• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

FAIR

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Come, Follow Me Old Testament Resources

  • Find Answers
  • Blog
  • Media & Apps
  • Conference
  • Bookstore
  • Archive
  • About
  • Get Involved
  • Search

FAIR Conference Podcast #62 – Steve Mayfield & George Throckmorton, “Salamander Letters”

March 4, 2021 by Trevor Holyoak

https://media.blubrry.com/mormonfaircast/p/www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Salamander-Letters-by-Steve-Mayfield-George-Throckmorton-2006-1.mp3

Podcast: Download (39.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

This series features presentations from our past conferences. This presentation is from 2006. It talks about some of the myths related to the Mark Hofmann case, and is given by two people who were involved, including the forensic document examiner who first determined that the documents were forgeries.

Related resources:

  • If Gordon B. Hinckley was a prophet, why was he fooled by Mark Hofmann?
  • Church reaction to the Hofmann forgeries
  • “Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents,” Dallin H. Oaks, Brigham Young University, 6 August 1987

(The biographies below date to 2006.)

Steven L. Mayfield was born and raised in the San Francisco area. He served an LDS mission in Colorado and Nebraska. He has served in the Church as Stake Young Adult President, Elder’s Quorum counselor and instructor, Sunday School teacher, and ward clerk. Steve received a B.S. degree in police science from Weber State College (University) in 1980. His law enforcement career includes FBI file clerk (San Francisco, 1973-1977), Deputy Sheriff Jefferson County Colorado (1981-1990), and since 1994 as a crime scene investigator for the Salt Lake City Police Department. For more than the last ten years Steve has worked under the direction of George Throckmorton, and has assisted him in a number of historical/questioned document cases (non-law enforcement) including “The John D. Lee Lead Scroll.”

Steve has been involved with the Mormon History Association, Sunstone, Utah State Historical Society, and is the producer (and sometimes host) of Mormon Miscellaneous, a talk/interview/call-in program hosted by Van Hale over radio station KTKK in Salt Lake City. Steve does not consider himself a historian or writer, but a “documentation collector,” which includes newspaper and magazine articles, television videos, and tape recordings of radio news and programs on mostly Mormon issues. His large collection of material is in the process of being donated to the L. Tom Perry Library and Archives at Brigham Young University.

George Throckmorton recently retired from the Salt Lake City Police Department Crime Laboratory where he spent the last decade as the Director of the Lab. George has been in law enforcement for forty years and has been a Forensic Document Examiner for thirty-five of those years. George began his career with the Ogden City Police Department and has also worked for the San Diego Sheriff’s Crime Lab, Utah State Crime Lab, Utah Attorney General’s Office and the Salt Lake District Attorney’s Office. He has also taught at the Institute of Applied Science in Chicago, Washington State University, Weber State University, and is presently teaching as an Adjunct Professor at the Salt Lake Community College.

Many interesting cases have crossed George’s path in the past thirty years including the Howard Hughes “Mormon Will,” the Dan and Ron Lafferty case, the Hi-Fi Shop Murders, and numerous others. However, by far the most interesting and complex case had to be the Mark Hofmann bombing/forgery case. This encompassed a full-time committment for sixteen months involving more than 600 documents. After more than twenty years, new Hofmann forgeries continue to resurface almost every year. George’s one and only wife Caroline continues to be by his side after forty years. They have four children (one of whom is following in his path working at the Salt Lake Police Crime Lab as a Crime-Scene Technician and Forensic Document Examiner).

Filed Under: Anti-Mormon critics, FairMormon Conference, Joseph Smith, LDS History, News stories, Podcast

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner


RSS-Icon RSS Feed (all posts)

Subscribe to Podcast

Podcast icon
Subscribe to podcast in iTunes
Subscribe to podcast elsewhere
Listen with FAIR app
Android app on Google Play

Pages

  • Blog Guidelines

FAIR Latest

  • Come, Follow Me Week 22 – Joshua 1–8; 23–24
  • The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 59
  • Come, Follow Me Week 21 – Deuteronomy 6-8; 15; 18; 29-30; 34
  • Come, Follow Me Week 20 – Numbers 11-14; 20-24
  • Come, Follow Me Week 19 – Exodus 35–40; Leviticus 1; 16; 19

Blog Categories

Recent Comments

  • N. Anderson on “Under the Banner of Heaven” Redux
  • Alice on Come, Follow Me Week 20 – Numbers 11-14; 20-24
  • Trevor Holyoak on Come, Follow Me Week 19 – Exodus 35–40; Leviticus 1; 16; 19
  • Ana on Come, Follow Me Week 19 – Exodus 35–40; Leviticus 1; 16; 19
  • Kelli on Come, Follow Me Week 18 – Exodus 24; 31-34

Archives

Footer

FairMormon Logo

FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Our Friends

  • BYU Religious Studies Center
  • BYU Studies
  • Book of Mormon Central
  • TheFamilyProclamation.org
  • Interpreter Foundation
  • Pearl of Great Price Central

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • iTunes
  • YouTube

Donate to FAIR

We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.

Donate Now

Donate to us by shopping at Amazon at no extra cost to you. Learn how →

Site Footer

Copyright © 1997-2022 by The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

No portion of this site may be reproduced without the express written consent of The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc.

Any opinions expressed, implied, or included in or with the goods and services offered by FAIR are solely those of FAIR and not those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) Logo

FAIR is controlled and operated by the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR)