Murder Among the Mormons | |
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Genre | Documentary |
Directed by |
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Music by | Joel Goodman |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 3 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producer | Jannat Gargi |
Cinematography | Bianca Cline |
Editors |
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Running time | 45-58 minutes |
Production company | BBC Studios |
Original release | |
Network | Netflix |
Release | March 3, 2021 |
Murder Among the Mormons is an American true crime documentary television miniseries following Mark Hofmann, one of the most notable forgers in history, who created forgeries related to the Latter Day Saint movement. Joe Berlinger serves as an executive producer. It consists of three episodes and premiered on Netflix on March 3, 2021. [1]
The series follows Hofmann, one of the most accomplished forgers in history, who created forgeries related to the Latter-day Saint movement. Hofmann created explosive devices resulting in two deaths, and was exposed as a forger and sent to prison. [2] [3] [4]
No. | Title | Directed by | Original air date [5] | U.S. viewers (millions) |
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1 | "Episode 1" | Jared Hess Tyler Measom | March 2, 2021 | N/A |
2 | "Episode 2" | Jared Hess Tyler Measom | March 2, 2021 | N/A |
3 | "Episode 3" | Jared Hess Tyler Measom | March 2, 2021 | N/A |
In 2017, Jared Hess and Tyler Measom began conducting research on the story, met with those who participated in the series and attempted to contact Hofmann, who did not respond to requests for an interview. [6] [7] The series was initially pitched as a six-episode series; however, when Netflix and BBC Studios joined the project, it was reduced to three episodes. [8]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 88% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 7.29/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Investigating an outrageous but true story with restraint, Murder Among the Mormons is entertaining true-crime pulp and a fascinating examination of a community." [9] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [10] In the week of its debut, the show was ranked third overall for original-content Video on Demand streaming, with 587 million minutes streamed, according to Neilson. [11]
The salamander letter was a controversial forged document about the history of the Latter Day Saint movement. The letter was one of hundreds of documents concerning the history of the Latter Day Saint movement that surfaced in the early 1980s. The salamander letter presented a view of the life of the movement's founder, Joseph Smith, that stood sharply at odds with the commonly accepted version of the early progression of the church Smith established.
Mark William Hofmann is an American counterfeiter, forger, and convicted murderer. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, Hofmann is especially noted for his creation of fake documents related to the history of the Latter Day Saint movement. When his schemes began to unravel, he constructed bombs to murder three people in Salt Lake City, Utah. The first two bombs killed two people on October 15, 1985. On the following day, a third bomb exploded in Hofmann's car. He was arrested for the bombings three months later, and in 1987 pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, one count of theft by deception and one count of fraud.
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