Word: hofmann
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Nien Cheng's ordeal during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. When Cheng, who now lives in Washington, opened her mailbox a few weeks ago, she found a package of some 50 letters from sixth-graders in Alberta, Canada, who were deeply moved by her story. They wrote after Teacher Loretta Hofmann used TIME's excerpts last semester in a history course on China at Airdrie Elementary School near Calgary...
Cheng, 73, plans to tell Mrs. Hofmann's class that "self-discipline is everything for one's character." Finding time to answer all the letters -- along with the hundreds of others she has received -- may take some doing. And more may be on the way. Soon after the packet arrived from Canada, Cheng received a telephone call from Joan Audrish, a teacher in Factoryville, Pa.; she plans to use the TIME excerpts to teach her ninth- and tenth-graders about the Cultural Revolution. As for Cheng, she is doing some studying herself, boning up on U.S. history in preparation...
...Altogether, Hofmann sold 48 documents, some of them bogus, to the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. At the time of the murders, Hofmann and Christensen were negotiating for Hofmann's greatest "find": a collection of documents once purportedly owned by Dr. William McLellin, an early church apostle who later turned apostate. McLellin's papers supposedly contained embarrassing stories about Smith...
...Hofmann bargained with church members to obtain the McLellin collection for the church for $185,000, and he had already received $150,000 for the documents from another investor. But he could not deliver: the "discovery" was the product of Hofmann's fertile and lucrative imagination. Christensen may have begun to suspect this; two hours before he was to inspect the documents, he was killed. Gary Sheets, according to prosecutors, was targeted for murder as a diversion...
...part of his plea bargain, Hofmann is to provide a full explanation of his scams. Perhaps the confession will untangle the web of confusion that has plagued the Mormons since Hofmann first began peddling his forgeries. The church is not likely to recover quickly from this painful and discomfiting episode...