Friday, Oct. 18, 1985
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
11
Suspected bomber goofs falls victim of own bomb
United Press International
SALT LAKE CITY — A suspected bomber, critically hurt in an apparently accidental car bomb explosion, may have blown up two people because he was never paid $40,000 for his sale of a controversial 1830 Mormon church letter, authorities said yesterday.
Mark Hofmann, 30, a self-employed Mormon documents dealer, was critically hurt in an explosion while getting into his parked car on a downtown street Wednesday. The blast appeared to have been accidental and caused by the same type booby-trap bomb that killed two others within three hours on Tuesday, authorities said.
Authorities have linked the two other killings with the "White Salamander Letter," a letter written by a close associate of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon
church, and used by church critics to challenge Smith as a religious prophet.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility that Hofmann was not paid $40,000 he reportedly negotiated in his 1984 sale of the letter to Steven Christensen, 31, a businessman and Mormon bishop.
Christensen was killed Tuesday in the explosion of a booby-trap bomb in his sixth floor downtown office.
Hours later, Kathleen Sheets, the wife of Christensen's former business partner who had helped finance research of the authenticity of the 19th century letter, was killed in a similar blast outside her suburban home. Her husband, Gary Sheets, also a Mormon bishop, was believed to have been the intended victim of the explosive-rigged parcel.
Violation of the warnings could result in third-degree felony charges, he said.
"Any person who has it all, first of all, owes an obligation to all of us to get themselves treated," the mayor said Wednesday. "They should not lightheartedly slough off their obligation to others as human beings."
Mayor Henry Cisneros has not commented directly on the letters.
Seventeen people are known to have AIDS in the San Antonio area, but letters were sent to only 14, Rothe said. There is no concern about the three others spreading the disease, he said, but declined to elaborate.
Rothe said he received a report from a physician that one of his patients knew of at least three AIDS patients in the San Antonio area who would not limit their activities.
Forty AIDS cases have been reported in San Antonio since 1981, and 23 people have died from the disease, the health director said.
"Mind you, we can only do this if there is a credible complaint from someone," he said.
about the spread of AIDS after a male prostitute in Houston, an AIDS victim, said he would continue to engage in sexual activity.
Rothe said his agency was working under the authority of the Texas Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Act, which allowed controls on people who were health risks to the community.
From Kansan wires
Homosexual or bisexual men, along with intravenous drug users, are considered most at risk for the disease, which is spread through semen and blood.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The city health department hand-delivered letters to 14 AIDS victims warning that sexual activity will result in felony charges, and the mayor said carriers of the disease should "transcend their individual rights" in deference to society.
Sex could cause AIDS victims' arrest
The letters, dispatched this week, also ordered the AIDS victims to avoid exposing others to the disease through sharing needles or donating blood or plasma, and to caution physicians and dentists treating them.
In Chicago, federal health officials yesterday reported the first three confirmed cases of hospital workers who became infected with the AIDS virus through needle pricks.
The three hospital workers who
Dr. Courand Rothe, director of the health department in San Antonio, said yesterday, "I think most people are reasonable and that they will follow the last paragraph in the letter 'to accept this letter in the spirit in which it was intended and help me in my effort to protect the public health.'"
All three workers reported accidently puncturing their hands with needles used on patients with AIDS, 12 researchers said, but 36 other workers reported possible exposure through such injuries did not become infected.
became infected were not part of a high-risk group for AIDS and had not intimate sexual contact with an infected person, said Dr. Stanley H. Weiss of the National Cancer Institute outside Washington.
Rothe said he became concerned