church.

Detective Bell asked what she meant. Terry tucked a strand of her short blonde hair behind her ear and explained that Steve was always spending money on Mormon artifacts. The previous year, in 1984, he'd paid $40,000 US dollars for one document and then just handed it over to the church.

Detective Bell looked confused. Terry explained that this document, called the "Salamander Letter," was valuable because it was so controversial, raising doubts about the founding of the Mormon Church. The church taught that the founder of Mormonism was led to the Book of Mormon by an angel, but the letter said he'd actually been led there by a white salamander.

Terry said that Steve's friend, Mark Hoffman, had found the salamander letter from one of his confidential sources, and when word got out that Mark had the letter, church leaders got really upset because it totally went against their teachings. Terry said she didn't want Steve to buy this letter, but he did it anyway. And then he donated the document to the Mormon church. And just like that, Steve and Terry's family had lost $40,000, money that they really needed right now.

Detective Bell could see how upsetting this was for Terry. He didn't want to cause her any more grief, so he thanked her for the information and told her how sorry he was for her loss. But before he got up to leave, Terry stopped him. She said she felt like the salamander letter might have something to do with her husband's murder. The letter's discovery caused some Mormons to leave the church, and they might have blamed Steve for shattering their faith. Detective Bell wasn't sure what to think, but he promised Terry he would look into it.

The next day, at about 2:40 p.m., Detective Farnsworth cruised down the highway towards the police station. It was only the second day of the investigation, but Farnsworth already felt enormous pressure to solve this case. People were scared, especially after a local reporter had received an anonymous call claiming there were four more bombs already planted all around Salt Lake City.

And, at a press conference the night before, the Salt Lake City Police Chief had said the crime could be related to this salamander letter. And so fearing that their affiliation with the Mormon church could make them the next victims, multiple prominent Mormons had taken their wives and kids into hiding.

Detective Farnsworth pulled into the police station, but just as he turned off the ignition, he heard an emergency report on the police radio. The dispatcher said all available police needed to head to an address near Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City. Just as the public feared, the bomber had struck a third time. Minutes later, Detective Farnsworth skidded to a stop near a blue Toyota sports car that was still smoldering.

A firefighter sprayed water onto the smoking vehicle, and Farnsworth could hear the siren of an approaching ambulance just a few blocks away. Farnsworth jumped out of his car and saw that the entire driver's side of the blue Toyota had been blown apart. And a few feet away, a Salt Lake City police officer was kneeling on the ground, cradling an injured man's head.

The man looked like a total wreck to Farnsworth. There were shards of glass in his face, his bloody right hand was missing a fingertip, and he had a piece of metal shrapnel sticking out of his right knee. But somehow, this man was alive. Just then, the sirens reached a fever pitch as the ambulance arrived on the scene.

Two EMTs jumped out of the vehicle and ran over to the injured man and began taking his vitals. Detective Farnsworth leaned down and asked the injured man for his name. In between labored breaths, he said his name was Mark Hoffman. Farnsworth immediately recognized that name. Mark was the man who had discovered the controversial salamander letter and sold it to Steve. But before the detective could ask any follow-up questions, the EMTs loaded Mark into the back of the ambulance and sped off to the hospital.

Moments later, prosecutor D'Elia and a federal agent who specialized in bombing cases arrived on the scene.

The federal agent immediately began examining Mark's smoldering vehicle while Farnsworth got D'Elia up to speed about the latest victim. But just then, the federal agent called out to them to come over and look at what he'd found inside of Mark's trunk. Farnsworth and D'Elia ran to the back of the sports car, and in the trunk they saw a trove of old-looking papers that had been damaged in the explosion. They were either burnt from the fire or sopping wet from when the firefighter had doused the vehicle with water, but they were all there and clearly seemed pretty important.

As he looked at the ruined papers, Detective Farnsworth was overwhelmed with questions. Why would someone want to kill Mark Hoffman? Could it be related to the documents inside his trunk? Or could it be someone who blamed Mark and Steve for unearthing the salamander letter that undermined the Mormon faith? And if that was the case, why would the bomber then also target Gary and Kathy Sheets? They were connected to Steve, but they had nothing to do with the buying and selling of Mormon artifacts, and so none of it made any sense.

At about 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, Detective Bell stood in Mark Hoffman's room at the LDS Church Hospital. Mark had all these open wounds on his face from where doctors had pulled glass out, and he was waiting for an operation on his injured leg. Bell felt terrible for him, but on the bright side, doctors said he was likely going to live. Mark was on pain medication, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. Detective Bell asked him if he felt well enough to talk, and Mark croaked out a yes.

The detective asked Mark where he was going when the explosion happened, and Mark said he was on his way to sell some rare documents to a lawyer downtown. Bell asked what kind of documents, and Mark sort of paused for a minute and then said he couldn't actually remember. He said he couldn't actually recall much of anything from that morning except opening his car door and seeing a small package fall out. Mark said he went to pick up the package, and then everything went black.

Detective Bell nodded grimly. He'd heard from people in the Mormon community that Mark was this incredibly talented and charismatic man. Mark was jokingly known as the Mormon Indiana Jones because he was so good at finding valuable artifacts. So to Bell, even though he didn't know Mark, it just seemed so sad that this guy was kind of a shell of himself with virtually no memory of what nearly killed him.

Bell asked Mark if he could recall anything from before the explosion. Mark thought for a moment, and then he whispered that he had noticed a brown pickup truck that seemed like it was following him right before the explosion. The truck didn't worry him at the time, but only now as he thought about it, he wondered if the bomber might have been trailing him. He'd seen through the mirror that the driver was a white man with brown hair, but besides that, Mark didn't get a good look at the guy because again, it didn't really matter to him at the time.

Detective Bell nodded. It sounded like the driver could be the same person the father and son saw in the judge building. But still, there was a lot of white men with brown hair in Salt Lake City, Utah, so this was not a particularly helpful clue. Just then, a doctor came into the room and said they needed to begin prepping Mark for his leg surgery. Detective Bell thanked Mark for the information and then turned to leave.

Two days later, on Friday, October 18th, Bell and Farnsworth sat inside of an interview room facing a man named Shannon Flynn. The detectives had learned that Shannon was Mark Hoffman's full-time employee, helping him find and sell these rare documents. And so if anybody could help investigators understand what was going on in this strange and secretive world of trading Mormon artifacts, it was Shannon.

Sitting at the table, Shannon seemed very nervous. But then again, so far, three bombs had gone off in Salt Lake City, targeting Shannon's boss and another man he routinely worked with, Steve. Shannon admitted that he was terrified of becoming the bomber's next victim. Detective Bell asked Shannon if there was any particular person he felt afraid of, but Shannon shook his head and said no.

He told them that a lot of these document sales happened anonymously through people's lawyers or other representatives, so this made the whole situation even more frightening. Somebody could have it out for him and he wouldn't even know their name.

Bell asked if Shannon knew anybody who might want to hurt his boss, Mark. And Shannon said that Mark was having financial trouble related to two different document sales. Either one could have made Mark some enemies. Shannon said for the first deal, Mark had asked his friend Steve Christensen for help getting a private $185,000 loan to purchase a collection of antique documents. And now Mark was having trouble paying back that loan, which had very much upset Steve. But

But Mark kept telling Steve not to worry because he had an even bigger sale pending. And when that went through, Mark promised he could pay back the loan then.

But Shannon said Mark's second document sale had also hit a snag. Mark had acquired the only known copy of the first document ever printed in colonial America known as the Oath of a Freeman, a discovery so significant that the United States Library of Congress had offered to buy it for a million dollars. But the Library of Congress wanted elaborate proof that this document was indeed authentic before they paid such a huge amount for it.

And so this delay in the sale was really putting Mark in a very serious cash crunch. Detective Bell asked Shannon if he knew where Mark got the document. But Shannon said no, Mark didn't share the names of his contacts very often.

At this point, the detective was starting to feel suspicious of Shannon. It was hard to believe that as Mark's only full-time employee, he didn't know anything about where these documents were coming from. Plus, Detective Bell didn't understand why Mark would have needed a loan to buy artifacts. He knew Mark had made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling antiques, so Detective Bell outright asked Shannon if he knew where all of his money had gone.

Shannon suddenly looked down at the table and sort of mumbled that Mark lived far beyond his means. He traveled all the time, lived in a huge house, and drove an expensive sports car. Plus, Mark could be generous almost to a fault. Shannon said that one time Mark had given him money to buy a submachine gun for his firearm collection, and then he also helped pay to convert that submachine gun into a fully automatic gun.

When Detective Bell heard this, he tried to keep his expression neutral, but he was shocked. Shannon had just confessed to turning a gun into a fully automatic weapon, which was illegal. Detective Bell glanced at Farnsworth, and he looked just as surprised. Bell quietly asked Farnsworth to step into the hall with him. Once they were out there and out of earshot of Shannon, they both agreed that Shannon seemed very suspicious, and because he confessed to owning an illegal firearm, they had probable cause to arrest him and search his home.

So that's exactly what the detectives did. Shannon was immediately taken into custody on the firearms charge, and when Bell and Farnsworth searched his home, they found at least three more guns. Then they stumbled on something even more shocking. Shannon owned a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, a notorious 1970s book that contained instructions for building bombs. Just like that, Shannon shot to the top of their suspects list, and they quickly got another warrant to search more of Shannon's property.

It turned out Shannon rented a storage unit and police suspected that might be where he was constructing bombs.

That weekend, Detective Bell arrived at what investigators called the War Room, a big conference room in the Salt Lake City Police Station where everyone working the case could meet and discuss their progress. Bell sat down with Farnsworth, Prosecutor D'Elia, and the federal agent from the third bombing scene, as well as a number of other law enforcement officials. And they had a lot to talk about. Even though the search of Shannon Flynn's storage unit hadn't revealed anything incriminating, he still seemed extremely suspicious. If

If the police were right and these bombings were all related to the rare document trade, then Shannon seemed like their only real suspect. But Detective Bell knew that this explanation did not account for the murder of Kathy Sheets. As far as police could tell, Kathy and Gary Sheets had not been involved in buying or selling Mormon documents and had nothing to do with Shannon Flynn. So, Prosecutor D'Elia suggested the investigators go back through the dozens of interviews they'd conducted, maybe

Maybe if they reviewed all of the evidence as a group, something would stand out. And so Bell and Farnsworth just began reading their notes out loud, going through every last detail from each person they'd spoken to. And as they did this, suddenly the federal agent's hand shot up and he told them to stop. The agent said he just noticed something. A detail from one of the interviews didn't make sense. One of their witnesses had to be lying. And he felt certain this person who was lying was the bomber.

Immediately, investigators started drafting a court motion to get one more search warrant. And during the search, just a few days later, they uncovered a piece of evidence that broke the case wide open and led to a shocking revelation that nobody imagined. Based on the evidence found during police searches, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened during the Salt Lake City bombings of 1985.

Late on the night of October 14th, the killer stood at a work table in their basement, putting the finishing touches on two homemade bombs. They'd spent the last few weeks researching how to build them, and they felt confident the design would work.

The killer taped dozens of long carpenter's nails over one bomb and added extra explosive powder to the second, making both bombs extra lethal. Then they gently placed each bomb into separate cardboard boxes. The killer had already used an ice pick to carve two small holes into the bottom of both boxes. Now they carefully threaded the wires from the motion sensor switches in each bomb through these holes. They taped the wires to the outside of the box to keep them separated, and when the time was right,

They would connect the wires, activating the motion sensor switch inside that would make the bombs detonate. Satisfied, the killer turned the cardboard boxes back over and taped them closed. They then grabbed a black felt-tip marker and wrote on the first box, "To Steve Christensen," and on the second box they wrote, "To Gary Sheets." Finally, the killer padded upstairs and got into bed, satisfied that everything was ready.

The next morning, the bomber woke up before sunrise. They slipped out of bed, tiptoed to the basement, and carried each box outside to the car. It was chilly, so they ran back in and put on their old green letterman jacket. Then they got into the car and drove downtown to Salt Lake City. At about 6:45 a.m., the killer parked outside the judge building, got out of their car, and lifted the box labeled "To Steve Christensen" out of the back seat.

They hoped to slip in and out of the building without being seen, but the moment they walked into the lobby, they ran into two people, a father and son.

The bomber pretended to be a delivery driver and got into the elevator with these two men. These men got out on the third floor, and when the killer reached the sixth floor hallway, they found their way to the office door that had Steve Christensen and Randy Rigby's names written on it. There, the killer knelt down, turned the box over, and carefully connected the two wires on the bottom, activating the motion sensor switch inside the bomb.

Then they very carefully set the box right side up. Then they casually turned, walked to the stairwell, headed downstairs, outside to their car, and drove away from the judge building. About 15 minutes later, the bomber arrived outside of a big brick home in the suburban city of Holiday. They didn't see any cars parked outside, so they assumed the home's owner, Gary Sheets, had left and would be home later that afternoon.

The bomber walked up to the front door carrying the cardboard box, then they taped the motion sensor wires together and gently placed the bomb near Gary's front porch. After that, the killer turned, walked back to their car, and drove home. When they got there, they opened up the front door and the house was quiet. So they slipped back into bed without being noticed by anybody else inside.

But, once the bomber got out of bed, they couldn't resist the urge to turn on the morning news. And at about 8:30 a.m., while they were sipping coffee on the couch, the news broke. A bomb had gone off at the judge building and a man had been killed.

The killer pretended to be just as shocked as anybody else in the house was. They even called into work and canceled meetings that day so they could stay home to be safe. Then, less than two hours later, local news stations reported the second bombing. But as the killer watched the coverage of the second bombing, they realized their plan had not gone as smoothly as they'd thought. They'd meant to kill Gary Sheets, but the news report said the second victim was a woman.

And things got even worse that evening when the Salt Lake City police chief gave a press conference. The killer watched as the police chief said the bombings might be related to a controversial Mormon document called the Salamander Letter.

The killer's stomach sank. They couldn't believe the police had zeroed in on the real reason for the bombing so quickly. They had to find some way to get investigators off the trail. And the only way they could think to do that was to create even more chaos. So, late that night, the killer crept down to the basement and constructed a third bomb. The next afternoon, on October 16th, the killer put the bomb in the passenger seat of their car and drove to a busy area downtown.

They parked, got out, and then leaned back into the car to turn the bomb over in the passenger seat. They attached the two wires on the bottom of the box, activating the motion sensor switch inside. Then, as they went to take the box out of the car, they jostled it just a bit too hard, and the bomb detonated, sending the killer flying. They crashed into the pavement with shrapnel stuck in their legs and face, they were missing a fingertip, and they were barely breathing.

At about 4:00 PM on Wednesday, October 16th, when Detective Bell went to the hospital to interview Mark, he had a lot of questions about how the explosion happened. Mark said he opened his car door and a small package had fallen out, then exploded. But later, when Detective Bell read his notes from this interview aloud to fellow investigators, the federal agent said Mark's story did not line up with the physical evidence.

The pattern of damage inside of Mark's car showed the bomb was somewhere near the center console when it detonated, not anywhere close to the driver's side floorboard like Mark had claimed. Now they had caught Mark in what looked like a lie. It was enough for the police to get a warrant to search his home, and there, shoved in the back of a closet, they found a green letterman jacket, just like the one the bomber wore. But that was far from the most damning evidence. Police also discovered two locked rooms in Mark's home, which his wife never entered.

The rooms were filled with stacks of old-looking papers, inks, and chemicals. Detectives didn't know what to make of all this until they found a receipt from a local engraving company. The owner of the company told them that Mark had ordered a special engraving plate that would allow him to recreate a famous historical document called the Oath of a Freeman, the same document Mark was trying to sell as authentic to the Library of Congress for $1 million. The detectives soon put two and two together.

Mark Hoffman did not have secret sources who provided him with rare and valuable artifacts. Instead, he'd been forging documents the entire time, which was why he wouldn't tell his employee, Shannon Flynn, where he was getting them from. As for why Mark did all this, money was his most obvious motive. He'd made hundreds of thousands of dollars by forging documents. But he also had another aim. He wanted to embarrass the Mormon church he'd grown up in.

Although Mark pretended to be a devout Mormon, he'd stopped believing in the church's doctrines when he was a teenager. As an adult, he started forging papers that would undermine the church's history and shake other people's faith too. The salamander letter was totally fake, but it did embarrass church leaders by making it look like Mormonism was inspired by a salamander rather than an angel. And Mark's friend Steve had paid him $40,000 for it, believing it was real.

Then, in the months leading up to the bombings, Mark had persuaded Steve to arrange a big $185,000 loan to buy a collection of Mormon letters that did not even exist. Mark took the money from Steve and squandered it on fancy vacations and a sports car, and then couldn't repay the loan. So, to get out of this financial hole, Mark forged a copy of the historic Oath of a Freeman that he planned to sell to the Library of Congress for $1 million.

But after Mark gave this fake document to library officials to verify, weeks ticked by with no word from them, and he got nervous that experts had found a flaw in his forgery and his whole scheme would fall apart. And at the same time, Mark's friend, Steve, was getting very impatient with Mark for not repaying his $185,000 overdue loan. And so at this point, Mark decided his only option was violence.

He murdered Steve to get him off of his back and then planted a bomb at Gary Sheets' house as a diversion. In reality, Mark didn't care whether Gary lived or died. He just wanted police to think that the bombings were all related to Steve and Gary's failed financial consulting business. And the plan almost worked until Mark made the mistake of setting off a bomb in his own car. He later claimed he did this on purpose in an attempt to commit suicide.

But investigators believed Mark actually intended to use this bomb either to kill Shannon Flynn, who was talking to police about Mark's financial problems, or to cause such a scene in downtown Salt Lake City that it would throw the detectives off his trail.

Officers arrested Mark Hoffman in January of 1986 and he quickly confessed to both the forgeries and the bombings, but he expressed no remorse for what he'd done. Mark then pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence rather than facing the death penalty. Once he was in prison, Mark's wife divorced him and he was excommunicated from the Mormon church.

Mark later attempted suicide, but he would survive. However, he would permanently damage his right arm, ironically losing control of the hand he'd once used to commit his many forgeries.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. They are this one, of course, Mr. Ballin Podcast, and we also have Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, we have Bedtime Stories, and also Run Full. To find those other podcasts, all you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you listen to your podcasts.

To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

Please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived. We know the six wives of Henry VIII as pawns in his hunt for a son, but their lives were so much more than just being the king's wives. I'm Arisha Skidmore-Williams. And I'm Brooke Ziffrin. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Royals. In each episode, we'll pull back the curtain on royal families past and present from all over the world.

to show you the darker side of what it means to be royalty. We rarely see Henry VIII's wives in their own light, as women who use the tools available to them to hold on to power. Some women won the game, others lost, but they were all unexpected agents in their own stories. Being a part of a royal family might seem enticing, but more often than not, it comes at the expense of everything else, like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes,

Even your head. Follow Even the Royals on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Go deeper and get more of the story with Wondery's top history podcasts, including American Scandal, Legacy, and Black History for Real.