Authenticity and Scholarship

The letter had been presented as an authentic 1830 witness to Joseph Smith's activities. Forensic document examination during the murder investigation established that it, and other Hofmann "discoveries," were forgeries: analysts identified anomalies in the ink and its chemical ageing and in the artificial cracking Hofmann used to simulate age, and could not reconcile the documents with genuine period materials.

Hofmann pleaded guilty in January 1987 to two counts of second-degree murder and to fraud connected with his forgeries, and was sentenced to prison. Both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in its published history, and independent scholarship, notably Richard E. Turley Jr.'s documentary study Victims, treat the salamander letter as a fabrication. Its interest today is not as a source for early Mormon history, which it never was, but as a case study in forgery, authentication, and the vulnerabilities of the documents market. The verdict is settled: the letter is a modern forgery.