Introduction and Guest Welcome

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is April 13, 2021. We're, we're recording and live streaming to you today from Mormon Stories Studios in Holiday, Utah, which is somewhat apt for the topic of today's discussion.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] Today we have, I think, a real treat, I know, a real treat for you today. Many of you will know who've been following Mormon Stories podcast that we have been covering the life and times of Forger and Bomber Mormon Forger and Bomber, Mark Hoffman.

John Dehlin [00:00:40] There was a recent documentary on Netflix called Murder among the Mormons. And we had, you know, Sandra Tanner come talk about it. We had John Hamer talk about the forgeries, and of course, we had Tyler Meesum and Jared Hess, the directors and producers of the documentary here on Mormon Stories. And I'm just so thrilled that we've been able to have that much coverage. And there's more. I'm so thrilled to say there is more. And so what I have for you today is a super special treat and I'm going to have each of our, each of our guests today introduce themselves to you. But what we're going to be covering today is the, the life of Lynn Jacobs.

John Dehlin [00:01:27] Now, that name is going to be totally unfamiliar to those of you who kind of aren't of, let's just say, of a certain age, maybe a bit of a older generation who were really in the know during the 80s, during those kind of Mark Hoffman Sunstone years in the Mormon intellectual circles here in Salt Lake City. Unless you were a part of all that, you won't probably, or unless you've really, really read up on the Life of Mark Hoffman, the name Lynn Jacobs won't mean anything to you.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] But if you were involved, if you knew Mark Hoffman, if you were involved in the Sunstone Mormon Studies Mormon history crowd of the late 70s, early 80s, then the name Lynn Jacobs will mean a lot to you. Lynn Jacobs was a, I would say, a really important character in the full story of the life and times of Mark Hoffman. And so we have three super cool guests on today to talk about the life and times of Lynn Jacobs. And so the first guest that we have here for you today is someone that I've received many, many, many requests to have on Mormon Stories podcast ever since Murder among the Mormons aired.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] His name is Shannon Flynn. Some would say he was the star of Murder among the Mormons. But I'm just super excited to have Lynne Jacobs here in studio today. So, Lynn, why don't you Introduce yourself to our audience and straighten your microphone just a tiny bit so that it can. Like this, like, straight. Okay, perfect. Lynn, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Shannon Flynn [00:03:08] Well, the first thing you'll do, of course, is I'm not Lin.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] Did I say Lynn three times. What did I say? Shannon Flynn. What did I say?

Shannon Flynn [00:03:17] You called me Lynn three times.

John Dehlin [00:03:18] Oh, my goodness. See, I'm stressed because I'm like managing the cameras and the audio and the live stream and I should have someone here helping me. So my apologies to you and to my audience. Shannon Flynn is here in studio with us. So, Shannon, tell us about yourself and thank you for correcting me.

Shannon Flynn [00:03:37] Okay, that's fine. Well, the first thing I'll do to make everybody make things better is I have lung cancer. I've had part of my lung removed. Unfortunately, it was a mistake. And the nerve that controls my left

Tonya (Reiter) [00:03:56] vocal cord.

Shannon Flynn [00:03:57] Vocal cord. Thank you. I'm going to end up doing that a lot today. It's paralyzed. It will never work again. So my voice. Voice didn't used to sound like this at all. So everything I do just operates off the right side. And so that's why I have a raspy voice. And then I've had people cuss me, say it's kooky, or they're creepy and they know that I'm a criminal because of the way I sound. None of it's true. It's just bad luck. So now.

John Dehlin [00:04:35] Yeah, yeah. And I just want to. I just want to say I have been disappointed in. Well, first of all, I think the overwhelming number of people who watched Murder among the Mormons thought you were interesting and funny and charming and witty and charismatic and lovely. So I think that's my impression of the overall feedback. I have been sad by some of the mean spirited comments, one about your voice. And then the other is sometimes, you know, you. You blink a little more than. Than somebody might. And then there are people like, well, he must be guilty of bad things because he sometimes blinks. And I think instead of like ignoring that, I wanted to hit that up front just because I think that's mean and disrespectful. So is there anything. Do you want to say anything about that? Like.

Shannon Flynn [00:05:18] No, no, it just. I've had the blink thing since I was in high school. A job I had put me in that, and I've had that ever since. Now sometimes when I get worked up or something, that tends to happen more. And then sometimes I can calm down and think about it and stop doing it. So, yeah, I'LL do my best.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] You've had it since high school. And that's. Yeah, yeah, okay. Because people want to say, oh, that must mean he's guilty of something that he did. And that's just dumb and mean. So I'm just gonna condemn that.

Shannon Flynn [00:05:50] It happens, whatever. But anyway, that's why.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] Thanks for being a good sport about that. I appreciate that.

Shannon Flynn [00:05:57] That's why mind voice is weird compared to everybody else's. But of course, if you saw the movie, you've seen significant parts about me in the movie and, you know, a lot of the parts came from my ideas or stories. And I'm going to talk about that at a different time, focus on myself. But I'm here because it's my belief here that we have a miracle happening. Because in the world today, I believe there are four people that know Lynn Jacobs better than anybody. And there was one. What's his name again?

Introducing Rick Grunder and Tanya Writer

Scott Reiter [00:06:44] Rick Grunder.

Shannon Flynn [00:06:46] What?

Scott Reiter [00:06:46] Rick Grunder.

Shannon Flynn [00:06:47] Rick Grunder. You can see I'll be doing that a lot. Rick Grunder. He lives in New York and it's just not possible for him to be here. The other three of that four is me, and then it is Tanya Ryder and Scott Ryder.

Shannon Flynn [00:07:07] So it's just. To me, it's a simple. It's a miracle we three can get together and explain who Lyn Jacobs is and what an important part he played in that thing. Plus, all of his life, his whole life, wasn't just this. It was just a part of his life. And we'll talk more about the things that he did. But here we are, all three of us, gonna be able to talk about him. And I'll just explain another little thing.

Shannon Flynn [00:07:43] Lynn Jacobs should have been part of the movie. I produced lots of material to Tyler and Jared about it. And then one day, Tyler explained to me that Lynn was going to disappear. And I was very upset with that. I said, that is not right. You're cutting out one of the major characters.

Shannon Flynn [00:08:09] And then he explained it to me, and one of the editors explained. He said, any television show, any movie, it can have four characters. Five, six, maybe seven. But he said after that, people quit watching. It just gets too many people too confusing. And he said, what happens is people just turn it off.

Shannon Flynn [00:08:38] And since Netflix is doing this, they had to make sure that first and foremost, this thing had to be good and watchable. Lyn was picked. He died in 1995. Titor said he died in 95. We cannot interview him. So we have to take out everything that talks about him. And later on I'll tell you, I'll show you a little specific example of how intense that removal was.

Shannon Flynn [00:09:13] But so now we're here to, by magic, bring him back in, do magic, and he comes out of his grave. And here's Lynn. It's too bad because he is, I want to say good words. He's not stupid, very charismatic, very talkative. And so he would dominate all three of us easily.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] And right now, I'm showing a few of the photos. We can come back to some of these photos of Lynn Jacobs. But just to kind of set the stage, I'm just showing a few of the photos that you've shared with me so that people can kind of just get a visual in their mind of Lynn. And then we'll be talking about kind of who he was.

Shannon Flynn [00:10:06] He did an interview was Sunstone magazine on January 15, 1986. And that was when he wasn't completely sold that Mark was guilty. I brought the magazine. I should have brought it over here and shown it to you. It's a really interesting magazine. But there you get. You can see who he was, just what he looked like. So now as we talk about him, you have in your mind, oh, that's who it is. That's the guy.

John Dehlin [00:10:39] Right.

Shannon Flynn [00:10:40] Okay. So that's kind of. That's kind of my story so far.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] Oh, that's great. And I just want to let listeners know we're having Shannon back tomorrow here in studio to talk to him just about his story, his background, things he wished had been shared in the documentary that didn't make it in. And I've. I've assembled a lot of your questions, dozens of your questions, and we'll, we'll will spend as much time as Shannon as his health allows because as he's mentioned to you, he's had. Has some health conditions that has affected his voice. But we're just so thrilled he's here, and we're so honored that he would take the time to be here. Now. In addition, we also have two special guests. We have Tanya and Scott Ryder. Can you guys introduce yourselves and just give us a little bit of background before we jump into talking about Lynn?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:11:32] Sure. So I'm Tanya Writer, born and raised in Salt Lake, lived here my whole life, and am married to Scott.

Scott Reiter [00:11:43] Yes, that's true. And I'm Scott Rider. I was born and raised in Holiday, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] Hey, when it was.

Scott Reiter [00:11:51] When it included all the southeast, heart of the valley. Now it's changed in. Yeah, it's been cut up, but yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:12:01] And I knew Lynn beginning in Junior high. So I, I've. Now, I knew him for very, very many years. And when we began to date, Lynn was a. A big part of our lives.

Scott Reiter [00:12:15] And I'll tell you, I knew Lynn before I knew Lynn, because I would see this guy in Orson Spencer hall in the hallways wearing a cape in 1970, and whatever it was, this guy, this crazy guy. Then I, when I met him, it was Lynn Jacobs.

John Dehlin [00:12:38] So, so if you guys. Just to give our listeners a quick sense for why. If you had to give a sentence or two about why Lynn is so important to the Mark Hoffman story. Let's, let's, let's start with you guys, the writers. Why. Why was Lynn Jacobs Hoffman story? And then Shannon will have you share your view just to give them the hook for why they should listen. Each one of you can take, you know.

Who Was Lyn Jacobs and Why Does He Matter

Scott Reiter [00:13:06] Okay, well, he was a close associate of, of Marx. He dealt in documents and books and other things that.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:13:17] So. So Lynn came back from his mission to Montreal. And I think this is just the

John Dehlin [00:13:24] overview, not the story.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:13:25] Yes, this. At this point, I think he began working at the. What was called then the genealogical library for the LDS Church. And he developed a relationship with Don Schmidt, the archivist for the, for the church. And Lynn wanted to start to collect Mormon books, basically first editions in every language of, of, you know, either the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine Covenants. And, and so as he developed that relationship, he was able to introduce Mark to his contacts.

John Dehlin [00:14:04] So, so Lynn was. Lynn was really important in, in sort of helping Mark get into the Mormon history, Mormon studies community.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:14:15] That has been my impression. Am I correct with that, Shanna?

Shannon Flynn [00:14:19] I don't know who made those initial connections. Could have been either one. And so to begin with, they weren't close, but it just didn't take long because they both had tremendous not only desire, but ability. Lynn, we'll get to this later. But he ended up with a PhD, got two bachelor's degrees, master's, then a PhD, and what he did in the church, foreign language, is unparalleled to this day. So by himself, his talent, his ability is formidable. And so they just became close.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:15:05] You know, they really weren't competitors because Mark was interested in documents and Lyn was interested in publications in books. And so I think they saw each other as. As opportunities to. To expand what they were doing to help each other without really competing with each other.

John Dehlin [00:15:26] Okay, any other introduction before we jump into the story to give people a sense for why this is worth an episode? So it sounds like part of it is he's just a remarkable human being that you knew and want to honor. And then also he was very connected with Mark and deserves to be a part of the story.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:15:45] I think Shannon feels, and we feel to some extent that he was important to the story, but he was a remarkable person. And he's kind of dropped out of the historical record as this whole Mark Kaufman story has come to the fore again, and people are interested in it. Lyn has disappeared from that record, and I guess we want to bring him back.

John Dehlin [00:16:06] I love it. Okay, so why don't we talk about each of your relationships with Lynn prior to Lynn meeting Mark, if that makes sense. Shannon, did you know Lynn before Mark comes onto the scene in 1980?

Shannon Flynn [00:16:25] I don't. I don't think I did. The lovely woman that I married, Robin. Hi, Robin. Lynn Jacobs lived in the same stake as my wife, though she's a bit younger than Jim and Lynn. He was the same age as my wife Robin's older sister, Karen. And so that family knew Lynn for years.

Shannon Flynn [00:16:58] When they were in high school, Lynn would ride with Karen to work at the factory that made temple garments. They all came from active. All of us came from active families. And then things happened as time went on, but they came from active families. And so all of my wife's older siblings all know Lynn like you can't believe. I mean, my wife's oldest brother, Jeff, Lynn sewed him a suit for his mission because that was one of his talents. So they've all known him forever.

Shannon Flynn [00:17:42] So I think that Mark and Lynn knew each other a little bit before I knew Lynn. Maybe a year something, but I don't know that I don't have it written down or maybe a year.

John Dehlin [00:17:55] Okay. All right. So you guys. You guys did know Lynn before Mark.

Lyn's Early Life and Personality

Scott Reiter [00:18:02] Long Long comes on long before.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] So what would you like to share about his. His life and your memories of him prior to Mark coming on the scene?

Scott Reiter [00:18:11] You could. Yeah. Well, you have a Kleenex you can.

John Dehlin [00:18:14] Yeah, right there.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:18:16] We'd really like to act out some of Lynn's mannerisms because. But. But we'll get to that later. Maybe, Lynn, you should.

Shannon Flynn [00:18:25] I mean, stop.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] I'm going to make sure we hit this right. Lynn was gay. Is that right?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:18:30] Yes, but he.

Scott Reiter [00:18:31] Well, he was. He did not.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:18:34] He didn't come out.

Scott Reiter [00:18:35] He did not live a homosexual life

John Dehlin [00:18:37] until he went back. He was closeted.

Scott Reiter [00:18:39] Well, yeah, you.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:18:40] Well remember back in our day, we're talking the early 1970s, the late 1960s, Woodstock. There were people we went to school with. And they had various people called them various names, but they were either very talented, effeminate acting boys and they weren't really, they weren't thought of as gay. But Lynd was just the most flamboyant person you ever met.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:19:11] And I think he got, he developed that even more and more as time went on. But everything he did was big. Every movement he made, every, everything in his life was big. And I remember in junior high we had, I first knew him there because he was a year ahead of me. But we were both in French classes and we all had to pick French names when we were in French classes. And Lynn's was Leon.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:19:41] And at the end of the year we got these little paperback yearbooks that you know, we all thought it was really great. And there was a sunset in the, in the book. And I had told everybody, do not write on my sunset. Yes, I was that girl in junior high. Do not write on my sunset. The next thing I know, Lynne has grabbed my yearbook and has written Leon over the entire sunset with a flourish underneath it. So, and then he, you know, he kind of got a bit of a bad reputation because I believe in junior high for a, a time he smoked and so, you know, he was a really, he was a bad boy in junior high but one of my girlfriends got to be pretty close with him.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:20:26] And then when high school rolled around we got to, I got to be a little bit closer with him and he was just incredibly talented. He could do everything. I mean in high school, as you said, Lynn was sewing and it wasn't a matter of getting a pattern and sewing something. Lin created the pattern. He constructed clothing like your, you know, your brother in law's suit and he painted and he could write music and he could speak French and he just, I mean he just, everything he tried to do he was good at, at that point. I don't think he'd really developed his intellectual talents or his, his, his history talents.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:21:14] That was something that came later. At that point it was mostly arts related things and, and yes, he did wear a cape as we went after, after his mission when he went to the university. He had this long cape and, and

John Dehlin [00:21:31] he, every day, he'd wear.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:21:32] Every day, every day and he'd, he'd take it and sort of throw it around himself and this flourish and, and it wasn't a long cap tape, it was more of a, it was sort of a, it was sort of a Sherlock Holmes look because he would just go around town and he didn't ever have a car so he walked everywhere, and he walked very quickly. And he told us that he'd been to the doctor, and the doctor said his heart was in excellent condition because he walked everywhere. This was when he was about 25. So.

John Dehlin [00:22:02] So he was. He was raised in what area?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:05] Rose Park.

John Dehlin [00:22:07] Rose Park.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:07] Blue collar.

John Dehlin [00:22:08] That's kind of west side west, near downtown Salt Lake. Right?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:12] Well, farther northwest.

Scott Reiter [00:22:15] Northwest.

John Dehlin [00:22:15] Northwest of Salt Lake City.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:17] At the time that we were in junior high, our high school. Our junior high was the farthest north and west junior high in the city in the Salt Lake district. And then we went on to West High.

John Dehlin [00:22:28] And do we know what his parents did, like, career wise?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:31] Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:22:33] His mother was a housewife, you know, all of her life. And his dad worked for. For the. Funny. Is it the LDS Church or the Mormon Church?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:22:44] Well, whichever.

Scott Reiter [00:22:46] It's up to you.

Shannon Flynn [00:22:46] I'm making a little joke there.

Scott Reiter [00:22:48] Depends who's watching this.

Shannon Flynn [00:22:49] The LDS Church. He was an engineer, electrical engineer. And so he worked in the audio visual department for a long time. And some of the stuff from years ago when you went to a temple visitor center, and the stuff going on inside there, all the sound and stuff came from his department.

Shannon Flynn [00:23:13] I mean, he was. No kidding. But see, when we talk about his ability, the piano playing, it wasn't just kind of okay. It was stunningly good. He had a friend, she came to his house. They had a lovely piano. He sat down and he starts playing this very complicated classical piece. Goes on for 10, 15 minutes and stops, you know, finishes and turns to her and says, who was the composer on that? And the girl said, I wasn't that big into classical music. So I just said, haydn or no, I don't know. And he says, it was me, you stupid fool. That's the way he talked. But he was that good. He would have done that for a living had he ever chosen to.

John Dehlin [00:24:08] A classical pianist.

Shannon Flynn [00:24:10] Yes. And organ. And he knew the difference. It wasn't a piano player fakes it on an organ. He did both. Stunningly good.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:24:20] I think one of his dreams was to play the Tabernacle organ, which he never was able to do, but he just dreamed of doing that.

Being Gay in Utah in the 1970s

John Dehlin [00:24:27] Let me ask you really quickly. You know, in 2021, LGBTQ support, you know, the affirmation of LGBTQ individuals and life choices is almost kind of, like, popular and in vogue. Of course, there's still. There's still bigotry, but it seems like there's an overwhelming dynamic in the United States and even globally to be affirming and supportive of LGBTQ people and conservative people are kind of slowly catching on to that. What was it like to be gay in the early 70s in Utah, in Salt Lake City? Was it just never discussed? Was it demonized?

Scott Reiter [00:25:10] I don't think he was an active homosexual. I don't think he became an active homosexual until, in fact, he didn't want to be until he went back to school.

John Dehlin [00:25:18] So when you say homosexual, you just mean like. Like having relationships with men.

Scott Reiter [00:25:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:25:23] So he was celibate, or did he. Women?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:25:25] No, no. First it was Solomon.

John Dehlin [00:25:27] And I'm also not just talking about him. I'm kind of just talking about what did people do back then. I have handled. I'm not saying what. I'm not saying what was their private life like? I'm saying, like, in the Mormon culture, was it just.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:25:40] It just wasn't talked about.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] Okay, say that again.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:25:42] It wasn't talked about.

John Dehlin [00:25:44] Well, I mean, we've got this miracle forgiveness book by Spencer B. Kimball where he's condemning homosexuality all the time.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:25:50] It was, like, under. It was under the radar, I think, in the sense that it's. Several of my friends that I went to school with and that I was really close to ended up coming out later in their lives as homosexual men. And. And at the time, they were all of our best friends because they were so. They were just so much fun to be with, and they did such interesting things. But at least Lynn and another one I'm thinking of tried very hard to have relationships with girls. Lynn not so much in high school. He had, I think, more friend relationships, not girlfriend relationships, but my other friend tried to have girlfriend relationships. And then later, when Lynn was older, I know he. He tried very hard to develop heterosexual relationships with. With girls he knew.

John Dehlin [00:26:44] So what did you guys know in your peer groups? Any out gay or lesbian individuals? And are you kind of saying it was just closeted and not discussed?

Shannon Flynn [00:26:57] No. At least from my viewpoint. No. I remember when Lynn came out, but

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:03] that was long after.

John Dehlin [00:27:05] Yeah, yeah. I'm saying in the early 70s.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:08] Yeah, we're talking 70s.

John Dehlin [00:27:09] Say 70s. Let's start with the 70s.

Shannon Flynn [00:27:11] Oh, 70s.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:12] No, it was just invisible. So were there ever. Go ahead.

Shannon Flynn [00:27:17] I guess. I mean, I guess I just don't recall it. But, you know, Lynn was very, like they say, flamboyant, and lots of people would say, lynn seems like he's gay. You know, and that.

John Dehlin [00:27:31] That's what I was gonna ask. Were there kind of. Was it the sort of thing where if somebody was flamboyant when that person Wasn't around. You would say, I wonder if he's gay, or he must be gay, or was it just he's flamboyant? And it was kind of left at that.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:44] I'll tell you. I'll tell you.

Scott Reiter [00:27:46] That wasn't a term that was used.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:47] Yeah, it really was, but it wasn't. Well, not too much when Lyn came back.

John Dehlin [00:27:55] You just sounds like you just appreciated his talents and his personality.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:27:59] So. Yeah, here's an example of the way it went. In 1980, I had an art gallery with. It was a building that my dad owned that we ran. And half of the building was like an old duplex and my dad owned the building. And so I had an art gallery in half of it. And a friend of mine had an interior design built business in the other half of it. That friend was openly gay at that point. I. As I recall. And so there were lots of homosexual men that would come in who were his friends, and they were. And his sister was doing sewing in the basement.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:28:45] She would be doing. Sewing pillows for people or whatever. And I remember Lynn coming down many times to visit me while I was there and being very upset by the friends of my business associate and. And sort of. And. And they would all say, well, you know, Lynn is gay. Right. You know, he's gay. And I'd say, oh, no, no, he's not. Because Lynn, his reaction to it was the opposite. His reaction. The more he was around these people, the more he protested the fact that he was not like them.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:29:24] So it was. It was quite a few years and. And he never ever told me about. That he was gay. He never told you, did he?

Scott Reiter [00:29:34] Conversations we had, and you say coming out. I think that's a kind of misnomer. I think what happens is you fall in. You fall into the homosexual milieu and, and that's a great. To divide in your life when you go from trying to live a heterosexual life and you become homosexual back then, and there was no mixing with the two. I mean, you're in effect your friend. You couldn't be friends. I don't know if you can now be friends with it. If you're not a homosexual man with another homosexual man, be real friends with them, you understand?

Shannon Flynn [00:30:14] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [00:30:14] So their life is now a wholly different culture and their associates are. Are mostly homosexual men. And it's a wholly different life. And, and, and he began to live that life when he left Salt Lake, as I understand when he come back, he was a different person than he was.

John Dehlin [00:30:36] And we can. Let's we can follow the timeline. What I'm trying to do is kind of establish a historical, cultural context. And what I'm guessing is in Salt Lake City, in Utah in the early to mid-70s, if you felt. If you were male and you felt attractions to other men, you hit it, you suppressed it, you. You loathed it because it, it probably could be an existential threat to you or threaten your status in the church, threaten your reputation with friends and family. And so you hit it, you denied it, or you did your. You did, or you thought it was wrong and you thought it, and you thought it was evil.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:31:15] You thought it was wrong.

Scott Reiter [00:31:16] There was another person that worked for me who went through the same kind of agonies at the time.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] And I think Gerardo's texting me. It's called internalized homophobia. It's basically learning to hate who you are or how you feel inside. Well, doing your best to suppress it and deny it.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:31:34] One of the other things that Lynn told us after he came home from his mission was that he had actually counseled other, at least one other missionary and possibly others who had same sex attraction. And. And Lynn, for whatever reason, understood it well enough, but at the time. At the time, yeah. And believed that it could be changed. And so he counseled this other missionary about things that he could do or avoid doing that would help him.

Lyn's Mission and Leaving Church Activity

Scott Reiter [00:32:07] And I think it was under his mission president's guidance.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:32:11] Yeah. And did this. Yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [00:32:15] Yeah, he was one of those. He went through that thing. I don't know if it still happens, but in those days, if you were having that same sex attraction, we're aware of it. And I think nine times out of 10, 99 times out of 100, those missionaries became the hyper obedience, the hyperactives. And that's what I mean. He was the one that followed all the rules perfectly. But along with that, he learned that language better than anybody. But that was part of his do everything to, you know. And I don't know.

Shannon Flynn [00:32:57] I don't know if you want to keep going on about this because I don't know if he ever thought he would change. But I was just saying, wanted to say that when it did come time that he changed and came out, from my viewpoint, from my wife's viewpoint, I'm gay. Okay. What does that mean? I'm gay. Okay. So does that change you? No. Nothing.

John Dehlin [00:33:22] Yeah. Right. And that, that scrupulosity is, as it's called in the mental health profession, hyper like, ocd, like religiosity, obsessive Compulsive disorder, like religiosity. I've often conceptualized that as you're trying to be so worthy because you are under the impression that Heavenly Father will take these feelings, these attractions away from you. If you're the best, if you're ap. On your mission, if you are the best husband you can be, if you're the best father you can be, at some point, sometime, Heavenly Father will take all that away from you. And that makes you have two or three callings and fast extra on fasted testimony meeting day and that sort of thing.

Scott Reiter [00:34:04] But I think Lynn enjoyed his Mormon religious life.

John Dehlin [00:34:08] He was a sincere believer, you're saying?

Scott Reiter [00:34:09] Yeah, I think so.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:34:10] At that time. Yeah.

Scott Reiter [00:34:11] He liked going to the temple. He. Yeah, yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:34:16] I'm sorry. There is a very interesting thing. He had a friend at that time that went through the same thing, but he made the choice to get married and stay married, and he did to

John Dehlin [00:34:29] this day, to a woman knew.

Shannon Flynn [00:34:33] Knew that this man had very intense, you know, homosexuality feelings, but chose to. To turn away from it and be married to her.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] That was a friend of Lynn's, you're saying?

Shannon Flynn [00:34:48] Very close.

John Dehlin [00:34:48] Okay. Very close friend.

Shannon Flynn [00:34:50] So not only is Lynn this way, but he's extremely close to this guy that's doing that other thing.

John Dehlin [00:34:58] Got it. So, yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:34:59] What's going on in his head?

John Dehlin [00:35:01] And there's probably a lot of men. I mean, I know there were thousands and thousands of men who did that. And I don't mean to dwell on this, but I just want to kind of paint the cultural picture. But let's go back. So his dad's an electrical engineer working for the church. Does he. Does he have a lot of siblings? Older, younger?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:17] He's the youngest.

John Dehlin [00:35:18] He's the youngest of.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:19] Excuse me. He's the oldest. He's the oldest of about. Were there seven others?

John Dehlin [00:35:24] Oh, big family.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:25] Big family.

Shannon Flynn [00:35:26] Seven. Six or seven.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:27] No one in the family anything likely anything like land?

John Dehlin [00:35:31] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:31] He stuck out even in his own family.

Scott Reiter [00:35:33] He was.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:36] Say it again.

Scott Reiter [00:35:36] He was sui. Genera. Unique.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:39] One of a kind.

Scott Reiter [00:35:39] One of a kind.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:41] Although his dad. I think he and his dad were probably quite a bit alike, but were not very close, were they? It was like they. They were. They were the most similar in the family, but the least close in the family.

Scott Reiter [00:35:56] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:35:56] And Lynn was very.

Scott Reiter [00:35:58] Because his dad was a very talented engineer. I mean, they develop projects for the

Tonya (Reiter) [00:36:02] church and art sort of project.

John Dehlin [00:36:06] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:36:07] But. But I always got the impression his dad did not quite approve. But I. But I'm making that up of Lynn.

John Dehlin [00:36:14] Of just who he was.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:36:15] Just who he was. That I might be.

Shannon Flynn [00:36:18] They had personalities that were somewhat similar. And his. His dad bothered Lynn. I remember Lynn telling me one time that his father never hugged him. He said the day I left on a mission, he would only shake my hand. So it's stuff going on in his head. But what they were saying, very different from the family. None of his siblings are smart like him or talented.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:36:51] Careful.

Shannon Flynn [00:36:52] Anything like that. What's that?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:36:54] We better be careful what we say. Listen. But they're like, they all loved him.

Shannon Flynn [00:37:02] Ask Lynn. You need something taken care of. Ask Lynn. Oh, sorry. He was.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:37:09] And one of the. One of the other things about Lynn is he made up nicknames for everyone. Everyone had a nickname. So all of his siblings. And I still don't know their real names. I just know one of them was Nardo. That's all I know. I cannot tell you.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:37:23] And they all had their. They all had their names. And he would tell us stories about them all. And his mother. At the time, we knew it. At the time I knew him, his mother took in foster babies, and Lynn just loved those babies. In fact, there was one. There was one. I remember baby girl that they got right after she was born because she was. Her mother was a heroin addict or something. And they had that baby for a year. And Lynn was so attached to that child. And he would always talk about, oh, I gave little. Whatever her name was, a bath and put lolo all over, and lolo is baby lotion.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:38:02] And. And he loved that baby. And. And then the baby went back to its mother, who hopefully was clean. But Lynn was devastated. And he. And he just. He loved his. His. When his brothers and sisters got married and had kids, he loved those kids. And. And I think that that was one of the sad things in his life was knowing, you know, I think with the way the trajectory his life was on, he didn't think he would have kids of his own.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] Why?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:38:29] Because I don't think then it was really popular for homosexual man to adopt. I mean, that really didn't happen. And fraudsters. You go turn that off. Silent it.

Shannon Flynn [00:38:42] The phone.

John Dehlin [00:38:42] So does it read?

Scott Reiter [00:38:43] I didn't even know I had to do mine.

John Dehlin [00:38:44] Thank you so much.

Shannon Flynn [00:38:44] So, plus, Lynn never had a spouse, right?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:38:49] No.

Shannon Flynn [00:38:50] Came close.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:38:51] No.

Shannon Flynn [00:38:51] So I think, you know, boyfriends and stuff, but never came close to. I want to be married to a committed partner.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:00] Right.

John Dehlin [00:39:01] Male or female? Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:02] Right.

John Dehlin [00:39:03] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:39:04] Excuse me. On some of the things I say.

John Dehlin [00:39:06] No, you're great.

Shannon Flynn [00:39:06] I'm not huge into this.

John Dehlin [00:39:07] So you guys are great. Okay, so tell us about anything about his story. Middle, you know, middle school, high school years, mission, anything we need to know about his life other than kind of what we've said just to kind of know the background. Do you know where he served his mission?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:24] Montreal.

John Dehlin [00:39:26] French speaking?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:26] Yes, French speaking.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:28] And Wayne Owens. Wayne Owens was his mission president. Do you remember hearing about Wayne Owens ever Congressman?

Scott Reiter [00:39:35] In fact, Lynn was assigned to the anti Mormon to read the all anti Mormon material by President Owens.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:39:45] He would just pass it to Lynn and say deal with it because he was. Figure it out smart. And Lyn was voracious. He was a voracious reader and had read. He'd read all the Journal of Discourses. He'd read all these things by his mission. I think by about the time of his mission. Let me pick back up.

John Dehlin [00:40:02] Did you guys know him in high school?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:40:04] I did.

John Dehlin [00:40:05] Okay. Anything before? I kind of want to go chronologically, but I'm really interested in what you were about to say. But I don't want to have to jump back. So anything about his high school years you want to share?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:40:14] Just his talent. I mean just the fact that he, he was the Sterling scholar.

John Dehlin [00:40:20] Which school is this?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:40:21] West.

John Dehlin [00:40:21] West High. Yeah, he was Sterling Scholar.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:40:23] He was Sterling scholar nominee in arts and arts. And he. I still remember, I think one of the, the pictures that you have is a painting that he painted of. I think it was from a Chef Boyardee ad, but it was an old French woman climbing upstairs with a baguette and a bag. And Lynn painted that and he had a one man show I think at west of his paintings. So at that time he was really developing his painting and his music and still sewing I think at that point. And I.

Scott Reiter [00:41:00] He's in theater, wasn't he?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:41:01] Oh yeah, he was in theater too. He was. He took theater classes. So I think there's a picture in there of a theater activity. You know, the drama class would get together and do different activities.

Shannon Flynn [00:41:14] He was good at that. But this illustrates Lynn. They were doing the school year play. Somebody, there was a little group that was doing this. The scenery and stuff. He saw it and he hated it. He said this stuff is crap, this is awful. And he threw some pieces in the orchestra bit and broke them. And of course everybody was flabbergasted. He said, I'll take care of it. And he did and redid the whole thing by himself. And it came out 10 times better than what had been done.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:41:51] But if he was going to Be involved. It had to be up to his standard.

John Dehlin [00:41:54] He had very high standards.

Shannon Flynn [00:41:56] But you know, I wrote a. I should go get the book because I've written a little biography of Lynn and I've talked to a couple of girls that knew him in high school and one of them said, I knew that he was effeminate, but if he had asked me to marry him the end of high school, I would have married him. They were that devoted to him.

John Dehlin [00:42:22] He was that loved, lovable, talented.

Scott Reiter [00:42:24] Well.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:42:25] And didn't he, didn't he make prom dresses for.

Shannon Flynn [00:42:28] She still to this day has one of the dresses he made. He would find a couple of girls that for the big prom of the year didn't have money to buy a really nice dress. He made them himself, his own money and his own pattern. And she loves that to this day. So. And just give it to her. He was. But then sometimes, and maybe later we'll talk he would say some of the rudest, meanest.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:02] He was the. He could say the meanest things you've ever heard.

John Dehlin [00:43:06] So it highs. What types of things might he say?

Shannon Flynn [00:43:08] Two things would come out of him.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:11] I. I don't know. In high school. It was later on.

John Dehlin [00:43:13] Okay, okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:15] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] Any other things about his high school years? You know, drama, painting, music, theater. Not necessarily a top student.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:25] No.

John Dehlin [00:43:25] Okay, where's. It wore a cape or a cape.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:28] I don't know if you wore a cape in high school. I think it might have been later. It might have been later. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] So he, he goes on a mission to Montreal, French speaker speaking and his mission president assigns him all the. And that's interesting because that kind of starts his. Starts him on the path to end up meeting Mark Hoffman. If you're reading anti Mormon literature and studying journal discourses and Mormon history. And, and you know, that's, that's getting him on the path.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:53] Yeah, well, his mission.

Scott Reiter [00:43:55] I think that's fair.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:55] Yeah. His mission president didn't know how to respond.

Scott Reiter [00:43:59] Didn't know how. Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:43:59] Didn't know how to respond to this stuff because he didn't know history, the history well enough. And so he would just say, lynn, take care of it. And Lynn would read it and come up with some sort of apologetic and tell it to the missionaries and they'd move on. And he did that. I have a wonderful story about Wayne Owens and Lynn's relationship. It happened at Lynn's funeral, but I can tell it now.

Shannon Flynn [00:44:23] Thank you.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:44:24] Okay, so. Okay, so Lynn's at Lynn's funeral. Um, it was like the Rose Park The Rose park background. The Rose park, you know, upbringing came back and standard Mormon stale, if I may say, Mormon funeral. His parents, I think, had never really come to terms maybe with the person Lynn was at that time in his life. And so they did. You know, one of the things they did is have all the nieces and nephews sing a little primary song, which was something Lynn would have loved, liked. But. But the bishop of that ward was someone who'd gone to high school with us and not. Not a very articulate man. And he basically got up at some point in the funeral and said, well, we all know what's what, and we all know that Lynn is not coming forth in the first resurrection, but he was a decent guy. I mean, it was to that.

John Dehlin [00:45:23] At the funeral.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:45:24] At the funeral, and I don't remember.

Scott Reiter [00:45:26] That was the.

John Dehlin [00:45:28] Basically saying, he's gay, so he won't make the celestial kingdom. We should all just acknowledge that.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:45:33] It was one of the most depressing funerals I've ever been to, because it was just not like Lynn. And it was just.

Scott Reiter [00:45:40] It didn't describe Lynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:45:42] It didn't describe him. And then. And then this bishop, to your bigotry. Yes. This bishop makes this statement that you just cannot believe you're hearing over the pulpit in this guy's funeral.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] It was a bishop.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:45:55] Yes.

Scott Reiter [00:45:56] And so his. The bishop of his.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:45:58] Of his family's ward who hadn't, you know, who'd known Lynn way back when anyway.

Scott Reiter [00:46:02] Not even high school.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:46:03] Yeah, he had. Lynn hadn't been in that ward for years. But anyway, Wayne Owens was sitting in the back, and I remember he stood up and he walked to the front and he said, may I please say something?

John Dehlin [00:46:14] He interrupted.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:46:15] He interrupted. I think he. I think he waited till the bishop was done, but he basically interrupted the funeral and said, I need to say something. And he just told what he knew about Lynn and he told about what a. He was one of the best missionaries he'd ever had, what a wonderful person he was, all of his talents. He went on and on, and it was. It saved. It saved the thing. It was just great.

John Dehlin [00:46:44] What year was the funeral?

Shannon Flynn [00:46:45] Do you remember?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:46:45] 90.

Scott Reiter [00:46:46] 95.

Shannon Flynn [00:46:46] 95.

John Dehlin [00:46:47] 95.

Shannon Flynn [00:46:48] It was.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] Straighten your mic just a little bit.

Scott Reiter [00:46:50] Just.

John Dehlin [00:46:51] It's tilted. Just straighten it so it's up and down. It's tilted that way.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:46:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:56] The perfect.

Shannon Flynn [00:46:56] If I went and got my book, I could tell you exactly.

Scott Reiter [00:46:59] You can.

John Dehlin [00:46:59] You can go get it, but it. It doesn't matter.

Scott Reiter [00:47:01] Yeah, 95.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:03] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:03] It was the fall of 1995.

John Dehlin [00:47:05] Okay. Okay.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] That 10 years after Mark went to prison? Basically, yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:11] Basically, yes.

John Dehlin [00:47:13] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:13] Yeah. Wayne actually sent a little note up, said, I want to say.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:17] Is that what he did? Yeah, I just remember him standing up, coming past me. I mean, we wanted to clap.

John Dehlin [00:47:24] And was Wayne a faithful Mormon way? No.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:26] Yeah, I think so.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:27] Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:27] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [00:47:28] Yes.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:28] Oh, yeah.

Scott Reiter [00:47:29] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [00:47:29] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:47:30] A Democrat, but a faithful.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] Yeah, even better. No, I'm just kidding. We love Republicans and Democrats and unaffiliated Mormon stories, but it just. It's interesting to have variety sometimes. That's all I'm trying to say. Love you, Republicans. Okay. Anything else about his mission other than that he was in Quebec, Montreal, loved French, and was this specialist in anti Mormon literature?

Scott Reiter [00:47:53] He had something that I can't tell

Shannon Flynn [00:47:55] you that is a segue because when he came back, remember, he eventually got a job.

John Dehlin [00:48:02] Oh, wait.

Shannon Flynn [00:48:02] Oh, sorry.

Scott Reiter [00:48:03] I don't know if I can repeat that. He told.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:48:05] I'll just hold it for a minute. Yeah, you can whisper it to me and then we'll decide.

Scott Reiter [00:48:09] Okay, I'll whisper to Tanya and see if it's. I mean, very. A kind of experience. If others had it in the church, it couldn't be told in testimony meeting.

John Dehlin [00:48:20] This is on.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:48:22] Catalyze this. I can't.

John Dehlin [00:48:23] But you're not sure.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:48:28] Oh, no, I don't remember that at all. Oh, tell it.

John Dehlin [00:48:32] Okay. You got permission.

Scott Reiter [00:48:33] Okay. He told us that he saw the face of Christ. Oh, the reflection of his window. Of his apartment.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:48:41] Of his apartment. I don't remember this.

Scott Reiter [00:48:43] Yeah. Yes.

Shannon Flynn [00:48:44] I hadn't heard that.

Scott Reiter [00:48:45] No. He told. I remember him telling us because it was kind of a stunning experience for him and that. I think that's what cemented his relationship with the church.

Shannon Flynn [00:48:56] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [00:48:57] Having that experience and the experience.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:48:59] I think the experience that he had serving under Wayne Owens was very important to him because. Because his mission president really affirmed Lynn's intellectual abilities and capacities. And I think that's where he really developed that was beginning on his mission. Probably started to have that love of history and interest in it.

John Dehlin [00:49:21] Beautiful. That's powerful. It reminds me a little bit of Michael Quinn. Michael Quinn has had a few spiritual experiences early in his life that's made it so to this day, in spite of all he knows about the history, he'd say golden plates. He'd say Joseph Smith was a prophet and he's gay and he's been excommunicated. And he's still a true believer, but a true believer. And that happens. Right.

Shannon Flynn [00:49:41] Well, Lynn was somewhat that way, too. I don't know how I knew him when he wasn't going to church or anything, but he still paid tithing.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:49:52] I didn't know that because it was

Shannon Flynn [00:49:53] the most important thing he could do. But I was just going to say that mission thing was a segue because he eventually got a job at the church in the genealogical department. And he was the head of the French.

Scott Reiter [00:50:08] French correspondence decks.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] So was this, was this like right after his mission? Yeah, he gets home from his mission. Do you guys know what he did?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:50:18] I don't know. Right after his mission, but soon after.

John Dehlin [00:50:24] Doing what?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:50:25] Working at the French.

Shannon Flynn [00:50:28] Of the French Canadian Correspondence. When.

Scott Reiter [00:50:33] When people wrote in. In French, wrote letters to the church or to the genealogical library, he would translate. He would. And then he would respond to that. Oh. Because he was. He was the French authority.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] Nice.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:50:45] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [00:50:46] For quite a while.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:50:48] Tried to get you a job there?

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Many years.

Scott Reiter [00:50:49] Yeah, he tried to get me.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:50:50] Yes, many years.

Scott Reiter [00:50:51] Many years.

John Dehlin [00:50:52] Okay. And what was he like? Just personality wise. After his mission. Some missionaries, Mormon missionaries are insufferable when they get home. They're strict, they're just, you know, tedious and boring, but. And others just.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:03] I don't know that I was around him much right after he got home. It was probably a year or two.

John Dehlin [00:51:08] That's fine.

Scott Reiter [00:51:10] Always himself. If I had to guess, I would say it would be Lynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:14] Shannon will demonstrate maybe later. One of Lynn's characteristics.

Scott Reiter [00:51:18] Well, my nose is kind of runny. Maybe he.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:22] No, Lynn.

Scott Reiter [00:51:23] Funny. He had funny, funny manner things.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:26] Funny mannerisms he would do. And I'm sure he was that way.

Scott Reiter [00:51:31] Shameless.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:31] He was shameless. It's true. I mean, I don't know if we even want to.

Shannon Flynn [00:51:35] No.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:35] I'll get it ready for you. If Lynn needed to blow his nose, he had problems.

Scott Reiter [00:51:39] He had his. His sinuses or what?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:51:43] Yeah, he always had some kind of sinus problem.

Scott Reiter [00:51:46] But they were. What is it, a medical term? They were soldered by some doctor. He told us, you know, they were burned so they wouldn't work. That's the story. So he couldn't blow his nose because he would blow his brains out. Don't you remember that? That's why he had had to do this. So he couldn't blow his nose.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:10] He carried. I think he carried a cloth hanky, didn't he?

Scott Reiter [00:52:13] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:14] So pretend this isn't clean.

Scott Reiter [00:52:16] It was a clean.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:17] So he'd pull out his Kleenex. It always had to be a show. He'd shake it and then it was this. He would twist.

John Dehlin [00:52:26] Holy moly.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:26] A Certain number of times. And then Shannon will show you the rest. Driving anything, anytime. And then the other one, he would

Shannon Flynn [00:52:37] let it dry out.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:42] It was a very deliberate twist.

Shannon Flynn [00:52:45] Like this, this corner.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:46] Oh, yeah, that's right. He'd go through the whole. He'd go through the whole thing.

Scott Reiter [00:52:50] Very flamboyant, not self conscious at all.

John Dehlin [00:52:53] And we.

Scott Reiter [00:52:55] He was a wonderful friend.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:52:56] We. Our first son was born in 1982. And Lynn never had a car. So. Ever so even so at that point

Scott Reiter [00:53:06] in New York, did he.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:53:07] I don't think so. Did he.

Shannon Flynn [00:53:08] I'm sorry.

Scott Reiter [00:53:09] Did he get a car when he went back east?

Shannon Flynn [00:53:12] No, that's when he didn't have one.

Scott Reiter [00:53:13] Well, he never had one as far as I know.

Shannon Flynn [00:53:15] He came out here, he got a car.

Scott Reiter [00:53:18] He got that.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:53:20] But before he had a car, I just remember driving him everywhere. I would have to drive Lynn everywhere. You'd get a phone call. I must go to. Da da da. Will you be ready at 11? And so I had our son in his car seat and. And our son Peter would just stare at Lynn and Lynn would be doing all these, you know, these big movements. And I always thought, he's going to imprint. My son's gonna turn out just like Lynn because he's. He's gonna imprint.

Scott Reiter [00:53:48] But it's exactly the opposite.

Shannon Flynn [00:53:51] Name is Peter.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:53:52] He called him Petros Petros forever the Rock. It was always Petros Petros.

Shannon Flynn [00:53:58] He never used Pa. Peter was always Beatros.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:54:00] But you didn't. It. You didn't stop doing things with Lynn just because you had a baby with you or a toddler. You still went everywhere. Lynn went and took him everywhere he needed to go and did whatever he needed to do regardless.

John Dehlin [00:54:14] Okay, so what's just the pictures?

Shannon Flynn [00:54:17] You see his hair? He would work on that for like 45.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:54:21] That's true. The hair was big. Yeah. Forgot about the hair.

John Dehlin [00:54:27] So I'll. I'll show. I'll show maybe, maybe some of the pictures from. From later in his life. He did have. It looks like he had a beard at some point.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:54:35] A lot later on

John Dehlin [00:54:39] he had a beard. Must, you know, longer, a little bit longer hair. Okay, so. So let's talk about anything we didn't know about Lynn's story prior to where he meets Mark in. In sort of like how he got into Mormon history, Mormon studies, Mormon documents that would lead to Mark.

Lyn's Passion for Books and Documents

Shannon Flynn [00:54:59] I can kind of encapsulate the. You've already talked about it a bit. But Lynn, of his own accord, was extremely interested in books, not only just to read them but the collecting and money value and living in Salt Lake, he was interested in a third edition of the Book of Mormon in English. A first, in fact. He tells the story. The very first collectible book he ever got was a second edition of the Pearl of great price. In English. We all have those. I have mine, too. It wasn't that fancy, but it was. Lyn's just loving this book and touching and.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:55:50] Doesn't he say in that interview he paid $50 for it? Wasn't that the one?

Shannon Flynn [00:55:55] I think so.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:55:56] I mean, he had to scrape every penny.

John Dehlin [00:55:57] Why was it so valuable? And why was it so loved and interesting?

Tonya (Reiter) [00:56:01] It was just an early edition, second edition.

Scott Reiter [00:56:04] Was it? Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:05] You gotta understand the life and mind of a collector. You see, I totally get it.

John Dehlin [00:56:14] Explain it.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:14] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:56:15] Why?

Shannon Flynn [00:56:15] That's cool.

John Dehlin [00:56:16] Why?

Shannon Flynn [00:56:17] Because it is a second edition.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:56:20] It's rare and it's early.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:22] It's beautiful. It's old. It's, you know.

Scott Reiter [00:56:27] Oh, and it's connected with my church and my faith and.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:32] But it could be anything.

Scott Reiter [00:56:33] It could be anything.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:34] Anything. You could love this because. Not this, but something. Because they're autobond prints.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:56:40] Oh, yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:42] No, everything about them.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:56:44] He learned everything about them and started collecting Audubon prints. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [00:56:50] Saying. Could be modeled trains. It could be. Yeah, anything. For him, it was the Mormon books.

Scott Reiter [00:56:56] But it was more than books, because I remember he used to razor out articles and warming out of Ensign and other places and put them all together on particular subjects, especially Egyptian papyrus. He had a big collection of stuff. He would razor them all out. He knew where to find the articles. Mostly lds. Well, LDS viewpoint.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:57:20] When. When we were in college, that's.

Scott Reiter [00:57:23] That's when Ensign was a more intellectually serious magazine than it is. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:28] Than it is today.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:57:30] So we. So Scott and I were in college at the University of Utah in the late 70s, and. And Lynn was up there and. And I don't even remember how we all got together. It might have been through church things or it might have been through other friends. But anyway, we were spending quite a bit of time with Lyn, and Scott has a degree in Latin, and I was taking Latin at the time. And Lynn just got onto the baptism for the dead theme.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:58:03] And we knew what had been quoted. You know, the scripture everyone would always quote about baptism for the dead. But the question is, what did it really say in the. In the Latin version? Because in Latin, things are not always as clear as sometimes people try to make them in English. And so. So Lynn dug and dug and dug, and finally he Just he came to me and he said, well, I just have got to have. Because he didn't know Latin. Then he said, well, we just have got to have somebody look at this and tell us exactly what it says in Latin. And so we had to go to my Latin teacher at the U and have her, you know, go ahead and read the whole thing to us and tell us all the different nuances, what it could mean, what it definitely Mrs.

Tonya (Reiter) [00:58:52] Lindsay. Yes, Mrs. Lindsay. And it. And that. No, it did not mean definitely what everyone quoted it as meaning. And so that was one example I remember of Lynn, the. One of the first times I saw him dig and dig and dig and

Scott Reiter [00:59:07] he would leap into a. Yeah, he

Tonya (Reiter) [00:59:10] had the article cut out of the Ensign. He had the article, you know, underlined exactly what was being quoted and what Hugh Nibley had said and what so. And so had said. And then he went out and did his own research back to. Back to the point that he thought he needed to do it.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] And do you. Do you get the sense that. So what was his testimony like? And I also just want to note just more for some context that, like starting in 72. Well, starting in the late 60s, Dialogue Journal Mormon Thought would have come on the scene. And then in 72, Leonard Arrington would have been doing his Camelot years of Mormon history from 72 to 82. Sunstone would have come on the scene around 75, 76. And so there was this kind of Camelot years, this kind of renaissance of New Mormon history that he would have been right there in the middle of, potentially.

Scott Reiter [01:00:05] I don't know that he read New Mormon history.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:07] I don't know that he did either. He was more interested in biblical.

Scott Reiter [01:00:12] Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:12] And he ties to Mormonism.

Scott Reiter [01:00:14] You know, when I looked his collection of articles, they were usually out of Ensign, the Ensign magazine or. Or church publications.

John Dehlin [01:00:21] So he was focused on only approved correlated sources.

Scott Reiter [01:00:26] I guess so. He never told us that. But that.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:29] That's hard to know.

Scott Reiter [01:00:30] That's hard to know.

John Dehlin [01:00:31] Okay, but.

Scott Reiter [01:00:33] But he had no library. He had no library of new Mormon history books. Books.

John Dehlin [01:00:37] He had no library.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:38] Well, not of that.

Scott Reiter [01:00:39] Of those kinds of things, no. And I never knew him read them. Maybe.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:43] Did he participate? Like, we went to one of the first Sunstones. Did he.

Scott Reiter [01:00:47] The very first.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:48] Did he come? I don't think I was trying to remember if he came.

Scott Reiter [01:00:51] No, I don't think he did come.

John Dehlin [01:00:52] You don't think he ever came to a Sunstone?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:00:54] I don't know that he did. It wasn't. And he Wasn't interested in the social aspects or the, you know, the, the, the like cultural aspects of Mormonism. It was the. Does, does the. Does Mormonism reflect what I am starting to learn about biblical criticism, etc.

John Dehlin [01:01:14] So he was.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:01:14] I think he was biblical criticism, I think so. I think that's more where his interest was. Am I right at the time? At the time, yeah. I mean, that's before he went to Harvard. I mean, that's one of the reasons he wanted to go to Harvard Divinity School is because I think he wanted to know more about early Christianity. And he ended up studying Gnosticism and some other things, you know, that a lot of people see parallels between some gnostic teachings and Mormonism. And so he would have been someone who would have read Hugh Nibley, for instance.

John Dehlin [01:01:47] Okay. And, you know, I. We've talked about biblical criticism on Mormon stories, especially in my David Bacavoy interviews a little bit with Brent Metcalf and others. And that's often a gateway to losing your faith, right?

Shannon Flynn [01:02:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:02] So is it. Is part of his interest, he was starting to question the validity of the Bible and the truthfulness of the Bible.

Scott Reiter [01:02:08] I don't know.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:02:09] I don't know. I know with the baptism for the dead, I know that he decided that the way it had been represented by Mormon authors was incorrect. I think that's where we ended up with that, or at least questionable.

Scott Reiter [01:02:27] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:02:28] And that was pretty early.

Shannon Flynn [01:02:30] By the time I knew him, he had. He was already on his path out of the church. The church. But his ability at Mormon stuff was prodigious because all of his collecting was an alien stuff.

Scott Reiter [01:02:47] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:02:48] So, you know, any edition of the Book of Mormon, any scripture, and then foreign editions.

Scott Reiter [01:02:54] I mean, who else need to talk about Lynn, New foreign language?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:02:58] Well, at some point, yeah. So.

Shannon Flynn [01:03:00] So because he became the king of that.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:03:03] Of the foreign language world of Mormon publication.

Scott Reiter [01:03:08] But pamphlets.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:03:09] And so, so it. While he was working at the genealogical library, he, I think we mentioned this, developed a relationship with the archivists because at that time, the archives, the LDS archives, were in the same building as the genealogical library and the church office building. And so Lyn got to know Don Schmidt and he developed a close enough relationship with Don that Schmidt or Brother Schmidt, I guess I should say. But anyway, he developed a close enough relationship with him that I think it was a very trusted and very close working relationship. And. And Lyn never had any money.

Scott Reiter [01:03:47] He.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:03:48] I mean, he just never had any money. And. And so he wanted to develop this collection and he wanted to have the first edition of every foreign language Book of Mormon and all the rest of the scriptures pamphlets. Well, first I thought he started with books, but. Yeah, but. So he would talk to the archivist and find out little by little what the church had in its collection. And then he would see what gaps the church had. And so, for instance, let's say there was a B H Roberts pamphlet that was very, very rare, and the church would like to have a copy of it, but didn't.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:04:30] But they had three Hawaiian first edition Book of Mormons, and Lynn wanted a Hawaiian Book of Mormon. So he would go out and go to every little antique store in town, and he actually did what Mark said he did what Mark claimed that Mark did. So he would go to every little antique store, every hole in the wall place, every bookstore, and he would just go through every single, you know, pamphlet, book, whatever they had. And he would often find something, and then he would offer it to the church and. Or offer it to Don and say, well, I found this.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:05:08] What are you willing to give me for that? And that. And that was kind of the way he was building up that collection was through trade, because. And that was part of his. I think he was very, very proud of the fact he could tell you, you know, how much he actually spent and how much he traded. And I think he really was proud of the fact that he could trade for such valuable items without spending very much money at all.

John Dehlin [01:05:34] And were these controversial things that the church would have been embarrassed by?

Shannon Flynn [01:05:37] Oh, no, not at all.

Scott Reiter [01:05:39] These were church publications or publications.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:05:43] Yeah, publications by church figures archives.

John Dehlin [01:05:47] Oh, here's a really valuable pamphlet that you. For historians sake.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:05:51] Right.

Scott Reiter [01:05:52] Here's a party. P. Pratt from South America. You know, we don't. We don't.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:05:56] The church didn't have.

Scott Reiter [01:05:57] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:05:58] When.

John Dehlin [01:05:59] And I want to kind of try and stick to a timeline, but was grad school in the 70s for him, or did grad school go into the 80s and 90s?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:06:07] In the 80s.

John Dehlin [01:06:08] So after Mark Hoffman. After 85 or before 85.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:06:13] Both sides. Yeah, both sides of the. Mark Hoffman, because he graduated from the University of Utah in 83 in what I believe he had one degree in philosophy and one degree in French literature. And I think he got the French literature in the spring and he got the philosophy in December.

Shannon Flynn [01:06:32] I'm sorry, sorry, I gotta break up. Go ahead, everybody. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:06:35] Go ahead.

Shannon Flynn [01:06:35] Go get your book. Take this anymore?

John Dehlin [01:06:37] Yeah, I gotta show you the book. No, it's good.

Scott Reiter [01:06:39] Bring it over.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:06:39] So. So he graduated in 83, and then he can Tell you when he went to. I looked this up, but I can't remember. But he went to Harvard Divinity sometime after that. And Shannon will tell you when.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] That's a big old book.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:06:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:56] Flynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:06:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:59] That. That whole thing is about Lynn.

Shannon Flynn [01:07:02] No, this is what he did, the biography.

John Dehlin [01:07:07] Oh, okay. Swing your microphone back because people can't hear you if the microphone's not.

Shannon Flynn [01:07:13] Give me a second, everybody.

Shannon Flynn Shares Books and Memories

John Dehlin [01:07:14] All right, everyone. So just so you know what. What's going on? Is Shannon Flynn. Shannon Flynn is now pulling out a couple books like a bag. He's going to show us.

Shannon Flynn [01:07:25] Hold on.

John Dehlin [01:07:27] He's gonna show us and then straighten that mic out.

Shannon Flynn [01:07:31] Hold on. I. I gotta get a drink because I'm gonna. I'm gonna die here pretty soon. We're gonna have to have a.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:07:39] Well, while you're taking the drink.

John Dehlin [01:07:42] Okay.

Scott Reiter [01:07:42] While you're drinking.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:07:43] While you're drinking, we can. We can talk about. I. I don't read.

Shannon Flynn [01:07:47] It's water. Don't drink.

Scott Reiter [01:07:50] Oh, it's not.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:07:53] So Shannon, I mean, Shannon, we knew slightly, I think, but we knew Lynn well. And. And so Shannon became our friend at some point during the 80s was we were hanging out with Lynn, and Lynn invited us to go and meet Mark because, you know, if we want to jump to that point where he met Mark, they were working a bit together.

John Dehlin [01:08:17] Shannon, did you want to wait and talk about this before we talk about Mark?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:08:21] Do you want to talk about this first?

John Dehlin [01:08:22] Yeah, go ahead, Go ahead, Go ahead. If you're ready. Thank you for filling while Shannon got ready.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:08:27] That's okay.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] What is this book you're showing us?

Shannon Flynn [01:08:30] This is Mormon non English. This is the authoritative book and periodicals 1830-1986. A descriptive bibliography. Lynn Jacobs.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] So this is a scholarly work that Lynn did.

Shannon Flynn [01:08:47] This is.

Scott Reiter [01:08:48] This is hyper scholarly work.

Shannon Flynn [01:08:50] Reference book for this subject.

John Dehlin [01:08:53] Mormon scriptures, hymnals and what?

Shannon Flynn [01:08:56] Pamphlets, periodicals.

John Dehlin [01:08:58] Periodicals.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:08:59] In foreign languages.

John Dehlin [01:09:00] In foreign languages. And then would that have been his master's?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:09:04] No, no, he just said that, you

Scott Reiter [01:09:07] know, he did in his room.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] What a scholar.

Shannon Flynn [01:09:09] And then a jerk, A couple of jerks named Shannon Flynn and Brian Buchanan. We have. Lynn only did say 45, 50, 60. Lynn only did 60 of these during his life, and they're extremely difficult to find. We have reprinted it.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] Oh, cool.

Shannon Flynn [01:09:35] And then I added a. A. An introduction and then. And then a biography.

John Dehlin [01:09:50] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:09:51] So that's what I can go to. To get some of this.

John Dehlin [01:09:54] Got it. Because you reprinted the book of. Of Lin's and wrote a little biography.

Shannon Flynn [01:10:01] What it looks like to get this Same.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] That's a real.

Scott Reiter [01:10:07] I'll tell you real cool thing. That reminds me, this is in foreign language. When the. When the church first published its Braille edition. Lynn got the first one of the first copies of it before it was. Went on the shelves and we showed it to us.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:10:23] Yeah, he did.

Scott Reiter [01:10:23] And I think it's multiple volumes because it's in Braille. So kind of exotic editions is interested in.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:10:31] But he considered that a foreign language

Scott Reiter [01:10:33] because it was in Braille.

Shannon Flynn [01:10:36] Available for purchase Benchmark books today.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] All right. Yeah, we love benchmark books. Now, you were going to pull something out of that about his grad school years, right?

Shannon Flynn [01:10:47] And yes, I'm going to tell you when they were because he graduated in those two books. Bas. And I'll find it.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:10:58] I'm pretty sure that was 83.

Shannon Flynn [01:11:00] Let's see if I can find it. Oh, okay. Oh, here we go. Well, I'm not seeing his bachelors right off.

John Dehlin [01:11:15] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:11:15] But he did his.

John Dehlin [01:11:17] Sounds like it's 83.

Shannon Flynn [01:11:18] Yeah, his. He got a master's in theological Studies at Harvard divinity school in 1985.

John Dehlin [01:11:27] So the same year Mark goes to prison, he gets his. He completes his master's in divinity. Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:11:36] And then he completed his. Oh, and then he also got. What a jerk. See, I've forgotten my own stuff. He also got a master's in philosophy in 1989 from.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:11:55] That's from Syracuse.

Scott Reiter [01:11:56] From Syracuse.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:11:57] That's from Syracuse. Preparatory to his PhD.

Shannon Flynn [01:11:59] See? Not satisfied. He also received a master's in philosophy. Oh, that was from Harvard.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:12:05] Oh, no, it was from Syracuse. I thought.

Shannon Flynn [01:12:07] No, no, no. He got a Ph.D. he did history work at Syracuse, 1995.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:12:11] All right. Sorry.

Shannon Flynn [01:12:12] In some. Syracuse.

John Dehlin [01:12:13] And he passed away in 1995.

Scott Reiter [01:12:16] Yeah, his degree.

John Dehlin [01:12:18] He gets a PhD the same year he passes away.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:12:20] Yes, because he finally finished.

Shannon Flynn [01:12:23] It's one of those. It just took him 18 or 24 months to get his dissertation finished.

John Dehlin [01:12:31] Right.

Shannon Flynn [01:12:31] And finished his classwork.

John Dehlin [01:12:33] Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so just in the timeline, he gets his. He gets his master's in from Harvard in divinity and in philosophy in 85. And then 10 years later, he gets his PhD from Syracuse. Okay, so that gives us a sense for a scholarly work. So let's talk about.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:12:56] Really?

John Dehlin [01:12:57] Go ahead.

Shannon Flynn [01:12:58] French, June 82. Philosophy, December 82.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] Okay, so you're a year off. Maybe a few months off.

Scott Reiter [01:13:07] Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:13:07] That's great.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:13:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:08] Okay. Thank you for helping us.

Shannon Flynn [01:13:11] Three kind of weenies.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:13:12] Three. Three kind of nerds. Don't tell it to go have it.

Shannon Flynn [01:13:16] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] Okay, so let's Talk about. Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:13:24] Would you?

John Dehlin [01:13:25] Shannon, did you ever tell us about how you met him and how you got connected?

Shannon Flynn [01:13:29] Yes. Okay. I met my lovely wife. I've already said that.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] Yeah. Yeah. But when he started becoming his friend and, you know, she was in the

Shannon Flynn [01:13:40] singles ward in the Rose Park North Stake.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:13:44] Forgotten. Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:13:46] Okay. And Lynne Jacobs was the gospel doctrine instructor.

John Dehlin [01:13:52] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:13:53] So I went to church with her, and he said. She said, you'll like this guy. And I did, because he was right up my alley.

John Dehlin [01:14:02] Okay, dad.

Shannon Flynn [01:14:03] To talk about church and real stuff. You know, there was a lot of kids that went to it. I don't know how all of them loved that because it was the exact opposite to today's current Sunday school lessons at church.

John Dehlin [01:14:18] Meaning what?

Shannon Flynn [01:14:19] Today we have cotton candy. Then he had the real stuff. He had meat that you had to cut, chew yourself. And you didn't know the answers to everything at the end. But, man, you learned stuff. And he was not kidding.

John Dehlin [01:14:37] And this would have been in the 70s or 80s.

Shannon Flynn [01:14:40] This is early 83.

John Dehlin [01:14:43] Okay. So much later. So you didn't meet him until 83, like in this context of teaching gospel doctrine.

Shannon Flynn [01:14:49] Yeah. So a picture you can go to. Robin and I were married in August of 83.

John Dehlin [01:14:57] Okay, let me jump to that photo. Here's the photo. 83. You and Robin were married. And that's a picture of Lynn. And why was he at your wedding? And why did you have a photo with him?

Shannon Flynn [01:15:08] He was our picture.

John Dehlin [01:15:10] He was your what?

Shannon Flynn [01:15:11] He was our piano player.

John Dehlin [01:15:12] Oh, beautiful. And he did a good job. Okay. Okay.

Scott Reiter [01:15:18] Speaking of weddings, too.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:15:20] Yeah. So our wedding was in 1980, and Lynn. I had found an antique blouse at an antique store, and it needed to be lined and it needed a skirt. So Lynn volunteered to do that. And so he made a skirt for me. It was a really. It was a turn of the century blouse, so it had to have a great big cummerbund.

Scott Reiter [01:15:42] He.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:15:42] He constructed this cummerbund, and he didn't quite get the hooks on the back of the blouse. And so signing the marriage license in the waiting room, he was sewing me into my.

Scott Reiter [01:15:56] Into the blouse.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:15:57] And then said, don't worry. After it's over, I'll rip you out of this and I'll come with the hooks on it for the reception, because our reception was later on.

John Dehlin [01:16:07] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:16:07] So it's just.

Shannon Flynn [01:16:08] Can you see? We don't talk about Lynn because he's just some doofus we've seen before. Yeah, we know and love this guy.

John Dehlin [01:16:16] Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:16:17] Part of our lives.

How Lyn First Connected with Mark Hofmann

John Dehlin [01:16:19] Okay, so so if it's 83 that you meet Lynn, you know Mark Hoffman starts doing his forgeries in 78.

Shannon Flynn [01:16:29] Well, as far as anybody knows, it's 80.

John Dehlin [01:16:33] Well, I know Sandra Tanner talked about the, the second anointing.

Shannon Flynn [01:16:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:38] But little document that shows says about that.

Shannon Flynn [01:16:41] I disagree with. Why I think she is misremembering that if he really took it to her place, I really doubt the two of them looked at it that closely, if he even did. Maybe he did. I don't know if I agree with that.

John Dehlin [01:17:01] Are you saying that you don't think Mark Hoffman produced a forgery about the second anointing in 78? Ish.

Shannon Flynn [01:17:07] He Very well may have, but having brought it to them and made a big deal out of it.

John Dehlin [01:17:14] Okay, I was more just saying that he, he was probably experimenting with forgeries in the late 70s, before 80, before the Anton manuscript.

Shannon Flynn [01:17:25] He was. He was 12 years old.

John Dehlin [01:17:27] In what?

Shannon Flynn [01:17:28] In his first forgery. And coins.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:17:31] With the coins.

John Dehlin [01:17:32] Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Before then too.

Shannon Flynn [01:17:34] But I'm just saying working metal, metal, metal. Bigger thin paper, thin Mormon paper. Then finally Mormon documents. It was never I'm going to forge today.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:17:50] It was long continuous history.

Shannon Flynn [01:17:53] So Anthony, is that's the first big one that Lynn would have known about.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:01] What year was that? I can't remember.

Shannon Flynn [01:18:03] 1980.

John Dehlin [01:18:03] 80.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:04] 80, okay. The anthem.

Shannon Flynn [01:18:06] So when did Lynn meet him? 81.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:11] He. He tells Lynn in that. In that interview, but I can't remember.

Shannon Flynn [01:18:16] Yeah, because it was.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:17] Oh, this one, the one on Sunstone. He documents.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] So that's the Sunstone that you wanted to show us? Yeah, Here it is everyone, this is a Sunstone magazine or what's the year? And the edition on the front, it's

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:31] volume 10, number 8. Number 8 and what?

John Dehlin [01:18:34] So what month?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:35] And you can find it online.

John Dehlin [01:18:36] What month and year would that be?

Shannon Flynn [01:18:39] There's no date on it.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:40] It is 85 though.

John Dehlin [01:18:41] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:42] They interviewed him in 85 or 86. Yes.

Shannon Flynn [01:18:46] No, he was interviewed.

Scott Reiter [01:18:48] He was interview.

Shannon Flynn [01:18:50] You'll see, but I'm just gonna go to it again.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:18:53] So they did the interview and by the time the magazine was published, Mark Hoffman had been indicted. But at the time Lynn did the interview, that hadn't happened.

John Dehlin [01:19:06] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:19:06] But they went ahead and published the interview anyway because it was trouble in those days.

Shannon Flynn [01:19:12] And then a girl, Cecilia Warner, did a follow up some months later and by the time she wrote that Mark had been arrested.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:19:24] Yeah, yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:19:26] And probably had gone to his preliminary hearing. I don't know. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:19:33] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:19:34] For purchase today no, actually, you can.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:19:38] You can access it online.

John Dehlin [01:19:39] No, I've got it. So I've got it here for those who want to see. It's called Stalking the Wild Document, An Interview with Lynn R. Jacobs, Sunstone Magazine. And I'm just kind of scrolling through, but it looks like it's five two zero nine, nineteen. I don't know what those numbers mean, but it's definitely here. Okay, so it's. He meets. We're saying that he meets mark Hoffman around 81.

Shannon Flynn [01:20:08] 81, 82.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:20:09] I don't know. And he documents all that in that interview. But whenever.

Shannon Flynn [01:20:14] Yeah, and it wasn't, hi, we're friends, let's go to lunch. It was, oh, there's the Anton transcript guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, he says in there at some store, it's a bookstore. And he just, hey, how's it going? Good. You know, and a few of those. But at some point, and again, we don't know, sorry, we're gonna fail at our dissertation.

John Dehlin [01:20:42] No, that's okay. So they meet.

Shannon Flynn [01:20:45] They suck. But anyway. But at some point, then there's a connection.

Scott Reiter [01:20:50] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:20:51] Hey, I've got this book. Oh, that's cool. What about. And it's about this and. Really? And what are you doing? Well, I've got this letter. Oh, well, you know, I know Don Schmidt. Well, I do, too. Oh, yeah. Well, I know that they need the second volume of this book. Oh, great. Do you know what one is? I think I can find it. One of those, sort of. Till it becomes more and more and more involved.

John Dehlin [01:21:24] So they start just. Mark says, whoa, this is a guy that knows a lot about the documents, that has connections into church archives, that

Shannon Flynn [01:21:32] we can go together.

John Dehlin [01:21:34] The books? What books?

Shannon Flynn [01:21:36] That's what Lynn does.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:21:38] So Lynn's collecting books, Mark's peddling documents, Marks producing documents. Although we think finding.

Scott Reiter [01:21:44] But yes, at the time we think, oh, he's finding these things.

John Dehlin [01:21:47] So Mark is interested in Lynn because Lynn knows books.

Scott Reiter [01:21:50] Yes, and he's an insider.

Shannon Flynn [01:21:53] Of course, Mark's not stupid either, because his first two documents were trades. Never purchased. They're both Book of Commandments. They were traded from the LDS Church and then the reorganized Church.

John Dehlin [01:22:08] Oh, oh, that he traded for his

Shannon Flynn [01:22:10] forgeries, you're saying, Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] Were books.

Shannon Flynn [01:22:13] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:22:14] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:22:14] But, you know, later on, he has a document, whether it's forged or not, and he gets it from the church, and it's a first edition. Sorry, I'll give you the magic words. When you talk about collectors, talk about books. The expensive one is first bomb. English. First Book of Mormon. English. First bomb English.

John Dehlin [01:22:45] That's the first edition Book of Mormon in English.

Shannon Flynn [01:22:48] Second bomb English. First bomb French. Well, I'm trading this and I'm going to get a first bomb English. Second bomb English. Oh, can you do anything with a second? I'm making this up. But then, Lin. Yes, I know somebody that will buy that right now. Oh, how much? Well, I think he'll give you 6,500 for that.

Shannon Flynn [01:23:17] Okay, I tell you what, you take it. And if you can get me 6,000, you can keep whatever is left over. They did that many times. So Lynn would go good, and so Mark would get those books out of the church, then give the second bomb English to Lynn. Lynn would do his magic. And of course, if he could get 66, 67, 7, then he gets to keep 1,000 and give the thousand to Mark.

Shannon Flynn [01:23:56] Now, a lot of people, I'll just throw this in. How could Lynn, Mark do that? That's so stupid. If it's a forgery, how much is Mark's total gain on that? Business wise? 100%. 100%?

John Dehlin [01:24:14] What do you mean?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:24:16] Well, he has no outlay. He hasn't had to spend anything for that document because he's made it.

Shannon Flynn [01:24:23] So if he only gets 6,000 instead of 65, he doesn't care. Because if Lynn will take it for him and then this is something everybody needs to understand. Mark knew he was becoming too prominent, so he used Lynn, he used me, he used Lynn for something like that. Lynn, where did you get that second? Oh, I got it came from the church. You sure? Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:59] Are you saying Lynn wasn't telling the truth?

Shannon Flynn [01:25:04] It did come from the church, but he didn't say he got it from Mark, from Mark.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:25:10] So Mark was opportunistic. And I think, I mean, I always thought that he preyed on Lynn a little bit, but then I realized Lynn got quite a bit out of it too. But I think, I think Mark saw a good thing. He knew a good thing in Lynn because Lynn had connections and Lynn could facilitate some of these things and he could take some pressure away from Mark being the only one whose face is there in front all the time. Is that what you're saying?

Shannon Flynn [01:25:38] Exactly. So the average population, they don't see as many trades or stuff going on with Mark as we do. Now, everyone, you've got to put your minds way back, way back, because Mark forged 65 documents and we all know it. Nobody knew that at the time, and nobody.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:26:05] And one of the things that's come up now I mean, in retrospect, and we look at it, we say, well, how did we not know. How did we not know that this man. There was something wrong? Because it would literally be. Every few months there would be another document that would come to light. And Lynn addresses that in that article in Sunstone, in that interview, because they ask him that. That question. And, and. And at the time, I remember Lynn telling us this, that he said, nobody spends the amount of time and money and effort Mark does. He said, you know, for example, not everybody's willing to just, you know, buy a whole packet of letters in the hope that there is something in there, just because they all have stamps from Palmyra.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:26:51] You know, Mark will just buy the whole group and then go through it, and there might be something in there. And so. So Lynn's justification was Mark spends more time, money, effort than anyone else. So naturally he comes up with more stuff.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:27:05] And. And in fact, after Lynn went back to New York and was. Was going to school in New York, Mark would send him on. Well, no, I was later in New York. I thought that he sent him on the errands. Maybe it was Massachusetts. Yeah, because that was later. So he. So is when he was going to Harvard.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:27:24] I think Mark saw that as an opportunity for another one of his ruses, which was that he would send Lyn out to different places where he couldn't go all the time, but Lynn was back there. And so he'd go and buy a group of things and give it to Mark. And then Mark would say, oh, you found something for me and Lynn. I mean, I remember hearing it from Lynn's lips that Lyn was so happy to be able to help Mark and define these things. And some of that glory reflected onto him.

Scott Reiter [01:27:57] Yes. Linda told us Mark had discovered this technique, this method, this method, this technique of finding documents.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:28:04] And what it was, was looking for the stamps, looking for the cancellations, the cancellations from places where Mormons had been in hopes, because the collectors were looking for the cancellations. They weren't looking for the names or what's in the document.

Scott Reiter [01:28:22] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:28:23] And so Mark had come up with this idea that, well, if I buy everything that I can find from X Spot, where Mormons were, there might be something in there. And that's how he claimed he found the Salamander letter.

Scott Reiter [01:28:37] Right.

John Dehlin [01:28:38] Okay.

Scott Reiter [01:28:42] So.

John Dehlin [01:28:43] So Mark. So Lynn meets Mark and they start having a relationship. What I heard from you, Shannon, is that it was two things, at least two things. Lynn had contacts with potential buyers. He understood the market for books, and so he could. He was useful in helping Mark buy and sell books as needed. And then the second thing I heard is that when Mark didn't want to get too much exposure, as always being the point man on everything, he would use Lynn as the front man

Scott Reiter [01:29:25] so

John Dehlin [01:29:25] that, so that Mark. So that people wouldn't start being suspicious that Mark was always the front man on every important document that was, that was found.

Shannon Flynn [01:29:35] Mark told me at one time that he was going to be moving out of Mormon documents and moving into Americana. And at the time, his reason was, as he said he was just looking too prominent in the Mormon story.

John Dehlin [01:29:53] Just swing your microphone. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:29:56] Okay. Now let me tell you. Let me tell you some secrets.

John Dehlin [01:30:03] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:30:03] If you don't mind. You want to hear some secrets?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:30:07] We'll have to kill you though, according to your own statement.

Shannon Flynn [01:30:11] That's right. Yeah. I'll have to kill somebody to keep that a secret. The film got several things wrong. Quite a number of things wrong. One of the worst ones was that Mark took the Salamander letter to Steve Christensen.

John Dehlin [01:30:34] Wait, can we, can we back up just one second? And I was going to ask you tomorrow about things the film got wrong. Can we focus today on things related to Lynn that the film got wrong? And that's what you're about to talk about. Okay, but before we do that, I want, I have a list of the main forgeries that Mark had. Well, first of all, I want to ask how much of Lynn Jacobs and Mark Hoffman's work had nothing to do with, let's just say the eight or nine or ten most prominent forgeries? Do you know, were they doing a lot of work not related to Mark's forgeries or the, or the, the non well known forgeries?

John Dehlin [01:31:10] Does that make sense? Or were or were they working together mostly on the Anthon transcript or the Joseph III letter or the Bullock letter to Brigham Young, or the Lucy Mack Smith letter or the Josiah Stole letter. So let's talk about the non well known Mormon forgeries first. Were they collaborating on all sorts of stuff?

Shannon Flynn [01:31:28] Well, yeah, I'm.

John Dehlin [01:31:30] Well, were they business partners?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:31:33] No, not officially.

Shannon Flynn [01:31:35] No, not officially. The reason is, is because, remember, Lynn moves back to, to Boston and so at that time, contact with Lynn was

John Dehlin [01:31:48] fairly small and they didn't have, you know, cell phones and texting and. No, you know, long distance calls cost money and. Yeah, there wasn't. Yeah, I guess there was an email.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:32:01] No.

John Dehlin [01:32:02] Right.

Scott Reiter [01:32:02] No.

Shannon Flynn [01:32:04] Now, Mark and his wife, me and my wife went to Boston for Boston Book Fair and Lynn was there then. So we me And Robin did some stuff in Boston with Lynn. And so, you know, Lynn came and we did things, all of us. But then the four of us flew to New York and Lynn stayed in Harvard.

John Dehlin [01:32:33] The four?

Shannon Flynn [01:32:34] Me and my wife, Mark and Missouri.

John Dehlin [01:32:38] Okay, so why were you traveling with Mark and Dory? Why were you in your life traveling with Mark and Dory?

Shannon Flynn [01:32:46] It was just a fun trip. But we'll hold that till next week.

John Dehlin [01:32:49] Okay. Till tomorrow.

Scott Reiter [01:32:51] Till tomorrow.

John Dehlin [01:32:52] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:32:52] But I'm just saying. So did we all see Lynn on that trip? Yes. Did we spend a week with him? No, we were there one night or two days or something. So, yes, during that little time. But then not. But before the master started, then he would be with Lynn. I mean, Mark would be with Lynn for particular things, but he was just like me. We were not partners. It was. Can you do this thing? Yes, do it. Done a month later. Can you do this thing? Yes, do it.

John Dehlin [01:33:41] Got it, got it.

Shannon Flynn [01:33:43] So know each other? Yes. Go to his house.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:33:47] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:33:47] Yes, but social friends. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] Like go to movies or hang out or.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:33:57] I think before. Before you got involved with him?

Scott Reiter [01:34:00] With Mark.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:01] With Mark. We went to his house with Lynn,

Shannon Flynn [01:34:03] but I went on occasion.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:05] Or you were there with. With us, too.

John Dehlin [01:34:08] So did you guys know Mark?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:09] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [01:34:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:10] Talk about Mark for a second.

Scott Reiter [01:34:12] We. We didn't.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] Your memories of Mark?

Scott Reiter [01:34:14] We weren't intimate with Mark. We'd met him a few times, went to dinner at his house.

John Dehlin [01:34:18] Talk about whatever you remember.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:20] So one of my favorite memories is exactly what was in. It was in the. The Netflix. We were there at Mark's, and Mark always had Mark.

John Dehlin [01:34:31] Let's start there.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:31] Through land.

Scott Reiter [01:34:32] Through land.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:32] Through land.

John Dehlin [01:34:33] So like Lynn says, I don't remember the details.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:36] It was like, you got to meet Mark. You've got to meet Mark. He's, you know, he's doing this.

John Dehlin [01:34:40] He's around 83.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:42] It. Let's. Yeah, 80. No, before 83, I think. I don't remember. Yeah, it was the early 80s.

John Dehlin [01:34:48] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:49] So. So we went to their house for dinner a couple of times.

John Dehlin [01:34:53] And Mark and Dory.

Shared Meals and Mark Hofmann's Quiet Nature

Tonya (Reiter) [01:34:54] Mark and Dorian and Lynn and apparently Shannon. Here, pull this over. So one of those times, we were eating, and Mark was not super talkative. No, he was not very talkative. Pull your. I did anyway. And thank you. Sorry. I'm the director. I'm the queen of everything. Anyway. Okay. Anyway.

John Dehlin [01:35:21] Okay, keep going.

Shannon Flynn [01:35:22] So you.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:35:22] We're there at dinner and. And Mark is kind of quiet, but Dory was always very talkative and just very Dory.

Scott Reiter [01:35:32] The kids Are there?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:35:32] Yeah, the kids are running around and. And Mark was just a sweet dad. I mean, those little kids would be all over him. And he was patient, he was sweet. And Dory said, oh, I've got to tell you the funniest thing. And we said, what? And she said, you know, I went down to clean that room that Mark works in in the basement. And he got so mad at me, and he said, dory, don't you ever go in there again. And I thought, well, fine. It's a room I don't have to clean. And Mark put a lock on the door. I can't even get in there now.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:36:06] And I remember thinking, well, that's a, you know, a bit odd, but maybe he has all of his papers. And Mark just sat there and stared into space as she says this. We're like, mark, what's the deal? I don't want her in there. Well, that. You know, that ended up being the scene in the Netflix that was a red flag with her vacuuming. Not. Not really. We just thought. No, we just thought, oh, he's got his stuff, and he doesn't want her messing with his.

John Dehlin [01:36:32] He wants privacy.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:36:33] Yeah, he wants privacy. So that was interesting.

John Dehlin [01:36:37] And then was he friendly? Was he.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:36:40] Yeah, he was really friendly. Yes. And he always had great stories. Like, you'd get there with him, and he would have some secret story he wanted to tell you.

John Dehlin [01:36:49] What kind of stories?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:36:51] Like. Like on his mission to England, there had been a group called the Steppers. He told us, and you had to. It was kind of a secret organization among the missionaries. And to get anywhere, and if you wanted to be an assistant to the president, if you want to be something, you had to join the Steppers. Sort of a. Yeah, kind of a Masonic thing.

Scott Reiter [01:37:14] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:37:14] Although he never really said what they did, but. So we thought, well, that's a bit odd. So we asked Scott's cousin, who'd been at that same mission.

Scott Reiter [01:37:23] I don't think Mike was in.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:37:25] No, I thought he was. Anyway, we tried to verify it, but nobody knew a thing about it. But we just thought, oh, Mark knows all these really interesting things. Then on one occasion we were there and we were talking about wives of Joseph Smith. And wasn't it odd that there were no children, that nobody ever really could identify any children of Joseph Smith? And Mark, Mark said quietly, well, you know, one of the. My ancestors was one of Joseph Smith's plural wives. And we said, really? And he took off his glasses and he turned to the side and profiled, sort of tipped his Head up. And his profile was exactly like Joseph Smith. I mean, we all gasped and said, mark, you're kidding. And he goes, that's all I'm gonna say.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] Do you think he believed that he was a direct descendant?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:38:17] No, I don't think so. It was just part of his shtick. It was just part of what Mark did.

John Dehlin [01:38:22] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:38:23] You know, you didn't know you were being conned by this guy. You just thought you were buddies. One time, I remember driving, we went to a lunch or something and he was there and he needed a ride back. So I was alone in the car with him. I was taking him back to wherever he was going. And this is when I was selling art. And he said to me, well, what do you. Do you know anything about Frederick Remington?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:38:48] And I said, well, yeah, you know, a little bit. And not much because, well, what do you think a Remington signature would be worth? And I said, you know, I have no idea. I have no idea, Mark. You'd have to check this or that or the other. Well, do you think it would have some value? I said, I'm sure it'd have some, but. But that was when he was, you know, just fishing to try and get a little more. Yeah.

Scott Reiter [01:39:12] Art.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:13] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [01:39:13] Which got you the notice.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:15] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [01:39:16] The federal government.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:17] Well, so after. Well, that wasn't why, but after. Before. After the bombings.

John Dehlin [01:39:24] Let's stick with the time. Is that okay?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:26] Okay. Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:39:27] Other Mark Hoffman stories that you guys want to share?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:30] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] How many times were you with him, do you think?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:33] I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:39:34] 10, 20.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:35] Not. Not that many.

Scott Reiter [01:39:36] Not that many.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:37] Probably less than 10.

Scott Reiter [01:39:38] Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:39] But we'd hear everything because Lynn would tell us about all these things going on. But our most dramatic story. Would you like it now?

John Dehlin [01:39:47] Whatever. Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:48] Okay. Our most dramatic story was one night. It was in the evening.

Scott Reiter [01:39:54] Does this fit the timeline?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:39:56] I don't know. You can. Anyway, we got a phone call and it was Lynn. And Lynn was always, like we said, very dramatic. Anyway, but it was, get down to my house right now. And this is. He's living with his parents at this point. And. And we said, okay. He goes, there's something you have to see right now.

Scott Reiter [01:40:15] This is fairly late.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:40:17] Yeah. So. So we got in the car and drove down to his parents house. We walked in and he said, sit down. You have to be seated. Sit down on the couch. So we sat down and then we were thinking, what can this be? And Lynn disappeared for a minute and then with his great flourish, came back and he just hands us this thing in Mylar. And he goes, look at this. You know, this was the land dramatic and it was the Salamander letter. And he said, I'm taking this tomorrow to the church. You know, you are the first people to see it outside of.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:40:53] Yeah, outside of Shannon. And, and we read, and Mark, we read the whole thing and he said, Mark found this and he found it. I helped him because you know, Lynn thought he had helped him find the, the COVID And, and we sat and read that thing and we're just like, you've got to be kidding.

John Dehlin [01:41:09] So you held the, the, the sound

Tonya (Reiter) [01:41:11] letter and just read through the whole thing and he said his bed. Yeah. Or was that where it was? And, and he just said, you know, you'll probably never see this again, but here it is. Well, a few weeks later, you know, after all the deal was done and the church was trying to decide whether it was authentic and Dean Jesse was looking at it and, and we actually ran the ward with Ron Walker. And I remember just going up after church one day and sort of, we were sort of whispering, you know, because we had seen it, we knew he had seen it, but other people didn't

Scott Reiter [01:41:48] know it even existed.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:41:50] And I remember just saying, well, what do you think? And Ron Walker just sort of shaking his head saying, you know, I think it's authentic. I think it's authentic. And we were just like, oh man, you know, how are they going to, how are they going to deal with this one?

John Dehlin [01:42:05] Okay, that's, that's interesting. That's cool. Yeah, that's super cool.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:42:10] Okay,

John Dehlin [01:42:12] let's jump back. And so I was asking you guys if, if Lynn and Mark collaborated on, on buying and selling of documents or books separate from the really well known forgeries. Okay. And you guys said probably, yeah, Shannon

Tonya (Reiter) [01:42:30] would know better on that.

John Dehlin [01:42:31] Let's, Shannon, let's go through the main forgeries, the Mormon related forgeries that we did know and tell us what you know about Lynn's involvement in them. Does that make sense? So what's the first known Mormon Hoffman forgery that, that Lynn would have been involved with?

Shannon Flynn [01:42:50] There's only one.

John Dehlin [01:42:51] Well, there's only one.

Shannon Flynn [01:42:52] Only one.

John Dehlin [01:42:52] And that's the Salamander letter. Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:42:55] So.

John Dehlin [01:42:55] So Lynn wasn't working with Mark from 80 to, to 84? No. Okay, what can you tell us? Anything else you want to tell us about Lynn and Mark's relationship prior to the Salamander Letter?

Shannon Flynn [01:43:11] Well, it's just things we've talked about. You know, they would help each other, you know, when they could books and documents.

John Dehlin [01:43:20] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:43:20] You know, that sort of thing.

Travels with Mark Hofmann to New York

John Dehlin [01:43:23] What did you guys do in New York when you, Lynn, would go with you and Mark to New York? Is that right?

Shannon Flynn [01:43:29] That only happened once.

John Dehlin [01:43:30] Just one time. Only one time you went with Mark to New York, or only one time you went with Mark and Lynn to New York?

Shannon Flynn [01:43:36] Yes. One time with Mark and Mark and Lynn.

John Dehlin [01:43:41] And what was the reason?

Shannon Flynn [01:43:43] Well, I don't remember why Mark and I were there. Unless it had something to do with Schiller Wapner. I shouldn't say that. Let me back up. Every time I went with Mark to New York, it had to do with Schiller Wapner.

John Dehlin [01:44:06] What is that?

Shannon Flynn [01:44:07] Well, Sharon Wapner, at the time, was one of the biggest children books

Tonya (Reiter) [01:44:18] publishers.

Scott Reiter [01:44:19] No, they weren't

Tonya (Reiter) [01:44:22] dealers.

Scott Reiter [01:44:22] Dealer.

Shannon Flynn [01:44:23] I'm sorry. I'm having problems.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:44:25] It's okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:44:30] Shore and Wapner were the biggest, or one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in children's books. So they specialized in all things that had to do with children's stuff. Books, posters. I've got at home. I can't show you to them now, but some signed stuff by Maurice Sendak that I purchased at Sherwin Wapner.

John Dehlin [01:44:59] And who's that?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:45:01] Children's author.

Scott Reiter [01:45:02] A children's author.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:45:04] Where the Wild Things Are.

John Dehlin [01:45:05] Oh, yeah.

Scott Reiter [01:45:05] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:45:06] Okay. Sorry. I do not know how Mark landed on that store. There was something, but I don't know what it was. Okay, but he landed on them. And another thing that was wrong in the movie Dory. Well, he spent a lot of his money. Like flying places and expensive dinners. Yeah. That's not $700,000.

John Dehlin [01:45:44] So you're saying the money he spent wasn't in partying?

Shannon Flynn [01:45:49] No.

John Dehlin [01:45:49] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:45:50] Children's books.

John Dehlin [01:45:52] Why was he interested in children's books?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:45:54] It was one of the legitimate things he. Because Lynn began to collect first editions of children's books, didn't he?

Shannon Flynn [01:46:02] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:46:03] Or some American books.

Shannon Flynn [01:46:05] Oh, yes, I do, too. Yes, I do, too. I mean, Mark was spending money on other things. There was a period of time they were trying to build big house, buy a huge house.

John Dehlin [01:46:18] Mark and Dory.

Shannon Flynn [01:46:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:20] And he was trying to make money.

Shannon Flynn [01:46:22] Well, that's where some of the money was going. But where a lot of the money was going was in those books. And it was a little bit of stupidity because he's. Look, he localized on children's books because he thought that's what Dory would like. And Dory had said one time, I didn't care about them. Mark kept getting them and saying, Here, honey, look at this book. Here, honey, look at this book. And she would go, oh, okay, I don't care. Which seems really strange. But he did. And so huge amounts of money was being used to keep going.

John Dehlin [01:47:09] Don't. Don't stop.

Shannon Flynn [01:47:10] Okay, sorry. Huge amounts of money was going to. To those books. And that was the place to buy. And that was all legitimate stuff. When you think about is so bizarre because if there's one person on the face of the United States that could detect forgeries in seconds, it was him. And he was buying stuff that he could always detect any forgery.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:47:46] It's interesting.

John Dehlin [01:47:48] So when you went with Mark and Lynn to New York, it was. Are you saying it was something to do with children's books?

Shannon Flynn [01:47:55] Probably that's correct.

John Dehlin [01:47:56] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:47:58] At least three of the trips. And I may have gone four times altogether.

John Dehlin [01:48:06] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:48:06] Maybe five, but probably four.

John Dehlin [01:48:09] But it wasn't related to Mormon documents.

Shannon Flynn [01:48:12] Nothing.

John Dehlin [01:48:13] Really?

Shannon Flynn [01:48:14] Nothing?

John Dehlin [01:48:14] Okay, okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:48:16] It was him going there to do business with. It's mainly Justin Schiller.

Scott Reiter [01:48:22] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:48:24] I think maybe some got them. And I could be wrong about this. Some may have gotten the perception that you and Mark were going to New York partying a lot and that it was around kind of Mormon document related stuff.

Shannon Flynn [01:48:37] No talking more Mormon stuff. And the partying was. Well, I guess. But that partying consisted of going to dinner with Justin Schiller and his partner. He was gay also. And so when we were doing something, Mark would walk with Justin and I would be two paces behind with Schiller's partner. We went to their apartment once. We would always go to dinner and had some of the best food I've ever had in my life to this day. Thai food. The best. Chinese food. The best. Because Justin was a real connoisseur. Or. What's the gourmand? What?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:49:39] Gourmand.

Shannon Flynn [01:49:40] Gourmand. Thank you. So we didn't go to McDonald's. We.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] You were eating. Well,

Shannon Flynn [01:49:49] I went to the Russian Tea Room once.

John Dehlin [01:49:54] That's a fancy restaurant.

Shannon Flynn [01:49:56] Oh, yeah. I'm sorry for you older people that go to that movie with Dustin Hoffman where he turns into a woman.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:05] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [01:50:06] What's that called?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:07] Fire.

John Dehlin [01:50:07] No, no, no, no, no. That's Robin Williams.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:10] Oh, yeah, that is.

John Dehlin [01:50:11] I know what you're talking about. Dustin Hoffman. Tootsie.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:14] Yeah, Tootsie.

Shannon Flynn [01:50:15] Yeah. He goes in first dressed as a woman and pushes in and sits down with his. His agent and all that. Russian Tea Room.

John Dehlin [01:50:24] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [01:50:25] Best Russian food I've ever had.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:28] But Lynn did travel some with Mark.

Shannon Flynn [01:50:32] He very well, may have.

John Dehlin [01:50:33] What were they traveling for? Same thing.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:36] Different things, I think. I don't really know. But that's when it was at some point when Lynn would go with Mark on trips. And we had thought that Mark was the quintessential Mormon guy totally straight down the line. And. And then Lynn started to tell us things about these.

Scott Reiter [01:50:56] He wore his garments all the time.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:50:58] Yeah, he did. But Lynn started telling us things about his trips with Marx and Mark's secret life.

John Dehlin [01:51:05] And what was Mark's secret life?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:51:06] Well, I remember he told us that Mark was a complete atheist. Mark did not believe anything about it. And he'd been an atheist since the time he was about 14. And. And we were shocked. I mean, that was shocking because the face Mark put on things was completely different. And, you know, and I don't. I don't want to remember things wrong, but I. I thought that Lynn said that Mark would drink quite a bit when they'd. When they'd have you go on these trips together and.

Shannon Flynn [01:51:35] And then say more about that.

John Dehlin [01:51:37] Yeah, go ahead.

Shannon Flynn [01:51:38] Go ahead.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:51:38] And then he'd come home and just. Dory knew nothing about this. He'd come home and fall right back into the, you know, Mormon. The Mormon stereotype.

Shannon Flynn [01:51:50] Well, stereotype. Mark was bombed with his garments on.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:51:55] That's right. Which is why Brad Christensen gave him the blessing.

Shannon Flynn [01:51:59] Exactly.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:52:00] Because he could see his.

Shannon Flynn [01:52:01] He continued to go to church all that time, take the kids to primary, teach. I went one time with Mark and listened to him give the elders quorum lesson.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:52:15] But he was living. It was a double life. It really was. Oh, it was. It was one life. And then he'd leave town. It'd be a different life.

John Dehlin [01:52:23] So drinking, what. You know, what other ways was he living a double life?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:52:29] I know. No, anymore than that to you. Other than he didn't believe anything.

Scott Reiter [01:52:33] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:52:33] And kept that secret from his wife.

Shannon Flynn [01:52:38] Now, one time, Lynn came, but this was when he was in Boston, so he did not ride with us, and so he knew we were coming, so he said, I'll meet you there. And we had gotten a room at a pretty nice hotel fairly close to Times Square. And Lynn was at ymca. He did that for two reasons. One, he was very experiment. I can't. I'm sorry. Sorry, everybody. I'm having problems. He was very. What? He was experimenting in the gay lifestyle. He was just as wild and very. Did stuff he shouldn't have done, you know, was involved in. In 1985 in the gay life in New York. It was just as. Just as wild. As it could be. I won't say any more than that. You can draw your own conclusions.

John Dehlin [01:53:53] Well, I'm. I apologize. I was getting a power cable for my laptop. I. One thing I missed. Are you talking about Lynn or are you talking about Mark?

Lyn's Private Life and Sexuality

Tonya (Reiter) [01:54:04] Lynn.

John Dehlin [01:54:05] Okay, so by. You're saying that by 85ish. So you know, we talked about Lynn. I mean, this whole thing's about Lynn, but it's also about Lynn and Mark Lynn, as far as you guys knew, he was a believer. He believed he had saw Christ. He was a great gospel doctrine teacher. He was faithful. But we knew he was probably closeted gay person with probably some internalized homophobia. Fast forward to 84. 85. You're saying he's starting to potentially experiment?

Shannon Flynn [01:54:39] Well, no, I mean, I could tell. He came out to me in 83

John Dehlin [01:54:46] as well as gay.

Shannon Flynn [01:54:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:50] And what. What was your reaction to that?

Shannon Flynn [01:54:53] What's. Like I said before, both Robin and I. Oh, you're gay. Okay.

Scott Reiter [01:54:59] It wasn't startling to. He never. He never told me that.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:02] And never told me.

Scott Reiter [01:55:03] Never told me that.

Shannon Flynn [01:55:04] He told me.

Scott Reiter [01:55:05] All the conversations we had are.

John Dehlin [01:55:08] He never came out to you guys?

Scott Reiter [01:55:10] Never.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:10] Never.

John Dehlin [01:55:11] Is that because he felt like you guys were faithful and he wouldn't.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:15] I have no idea.

Scott Reiter [01:55:16] I have no idea.

John Dehlin [01:55:17] You might reject him.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:19] I doubt it. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:55:22] You were close with them, right?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:23] We were close. I. I mean, I've had lots of gay friends. I don't. I don't know why he didn't. He might have just been uncomfortable if

John Dehlin [01:55:31] you wondered why he came out to. To Shannon, but not you guys. Have you guys wondered about that?

Scott Reiter [01:55:36] No, I've never wondered about it.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:38] I have. I've wondered about it a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:55:40] You were closer to him, right?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:55:41] I had a. I mean, I had a close closer friend who never actually told me, obviously living that life, but never told me. And I don't know whether I'm that person that you don't tell. I don't know.

Scott Reiter [01:55:56] I can tell you this.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] Were you guys like orthodox, strict Mormons, kind of judgy?

Tonya (Reiter) [01:56:02] No, I wouldn't say so.

Scott Reiter [01:56:04] I would never say that. Not me.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:56:06] Well, nigh. Who knows?

Scott Reiter [01:56:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:09] Okay.

Scott Reiter [01:56:10] No, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't.

Shannon Flynn [01:56:12] Robin and I are. Or we're orthodox.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:56:15] They're much more than.

John Dehlin [01:56:16] Yeah, right.

Shannon Flynn [01:56:17] But it didn't bother us.

John Dehlin [01:56:20] Why did. Okay, first of all, why do you. Why do you think Shannon Flynn, he did come out to you. What was the context? Was it. Was it because you saw something? Was it because he Just was close friends to you. What would the context have been?

Shannon Flynn [01:56:34] I. Oh, man.

Scott Reiter [01:56:38] Could it have been a kind of a confession to you?

Shannon Flynn [01:56:41] No, just we shouldn't be telling all these secrets. We knew a fair amount about Lynn trying to battle.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:56:56] Oh, that.

Shannon Flynn [01:56:57] When I say battle, it was never in the time that I knew him that he wanted to battle as not be gay. He just knew he was. What he was trying to do was battle the lifestyle because he had a terrible time finding men to be partners with. And so we knew two women, in fact, Robin and I. Okay, I'm going to tell this story, but I'm going to block some of it. One of Robin's best friends in high school eventually became lesbian, but at that time she wasn't. But we got her connected with Lynn. We even went on a camping trip where me and Robin were in one tent and Lynn and this girl is the other one, where Lynn's trying to at least be bisexual. And it just never worked. He had another woman. I'll skip her name, but was as close to him as any woman could be.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:58:16] I think she was deeply in love with him.

Shannon Flynn [01:58:19] Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:58:20] And would have married him and would

Shannon Flynn [01:58:22] have married him, but she never wanted to be gay. And he never could be anything. The most he could ever be is bisexual. And so they seriously talked about for a couple of months getting married and living together. So they're just not alone.

John Dehlin [01:58:46] So back in the 80s, it was a thought. If we have lesbian women and gay men that aren't going to be able to be partnered with someone who they were necessarily attracted to or compatible with, let's get gay men and lesbian women to get married. Because then at least they'd have each other and be able to live what would appear to be visibly.

Scott Reiter [01:59:08] I don't think he was trying to fool anybody.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:59:11] No. And that wasn't the case.

Scott Reiter [01:59:13] It was a personal desire he had. He was. He wasn't, I think, trying to create a Persona for the world.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:59:20] I think Lynn wanted to be married and wanted to have children. Yeah, I think he did.

Shannon Flynn [01:59:24] Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [01:59:24] And I think he tried. And the. The first example he told us about, this woman was not openly gay either at the time. They were. They were trying to make it work. And we used to joke about it a little bit after that. The two of them were. So it's like they both bounced off each other and went the other direction. So she wasn't. She wasn't openly out then either.

Shannon Flynn [01:59:47] Okay, but. But the point is, is I think that's maybe why I'm just Doing some guessing. Why? There was a little difference, because it was kind of like Lynn said, Robin and Shannon, I'm just gonna be gay now. And all that, you know, I've been doing, I just. I'm done.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:00:09] I just can't do it.

Shannon Flynn [02:00:10] I can't do it.

John Dehlin [02:00:11] That would have been 83, 84, probably. And just to be clear with the audience, first of all, we're LGBTQ affirming on this podcast. This isn't to dig into people's dirty little secrets and just define scandal. If we're. I think you just hit the camera. Sorry, just swivel. Just. Okay, just swivel it back just a tiny bit. I'll tell you when to stop. Okay, that's good. That's too far. Sorry, Back.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:00:40] Too far. Go back, go back, go back. Camera.

John Dehlin [02:00:44] No, no, it's fine, it's fine. Just bring it back this way.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:00:49] Just move it back.

John Dehlin [02:00:51] Hello, everyone. This is live. This is live YouTube. Stop.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:00:54] This is why we don't do live TV anymore.

John Dehlin [02:00:56] Okay, it's not a problem.

Scott Reiter [02:00:59] Sorry.

John Dehlin [02:00:59] No, it's. Go a little bit back that way. Just a tiny bit, and then. Okay, stop.

Shannon Flynn [02:01:05] Get some pebbles and start throwing them at me. Knock it off, you idiot.

John Dehlin [02:01:11] So just to be clear, this isn't to be, you know, scandalous. This isn't. To dig into someone's private life. This isn't. By least, this isn't to be scandalous. If we're going to understand Lynn, I think it would be really hard to. To not talk about this kind of stuff.

Scott Reiter [02:01:28] I think that's true. Don't you?

John Dehlin [02:01:29] What's that?

Scott Reiter [02:01:30] I think that's true. Go ahead.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:01:32] Well, and one of the things that came up in your. In your interview with Tyler and. And Jared was that some people got the idea that Mark and. And Leonard had some kind of a homosexual relationship. And. And I think that's. I think that all of us, at least maybe you more than the two of us, were pretty cognizant of what Lynn's relationships were, and that was not one of them. And so I think that was one of the things we kind of wanted to at least go on record saying that that was not part of the dynamic of their relationship that we knew of, that we knew of. And I'm pretty sure one of us would have known because Lynn was very open about things.

Shannon Flynn [02:02:14] Is that what you just said? It's just people talking a load of baloney. A lot of crap.

John Dehlin [02:02:20] Wait, was that before my interview? Like, is that. Has that ever been rumored in the past? Not That I know that Mark Hoffman might have been gay or bisexual.

Shannon Flynn [02:02:30] Oh.

Scott Reiter [02:02:31] Or.

John Dehlin [02:02:31] Or that. Or that Mark and Lynn might have had a relationship. Are either of those things. Things that predated my interview?

Shannon Flynn [02:02:39] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:40] Okay. Talk about that.

Shannon Flynn [02:02:41] The police beat the crap out of me over that.

John Dehlin [02:02:45] What do you mean?

Shannon Flynn [02:02:46] They said, are you gay? No.

John Dehlin [02:02:48] They asked you that?

Shannon Flynn [02:02:49] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:49] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [02:02:50] Mark. I don't think so. Lynn. Yes. So which of you were gay together? None. So is that why you're not telling us the truth? What? So you did help forgeries. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. I was. Sorry.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:03:12] It's yours. Mine's silent.

Shannon Flynn [02:03:16] Turn mine off. Sorry. And they're saying, well, you're lying to us. All three of you are gay. Right? No, they were trying to come up with. With anything, you know, that lasted I don't know how long. And it was just some police officers were trying to pound that.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:03:36] Well, hadn't they done a psychological profile and thought that Mark had some kind of deviant, Possible deviant.

Shannon Flynn [02:03:42] Well, I think that police have tried to come up with anything. He was this. He was that. Trying to explain. Now, at a certain level, I get it.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:03:53] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:03:54] Because any man that did what Mark did, you have I tell you how bad it got at the preliminary hearing, Ron Yengich was standing there, they were on a break. It. He stood up, Mark was doing something. He looked down because I saw him do it. And he said, if Mark did this, there are empty chairs here.

John Dehlin [02:04:24] Oh, meaning there were co. Conspirators. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:04:28] So nowadays people come up with anything to try to come up with reasons and they're digging at. They're digging down to saying somebody's gay. Well, that's bad. So that must be it. They're coming up with everything. So it has no validity. Has no validity.

Scott Reiter [02:04:49] When Lynn came back from the east and would come to talk to me up for a long time, he was a changed person. Actually, as he became more intermixed with the gay community, he became less flamboyant.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:05:06] He did.

Scott Reiter [02:05:07] He was terribly sad. He seemed to me terribly depressed. And he was a changed person because I don't.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:05:16] Because I think he was unhappy. He did not want. I mean, I don't think he really wanted to be gay. I mean, I don't think he wanted. I mean, something.

Scott Reiter [02:05:27] He was not the olin. He was not flamboyant anymore. He was.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:05:31] He may have had that idea in his head that he couldn't be who he was and be gay, but he couldn't be who he was. And not be gay.

Scott Reiter [02:05:38] He didn't want to be who he was.

Shannon Flynn [02:05:41] And I may say something you're sorry I keep touching.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:05:44] That's fine.

Scott Reiter [02:05:47] That's fine. Touch her all you want.

Shannon Flynn [02:05:49] When you're saying he didn't to want. Want to be gay, my viewpoint is he fully understood that is who he is. But he wanted to have a good life. He wanted to have a spouse. He wanted to have two little kids that he could take care of those babies like nobody else.

Shannon Flynn [02:06:15] And it just wasn't working. He couldn't find anybody. He couldn't latch on to anything. Thus it's like, Lynn, this is your life. To live as a depressed single. And he hated that. That may be it now. If he could have made things work, then that would have been okay. He didn't want to be peel off the gay label because he just knew that was his life.

Shannon Flynn [02:06:49] But I don't know in the years, you know, especially after he finished his Masters. So the nine years, eight years till he died. And he wasn't just gay. And we shouldn't ever say if you're gay, your life sucks. That's not true. That's not true. And Lyn didn't believe that. But he was very different than what I see going on today. He would have never gone on parades. He would have never gone on walks or been on television shows or any of that. He would have never done any of that.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:07:40] Because he was too private.

Shannon Flynn [02:07:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:07:43] Ashamed.

Scott Reiter [02:07:44] No, no, no.

Shannon Flynn [02:07:46] He didn't like it. He didn't like.

Scott Reiter [02:07:47] He didn't like it. It was a burden to him.

John Dehlin [02:07:51] And how much of that we're speculating, but how much of that would have been that? He was raised lds. Spence W. Kimball and boy K. Packer taught that being gay was evil. And he could have been faced rejection from family and friends. And so you just. You don't embrace and even love who you are because you've been taught that that's evil. I mean, that makes perfect sense to me.

Shannon Flynn [02:08:12] I understand what you're saying. That did not happen with him.

Scott Reiter [02:08:15] What do you think?

Shannon Flynn [02:08:16] So either no one treat that I'm treated.

John Dehlin [02:08:19] I didn't say that. I'm talking about how I thought about.

Scott Reiter [02:08:22] Well, I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:08:23] I don't

Tonya (Reiter) [02:08:26] have been a component. Yeah, it may have been a component.

Scott Reiter [02:08:28] He kept it a secret from us. From me.

Shannon Flynn [02:08:30] Maybe.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] Why maybe? Why isn't that like pretty? Like.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:08:35] Well, we're not in his head.

Shannon Flynn [02:08:37] I never talked to him about those sort of things.

John Dehlin [02:08:40] And I didn't either how he felt about yeah.

Scott Reiter [02:08:42] How we felt.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:08:43] How he felt about himself. Right.

Scott Reiter [02:08:45] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:08:46] Yeah. I never talked to him or had intercourse with him. That I am gay and I hate myself.

Scott Reiter [02:08:54] No, he.

Shannon Flynn [02:08:54] I never heard that. But that was just part.

John Dehlin [02:08:59] He said I'm gay and what, because he did tell you he was gay?

Shannon Flynn [02:09:03] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:09:03] And I'm gonna quit trying to be

John Dehlin [02:09:04] something I want to try and not be it.

Shannon Flynn [02:09:07] Yeah. Now, if I would have said to him, how was being gay? He would say, my life isn't working, as I've said, the way he wanted to, to have a spouse, have children.

John Dehlin [02:09:20] Yeah. And you couldn't get married to a man back then or have kids with the man back then.

Shannon Flynn [02:09:25] Some did, but it just didn't work for him. And I don't know why.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:09:30] I don't.

John Dehlin [02:09:31] Okay.

Scott Reiter [02:09:32] Now, some of his closest relationships, and I'm guessing this in high school, too, were with girls.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:09:38] Yeah, they were.

Scott Reiter [02:09:39] And women his closest relations. In fact, they almost. With Tanya, with.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:09:44] Well, with Laura, with. I mean.

Scott Reiter [02:09:46] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:09:47] So there were. The only thing that I ever got from Lynn about. About being gay was the denial. The denial. The denial and how much I hate those gay men you hang around with. How I. I hate everything they are. So I got that first. And then. And then never. It never changed. Although I knew that he had, you know, begun living that life, but he just never, ever spoke to us about it.

John Dehlin [02:10:14] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:14] And it was more, I think the things that I sign him were not so much that as his. As his eventual leaving the church and. And having trouble, you know, with his belief system.

John Dehlin [02:10:26] Did you come out, guys, about that?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:28] Somewhat.

Scott Reiter [02:10:29] Somewhat. That was more traumatic for him.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:32] Now, Was this after 85 or before?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:35] Before, probably. And we talk about that, and we did hear about his relationships with women. He would tell us about those in detail.

Lyn's Evolving Faith and Intellectual Interests

John Dehlin [02:10:42] So let's talk about his evolving faith. Because when you're telling me, when you say B H Roberts, when you say biblical criticism, I'm immediately thinking. When you just say Mormon documents, I'm thinking loss of faith.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:54] So talk about Lynn Jacobs Faith, evolution over time. The. The.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:10:59] I. I think I heard it mostly with. When he would talk about Mark and when he found out that Mark didn't believe and he sort of hinted that he was like Mark, that he also didn't believe. And then, you know how we've said that he could say terrible things. I mean, he could be the warmest, most wonderful person, or he could be very, very cutting, very sharp. And. And I remember it was 80, 86, late 85 or early 86.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:11:34] I was pregnant. I have. I was a little bit morning sick. I wasn't feeling really great. My mother. I was living at my. With my parents. We were living with my parents. My mother was in the last stages of cancer. And I remember Lynn came over and. And I, you know, he's talking to me and I'm not feeling very good anyway. And he says. And then. And he always had, like I said, nicknames for everyone. He'd call every mother he knew Mumsy and Popsy for Pop. And he said, he said, and. And there's Mumsy upstairs just in her last days and there's nothing after.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:12:13] You know, that's the last thing you really want to hear when your mother is dying. But, you know, that's. That's an example of it. So at least by then I knew that he. He had lost all things.

John Dehlin [02:12:24] Believe in Heaven.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:12:26] Yeah, he just said, but. But I don't think he ever. We had ever had a long conversation with you, but he would just give you hints, little tidbits of what he was thinking.

John Dehlin [02:12:34] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [02:12:35] Yeah. See, he did not. I mean, he went away from the devout belief of the Mormon Church, but it wasn't because he wanted to go to another religion. Yeah, they all got problems.

John Dehlin [02:12:48] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:12:49] You could tear up Catholicism, you could tear up Lutheranism. You can tear up anything.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:12:55] And his. And his PhD work, it was in Native American prophets.

Scott Reiter [02:13:02] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:13:03] So he. He started looking into that.

Shannon Flynn [02:13:05] So.

Scott Reiter [02:13:06] Yeah, I wonder if his life just broke. His religious life and his personal sexual life, whatever you wanted broke. At one time, it all just. It all just went away and it left him with little.

Shannon Flynn [02:13:21] Yeah, but I need to, in my point of view, maybe different than yours. Being gay wasn't his biggest problem in his life. He suffered much more from the difficulty he was having getting a good job and doing what he wanted teaching at a university because he just wasn't getting anywhere. The last two years of his life, he taught at Salt Lake Community College as a.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:13:55] As a Philosophy 101, Anthropology 101, adjunctur, something.

Scott Reiter [02:14:02] Yeah, I think he was just a teacher.

Shannon Flynn [02:14:04] Senior, Nothing.

John Dehlin [02:14:05] Any idea why he had such a hard time?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:14:07] Well, it's just a hard.

Scott Reiter [02:14:08] It's hard.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:14:09] Academia is hard. But I. When I went through. I went through a couple. Yeah. One of his. The boxes of his papers he gave to the University of Utah just the other day. And one of the files in there had his applications for employment in it and some answers. And I mean, he applied to all kinds of places. He applied to Stanford. He applied to.

Scott Reiter [02:14:31] He wasn't Shy about.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:14:32] No, he wasn't shy. And he. He applied, but then there were a couple of rejections letters. And it was really hard to read those, you know, to watch him send all these out and have it come back. But, you know, that's academia. At least then. I mean, the places were few.

Shannon Flynn [02:14:48] Part of the problem was, is he died the same year he completed his PhD and so he couldn't really get a good position till he had finished that. Yeah, he died.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:15:03] I mean.

Shannon Flynn [02:15:04] I mean, the path for him when he knew he was going to lose his life was only three, four, maybe five months.

John Dehlin [02:15:13] Right. And I want to come back to that, but that's very interesting to know that. That. I mean, Michael Quinn went to Yale and he never really landed in a tenure track position. So academia is just super hard.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:15:26] Well, one of our friends. One of our friends that went to school with Scott, she was in Classics, ended up getting a Ph.D. all but the dissertation because. Anyway, it was a very weird situation.

Scott Reiter [02:15:37] Was that a Syracuse too?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:15:39] No, she was at University of Kentucky. No, she was in Wisconsin, I think. But anyway, she came back here and the only thing she could get was a position at Salt Lake Community. Well, not Sally Community. Excuse me, at uvu, which wasn't even a university then, but she's been there.

Scott Reiter [02:15:53] Which was just a community college. But. Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:15:55] Yeah, but without the p. Without the actual dissertation. But I think.

Scott Reiter [02:16:00] I think it helped her that she was a woman, probably recruiting women, and she got that position.

John Dehlin [02:16:07] Okay, so back, if it's okay, back to the investigators.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:13] So.

John Dehlin [02:16:13] Yeah. One of the. So one of the questions.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:18] Ask a question.

John Dehlin [02:16:18] Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:19] How long have we been going?

John Dehlin [02:16:21] 2 hours and 18 minutes. No. Is that my fault?

Scott Reiter [02:16:26] No.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:16:29] Okay. Back.

John Dehlin [02:16:30] Are you okay? Are you okay?

Shannon Flynn [02:16:34] Doing my best.

Scott Reiter [02:16:35] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:37] It's just these things. This is. Isn't the first one I have done. So I've got my problems to begin with. But everybody. It seems like I'm sitting here talking. This rips me up.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:16:51] Yeah. That's the hard part with all of us. Well, you.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:56] This is what happened to us.

John Dehlin [02:16:57] It's emotionally.

Shannon Flynn [02:16:58] This is Lynn. Yeah, this is Lynn when he dies.

John Dehlin [02:17:02] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:17:02] This tears is up.

John Dehlin [02:17:04] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:17:04] So it isn't just sitting here.

John Dehlin [02:17:06] Yeah. Thank you.

Shannon Flynn [02:17:07] We tear ourselves.

John Dehlin [02:17:08] I'm so sorry. And I. I wanted.

Shannon Flynn [02:17:10] Anyway.

John Dehlin [02:17:10] Respectful of that. And I'm trying to honor my best. I mean, I'm trying to honor. You are Lynn. By talking about the things that would have been most central.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:17:19] Yeah, you're right.

John Dehlin [02:17:22] So going back to. Okay, so. I mean. And you know, this is just what people do. So you're talking, Shannon, about you and Lynn and Mark going to New York, you know, parties one time, and they were, you know, it was with a gay man and his, you know, partner. And so people are. And then what. What happened with me was I was talking with Sandra, and I'd had some people ask me some questions beforehand, and what I was trying to do was understand Mark Hoffman's motives and kind of what made him tick. And we'll get into this tomorrow, but once I found out that Lynn Jacobs was.

John Dehlin [02:18:03] Was closely working with Marc and that he was gay and that he died of aids, then I started thinking. And Sandra had mentioned that the investigators felt like Mark had many gay associates. Then when you're, like, looking back, trying to understand, you think, huh, what if part of Mark Hoffman's motives was that he was gay, closeted, that he was angry at the church because of their treatment of LGBTQ people, that he collaborated with other people like Lynn, and that he was in. In addition to living a double life in other ways, maybe Mark was living a double life as a. As a gay man, which might explain some of the behaviors when Dory wasn't around.

John Dehlin [02:18:51] And that maybe part of the motive for embarrassing the church or getting back at the church was that not only was from. From Mark's perspective and. And maybe Lyn's perspective, if Lyn was a conspirator. And this is all super speculation, but I'm just telling you, I'm trying to say how the thoughts come so that then you can shoot them down. Right? The thoughts come. Well, maybe there was an LGBTQ strain of motivation on Mark and Lyn's part to get back at the church for deceiving people and to get back at the church, most importantly, for teaching anti LGBTQ principles that would cause people like Lyn to hate themselves, to have to live this hidden life, to end up feeling like there's no place for them where they can be authentic but also have love.

John Dehlin [02:19:43] And so let's. Let's all get back at the Mormon Church, and it's through, you know, forgeries and embarrassing documents and making the church look foolish. So I think that's. And I don't know if that's why the investigators would have been grilling you about that, Shannon, but I. But it could be that it's just like, oh, bad things. Let's implicate gay people, because who doesn't want to slander and malign gay people back in the 80s, right? So it could be just as much that or it could be. And I think Sandra thought this. It could be. Trying to understand motive, right?

Scott Reiter [02:20:18] I think so, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:19] Okay, so that's saying all that. I would love to hear all of you guys respond to kind of that line of thinking.

Shannon Flynn [02:20:26] I'll go first. I don't believe any of that.

John Dehlin [02:20:28] Okay. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:20:29] And why not a drop of it?

John Dehlin [02:20:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:20:33] Sorry. I need to explain something. And

Tonya (Reiter) [02:20:38] do you want me to do mine while you're explaining? Thinking.

Shannon Flynn [02:20:42] I was aware of some of Mark's activity while he was in New York. By himself or. Well, not by himself, because I didn't know what he did then, the times that I was there. And he was very interested in illicit sexual behavior. It was always heterosexual. Always. I am not aware of any time he ever had anything to do with anything homosexual. Never. Never. And I don't recall Lynn ever talking about being vindictive or upset about the Mormon Church and its gay treatment. Because I can tell you from us alone, and we spent a fair amount of time with Mark. We never put him down, said anything bad, laughed, joked, criticized. Ever.

John Dehlin [02:22:04] About who?

Shannon Flynn [02:22:05] About Lynn and his gayness being gay. Never. Okay. So for people to dream this up, in my view is total crap being made up today. Because that stuff. Never saw it, never heard it.

John Dehlin [02:22:24] And just to be clear, I hope that this is. These are rumors that happened before I started looking into this stuff. Right. I mean, the investigators were wondering.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:22:32] So that was news to me. That whole homosexual ankle was total news to me.

John Dehlin [02:22:38] Okay, good.

Shannon Flynn [02:22:39] Investigators was just trying to find some way to make and see. That's why I said, there's more empty churches, chairs, because they believe that too. Somebody had to be with him. So just in 1985, what can you say? Bad? Are you gay?

John Dehlin [02:23:01] That was just something way to smear. It's a way to smear and slander.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:23:04] Well, and it was a very. Living through. It was very much different than looking back now. So as we were watching the documentary, all these things began to come back and the. And the news footage and et cetera. And I know you had a really hard time going back through all that, but. But I remember at the time just being so at sea, you know, after that third bombing, you were just like, what is going on? And we knew. We knew people slightly that had been in business with Gary Sheets and that person had an office in the McEwen Mansion at the time. So I sort of thought maybe that was where the bomb was going.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:23:41] I mean, we had no idea that there was all this. And I didn't know about all the deals being made in between. I knew that Lynn lost most of his collection, putting it up to get money for Mark, for McClellan, McClellan papers as collateral. But I didn't know all these details. And so as this all was happening, when Mark was on the way to the hospital after he was, you know, after he bombed himself accidentally or on purpose or whatever it was, Lynn and I talked a couple days after that and. And you just didn't know quite who you were going to believe. But I probably would have suspected you more than Lynn because I knew Lynn better than I knew Shannon.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:24:26] But Lynn said, there is no way he goes, there is no way Mark did this. And I said, well, why do you say that? And Lynn said, because on his way to the hospital or right after he got there, he called me and he said, lynn, your life's in danger. Get out of town.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:24:42] And I think that maybe came up in the documentary, but if for me, it was just like, oh, there is no way that Mark would have had the presence of mind in the kind of pain he was in to call in and say that and keep the whole charade going.

Scott Reiter [02:24:59] She was really worried about him.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:25:01] Yeah. But in fact, we find out later, that's what it is. And when, you know, shortly I was a while after all that, when they were trying to collect evidence, we did get a visit. I got a visit from the atf. And I remember telling them, yeah, because

Scott Reiter [02:25:20] I think it's because Marcus trying to buy paintings, I don't know.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:25:24] They came and interviewed me.

Scott Reiter [02:25:26] Tanya's name got on the list.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:25:28] And I just remember telling them, you know, there is no way he's the sweetest man in the world, the way he treats his little kids, you know, And I just, you know, talked him up and down about what a great, kind, fabulous person he was because that's how convincing that man was. And the fact that he could. That he could convince Lynn. And a lot of people had questions about Lynn. I don't think I ever really doubted Lynn that what? That Lynn was involved in the forgeries. I never believed that he was.

John Dehlin [02:26:02] You neither of you believe that?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:26:04] No, we just knew him too well and we knew the kinds of things he'd said. You know, the way he. He believed in Mark and the fact that he thought the Mark had this method and, you know, we just never doubted Land and Shannon.

John Dehlin [02:26:19] You're saying just vocalize what you just kind of whispered.

Shannon Flynn [02:26:23] Lynn had nothing to do with it.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:26:24] No.

John Dehlin [02:26:25] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:26:26] He didn't.

Shannon Flynn [02:26:27] It's just. I understand why this keeps coming up because I've used this as an example to help people understand. Lyn. No, sorry. Not Lynn. Mark Hoffman had the ability. I'm doing this fictitiously. Okay. Fictitious. He had the ability to go to a gas station, buy a ticket for the macmillians.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:26:58] The lottery.

Shannon Flynn [02:26:59] Lottery. Win it and tell nobody. That's what Mark could do. And he did that. He did all of that stuff and he never told anybody. Never let anybody in on it. It's very difficult to understand that because you could say that's impossible. Nobody that I know in my Life could win 220 million and never tell anybody.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:27:32] But he parted the curtain, I think, a little bit with Lynn.

Scott Reiter [02:27:36] You think?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:27:38] I think he did. By the fact that he. That Lynn knew what he really thought about. About the church.

John Dehlin [02:27:44] The church, yeah. So they would have been. They would have been sympathetic with each other and having lost their faith.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:27:51] I think so. They could have been,

Shannon Flynn [02:27:57] but. So I. I won't go off in the. Mark. Because it was a money making.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:01] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:28:02] Operation. Not against something.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:04] No.

Shannon Flynn [02:28:05] People just never stop and think about this.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:08] And I don't think it's a Mormon and I.

Shannon Flynn [02:28:10] It's not.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:11] You think it was partly.

Scott Reiter [02:28:13] No, I'm talking about Mark. I think.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:14] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [02:28:15] Mark had an animosity towards the church.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:18] I kind of feel like he did

Scott Reiter [02:28:20] because, for example, he could have forged things. He could have forged love letters between Emma and Joseph or something like that.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:28] But he didn't.

Scott Reiter [02:28:29] But he didn't. That's not what he forged.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:34] And. And I don't. I never got the impression that Lynn was angry with the church.

Scott Reiter [02:28:38] No, I didn't. Ever, ever.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:40] Maybe more sad, but not angry with it. With his loss of faith.

John Dehlin [02:28:47] So here's the. Here's the rub, though. He also never came out to you about being gay.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:51] That's true. That's true.

Shannon Flynn [02:28:53] Them.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:28:54] But he does them.

John Dehlin [02:28:56] So he came out to you, Shannon, about being gay, but did he ever give you a sense he was mad at the church or angry at the church or anything? Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:29:04] And he was. He was closer.

Shannon Flynn [02:29:06] Totally understood. He didn't go anymore. Wouldn't go anymore. But it was just because especially, you know, we've talked about the work he did on New Testament. I don't know hardly any biblical scholar in any religion that still goes to there, or if they do, they just do it because they enjoy their family and stuff. But they know that everything they wrote. They're atheists. That happens in every religion. Right.

John Dehlin [02:29:45] So let's. Let's then just make a straight Line. So the only known Mormon forgery that Lynn and Mark really collaborated on were the Salamander. What can you. So we'll get back on Lynn's story now. And I, I, I, I probably had two dozen people comment or message to me speculating on these sorts of things. So for those who are like, why did we go off on that big rabbit trail about Lynn and being gay and Mark? It's, it's just because, you know, that's how like, history can proceed with. If they're just perceptions, then those things grow, and that's how his history becomes reality, just by comments and rumor and perception.

Lyn's Role in the Salamander Letter Transactions

John Dehlin [02:30:25] So I wanted to go there to just get three people that were direct people involved, who knew the people involved to get your story. Because wouldn't it be sad if that's how the story ended up growing from, from here without addressing it? And I'm just telling you, I've gotten dozens and dozens of people speculating about these sorts of things. So that's why I did it if you hate me for it. It's just. I'm interested and I want the truth. Right. Okay. So let's go back now, though. What was Lynn's involvement with the Salamander letter? And then how did that progress in terms of the bombing and, and, and everything else?

Shannon Flynn [02:31:04] The reason Lyn became involved was Mark needed to find some people to make some discoveries for him because why? He felt he knew there was too much material coming from him. And so he wanted some other people to say they found it or sell it or acquired it or whatever.

John Dehlin [02:31:30] So Mark would have said to Lynn, what?

Shannon Flynn [02:31:33] I found this letter, Salamander. I don't know if they even used that. The Martin Harris, the W.W. phelps letter. It's got some different stuff in there. I think it's worth a lot of money. And I want you to sell it, say you found it. And it was another thing, with the money, we need to get as much as we can, so. But you're gonna go sell it.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:32:05] And Lynn, I think, felt justified in saying he found it because he thought he had, without knowing it, purchased it for Mark. It wasn't the group of letters he purchased.

John Dehlin [02:32:18] Talk about that.

Shannon Flynn [02:32:20] I don't know about that.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:32:22] I thought it was. Am I making this up?

Shannon Flynn [02:32:24] No, no. Because he never told me. He marched in to my business while I was working and said, hey, here it is. But never. I can't remember if he said, Mark gave it to me. I can't remember.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:32:41] I thought my remembrance, and I could be totally wrong, was that in the process of fighting those. Those cancel those cancellation stamps that he had bought a group of things and given it to Mark. Lynn.

John Dehlin [02:32:56] Lynn had bought Mark.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:32:58] Mark said, go look at these. At these sellers, because Mark knew who they were, but he couldn't be flying out to New York and Massachusetts all the time. So he said, you're back there. You go to these sellers. Everything they've got that has anything to do with, let's say, a Palmyra stamp, you buy it.

Scott Reiter [02:33:17] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:33:18] So Lynn did send it, gave the group of stuff to Mark, bought a bunch of documents, bought a bunch of letters that folded outsides of letters. Instead of using envelopes, they would fold the outside of the letter to make an envelope.

John Dehlin [02:33:33] Is it possible he didn't read them all? No, he bought a big.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:33:35] No, he just bought a big group of them, gave them to Mark that

John Dehlin [02:33:38] were associated with Palmyra.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:33:39] Right. Or wherever. I don't remember New York area. Yeah. Different during that time period. And then he gave them to Mark. And then Mark would go through them with fine tooth comb. And supposedly, I thought Mark told Lynn that he had found the letter among those. Those letters.

John Dehlin [02:33:58] And that's. And somebody had talked about that because at the very beginning of Murder More than the Mormons, the. The documentary has Dory finding the. The Anthon transcript. And so he can say, whoa, my wife found it. Isn't that interesting? Right.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:34:14] And so plus he can see how that plays out with Dory. If Dory believes in it and thinks she's found it.

John Dehlin [02:34:21] Right. Then she's believing it.

Shannon Flynn [02:34:25] Rob, with that is, I do not think it's possible that Lynn could have let a letter addressed to W.W. phelps get past him.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:34:37] That's true.

Shannon Flynn [02:34:37] Without looking.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:34:38] That's true. So I. And I might be remembering it wrong.

John Dehlin [02:34:42] So what are you saying, Shannon?

Shannon Flynn [02:34:43] I think Mark. Mark said he went to Ellen Doubleday and bought a pile and got this One addressed to W.W. phelps, opens it. And it's been written by

John Dehlin [02:34:58] Martin Harris.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:34:59] Martin Harris.

Scott Reiter [02:34:59] Thank you.

Shannon Flynn [02:35:01] Sorry. Can I go get some Italian food?

John Dehlin [02:35:05] Yeah, I'll buy you Italian food.

Shannon Flynn [02:35:08] Italian Village. Good anytime. But wanted Mark wanted Lynn to have to say, I found it. And so what's wrong in the movie is Mark Hoffman so did showed it to Steve Christensen. No, never happened.

John Dehlin [02:35:29] That's wrong in the movie.

Shannon Flynn [02:35:31] That's in the movie.

John Dehlin [02:35:32] And wrong.

Shannon Flynn [02:35:33] Mark took that and see, I think that Mark forged that about the 15th of December of 1983.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:35:44] Really?

Shannon Flynn [02:35:46] Because Lynn comes home from school during Christmas break.

Scott Reiter [02:35:52] Right.

Shannon Flynn [02:35:52] Which means he would have arrived the 19th, 21st. Yeah, something. So Mark puts that together, says, I have it. And then he may have given it to lynn on the 26th. Could have been that short. Because Lynn then brings it in to where I work and shows me. Does the exact same thing.

John Dehlin [02:36:20] You saw the Salamander letter too?

Shannon Flynn [02:36:21] First person.

John Dehlin [02:36:22] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:36:23] December27.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:25] I didn't remember the day.

John Dehlin [02:36:27] From Lynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:28] Not from Lynn.

Shannon Flynn [02:36:29] Right.

John Dehlin [02:36:30] Okay.

Scott Reiter [02:36:31] But Lynn did tell us it came

Shannon Flynn [02:36:33] from Mark on December 28th.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:35] Could have been.

Shannon Flynn [02:36:35] For all we know. Would have been real tight.

Scott Reiter [02:36:38] Yeah. But Lynn did say this came from Mark to us.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:42] Yeah, he did. To us.

Scott Reiter [02:36:43] To us. He said it. I don't know what he said to buyers, to the church or other buyers.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:49] And we knew he was. We knew he was taking it to the church. The next day He's.

Scott Reiter [02:36:53] He never said, tomorrow I'm going to

Shannon Flynn [02:36:54] say anything about Mark. And so to you.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:36:58] No, to other buyers, to other people.

Shannon Flynn [02:37:01] And so he takes it to the church, to Gordon B. Hinckley. And they bring in, and I don't know what the time frame. Three days, four days, five days. Something where the church people are looking over carefully. They can see the powerful nature of it. They see that it mirrors the standard teachings. Martin Harris gives the same testimony, but he gets in there, three sentences. The Old Spirit Moroni goes there, then turns into the wild salamander.

Scott Reiter [02:37:49] Whoa.

Shannon Flynn [02:37:52] And so to shrink this down, Lynn says to them, they say, what do you want? And he wants, I believe it was a $20 gold piece. Mormon gold. It wasn't a thumbing out of this guy. Just said, Lynn and

Tonya (Reiter) [02:38:15] Mark.

Shannon Flynn [02:38:15] Mark knew exactly what the church had in money value and in duplicates. And they can give one of those up, which at the time would sell for 100,000.

John Dehlin [02:38:31] So they wanted 100 something in the equivalent of $100,000 in exchange.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:38:35] That's where he started for the Salamander.

Shannon Flynn [02:38:36] There.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:38:37] But they shot him down. Said, no way. They said, no, it's not worth it.

Shannon Flynn [02:38:42] To this day, I don't know what went through because it was Gordon B. Hinckley. It was Dean, Jesse and then Durham Reed.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:38:57] Durham G. Homer. Durham G. Homer, who was head of

Shannon Flynn [02:39:01] the Head of history, historical department. So sometime, and especially the top two. What are we going to do? I don't know. We're going to do it. No. So they said no. What I was told was, they said, we can't buy it. Why don't you take it to Stephen Christensen? That's where Lyn went next. That's where the 40,000 came from. It has always floated Mixed in my head why Gordon B. Hinckley said Stephen Christensen not go find anybody. Seems strange.

John Dehlin [02:39:57] And why is that strange?

Shannon Flynn [02:40:01] Why him? Why pick that man? I don't know.

Scott Reiter [02:40:06] You can guess.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:06] Well, because he had the money and he would.

Scott Reiter [02:40:08] Had the money and he had it. A special relationship.

John Dehlin [02:40:12] Maybe he was perceived as loyal.

Scott Reiter [02:40:14] Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:16] Yeah, I'll go with that.

Scott Reiter [02:40:18] Yeah, he had a special relationship with thousand.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:21] But add forty.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:22] Forty to give to it.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:23] Keep it secret.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:24] Right, Exactly.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:25] Okay. Yeah, I believe that. So they could have found somebody else.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:29] Yeah, for 50.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:30] But they were.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:31] And Steve. And Steve was willing to share it with the church. Not like some collectors.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:36] Would have been interesting.

Scott Reiter [02:40:37] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:37] Who would have kept it?

Shannon Flynn [02:40:38] That's interesting.

Scott Reiter [02:40:39] Steven was probably a very devout man.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:43] Now, what I don't know is how much did Lynn get out of that? Because he. He got some.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:52] I thought he was supposed to get half.

Shannon Flynn [02:40:55] Do you think that's true?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:40:56] Well, that's what he said. He was supposed to get half, I thought. But I don't know if he did. Yeah, I thought he said that. I thought he and Mark were having young. Well, I don't know. You have to look, he said half.

Shannon Flynn [02:41:07] To this day, I don't know what the split was never. Well, Lynn never told me. Is it.

John Dehlin [02:41:14] Is it generally known that Hinckley sent Lynn to Stevenson

Shannon Flynn [02:41:21] And.

John Dehlin [02:41:22] And where did that come from?

Shannon Flynn [02:41:23] Lynn.

John Dehlin [02:41:24] Lynn told you that. Okay.

Scott Reiter [02:41:27] And that's in the. In the documentary that it came to the church from.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:41:34] From Steve, but not. But not that the church said not the church.

Shannon Flynn [02:41:40] If it's in the documentary, they got it for me.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:41:43] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:41:44] So. Yeah, that's one of the mysteries. You can tell. There's some mystery points. And there for me, I still really haven't.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:41:52] Well, I thought Steve Christensen was trying to build a library.

Scott Reiter [02:41:57] Yeah, he was interested.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:41:58] I thought he was trying material too. Yeah, I thought he was trying to build a library. And he hired Brandt, I thought, to sort of curate that and do historical research on it.

Shannon Flynn [02:42:09] Because then when Steve did acquire it, he did hire Brant bought Dean Jesse and Ron Walker to write a book

Tonya (Reiter) [02:42:19] about the letter about the.

Scott Reiter [02:42:21] Yeah, he was going to sponsor that

Shannon Flynn [02:42:22] book, but it never.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:42:24] It never happened.

Scott Reiter [02:42:24] It never happened.

Shannon Flynn [02:42:26] So happened. So that's the only one that I know. Lynn was in direct contact with Mark about a famous forgery. The only one I know.

John Dehlin [02:42:39] Okay, so the first question. And you've already kind of talked about this, but I just want to hit it directly. This means that Lyn was willing to deceive the church By. By claiming that he was the one who found the document and was presenting it, when really he knew that Mark had given him the document and that Mark didn't want people to know that Mark was the source of the document. So, not to, like, malign anyone's character, their reputation, but some would say that means Lynn was willing to be complicit in a lie. True.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:43:16] That's why I was trying to save him and say that he did think he found.

Scott Reiter [02:43:20] Well, I don't know. He seems so. I think. I think you could. I don't know. And I don't know what Lynn told the church, but I. It's possible. I think it's a.

Shannon Flynn [02:43:26] Possible that. About that. One second. What do you mean? What, you're saying that he was a bad person?

John Dehlin [02:43:33] Oh, no, I'm just saying. Is that true? What?

Shannon Flynn [02:43:36] I did it, too.

John Dehlin [02:43:36] What'd you do?

Shannon Flynn [02:43:38] I was the one who sold the Emily Dickinson to Todd Axelrod. He didn't ask me where I got it, but I didn't tell. And that was a Hoffman forgery.

Scott Reiter [02:43:53] Yeah, I don't. Yeah, that's. That's true. I mean, the church could not have. Could have not asked that question. Where did you get it? Now, so it. It wouldn't have been an explicit.

John Dehlin [02:44:05] But are you saying it's. Are you saying, Shannon, that is being dishonest, and you're just saying you were dishonest or not fully truthful?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:44:11] In his article, Lynn says that that's part of protecting your sources.

Scott Reiter [02:44:15] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:44:16] If you're a businessman and you're dealing in documents, you certainly aren't going to tell your buyer where you got it.

Shannon Flynn [02:44:22] Yes, I think that I've had that happen to me in every business I've ever dealt with in both directions. At one time, me and two other people owned the Hiram Page Seer Stone. It was right in 85, and everything was going down the toilet. Needed some money, and so I sold it to Desert to Deseret Book. And to this day, I still don't know who they sold it to. I said, who did you sell it to? They want to remain anonymous. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:45:00] Now, isn't Providence a really important part of dealing in documents?

Shannon Flynn [02:45:04] Potentially, it can be. I believe that would have gone back. I believe it wouldn't have been with Steve Christensen very long before that provenance was run backwards. Mark Lynn. Mark Elwyn Doubleday.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:45:20] I mean, it's important in art, but it may be in documents. I don't know anything about documents.

Scott Reiter [02:45:29] Once it's authenticated, it's descending in our family. Has it been with aunt. With my great grandmother. Where did this all come? So what can you say? I mean, how can you establish a provenance? Except it came to me. Unless you bought it and you're trying to protect the person, the seller.

Shannon Flynn [02:45:46] This is life in artwork at auctions.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:45:50] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:45:51] How many people buy anonymously?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:45:54] A lot.

Shannon Flynn [02:45:54] Tons.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:45:55] Yeah, a lot.

Shannon Flynn [02:45:57] Is that illegal? Is that mean? I know.

Scott Reiter [02:46:00] Is it dishonest? I don't know.

Shannon Flynn [02:46:03] 22 million is paid for and it is anonymous. Comes over the phone.

John Dehlin [02:46:10] Okay, so if somebody wanted to say, well, Lynn was dishonest and thus a suspect as a conspirator because he knew that Mark was trying to hide Mark's involvement in the Salamander letter and he was willing to act as a front man and. And not admit Mark's involvement if someone wanted to say that makes him unethical. A and or B a potential co conspirator in fraud. Just to summarize, you guys would say that's just how business was done back then.

Shannon Flynn [02:46:45] Yeah. That is completely wrong to say that now.

Scott Reiter [02:46:50] But I understand that. I understand now.

Shannon Flynn [02:46:54] Here are times when it does go bad. Steve Christensen says, yes, I'll give you 40 grand, but I will not pay until you tell me it's provenance. Now that did happen. Oh, I'm sure it did.

John Dehlin [02:47:12] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [02:47:14] He could have. Lyn could have said, I will never tell you. Steve would have said, I will not buy. And that happens with host institutions all the time. There is never anything really expensive sold in their auctions. And let's just put this down to historical document sort of things you see.

The McLellin Papers and Church Leadership

Shannon Flynn [02:47:41] Sorry. We'll just use the documents we see it. Property of a Lady. That's what it said. And there's 25 items. But I will guarantee you that once the purchase are made, there's one thing in there that's three and a half million dollars and it's a book.

Shannon Flynn [02:48:08] The people that are buying it will go to that auction house and will not make the payment till they're told who sold it to them and where it came from. So the two things happen. But there are some people who buy the book from Property of a Lady.

Shannon Flynn [02:48:33] They buy it and never ask. That happens. That's just up to the buyer. Salamander letter. Never. Every single thing forged that Mark did, the provenance was always tracked. And he was so lucky. So lucky. Because provenances outside of him were established on every single piece.

Scott Reiter [02:49:07] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [02:49:09] They were wrong,

Tonya (Reiter) [02:49:12] but they were made up.

John Dehlin [02:49:13] Yeah. Okay. One quick question related to Lyn. But Kind of tangentially, some would say, okay, if Gordon B. Hinckley meets with Lynn and then tells Lynn to go meet with Steve, that's this pattern of the church not wanting to actually be buying up documents so that they can't be accused of buying up and hiding things. But if the church tells Steve to buy it and then Steve donates it, then the church can have plausible deniability and they can say, we didn't buy it up and it was donated. And our hand, you know, we're innocent and we can't be accused of buying up things to hide them. So some would say that's shady. That. That Hinckley would tell Lynn to go to Steve. That's the church trying to avoid being perceived as doing what it actually really is doing. Does that make sense?

Shannon Flynn [02:50:09] Well, excellent. That scenario is not.

John Dehlin [02:50:12] Let's see. Let's hear each of you do give your perspective. So shader you for that.

Shannon Flynn [02:50:16] It's not true.

John Dehlin [02:50:17] What do you mean?

Shannon Flynn [02:50:17] Well, President Hinckley did buy the Josiah stowell letter, right? 15 grand.

John Dehlin [02:50:23] But did he get. Did he get burned later when it was discovered that he was buried?

Shannon Flynn [02:50:27] Eventually. Okay, but to take it in and not make it public.

John Dehlin [02:50:32] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:50:33] So in that vein, is he trying to keep things secret to make the church look good? I don't know. My personal opinion. No, he didn't. That person right there. Yes, he did. Okay. You see it that way. I see it my way.

John Dehlin [02:50:57] You're saying you don't think that Gordon Mehinkley or the church tried to hide documents personally?

Shannon Flynn [02:51:02] I don't.

John Dehlin [02:51:03] Ever, Ever, Heifer.

Shannon Flynn [02:51:06] Because he did do. Well, I'm sorry. Yes, he did do that with Josiah. Stole Hinckley personally.

John Dehlin [02:51:14] Hinckley bought that and he.

Shannon Flynn [02:51:17] But then. But then the Salamander.

Scott Reiter [02:51:21] Well, it was made public, though. The Salamander was made public. It couldn't be hidden because people knew about it. I mean, it was in the papers.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:51:32] Well, and Mark would leak.

Scott Reiter [02:51:34] Exactly.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:51:35] Mark leaking it.

John Dehlin [02:51:36] Yeah. The sense that I got from reading the Tanner stuff and talking to Sandra and others is that Mark wanted to embarrass the church. And that's why he was picking all these controversial topics to make money to get fame, but also to embarrass the church.

Scott Reiter [02:51:53] I think that's a reasonable guess. I think that's reasonable. You.

John Dehlin [02:51:56] You guys agree with all that, at least on Mark's perspective?

Tonya (Reiter) [02:52:00] Because, yeah, Mark wanted to make money, but like you said, he could have written faith promoting forgeries, but he didn't. And I think on some level, We've talked about this, although I think Lynn denies it. But the question of the 100. Is it 116 missing pages?

John Dehlin [02:52:18] Yeah, 116.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:52:20] That. That's kind of where all this was building up to. But then I think Lynn said no.

Scott Reiter [02:52:26] Did he say no in the interview? He did, I think, because I remember. I don't remember this. I have the impression, I remember that Lynn told us that Mark was on the track of the missing 116. I think Lynn. But, you know, I'm not going to swear to that, but I think that Lynn told us that sometime. And Mark would have told him that. That I'm in pursuit of this, which

Tonya (Reiter) [02:52:53] could have been a huge thing to rewrite.

Scott Reiter [02:52:56] And it's one of the reasons that Lynn was messing about in Upper State New York.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:53:01] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [02:53:02] So that's my memory.

John Dehlin [02:53:04] Yeah. Yeah. And so. And so the, the question is, is, you know, Mark. Mark is creating these documents that potentially could be very embarrassing for the church. And then the. That he would start by leaking and telling people these documents are out there. He's found a collection. He's heard about a thing.

Scott Reiter [02:53:25] The McClellan is the classic.

John Dehlin [02:53:27] Yeah, yeah. But it happened before then it started. Even the Josiah Stole letter, it happened then where he. He wouldn't produce it. He would just start spreading rumors about it. Then he would go to make the sale. And he did this, I think, with the Joseph Smith III letter as well. He'd. He'd make the, you know, present it to the LDS Church or the Reorganized Church, get a bidding war if he could. He would sell it and maybe not produce it publicly or talk about it publicly, but he would make sure that there was enough rumor out there. Or he would leak it to journalists such that the church had no choice but to eventually reveal that it existed because the leaks were out there.

John Dehlin [02:54:10] And he would make sure that they would be caught as trying to hide something and embarrassed if they didn't come out with it. You're giving me looks, Shannon, so I'm trying to.

Shannon Flynn [02:54:23] I think differently about it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:24] Yeah. Well, I want to hear what you think.

Shannon Flynn [02:54:26] Well, see, the Joseph Smith the Third Blessing, if anybody thinks that is embarrassing to the church, they don't understand church history at all because it wasn't embarrassing. Everybody was aware of that.

John Dehlin [02:54:40] Everybody. Members.

Shannon Flynn [02:54:41] Oh, yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:54:41] Well, well, members.

Scott Reiter [02:54:43] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:54:44] I'm not talking about cotton candy members.

John Dehlin [02:54:48] Okay, but that's. But just to be clear, it's one. I mean, yeah. You know, in some ensign somewhere. The Stone in the hat was talked about by Nelson in the 80s. Or whatever, you know, in some BYU studies journal, the first. Multiple versions of the first vision account, you know, was covered somewhere. Yes, the Leonard Arrington people and the dialogue people knew about this stuff, but none of this controversial stuff had really penetrated the public consciousness. And so I'm just saying, Shannon, to say that the Joseph Smith III letter, where Joseph Smith says in a blessing or whatever, that Joseph Smith III is to be the successor, which would make the RLDS Church the valid successor, which would.

John Dehlin [02:55:34] Which would throw into question the validity of Brigham Young as Joseph's successor. If that all of a sudden gets in the Salt Tribune and the Deseret News and even gets picked up as a national story, and then all the members become aware of this problematic history, that is a big deal. And so I would think the church wouldn't want. Now, you don't have to agree with me.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:55:55] That's just what I think. I think. Think it's a much different thing to know. There may have been a blessing for the average member, and I don't think the average member ever knows any of this stuff. But. But. And they don't care and they don't want to know. But if the. But it's. But, yes, but it's a different thing for the scholars to know that such a blessing maybe took place and then to be confronted with the words. I think that's on a different level,

John Dehlin [02:56:24] speculation to like, here's the document.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:56:26] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [02:56:27] Because I think that in. In the minds of historians and others who know church history, the likelihood of that letter existing, that blessing existing, was very strong. And I think it would. Had a different impact in the 1870s than it had. Yeah, that's probably in the 1870s, those boys were. They had come to. They had come to Utah.

John Dehlin [02:56:52] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [02:56:53] And the many members had. What would we call Patriarch. Patriarchal. Patriarchal views of the church and the church leadership. And if. If it had come to light, I think there would be many members who would have accepted it, and it would cause great problems for Brigham young.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:57:14] But others, 110 years.

Scott Reiter [02:57:15] But 110 years later, I don't think it would have the same kind of impact.

John Dehlin [02:57:19] Okay. All right.

Scott Reiter [02:57:21] Brigham Young himself set apart his two boys as young as what, 12 and 8 as members, successors and members of the 12. They never served. But yeah, I mean, that was the mindset among LDS people. It was very much what would be a monarchical, aristocratic sensibility that the sons of our leaders had a right to succeed them, and that's how the leadership operated in the 19th century.

John Dehlin [02:57:59] Shannon is like on the edge.

Scott Reiter [02:58:00] I know.

John Dehlin [02:58:01] Bursting from the seams to give his perspective. Tell us your perspective.

Shannon Flynn [02:58:06] As it turns out, talks were given in General Conference in Utah from 1848 till 1861. Had. You can find several talks from Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball saying that they would be happy to have Joseph Smith III come and take his rightful position.

Scott Reiter [02:58:29] They would step aside. I don't know if they used the word step aside, but the implication was that he had the right as the son of Joseph Smith to lead the church. And there were many, many members who believed that.

Shannon Flynn [02:58:44] And they said, but they got to straighten up fly. Right.

Tonya (Reiter) [02:58:49] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [02:58:49] Before that happens, I say 61, because that's when Joseph Smith III took over the Reorganized Church. So at that point, the Utah guys said, that's it. No more. Those. Those guys because they've gone to a new church.

Scott Reiter [02:59:07] But I'm guessing Brigham Young still was afraid of. Of the potential of their. Their attractiveness, their charismatic right to lead the church. And he was. You know, he. When they. When they came here on missions, they converted. They converted people, a lot of people.

John Dehlin [02:59:31] Nobody wants to just give up power. By the way, I'm eager to give up power to Joseph.

Scott Reiter [02:59:36] No, not that man.

Shannon Flynn [02:59:38] But to your point, that thing pops out from Mark and that Joseph Smith III blessing is very powerful for the Reorganized Church and hurt for fellows. All it would have taken in Utah is one talk in General Conference and one long article in Ensign to explain it all. Yes, there is the blessing, but because Joseph Smith III did this, did this, did this, and then David Hyrum did this, did this, did this, and President Young said this, but then those guys did this, so they lost it.

Scott Reiter [03:00:27] I think it would have been easy to deflect that apologetically.

Shannon Flynn [03:00:31] Right.

Scott Reiter [03:00:32] And I think. I think church's membership very strong.

Shannon Flynn [03:00:36] So in 1843, almost. But those guys and all of the. I call them the Cotton candy members, you just go, you eat some candy, you hold on to something, and people say, let us all love Jesus today. Thank you. And then my cousin did this, and a truck came and saved them. And I love it. And so thank you. Let's go home.

John Dehlin [03:01:10] Do you think that's not as good of a type of Mormonism? Is that a subpar type of Mormonism? Is that an inferior type of Mormonism?

Shannon Flynn [03:01:17] No, I think that's 90% of the people.

Scott Reiter [03:01:19] No, I don't think so either.

Shannon Flynn [03:01:21] Go to church every. Yeah. What they get.

John Dehlin [03:01:24] But is that like a weaker sauce?

Shannon Flynn [03:01:27] What?

John Dehlin [03:01:28] No weaker sauce.

Scott Reiter [03:01:29] I think. I think their testimonies could be as strong as anybody else's, and that's what they accept the authority of the leadership.

Shannon Flynn [03:01:39] So. So at any rate, like I say, people see that would have torn things up and it would have. But then Sandra and Gerald. Oh, somebody would have written something to really stick it to them on that one because they would have come out with a book or a long pamphlet or something about Joseph Smith iii. Oh, somebody from BYU would have stuck them over that.

John Dehlin [03:02:12] You know, okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:02:15] And so life just would have continued. They would have continued their job. The people would be, why would keep their job?

John Dehlin [03:02:24] So, I mean, if we're talking about the context of this conversation right here, this part of the conversation, I'm trying to ask the question of did the church leaders, other than the Josiah Stowell document, which you kind of acknowledged, have a fear of these documents and thus would have the intention of either buying them up and hiding them or getting other wealthy people to buy them up, donate to the church so that they can be hidden? That's kind of what we're really asking here. And especially as it relates to Lynn Jacobs, Gordon B. Hinckley and Steve Christensen and Shannon, your theory is, even though acknowledging that with the Josiah Stoll letter, maybe that happened with Gordon B.

John Dehlin [03:03:01] Hinckley, overall, what I'm hearing you say is you don't think the church, as they're dealing with Mark Hoffman's forgeries, were afraid of these letters being made public and. Or trying to get them acquired so that they can be hidden. Your view is that wasn't what they.

Shannon Flynn [03:03:19] Well, think about that. Gordon B. Hinckley and G. Homer Durham with whoever else. Oh, they had a. They had a long meeting somewhere and it could have been four or five people.

Scott Reiter [03:03:32] I think they talked. Don't you think they talked about it? I mean, they talked about among themselves.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:03:38] Among themselves about potential.

Shannon Flynn [03:03:40] I mean, that 20 grand gold piece, while they wouldn't have liked to see that go.

John Dehlin [03:03:47] 20 grand or 200 grand, it's.

Shannon Flynn [03:03:50] It's $20.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:03:51] $20 gold piece.

Scott Reiter [03:03:52] $20 worth. A hundred thousand dollars.

Shannon Flynn [03:03:54] Okay, okay, okay. But it wouldn't have killed the church, would have cost them nothing. Because that has already there for a long time. So what that meeting. Why did they eventually come to the point that say, we're not taking it, we're going to take a bunch of problems. Yes, but you're okay with that? I guess they finally said, yeah, we're okay with that.

John Dehlin [03:04:21] Well, weren't they just saying, let's let Christiansen buy it and then donate to us and then we can never be implicated in buying it or hiding it it. I mean that's why that's where Christians.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:04:30] But I didn't think they intended to hide it. I thought Christensen intended to make it public and write a book. So I see it more in the sense that the church and I don't know, I'm totally guessing, I'm not in their minds, but my guess is that. That they know there are these things out there or as these things come to light, they are going to have to deal with it in some way.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:04:55] And I think that like you said, Mark made it difficult to. Not since he made things public then members knew about it. But I think maybe their question was more how are we going to deal with this? What apologetic are we going to write? How are we going to make this fit in with our doctrine? And we need maybe some time to do that. So it's possible that they might not have wanted things publicized until their in house people could deal with it and present it to them.

Scott Reiter [03:05:28] The question is, and I saw the. The press interview, did they intend to buy the McClellan papers or were they going to have someone else buy them and donate?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:05:38] Do you know on that?

Shannon Flynn [03:05:40] Wow, that one.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:05:42] The McClellan thing is such a.

Scott Reiter [03:05:44] Okay, so. So.

John Dehlin [03:05:45] Okay, let's put the Salamander quick.

Scott Reiter [03:05:48] So.

John Dehlin [03:05:48] So anything else you want to say about Lynn Jacobs and the Salamander letter? And then we'll talk McClellan and the bombing.

Shannon Flynn [03:05:55] He got some money that helped him go to school.

Scott Reiter [03:05:58] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:05:58] Which was his motivation.

John Dehlin [03:05:59] So he was maybe. Or 10 grand.

Scott Reiter [03:06:02] He was a poor. He was a poor boy. A poor man all his life.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:05] And wanted to go to Harvard and

Scott Reiter [03:06:07] wanted to go to Harvard and wanted to go to Syracuse.

John Dehlin [03:06:10] So he made some money off to the Salamander Litter.

Scott Reiter [03:06:11] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:12] And other deals. Yeah, that he did.

Scott Reiter [03:06:14] But not with Mark necessarily.

Shannon Flynn [03:06:16] But he. I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:06:17] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:06:19] And so anything you want to tell us about Lynn's experience brokering and trading the Salamander letter from what you talked to him about or. No, he was super excited about it.

Scott Reiter [03:06:29] Oh yeah, Very excited about it. But that's the last we heard of. He didn't come back to us and tell us. Oh, I had this meeting with the president of the church and I went this way and no, he heard nothing.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:40] We just knew that it was something that we'd be very interested in seeing.

John Dehlin [03:06:43] Okay. Anything else to say about the Sal manager letter? Shannon or Lynn?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:48] Okay, whatever your name is.

Shannon Flynn [03:06:50] What did I just say?

John Dehlin [03:06:51] Didn't I say Shannon?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:06:52] You Said Lynn again too. Oh no, you're. It's okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:06:54] Okay, don't feel bad. What's the guy's name at the you library? Greg.

Scott Reiter [03:06:59] Greg Thompson.

Shannon Flynn [03:07:00] What?

Scott Reiter [03:07:01] Greg Thompson.

Shannon Flynn [03:07:02] He's called me Mark sometimes.

Scott Reiter [03:07:04] He's.

John Dehlin [03:07:07] Hopefully I didn't do that. Okay, so really quickly. So other than. Other than the Salamander letter, was Lynn involved with Mark on any other transactions including the McClellan papers?

Shannon Flynn [03:07:23] Well, not that I know of.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:07:25] You have to say yes in the sense that he was trying to. He was putting some of his stuff up for collateral. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:07:34] What do you mean?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:07:35] He was using. Lynn Lincoln was using part of his collection to. He put it up for collateral to get money towards the McClellan collection. Right.

Shannon Flynn [03:07:50] August, September of 85.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:07:54] Okay, that's the end.

John Dehlin [03:07:55] I mean that sounds like he's involved.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:07:57] He is involved, but not in. He's involved in the money end of it maybe, or to help Mark, but not.

Shannon Flynn [03:08:06] Mark was borrowing money from everybody. One of the people he borrowed some money from was Lynn Jacobs. Because part.

John Dehlin [03:08:16] Lynn had money to give him.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:08:17] Lynn had things. Lynn had books.

John Dehlin [03:08:21] Okay, Eddie.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:08:22] So Lynn could broker. He could. He could put them. The book's up for collateral, get a certain amount of money and then give it to Mark. And then when Mark made good on the McClellan sale, he'd pay back Lynn, who would then pay back the person.

Scott Reiter [03:08:37] There weren't many collectors of the collective

Shannon Flynn [03:08:39] things just stuff out of here. The most expensive piece was this Hawaiian first. And in those days that thing itself was probably worth 15,000. And of course it didn't work.

John Dehlin [03:08:54] What do you mean?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:08:55] Well, it ended up that Lynn lost his collection. Yeah, Lynn lost the box because nobody made good.

John Dehlin [03:09:01] Okay.

Scott Reiter [03:09:02] Yeah. He didn't get the money from Mark, so he lost what he spend his life collecting.

Shannon Flynn [03:09:06] Mark couldn't be back when the blow.

John Dehlin [03:09:08] When the.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:09:08] When the bombs exploded, which is the real tragedy. And I mean, besides of course the obvious loss of life.

Shannon Flynn [03:09:14] But all of this going on now, Lindsay in Massachusetts.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:09:19] Yeah, but the fact that Lynn trusted Mark enough to put his own collection that meant so much to him, to put that out and. And to help to collect the funds that Mark said he needed and then to lose it all.

Scott Reiter [03:09:35] And it's like Al Rustery.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:09:36] Yeah, it's like the Al Rustery. It's just devastating.

John Dehlin [03:09:40] Okay, just to kind of put this question to bed. There's. There's a question about whether this tactic of the church to get donors to acquire something to then donate to the church so that the church wouldn't be accused of purchasing and then trying to hide things. There's a quote about the McClellan papers that I wanted to read. This is Dallin H. Oaks, and he writes, quote, david E. Sorenson telephoned me to find out what I knew about the McClellan collection. I told him I had never seen the collection, but if there was a collection of the papers of this man, it would probably have items of significant historical interest to the church. I said that it would be desirable for such a collection to be in the hands of someone friendly to the church who would consider giving it to the church at some future date.

Scott Reiter [03:10:33] Wink, wink. Right.

John Dehlin [03:10:34] So that's Oakes basically acknowledging in a talk he gave that he suggested to somebody else, man, it would be great if some wealthy person acquired this stuff and then donated it to the church. So do anything you guys want to say about the McClellan papers in the church? Why are you guys laughing?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:10:53] Well, just. I'm just saying no comment.

John Dehlin [03:10:56] Why?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:10:56] Because I know what's in his mind right now.

John Dehlin [03:10:58] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:10:59] No comment.

John Dehlin [03:10:59] Oh, you. Neither of you want to talk?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:11:02] No, I don't really know. I. I'm not qualified to answer that.

Shannon Flynn [03:11:06] But.

John Dehlin [03:11:06] What.

Scott Reiter [03:11:07] Because you don't know what's in his mind?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:11:08] Right.

John Dehlin [03:11:09] So you don't want to speculate, Right?

Scott Reiter [03:11:11] I. No, I guess I'm not supposed to speculate. But those who speculate.

John Dehlin [03:11:17] What would those who speculate say or

Scott Reiter [03:11:20] wonder that what you have said is correct.

John Dehlin [03:11:24] Is this controversial or scandalous to be talking about this?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:11:27] I think it is. Yeah. I think it is.

John Dehlin [03:11:29] Tell us why this would be risky or scandalous to talk about.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:11:31] Because I don't think anybody wants to be. Anyone who wants to remain a good member or have standing in the church would ever want to do anything that would seem to criticize or impugn D. Oaks.

John Dehlin [03:11:54] So if they did.

Scott Reiter [03:11:56] If they.

John Dehlin [03:11:57] If somebody were to say, yeah, D. Oaks was trying to acquire stuff so that he could hide and be. If they were to acknowledge that in public, what would. What might happen to them?

Scott Reiter [03:12:06] Depends who they are.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:07] Yeah. The forum is. In this forum. I would not speculate and I will not comment.

Shannon Flynn [03:12:12] Because what might happen, I can tell you exactly. Yeah, I was talking about.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:16] Okay, no, but you guys are.

John Dehlin [03:12:18] You guys are kind of saying this is something you wouldn't want to talk about. Because you could get in trouble for. For saying what's true or what you think is true, but what could be perceived.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:28] I'll tell you a very low level version of this rain. It has to do with land.

John Dehlin [03:12:31] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:32] At one point.

Scott Reiter [03:12:34] Okay. Yeah, go Ahead.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:35] At one point, we were looking into the Adam God theory you were teaching. I was teaching a gospel doctrine class for the young adults or something. And. And somehow, something.

Scott Reiter [03:12:48] That's okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:12:49] And somehow we got onto the Adam God question, and I just wanted to get a straight answer. And. And I. Nice Mormon girl, you know, I'm a bit naive. And. And I decided to call up someone up at the institute who supposedly had written a book or had knowledge of it or not knew of someone who. I don't remember who the authority was who'd written the book, but I called him up and I said, you can name his name? I can't remember his name. I just. I called up and I said, listen, I need to know. I want to know. I'm teaching this class. I want to talk to you about.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:13:25] About whether Brigham Young taught Adam God or he didn't or what it is. And. And he said, what is your name, young lady? And I told him my name. And he said, who is your bishop? And. And I'm just blown away by this because I said, well. Well, what do you care?

Scott Reiter [03:13:44] What do you care?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:13:45] My bishop? Yeah, my bishop, as one of the church historians, and he. And I have talked about this, and he's called me to this position, and I'm calling you. I mean, it just. It blew me away at the time, using him.

Scott Reiter [03:13:56] It's a resource for.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:13:58] Yeah, so that was the response I got. So if that's the response I got

John Dehlin [03:14:02] for that, that made you feel like what?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:05] It made me feel like I was treading on ground where I shouldn't be treading.

Scott Reiter [03:14:10] And when you ask who your bishop is.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:13] Yeah, I mean. I mean, that implies that he's going to get a phone call.

Shannon Flynn [03:14:16] And.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:17] And I'm not worried about that because. Because my bishop and I have talked about it, but. But in any other case, it's a threat. It's a type of threat.

John Dehlin [03:14:27] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:27] And so, you know, I think, you know, that's. That's not a general authority. That's not a person in charge. That's just a. An institute teacher. And that was, you know, 40 plus years ago. I don't. But, you know, I'm not willing to go out very far on that lamp.

John Dehlin [03:14:44] But those types of fears remain to this day that if you say the wrong thing, if you criticize the Brethren publicly, that you. You could get in trouble.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:52] I think so, yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:14:54] Do you believe that?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:14:56] Do you believe that?

Shannon Flynn [03:14:57] Sure, man.

John Dehlin [03:14:59] Say it in the microphone.

Shannon Flynn [03:15:01] Sure.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:15:03] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:15:04] You wanted to give your version of Shannon, of the McClellan Papers. And, and.

Shannon Flynn [03:15:07] And who David Sorensen was, was the mission president that was going to pay the 185.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:15:17] Is he James Sorensen's son?

Shannon Flynn [03:15:19] I don't know.

Scott Reiter [03:15:19] Oh, I mean, that's a lot of money.

Shannon Flynn [03:15:22] He was in a. He was a mission president, so he couldn't do it personally. He had an attorney, and that attorney's office was in the McCune mansion. And when Mark stopped his car and then eventually sent off the bomb, the reason he parked there wasn't by an accident. He was supposed to go up that hill with McClellan collection in his hands and give it to that lawyer. And then that lawyer was going to give Mark a check for 185,000. And then somehow, somebody was not going to allow Mark to hold that in his hand. He had to take that and give it to First Interstate Bank.

Shannon Flynn [03:16:18] And it was Hugh Pinnock that was hovering, Hovering over that. So when. You know that. When Dallin Oak says to the mission prison, oh, yes, if we could get that, that could be good. They wanted that stuff because they wanted the money to go to First Interstate Bank. Like they were out of their minds trying to do that. But of course, Dallin Oaks couldn't say, I am commanding you as a church member, but I'm saying as nicely as I can, when your attorney gets that thing in his hand, write the freaking check.

John Dehlin [03:17:00] Because he wants First Interstate bank getting his money back.

Shannon Flynn [03:17:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:17:04] He's not trying to hide the collection.

Shannon Flynn [03:17:08] At that point, they didn't know what they were going to do with it. Hide it, show it, who knows? Because seen it market, nobody knew what was in it. Two things.

John Dehlin [03:17:21] But they might have feared what was it.

Scott Reiter [03:17:22] Yeah, that's true.

Shannon Flynn [03:17:24] Well, all they had to do was fear one of them two. I don't want to flip a bird. I want to flip a bird. They knew about the papyrus because Mark had been taken.

John Dehlin [03:17:39] What papyrus?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:17:41] It supposedly had the hypocephalus in it

John Dehlin [03:17:44] for the Book of Abraham.

Scott Reiter [03:17:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:17:46] So the McClellan papers allegedly had Egyptian

Shannon Flynn [03:17:50] papyrus in it, Stuff that was alleged to be part of the Book of Abraham. Number two and more things. Mark had shown a piece of papyrus about that long and about that tall. I know. Intimately. Well, because the piece of plastic that it was in and the. The. What do they do when they preserve stuff?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:18:18] The Mylar.

Shannon Flynn [03:18:20] There's the plastic and what's that called again?

John Dehlin [03:18:24] Limit it.

Shannon Flynn [03:18:26] Well, it's plastic, but it's. To keep it, you know, archival.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:18:33] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:18:33] Protect the document.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:18:34] Yeah, yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:18:35] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:18:36] I put it in there in the Archival. And I made the plastic myself. But Mark wasn't getting enough of a. To get everybody jacked up about it. I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [03:18:54] That's a great.

Shannon Flynn [03:18:58] The second thing he told people is there was a letter from Emma Hale Smith written to William McClellan in about 1835 where she tells him that it was Alvin, not Joseph. That went to the first vision that it was Alvin who saw Alvin the first time. And then I think Alvin died between the first and the second, which is

Tonya (Reiter) [03:19:30] tying in with the salamander letter. Wasn't it where he said, bring. You have to bring your brother? Wasn't that in the salamander letter where he tells Joseph, bring your brother?

Shannon Flynn [03:19:41] Well, that was the one who was just gonna tear everybody's heads off. There was no such thing. Because, of course, what Mark could not come up with the McClellan collection. He never had the material. What he wanted to do was if Steve Christensen had been still alive. Let's just give him the 185. Steve would say, Where's McClellan? I can't find it. You. And I won't use all this word. U F N USOB you're the worst man I know. I never want to do business with you again. You ain't. Oh, yes, but here's the money. And had he been able to get the money from the. The. The Library of Congress at the end of the week, he could have given money and got Steve to go away.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:20:39] That was the answer to everything. The sale of the. The oath of the Freeman. Right?

Shannon Flynn [03:20:44] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:20:45] That would have given him enough money to pay everybody off. But by now, it's just shells, you know, moving the coconut shells.

Shannon Flynn [03:20:52] Unless the trunk of his car burned up. And then he was said, oh, yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:20:58] Oh, yeah. See, that's what I thought. I thought maybe he was just trying to blow up his car to blow up the McClellan collection and say, whoops, oh, shoot, it's gone now.

Shannon Flynn [03:21:05] Maybe did, but he didn't understand that's not the way bombs work in cars. He thought it did it like on television shows and movies where there's 15 gallons.

Scott Reiter [03:21:16] Yeah, that's right. They don't.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:21:17] It didn't happen.

Shannon Flynn [03:21:18] It doesn't happen like that. That's why the ATF guy was standing there, said, who was here? This guy right here. Gone to the hospital. What did he say? He said a car hit him. Where did you find him? He was right there. The guy looked at it, had the door open. He said, that's the bomber right there. That quick.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:21:41] Wow.

Shannon Flynn [03:21:42] That quick. But let Me tell you one thing about Lynn, of how great he was. He was a confused person. You would go with him and have the best meal you ever had in Salt Lake. He was kind of a pain to go with. Great stuff. He gave me personally things. He gave me two pages out of a hymnal. He gave me an Audubon print.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:22:17] Remember, he gave us that little.

Shannon Flynn [03:22:19] I went with him one time to BYU. We get in the stairway that's just kind of sealed off. You have to go in outdoors on every floor and just let off every swear word he could think of. And I kept saying, lynn, shut up. And he would just f U s just, you know, trying to make somebody hear him. But then we got out of it on the floor to where Chad Flake's office was. He's sitting there. Chad pulls out a Swedish pamphlet, a paper. He's looking at it. He is loving it. He turns to Chad and he said, chad, I want this pamphlet more than life itself. He was kind of only half kidding.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:23:12] Yeah, I know.

Shannon Flynn [03:23:15] Lynn Jacobs does all those things. When he would go to work with my sister in law, he would roll down the window and yell out, jenny Craig wants you to come in because the lady was overweight.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:23:32] It was pretty bad,

Shannon Flynn [03:23:35] all of those things.

Scott Reiter [03:23:37] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:23:37] That was love.

Scott Reiter [03:23:38] It's funny.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:23:40] He was funny.

Shannon Flynn [03:23:41] He was mean.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:23:42] Yeah, he was.

Shannon Flynn [03:23:44] He paid tithing when he did not believe in the church. Same time.

John Dehlin [03:23:51] Because.

Scott Reiter [03:23:52] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:23:53] How do you smell that? Felt like if he paid his tithing, it was like an insurance policy to him. Did all those things. Built the best foreign language collection anybody has ever seen.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:24:11] Yeah, he did.

Shannon Flynn [03:24:13] Did that too. On his own money, his own time, everything. He did that too. Then since I'm gonna get sick and die here. He found out he had AIDS in 1995.

John Dehlin [03:24:29] Wait, before that? Before that. One quick question. Sorry, sorry. This will be quick. Sorry, I forgot to show Shannon. He's like falling asleep. Two things. Two things I have to ask before we talk about the end of Lynn's life.

Assessing Lyn's Culpability and Hofmann's Crimes

Scott Reiter [03:24:42] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:24:43] Question number one is what are the best arguments that Lyn was not a co conspirator with Mark Hoffman in forgeries. Just to summarize, just, you know, you guys. You guys all feel very strongly because

Shannon Flynn [03:24:57] that applies to me too.

John Dehlin [03:24:59] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:24:59] We too must have made the most smartest people on Earth because all of the people that tracked Mark down, they went after us too. And so if we had anything to do with it, we beat those investigators.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:25:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:25:18] You're saying it was investigated so tightly that if you guys had been Co conspirators. The investigators would have found it out.

Shannon Flynn [03:25:23] They would have found it.

John Dehlin [03:25:24] But you're saying you weren't. And you're saying you didn't think Lynn was at all.

Shannon Flynn [03:25:27] I did not. I did not. Hello. I did not do it. Yeah, but if you don't want to believe me, realize the best investigators tried because if we had something to do it, they would have put us in the ground too.

John Dehlin [03:25:44] Right.

Shannon Flynn [03:25:46] I didn't.

John Dehlin [03:25:47] The fact that Mark. One thing that I keyed into, the fact that Mark calls Lynn and says, be careful, they might be out to get you, that was huge. Why would Mark call Lynn and say they might be able to get you if Lyn was in on a conspiracy?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:26:02] Exactly.

John Dehlin [03:26:03] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:26:03] Yeah. That was it for me. It was that. It was that. When Mark told me. I mean, excuse me. When Lynn told me that Mark had called him and said that, that just solidified it for me.

Shannon Flynn [03:26:15] I am willing to accept from somebody watching that's really mad. That's saying, you know, you did stuff and are trying to get. Get away with it. Well, I can say. I guess you could. You could say that because it is difficult. You are right, to say one person did all this. I agree with you. That is very hard to believe. Very hard. And so if you say, look, you jerk, and I can't stand your eyes and your voice, you did something. Well, okay. Because it is so hard to believe that. So.

John Dehlin [03:27:02] And I think what somebody said to me at one point was A, like, you just said, this is too much for Mark to do alone. And B, you know Mark well. And. And B, I'll say cbnc. And B, Mark had horrible handwriting. So, like, he couldn't even had horrible penmanship. How was he going to be so elegantly be forging in all this wonderful penmanship? And then see, the real genius was Lynn. And Lin was super artistic and an artist and creative. So for some, they want to put Lin in there saying Lynn was the real genius, Lin was the real brilliant guy, Lin was the real mastermind, and Lin would have had the penmanship to actually do the forgery theories. That's what I think someone at some point suggested to me as a theory, which is insulting.

Scott Reiter [03:27:50] I don't know about Mark's poor penmanship, but I know a story that Lynn told. Did Lynn tell us this or did you tell us this?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:27:58] I thought it was in the documentary.

Scott Reiter [03:28:00] No, no, he told us before. It was in the documentary that he put. Mark pulled out a piece of paper or a napkin and something and reproduced Washington, George Washington's signature.

John Dehlin [03:28:13] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:28:15] And fly. You know, and knowing Lynn, I somehow can't believe that Lynn couldn't have bragged about it if he had done it.

Scott Reiter [03:28:25] I never thought of that.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:28:26] Well, I just. I just think Lynn would have been so proud of his work that somehow it would have leaked. I don't think, just knowing him, I

Scott Reiter [03:28:35] don't think Lynn had Mark. Mark's personality.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:28:37] No, Mark. Lynn was very effusive. And. And I just can't see him keeping it secret the way Mark did.

Shannon Flynn [03:28:43] Okay, well. Plus, Mark was forging before he knew.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:28:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. From the time, like you said, he was a young teenager putting the D. Okay.

Scott Reiter [03:28:53] Yeah. Bedroom in his family house. He was still doing that till the end.

John Dehlin [03:29:00] Okay. Shannon, did you want to say anything about Lynn's innocence? Just to put this to bed. The purpose is to put this to bed.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:07] Well, for one thing, I think the documentary, and I think you helped with, showed that Mark is a sociopath. I mean, the stuff that they. You know, when they were able to play that segment, when he said, I didn't care who picked up the bomb kid. Fine dog.

Scott Reiter [03:29:26] I mean, that was shocking.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:27] It was shocking to hear that. Even though I kind of knew he thought that way, because to him, life had no. It had no purpose. It had no meaning. And. And that was not land.

Scott Reiter [03:29:39] No, it wasn't.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:40] Just Lynn was not that person.

John Dehlin [03:29:44] And yet. And I'm not doubting you, but. And yet Mark had you fooled, too.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:48] That's right.

Scott Reiter [03:29:49] Absolutely.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:29:50] Which is.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:50] Which is scary. Yeah, I know, buddy.

Shannon Flynn [03:29:53] Including his wife.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:29:55] But I didn't know Mark the way I knew Lynn, and I didn't know Mark for nearly as long.

Scott Reiter [03:30:00] And I. We probably spent time. Mark's Mark because of Lynn, because of Lynn.

John Dehlin [03:30:06] Yeah, right.

Scott Reiter [03:30:08] Because we didn't know.

John Dehlin [03:30:11] What's hard.

Shannon Flynn [03:30:12] It's hard to get used to all this, that, you know, that he did it. Never used anybody. Never. All these things. Did all this by himself, all this stuff. It's hard. I get it. I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [03:30:27] Well, that's how the documentary starts. It's, like, hard. You start by saying, don't make me answer this, because he was a genius. He was brilliant. And what I got from that is it does seem impossible for one man to do so much. Right. Is that what you're saying?

Shannon Flynn [03:30:43] And it still is today. Yeah, it still is.

John Dehlin [03:30:46] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:30:46] Well, you know what? If you could ever get. Get an opportunity to talk to Mark in prison, become a visitor and sit across my table and say something, to this day, I still I mean, I could ask him lots of questions about this, that, this and that. But Mark. Mark, I know your family a little bit. You came from them. How. How is this possible? Yeah, I don't know if I would like to see what, some psychiatrists, maybe, if they did physical tests and he's got something wrong. I don't know. Still. I don't get it.

John Dehlin [03:31:30] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:31:30] Phrenology. We need phrenology.

John Dehlin [03:31:33] Okay.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:31:33] Feel the bumps on his head.

John Dehlin [03:31:35] So the second question I had before we talk about the end of Lynn's life is why did you guys feel like Lynn's story was so important to the overall Mark Hoffman story? And I'll just. I'll just ask from an uninformed perspective. Okay. He was involved with one of the eight or nine major forgeries. He. He put up some money for the McClellan papers. So why was he even a key figure? That was really important to be honoring with three or four hours of your time. Shannon, you're. You're about to fall asleep because we were exhausting you. Why did you guys feel so passionate about Lynn's story being told?

Shannon Flynn [03:32:12] Who wants to talk first?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:32:13] You?

Shannon Flynn [03:32:14] I do it because Lyn Jacobs was a great person. A great person. His abilities and what he did in his life are just stunning in so many ways. And he just had some bad luck. I had some bad luck. Al Rust had some bad luck. Other people just had some bad luck. But it's just that if you read the books, you'll know about Lynn, but the documentary, you won't. And so I really want people to realize that there was something, somebody very important in this thing.

John Dehlin [03:32:59] Important because he was a great person

Scott Reiter [03:33:03] or.

John Dehlin [03:33:03] Or important because he was a really crucial part of the story.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:33:07] Both, I think. He. Yeah, both.

John Dehlin [03:33:09] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:09] Both.

John Dehlin [03:33:10] All right.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:11] I'm gonna start crying.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:33:13] Don't. Don't cry.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:18] Okay. That's all I can say. I loved. I love Lynn. Still do.

John Dehlin [03:33:24] I love that you just miss him.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:26] Terrible.

John Dehlin [03:33:27] And you loved him.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:28] We. I don't want to start crying. You can cry, but I did something.

John Dehlin [03:33:33] It honors Lynn.

Shannon Flynn [03:33:34] I can't remember, but I had to do with Lynn. And it was just about the time in the mha and when I go to the mha, I always hang with these two. And we were talking, and I started crying because I thought, it sucks that Lynn's gone. It sucks. It's too bad that he died the way he did. Sad to see.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:34:00] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:34:00] It is the end of him. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:34:04] Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. And you. That's it, you guys. What do you feel. Answer to that same question?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:34:10] Well, do you want to go first? Because I think there, you know, there have been a few people in my life, and when they died, it's like my world shrank down and that Lynn's one of those. It's just the color, you know, the vibrancy. It's gone. Never to be replaced by anything else because there's only one land, so.

Scott Reiter [03:34:34] Yeah. Plus I think he was part of the Mark Hoffman story and it was left out of the documentary.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:34:42] Yeah. For valid reasons.

Scott Reiter [03:34:43] And he was part of the most famous document.

Shannon Flynn [03:34:47] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:34:48] And he was part of that world too.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:34:50] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:34:52] And of. Of the world of Mormon scholarship, but

Tonya (Reiter) [03:34:55] just taken too soon, really.

Lyn Processing the Bombings and Their Aftermath

John Dehlin [03:34:58] So what did you talk to Lynn when the bombs happened and then when Mark ultimately gets. Oh, so I guess. I guess between the time the bombs happen and it's, it's, you know, Mark is. Is fingered as the guy who did it. I guess you guys are saying Linda's did this interview with Sunstone where he says he didn't think Mark did it.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:35:18] Right.

John Dehlin [03:35:18] So that's interesting. So even Lynn said it wasn't Mark. Yeah, but then. But then also, did you guys talk to Lynn about post bombing and if so, post bombing and then post Mark being found guilty. What can you tell us about Lynn's processing of the bombing and then Mark. I remember being made guilty.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:35:39] I can't. I don't remember.

John Dehlin [03:35:40] I don't remember. You guys never had those conversations?

Scott Reiter [03:35:43] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [03:35:45] Really?

Scott Reiter [03:35:45] He was away.

John Dehlin [03:35:46] Well, he lived for other 10 years

Tonya (Reiter) [03:35:47] he was away and I didn't see much in the last few years of his life and.

John Dehlin [03:35:52] But there were 10 years between.

Scott Reiter [03:35:54] Yeah, he would come back.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:35:55] He'd come back and he would see Scott at the U. More than he'd seen.

John Dehlin [03:35:59] But you never had a big Mark Hoffman conversation?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:02] I can't remember. What? Is that weird?

John Dehlin [03:36:04] After. After Mark's injury.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:05] That is weird, isn't it?

John Dehlin [03:36:06] Super weird.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:07] I know.

John Dehlin [03:36:08] Was it just too raw? Was it just too sensitive? Did you guys just.

Scott Reiter [03:36:13] I let Lynn say what he wanted

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:15] to say when he'd come see you.

Scott Reiter [03:36:17] When he'd come see me.

John Dehlin [03:36:20] What did he.

Scott Reiter [03:36:21] And he didn't bring it up? I don't remember. Oh, his personal life and about how things were going about.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:28] He never really talked to us about it and maybe it was too raw. He may have felt. He may have felt so betrayed.

Scott Reiter [03:36:34] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:36:35] That he just never wanted to talk about it. I don't know. Did you? Maybe. Did.

Shannon Flynn [03:36:40] Well, there's something strange about it. Al Rust. I could go visit him, but I bet I wouldn't be with him for more than 15 minutes because we have to say our lives sucked. Yep. So what are you doing? Getting along best I can. How about you? Yeah. Dori. I would have a really hard time being with her by. Just like me and my wife, because it's all this stuff that happened to us and how do we ever start talking about it?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:37:20] Well, that's one of the things. When we started talking again about this and when the documentary idea was getting kicked around and Shannon was telling us. I mean, we were removed by that time, and. And Shannon was right in the middle of it. And that night that you talked to us about all the fallout, all the people who'd been damaged by Mark, all the people whose lives had been torn apart by him. And. And it was really. It was. It was really eye opening that the. The damage that man inflicted on so many people.

Shannon Flynn [03:37:52] I think it's a human thing. My guess is people that survived the Titanic didn't really get together. They all knew each other.

Scott Reiter [03:38:06] Hello.

Shannon Flynn [03:38:06] How you doing? But here, let's carve out six hours and go over the whole thing again. Let's don't.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:38:14] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:38:15] I think veterans. I think this is usually the case. Veterans, people who serve together don't talk about the war.

Shannon Flynn [03:38:26] Yeah. It's just hard to. Because. Just to dig it up and redo it all again. Then we're done and we say it sucked. It sucked.

John Dehlin [03:38:41] And people died.

Shannon Flynn [03:38:42] Let's go home.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:38:43] People died.

Scott Reiter [03:38:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:38:44] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:38:46] And that's the worst part. That's the worst part. I shouldn't even talk about this. Up until very recently, I've never seen any crime scene photos.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:38:58] Oh. Till that.

Shannon Flynn [03:39:01] And about four months ago, I saw one of each. The Steve Christiansen. The picture, I couldn't even tell. You could see it was a person, but I couldn't even tell. So I couldn't see. I saw Kathleen Sheets, and it's a picture where you see her from this side. She's laying down. You can tell there's something very wrong here. But this side, there's not. And she's dead. And her eyes are about half open. It is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. And I plan to never look at it ever again. Because it just sucks. It's terrible to look at that. I understand how people look at them. I still understand how the police looked at it all the time. I just don't want to look at that.

John Dehlin [03:40:16] Well, that was powerful. And I just want to thank you guys for being so vulnerable. But that is really shocking that you would think you guys would have had this big Hoffman debriefing with Lyn. Like, what was it like to feel betrayed by him? Do you know, are you sad, you know, for the families? And how are you getting by now? And are you struggling to trust people again? And you would think that everyone would have those conversations. And it's kind of powerful to think that those diverse conversations never happen. And basically, you reminded me of. I was. I was into Billy Joel once, and I was into a song called Good, Good Night, Saigon or whatever, where he's talking about Vietnam.

John Dehlin [03:40:53] And I'm, like, getting all emotional about war, having never fought in it. So I go to my stepdad who fought in several wars, and I'm like, tell me all about the war. I want to hear all about it. You know what I mean? And I'm a high school kid, 15, 16. And he's like, yeah, it really wasn't a great time. And so I usually just don't like to talk about it. I don't want to laugh.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:41:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:41:15] But, like, he's like, yeah, we. I. I just. It's just not really fun to talk about. About.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:41:20] Yeah. Or your dad. I had a job. I did it. That's all we got out of him about World War II.

John Dehlin [03:41:29] That's so powerful. I mean.

Scott Reiter [03:41:33] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:41:34] I don't mind there being historians investigating the Second World War. Yeah, that's fine. I understand how individuals. That's.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:41:45] Well.

John Dehlin [03:41:46] And Scott, what are you feeling?

Scott Reiter [03:41:49] I agree with all that.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:41:50] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:41:51] But, yeah, war is hard on men. And I think people who go through a trauma like this, it's hard. It's like. It. For Lynn, I think it was probably like going to war.

Shannon Flynn [03:42:08] I do have enough courage that I'm not going to let Lyn despair. I'm not gonna let him disappear.

John Dehlin [03:42:15] I love it.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:42:16] Well, not well. And. And, you know, this is a personal thing, but oddly enough, after all that. And plus. Plus we had our little kids, so we were busy. I was busy doing that, but I just dropped Mormon history, too. Just.

John Dehlin [03:42:30] You guys did.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:42:31] Just dropped it.

John Dehlin [03:42:31] The Hoffman thing killed your interest?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:42:33] Kind of. It may have had a part to it because now I think back, because I dropped it and until, you know, 15, 20 years ago. But it. It just. It was all just. It's too painful to think about all those things. And not necessarily the Hoffman thing, but just all of it.

John Dehlin [03:42:51] Yeah. So what do you guys. Can you tell us about Lynn's life from 85 to 95 that, you know, about, like the end of his last

Lyn's Final Years, Death, and Legacy

Scott Reiter [03:42:59] 10 years,

Shannon Flynn [03:43:02] did the two degrees there, then went to Syracuse, and that's when he was doing this book.

John Dehlin [03:43:09] He was just typing as part of his dissertation.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:43:12] No, totally separate.

Shannon Flynn [03:43:14] Was just keeping his book thing, typing that thing. And then eventually he finished the classwork and came back to Utah and he had an apartment out on Redwood Road. Redwood Road and. And about 3900 south or something. And he worked, you know, was doing his dissertation and then working at the Salt Lake Community College. And then, like I say, he got his PhD finally. But that's when the AIDS came up. And so that wasn't going to be the rest of his life. He did not think, I'm going to finish this and die. It was like, I can go on. And, you know, and then that came. So that's what he did.

John Dehlin [03:44:13] So I'm guessing that as he's living in Cambridge or New York, he's trying to find love or just he's. He's acting.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:44:24] He.

John Dehlin [03:44:25] He's living as a gay man and trying to have romantic or emotional relationships.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:44:30] I know nothing about that.

Scott Reiter [03:44:32] He. I think he's. Most of his time was. But I don't know, was working on his dissertation and scholarship and his, you know, I don't think he found happiness back there.

Shannon Flynn [03:44:44] Yeah. If he went on. On dates while he was here, I have no idea.

Scott Reiter [03:44:49] I have no idea.

John Dehlin [03:44:49] That was his private.

Scott Reiter [03:44:51] That was his private life. It became a very private life, more

Tonya (Reiter) [03:44:54] than it ever had.

Scott Reiter [03:44:56] Very private life.

Shannon Flynn [03:44:57] If he said, hell, I haven't gone on a date in six months. Okay, I believe that.

John Dehlin [03:45:03] I guess I. Shannon, did you talk much to Lynn between 85 and 95?

Shannon Flynn [03:45:08] Not a huge amount. And we didn't really pick him up until about two months before he died.

John Dehlin [03:45:14] What do you mean, pick him up?

Shannon Flynn [03:45:16] Well, my wife and I, we would see him periodically, but two months or so before he died, his brother called and said, this is what's happening to Lynn. So we were over to his apartment as much as we could, as much as we could be.

John Dehlin [03:45:35] What was he like his last couple months? Did he have AIDS by that point?

Shannon Flynn [03:45:39] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [03:45:40] And did you know that?

Shannon Flynn [03:45:41] Yes. He told you he found out? He said he got it in 1985. I could tell you what he said about that, but I'll skip it because

John Dehlin [03:45:52] it's private or it's very awful situation.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:45:55] It was 85.

John Dehlin [03:45:57] He said he had it for 10 years. Okay, so he told you that.

Shannon Flynn [03:46:04] But it never affected him until Till like June, May or June of 95. And his family used to have a thing they did every summer. They all hiked up to Timpanogos. And he was always in the front. That time he couldn't make it and he was just like, I can't move. And so he went to a doctor and somehow, I don't know all of this, but he latched on to the systems that were going then. And the University of Utah Hospital was kind of the lead. And they had a program that was named for a boy that had gotten AIDS from a blood transfusion.

Scott Reiter [03:46:58] White boy?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:46:59] Yeah.

Scott Reiter [03:46:59] His name was White.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:47:00] Was it Derek White or something?

Shannon Flynn [03:47:02] Something.

Scott Reiter [03:47:02] Yeah.

Shannon Flynn [03:47:03] I don't know. And so he went and got tested and. And he added. And so at that point he could tell this wasn't. Well, he gave it his best effort. So from May till maybe end of July, he was up there taking all of the multiple drugs in those days. He took a cocktail, something, and he was going every week and you know, that sort of stuff. But it was by the end of August that it just was not very good at all. And we went to his house, to his apartment a couple of times and he couldn't go to work or anything by then. And all he wore was a woman's like nightgown because his skin, anything that touched him drove him crazy.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:48:04] He had some kind of a terrible nerve.

Shannon Flynn [03:48:07] Exactly.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:48:08] Nerve problem with it. So his. His nerves were very sensitive and he

Shannon Flynn [03:48:13] was having all these problems. And we said, what can we do for you? And he wanted apricot juice. Lynn was always very particular about what he wanted. So several times when we went and got it for him, I found out afterwards that was the worst thing I could have done because he was having dysentery so bad and that was making it worse. But it was the only thing he could drink. Their food was making him crazy. And so then in Sept.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:48:49] You could cheat. You can make it up. He died in November. Right.

Shannon Flynn [03:48:55] Is that when it was?

John Dehlin [03:48:56] I think it was November of 95.

Shannon Flynn [03:48:59] Sorry.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:49:00] I think.

Shannon Flynn [03:49:00] Sorry. Sorry, everybody. Well, I don't have it that I can see it. Anyway, when he. When he got to a position so bad, something did great happen. His younger brother David and his wife, I'll think of her name in a second, became his caregiver.

Shannon Flynn [03:49:30] And neither of them were Marico professionals, but they just were over to his house sometimes, every day. The rest of his family are jerks. They did nothing to help him, nothing. But those two just took care of him as good as they could. But he was in a situation that it wasn't going to get better, so they were just doing the best they could for him. And then he eventually came to the position. They took him to the hospital and he was there for a week and he was dying of starvation. And so eventually they gave him those, they're called unsure now, but he could drink them.

Shannon Flynn [03:50:15] And he said, oh, that helps me so much. But then he lost consciousness and he died about 24, 36 hours later because that was just the end of it. And they were up there with him. We would have gone if they'd called and told us, but it was just kind of a.

Shannon Flynn [03:50:38] They just didn't know what to do anymore. And so. And so the daughter in law called me the day that he died and said Lynn died, you know, two hours ago. And then there was the funeral. Not too many days after that. Five days or four days, something like that.

John Dehlin [03:51:01] So you stayed in close contact with him to the end.

Shannon Flynn [03:51:11] The three of us are a couple of jerks. We know where he's buried and he's buried in the same cemetery where my sister and parents are. And so Robin and I. And then sometimes the, the writers will go find his headstone and we'll bring flowers and sometimes we're the only ones that do. Sometimes there's one other that I think comes from somebody in their family, but sometimes it's us. So we come visiting. It is grave, it's on Redwood Road and it's Memorial. Memorial. I don't know, something I can't remember. 70th south, something like that. It's a very plain little thing. But he was, he was buried in a casket and the family owned that. And actually he had a sibling that died like very young, so they put him in the same.

Scott Reiter [03:52:25] Right next to.

Shannon Flynn [03:52:26] Yeah, yeah. The other student. Yeah, the little girl.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:52:31] It's a girl, but I don't remember the name.

Shannon Flynn [03:52:34] Was his.

John Dehlin [03:52:36] Was his funeral well attended? Not well attended?

Scott Reiter [03:52:39] No, it was well attended. Yeah, I remember it being full.

Shannon Flynn [03:52:44] Except the two girls that loved him.

Scott Reiter [03:52:48] They didn't come. No. But the, the boy that I thought was his boyfriend at the time came because he had cowboy boots on. And Lynn mentioned that he wore cowboy boots and I think that was his.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:53:02] And he cried and he cried. He cried the entire funeral, as I recall.

Shannon Flynn [03:53:08] Yeah, but that especially I was bivvying. She wouldn't come. And Rick Grunder, who was his closest friend in the whole room world, he lived in New York and so it was too far to come. He did come eventually. A little while after that, because much of what belonged to Lynn went to. Went to Rick. But. But there was a pretty good.

Scott Reiter [03:53:37] Yeah, I thought it was lots of.

Shannon Flynn [03:53:38] There was me and Robin.

Scott Reiter [03:53:42] No, I thought. Think. I think it was a full.

John Dehlin [03:53:45] A full meeting.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:53:46] That's all that counts.

Shannon Flynn [03:53:47] I'm not a good talk from.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:53:49] Good talk from Wayne Owens, so maybe

John Dehlin [03:53:52] that's all we needed.

Shannon Flynn [03:53:54] That's all we needed. It was a very typical Mormon in a Mormon church funeral.

John Dehlin [03:54:00] Okay, I have to ask this. Do any of you. Have you had. Are there any thoughts or feelings you want to share about the LDS Church's kind of policies, doctrines and. Or teachings about LGBTQ people and how that may or may not have influenced Lynn's life or your thoughts about Lynn's life?

Shannon Flynn [03:54:27] No, I got nothing.

Scott Reiter [03:54:29] I don't either. I don't. I don't think it really affected him that much. I don't know if.

John Dehlin [03:54:33] I mean, I don't know.

Scott Reiter [03:54:34] I don't know what his life would be like if he was alive today as compared to what it was. I don't know whether he would have been happier living in our social world than he was then. I don't know that. Maybe, maybe not.

Shannon Flynn [03:54:48] I don't know.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:54:48] He was such an outlier in other ways.

Scott Reiter [03:54:51] Yes.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:54:51] There just aren't that many people that could relate to him or be. You know, he was just so extraordinary. So besides his sexuality, he just was one of a kind.

Scott Reiter [03:55:04] And I never heard. No one said to us, oh, you're friends with that. That faggy land. Never.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:55:09] It was never that.

Shannon Flynn [03:55:11] I never heard that.

John Dehlin [03:55:12] Never, never, never.

Shannon Flynn [03:55:16] So what? I could have, but I didn't hear it.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:55:18] No.

John Dehlin [03:55:19] So what? I. I'm not so much talking about him being mistreated by people, although you did say his family never really cared for him.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:55:29] I don't want to misrepresent that either. I think his brothers and sisters, and they loved him. He just was so different. He just didn't fit in.

John Dehlin [03:55:38] I guess what I'm saying is, and you guys, maybe this doesn't connect with you, but I'm thinking if the church, if the prophet says revelators had said, hey, it's okay to be gay back in the 70s and it's no shame and just find love and you're not going to outer darkness or the telestial kingdom, and you can get married in the temple just like everybody else, and you can find love and it's nothing to be ashamed about. And then he's able to date in high school men and he's able to not hide who he is and he's able to find love and get married in the temple and maybe even adopt kids and not have to have this deep, dark secret that he hid from even you and that he's able to be fully who he is. Would. Would that have been a very different. You know, does that matter?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:56:28] Yeah. I don't know. Alternate universe? I don't know.

Scott Reiter [03:56:31] Yeah. I don't have. No idea. He was who he was.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:56:35] Yeah. It's hard to second guess that.

John Dehlin [03:56:37] Would it have been such a tragic story?

Tonya (Reiter) [03:56:40] Yeah, Hard to know.

Shannon Flynn [03:56:44] I don't think so. He certainly never was that way at that time.

John Dehlin [03:56:50] What do you mean?

Shannon Flynn [03:56:51] He was never the kind that would have. If there was a thing, we're going to have a parade and you come with. He never would have done it. He would have just.

John Dehlin [03:57:01] Are you. But are you saying because there's something wrong with. With like being in those parades that that's not.

Shannon Flynn [03:57:05] No, just a hand. That's the way he was.

John Dehlin [03:57:08] He wasn't sort of the gay pride thing? He wasn't into kind of gay Pride?

Scott Reiter [03:57:11] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [03:57:12] But is that Because.

Scott Reiter [03:57:13] I don't think he told me something once. He did not like the world he was in. He did not like the homosexual world he was a part of. He did not like the people he couldn't. He couldn't find a friend.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:57:29] Somebody that he.

Scott Reiter [03:57:30] Yeah.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:57:31] Really trust.

Scott Reiter [03:57:32] Yeah. Well, I don't know about trust, but maybe love. He could not find that person. He didn't like a lot of the way they behave, their personalities. That's. But I remember him once saying that I. I don't like that world, but

Tonya (Reiter) [03:57:51] he was caught in it.

Scott Reiter [03:57:52] Yeah. I mean, he was who he was, but I don't know if there's anything else for him. I mean, I don't know if he could have been happy wanting what he wanted.

Shannon Flynn [03:58:02] He may be different if things were like then that they are now, but that's just me.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:58:09] Yeah. See, that's making up stuff.

Shannon Flynn [03:58:11] I have no idea.

John Dehlin [03:58:13] I mean, I'm thinking of Freddie Mercury. He died very similarly. There's that song, Find Me Somebody to Love, you know. But then I'm thinking about Carolyn Pearson, whose husband also died of aids. And she once said, we push them in the gutter and then expect them not to get dirty. And it can be hard for a gay Mormon to exist in. In, let's just say the gay communities. But sometimes that's partly because of self hatred. Right. Because of internalized homophobia and Sometimes that's because of all the darkness and the shunning that happens where everyone has to live underground, kind of. Kind of like in the FLDS community. And so maybe those communities aren't always super healthy sometimes, but maybe that's also because we made them dark and dirty and. And toxic.

Shannon Flynn [03:59:08] Don't know.

Tonya (Reiter) [03:59:09] Don't know.

Shannon Flynn [03:59:09] Okay. Freddie Mercury, if you want to get a feel for the way Lynn acted, that's kind of the way it was.

John Dehlin [03:59:18] Kind of the way.

Shannon Flynn [03:59:20] Dave? Sure. You need some money? Will I go to the parade?

Scott Reiter [03:59:25] No.

John Dehlin [03:59:25] Okay.

Shannon Flynn [03:59:26] That's the way Lynn was.

John Dehlin [03:59:30] So we are at the end. So any final things you guys want to say about Lynn? I mean, you guys felt strongly about this. I've loved it. I know I'll have some listeners who love it. Others will say, what was this? I'm glad we did it. I'm really glad you guys came. I learned a lot. I loved learning about Lynn. I wish I could have known him. I feel like we honored him. And I feel very grateful that both you came and we talked about him. I want to give each of you a chance to say closing words about Lynn. Unless you feel like you've said everything.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:00:02] I have one more thing to say. I always have one more thing to say.

John Dehlin [04:00:05] Okay, good.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:00:06] I just. As a parting shot, and I think this says a lot about. About our relationship with Lynn. He found a little French restaurant in Trolley Square that he thought was just fabulous. And it was always, I am going to take you to the most delicious meal you've ever had. And so we. He. I took us down there and ordered chateaubriand with bearnaise sauce. And I was transported to a new place because I think it's the first time I'd had bearnaise sauce. And I loved it. And it was just. Lynn wanted to do that for us just because he loved it and he wanted to share that love with us and that.

Scott Reiter [04:00:53] And still one of the best meals.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:00:55] One of the best meals we've had.

Scott Reiter [04:00:56] It was an excellent restaurant. It's not there anymore. That's been there for a long time.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:01] So. Yeah, that's my parting.

Scott Reiter [04:01:03] Yeah, we see. Was a good friend to people he was friends with.

Shannon Flynn [04:01:07] I guess I do have something. Being with Lynn was a big event.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:12] It was.

Shannon Flynn [04:01:12] It was sometimes not good, but it was big. Wow. It was a big event.

John Dehlin [04:01:19] Do you guys hope to see him again?

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:21] Yes.

Scott Reiter [04:01:24] Yes, yes.

Shannon Flynn [04:01:26] Like I say, we still weep a little bit because being without him stinks.

John Dehlin [04:01:32] Wow. Not all people leave you feeling that way.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:37] No, no. But he did. Even with the bad stuff. Right.

Scott Reiter [04:01:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:01:45] All right.

Scott Reiter [04:01:46] And I know that Wayne Owens is

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:48] dead, but thank you

John Dehlin [04:01:52] for honoring Lynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:01:54] Yeah. For saving that.

John Dehlin [04:01:57] Well, what I want to do now is just switch back to the photos and I'll just. Just kind of show a few more photos of Lynn just to give people a final view into this man and his life.

John Dehlin [04:02:15] And just say, lynn, thank you for what, what you were to us and what you gave to us, even those of us who. Who never knew you and, and Lynn, we honor and respect you and thank you for. For all you did. Lynn Jacobs.

John Dehlin [04:02:40] All right, so. So I guess to close. Thank you so much. Shannon Flynn. I hope we haven't scared you away. I hope you will still come back tomorrow even though we exhausted you. And also Tanya and Scott Ryder, thank you. You guys are lovely, adorable. I want to have you back on Mormon Stories just for other reasons, but thank you for coming on Mormon Stories and honoring us with your. You and with your stories about Lynn.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:03:15] Well, thanks for letting us talk about him. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Reiter [04:03:19] Thank you.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:03:19] It's a pleasure.

John Dehlin [04:03:22] All right, thanks, everyone who joined us Today live on YouTube. And we'll get this out on all the other things, but thanks for supporting Mormon Stories. We couldn't do it without you. And. And don't go away. Tomorrow we're going to have Shannon Flynn back and we're going to ask him all the questions you wanted to ask him and that I wanted to ask him. And we're going to let him tell any critiques he has of Murder among the Mormons and all the things that he thinks we should know about Mark Hoffman or him that didn't get told in Murder among the Mormons. So we'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks again. Thanks, guys. It's time for some Italian food.

Shannon Flynn [04:04:00] I'm sorry.

Tonya (Reiter) [04:04:01] Time for some Italian food.

Shannon Flynn [04:04:03] That's right.

Scott Reiter [04:04:03] Begging for Italian food.

John Dehlin [04:04:06] All right, thanks, everybody. Take care.

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