From: press2@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barry.o.olson)
Subject: McLellin Collection Suppressed PT 4 of 10
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 03:22:16 GMT
Keywords: Tanner Nov. Newsletter/Hoffman bombings/suppresion



This is the fourth article broken down into 10 parts from Gerald
and Sandra Tanner's November "Salt Lake City Messanger" newsletter.
For those who need this info and couldn't obtain by hard-copy.
This is an FYI only production. Critique as you like.



SALT LAKE CITY MESSENGER          (Issue #83 - November 1992)
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
Po Box 1884,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110


        Mormon Leaders Suppress "Key" Item in Murder Case
  The True McLellin Documents Found in First Presidency's Vault!

        Furthermore, Apostle Dallin H. Oaks had enough legal
knowledge that he should have demanded that a full report be
immediately turned over to the police. Richard Turley says that
Apostle Oaks "served as a United States Supreme Court clerk,
University of Chicago law professor, American Bar Foundation
executive director, Brigham Young University president, and Utah
Supreme Court justice." (_Victims_, page 116) Mr. Turley also
stales that "Oaks's experience as a lawyer and judge made him
sensitive to investigators' need for any information that might
help solve a crime..." (Ibid., page 163)

        On page 171 of the same book, Turley reports that after
the bombings, Shannon Flynn came to church headquarters and
talked with Apostle Oaks. Flynn wanted to know what to tell
investigators. Oaks responded, "'As soon as I learned that Mark
Hofmann had been the object of a bomb, I knew that I had some
facts that would help police.... I talked to two F.B.I. agents. I
told them everything I knew about it. The Church is going to
cooperate fully and it has absolutely nothing to hide. Sometimes
there are some confidential transactions but this is a murder
investigation. Confidentiality is set aside. We will cooperate
fully.'"

        On page 153, Turley tells of Mark Hofmann coming to
Apostle Oaks' office: "Hofmann said he thought bombing
investigators might want to question him. He worried about what
to tell them. Oaks told him to tell the truth.... Oaks said that
as far as he knew, Hofmann's activities with the McLellin
collection, though confidential... had nothing to do with the
bombing investigation. Police probably would not ask him about
the deal. If they did, he should answer truthfully and
completely."

        Richard Turley shows that Oaks also gave Alvin Rust
similar advice: "[Martell] Bird recorded, 'He told Brother Rust
that he should tell the truth in every instance, and that he
should not be worried at all about the Church, because when the
facts all come out, the Church will have no need to be
embarrassed..." (page 175)

        On December 11, 1985, Apostle Oaks addressed members of
the Historical Department. According to Turley, Oaks encouraged
employees to be forthright: "Of the bombing investigation, he
said, 'We are like others in that we must cooperate fully in an
investigation and tell the truth on all matters material to that
investigation.'" (page 226) While at first Apostle Oaks claimed
that he told the F.B.I. "everything I knew" about the Hofmann
case and freely gave advice to others about how they should be
completely honest and provide all relevant information to
investigators, when he realized that the church would be
embarrassed by the truth, he clammed up just like the other
church leaders. While Richard Turley claimed that "Oaks's
experience as a lawyer and judge made him sensitive to
investigators' need for any information that might help solve a
crime," when he saw the church was in danger, he put a bridle on
his tongue and joined in the conspiracy of silence.

        The reader will remember that Turley quoted this
statement from Apostle Oaks' journal on the day that the McLellin
collection was discovered: "Today [Boyd K. Packer] & I learned
that the Church has some documents that have been unknown until
now, but will be of great interest when they are revealed, as
they should be prior to the Hoffmann trial (in my opinion)."

        While Turley seems to feel that this entry shows Oaks'
openness, it seems to foreshadow the possibility of a cover- up.
The reader will note, for example, that Oaks does not mention the
fact that he is talking about the Mclellin collection. He merely
states: "I learned that the Church has some documents..." Why
would he hesitate to identify the documents? If Turley had not
revealed that Oaks was talking about the McLellin collection, a
person reading his diary today would not know what he was talking
about and would assume that whatever the documents were, they had
been made available.

        Apostle Oaks' statement that "when they are revealed, as
they should be prior to the Hofmann trial (in my opinion)" seems
to suggest that there was a possibility that they would not be
revealed prior to the trial. (They, of course, would be of no
value to prosecutors after the trial.) The words, "in my opinion"
seem to imply that if the other church leaders did not want them
available, Oaks would support the decision.

        If the church had no plans for a cover-up, Apostle Oak
would have written something like the following: "Today I learned
the Church has had the McLellin collection stored in a vault
since 1908. Since this is very important to the Hofmann case, we
have called the county prosecutor and informed him of this
development. He will pick up the documents in the morning."

        Oaks' statement that the documents should be revealed
"prior to the Hofmann trial" certainly raises an important
question. By March 4, 1986, the day Oaks made the entry in his
journal, church leaders were well aware of the fact that
prosecutors were preparing for Mark Hofmann's preliminary
hearing. If the prosecution could not produce sufficient
evidence at that hearing, Hofmann would be set free and there
would be no trial. For this reason investigators were working
feverishly to obtain the evidence necessary to be sure that
Hofmann would be bound over for trial. The fact that the Mormon
Church had rediscovered the McLellin collection would have been
extremely important to their case.

        Since Apostle Oaks did not mention anything about
revealing the McLellin collection "prior to the Hofmann trial,"
it is obvious that church leaders were planning to keep it
suppressed at least through the preliminary hearing. The
preliminary hearing did not start until April 14, 1986. This gave
church leaders almost a month and a half to turn over the
McLellin collection to investigators. Instead of coming clean,
however, they chose to keep the documents hidden. The General
Authorities of the church were already concerned enough about the
bad publicity the church would receive during the preliminary
hearing and must have hoped that no trial would ever occur. This,
of course, is exactly what happened and the church never had to
reveal the truth about the McLellin collection to investigators.

        Since Salt Lake County prosecutors did not have the
important piece of evidence that the church could have provided,
their case on the murders was not as strong as it could have
been. They were obviously concerned about the strength of their
case. Robert Lindsey reported the following: "At the end of a
week of testimony, David Biggs [one of the prosecutors] wrote in
his journal: 'I really feel as if we've missed the "glue" that
connects the pieces of this puzzle together. The pieces don't
seem to want to stay together. We have evidence, motive, murder,
but it is all just a degree off. I'm still trying to find out
what the problem is.'" (_A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of
Money, Murder and Deceit_, page 317)

        As we have already shown, Richard Turley has admitted
that the McLellin collection in the church vault "included a key
item" which "confirmed to church officials that Hofmann was a
fraud." Turley also acknowledged that "it was apparent they [the
McLellin documents] were relevant to the case, and those involved
in the discovery felt the documents' existence should be
revealed." A person certainly does not have to be a lawyer to
know that the church should have immediately made these documents
available.

        Church leaders had publicly stressed how they were
cooperating with investigators. In the beginning, the church
officials pledged "'our fullest cooperation with city county and
federal authorities in the investigation.'" (_Victims_, page 165)
Hugh Pinnock, the General Authority who helped Hofmann obtain the
loan for $185,000, wrote a letter to Steven Christensen's widow
in which he said: "'Several of us have talked with law
enforcement people. We want them to know whatever is relevant.'"
(Ibid, page 176)

        On October 19, 1985, "the church issued its news
release... 'From the outset of this investigation,' the release
noted, 'the Church has cooperated fully with federal, state, and
local law enforcement officials, responding to every inquiry and
request. The Church will continue to cooperate with law
enforcement officials to bring to light any facts that may
contribute to this investigation."' (page 177)