Mark Hofmann emerged in the early 1980s as a dealer in rare Latter-day Saint and Americana documents, mixing genuine items with skilful forgeries. In 1984 he produced the salamander letter, dated 1830 and attributed to Martin Harris, and sold it; it was subsequently donated to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The document's folk-magic framing of the plates story drew intense attention because it appeared to complicate the founding narrative. As buyers and researchers scrutinised his growing output and his finances deteriorated, Hofmann planted pipe bombs that killed Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets in Salt Lake City on 15 October 1985; a third bomb injured Hofmann himself the following day and drew police attention to him. The letter's provenance, resting on Hofmann's own account, collapsed under the investigation.
Document forger Mark Hofmann fabricated the Salamander Letter, purportedly an 1830 letter from early Latter-day Saint figure Martin Harris describing folk-magic elements, including a white salamander, in Joseph Smith's account of receiving the golden plates, and sold it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which acquired it in 1985. Hofmann's forgeries and the murders he committed to conceal his escalating financial fraud, killing two people with pipe bombs in Salt Lake City in October 1985, unravelled together in the ensuing investigation; forensic analysis of the ink and paper subsequently confirmed the letter was a modern forgery, and Hofmann pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and to fraud charges in 1987. The letter remains in the church's archives today, retained as a documented historical forgery rather than as an authentic artefact.