Jared Hess explains his turn to true crime for Netflix series ‘Murder Among the Mormons’

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‘Napoleon Dynamite’ creator combines fascination with Mark Hofmann bombings with his love of true crime stories


On March 3, streaming giant Netflix will release “Murder Among the Mormons,” a three-part docuseries about the 1985 Mark Hofmann murders in Salt Lake City by co-director Jared Hess, who is known for making comedies like “Napoleon Dynamite.”


Hofmann was a master forger who killed two people with bombs at the end of a long run of fooling museums, collectors and historians with faked documents from the early history of the United States and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“There’s no shame in being dunked on by Michael Jordan, he’s the best. Many people were fooled by Mark Hofmann,” said co-director Tyler Measom. “He was the best forger who’s ever been caught.”

So why did a comedic filmmaker like Hess make a documentary about Hofmann, who is serving a life sentence for killing Steve Christensen and Kathy Sheets with homemade bombs in 1985? A third bomb wounded Hofmann and destroyed what appeared to be a trove of rare documents and diaries in his car.

“People were scrambling,” Hess said about the chaos caused by the bombings. “They didn’t know what was happening, who was doing this, who was setting off these bombs. We really try to put you in that time.”

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Jared Hess explains his turn to true crime for Netflix series ‘Murder Among the Mormons’