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Re: archives mystery needed



The Salt Lake City murders were done by forger Mark Hoffman, a Mormon lad
disgruntled, in part, with the church and his dad. One of my favorite books
of all times is "A Gathering of Saints" about this crime. In short, he set
bomb packages, killing two people, one of whom was not the intended victim,
but the spouse. And he engineered a similar bomb explosion, in his car, to
make him appear as the next victim of this unknown killer. But people were
getting wise. He had hoodwinked the Mormon Church hierarchy into buying
phoney documents, as well as many collectors of say, Lincoln documents. At
first, he was held in high regard on both sides of the Atlantic. He
allegedly altered a US coin with a different mint mark, making some big
money on that. Other books about this bizarre case include "The Salamander
Letter" and "The Mormon Murders". In many ways, he was a clever forger, but
he left too much incriminating evidence around.....duh....

I have an interest in forensics, and the Hoffman case mixes forgery, murder,
religion, cops who tough it out despite an inherent bias as many SLC
officers are Mormon, a documents examiner, a lone chemist hunting elk or
moose in northern hinterlands, but who, with his ion migration technique,
shows that the ink on the documents in question had not been placed on the
paper any more than 20 years earlier. An 11th hour sort of thing.  I could
not put down "A Gathering of Saints", which I might add also has a
fascinating book cover.

Another interesting true case, tangential here, is the case of Little Boy
Blue (I think "Abandoned Prayers").  I have long admired the Amish people,
particularly of Ohio, and this case was unsolved for a few years. To make a
short story long, an Amish fellow, by the surname of Amstutz as I recall,
staged a barn fire near Millersburg or Holmes County area, in which he
actually murdered his young wife. Apparently the authorities in that county
did not feel the barn fire was suspicious, so little investigation was done.
Anyway, Amstutz, who was gay and wanted to pursue that lifestyle, takes his
young child, leaving that Amish community. To come out of the closet in the
Amish community would have really been a shocker. Apparently, his departure
was felt to be consistent with that of a newly widowered young man, wanting
to leave bad memories and all that behind. With his carpentry skills, he was
able to make a living for himself, and somehow he ended up in TX or NE or
that part of the country. However, he had taken up with the gay crowd, and
lord knows, what the child endured during this time.

Anyway, during one winter in NE, as I recall, the body of a 6-yr-old boy was
found in a cornfield. The small rural community was shocked about the
incident, and an investigation led to no solution to this crime. The boy was
found in a blue sleeper,  the ones with padded feet, and this seemed out of
the ordinary for a child of that age. Anyway, the townspeople took up a
collection to bury the child, and he was called 'Little Boy Blue', for lack
of true identity. You might imagine how something this terrible would bring
the community together; they unofficially adopted him as their own, although
no one knew anything about the young lad. He was buried nearby, the town
grieving for "Little Boy Blue".

A lady reporter happened through the town some time later, and I think sort
of struck up a conversation with a waitress at the local restaurant or
diner. Somehow the conversation got around to this strange case, and the
reporter's curiosity was piqued. And I suppose her maternal instincts as
well. Anyway, the lady reporter wrote up an article for "Readers' Digest",
explaining about the bizarre circumstances of finding the child, and a
sketch of the boy was also included. As we all know, the Amish shun many
'English' things. However, a non-Amish Ohio fellow who had Amish friends
read the story, and felt uneasy. The child resembled what the Amstutz boy
may have looked like. So he approaches some of the elders in the local Ohio
Amish community, and they examine the RD article, and arrive at the same sad
conclusion. With probably some reluctance, a search began for the father,
and he was found as I recall in TX. He was eventually charged with murder
and maybe sentenced to be executed. He had developed AIDS in the meantime.
So I don't know if he is still alive.

Anyway, those are two extremely interesting forensics cases where documents
are key. And, no, I'm not ghoulish. What makes people like these tick is of
interest to me.


Sharon Lee Butcher
Reference Librarian
AEDC Technical Library
100 Kindel Drive, Suite C212
Arnold AFB, TN  37389-3212
Phone:  931-454-4430
Fax:  931-454-5421
e-mail:  sharon.butcher@arnold.af.mil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deborah Gouin [SMTP:gouind@STATE.MI.US]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 1:29 PM
> To:   ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject:      Re: archives mystery needed
>
> I can't resist.  My professor Dr. Phil Mason had numerous stories of
> archive crime.  The best I heard was the two "priest" who stole the rare
> atlas to finance some charity home.  However, truth is better than
> fiction, do you recall the Salt Lake City Murders?  That case involved an
> accomplished forger, I believe the book is still available in print.  Dr.
> Mason (Wayne State University) has a good story about that as well.
>
> Deborah I. Gouin
> Department Analyst
> Records and Forms Management Division
> Department of Management and Budget
> State of Michigan
> 517-335-8965
>
> >>> HeidiC@JFMD.ORG 09/12/00 02:13PM >>>
> I seem to remember a priest (minister) of some sort who stole maps to
> finance something or other, I think in Europe....a couple of years ago...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Amy Marcus [mailto:AMarcus122@AOL.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 1:57 PM
> To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: archives mystery needed
>
>
> Greetings...
>
> This probably happens to every archivist who fancies himself/herself a
> writer, but I'm writing an archives mystery.  I know it's been done
> before,
> but in my daydreams I'm the Margaret Truman of the archives mystery genre.
>
> I've managed to hit a snag, however, right at the beginning:  I need a
> crime!  I've subscribed to the museum security network to see if I can get
> any ideas of items which have ALREADY been stolen from archives...I'm
> floundering here.  Are there any other sites which would give me some
> ideas
> (this is making me sound like a would-be criminal, sorry!)
>
> Thanks everyone!
> Amy
>
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>  << File: Deborah Gouin.vcf >>

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