REVIEW: ‘Murder Among the Mormons’ on Netflix
Image courtesy of Netflix press site / Provided with permission.
The new limited series on Netflix, Murder Among the Mormons, is easily binge-able in one sitting. These three episodes of television are interesting, engaging and ultimately saddening. The details of what happened in Salt Lake City in the 1980s involving antiquarian experts who traded in alleged 19th-century Mormon documents make for a fascinating story, one that becomes odder and more violent as viewers head deeper into the rabbit hole.
The series follows the events before and after a series of bombs went off in Utah’s capital in 1985. Two people died, and one person, Mark Hofmann, survived the attacks. Connecting the victims was “religious-document dealing,” as Netflix puts it. It’s best not to divulge all of the details here, but 35 years ago, there were documents being found that, if validated, would seem to question some of the early foundational stories of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, sometimes known as LDS or the Mormon Church. These dealers were allegedly finding narrative gold mines that fetched lots of money and caused apparent concern among the church’s elite.
Then the bombs went off. When the police became involved, questions started to be asked of these document dealers and their connections to the victims and these valuable pieces of paper. What the detectives unearthed is both telling and distressing — and ultimately makes for a gripping three episodes.
There are some television techniques deployed that should be familiar to anyone who appreciates true crime programming. There are reenactments where the subject’s face is cleverly out of focus. There are first-person testimonials from many of the key players. There are archival news broadcasts and interviews. There are also many shots of the Salt Lake Temple and the streets of the capital city. Unlike other true crime documentaries that are almost unanimously set at night in dark alleyways and forbidden basements, Murder Among the Mormons is largely set amidst the glaring sun of the American West, amongst a religious community heading to work, heading to religious services, heading to family get-togethers.
A few narrative threads don’t work as well as others. The timeline jumps around a whole bunch, and although it’s easy to keep the facts in line, the constant back and forth can be distracting. There’s also not enough information on the victims, at least when compared to the document dealers. Their lives, which were tragically lost, should be defined a bit more. It would also be interesting to see what the Mormon community believes about the portrayal of the church in the series.
But overall Murder Among the Mormons is a solid entry in the true crime realm. This is a strange story that features a violent character whose explained motives somehow generate more questions than answers — a revealing portrait of a subculture of document experts looking to make a buck and the investigative work of police officials trying to connect the dots before another bomb goes off.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Murder Among the Mormons, directed by Jared Hess and Tyler Measom, is now available on Netflix. Click here for more information.
