Chapter 1

State Historical Society of Missouri

Missouri has a history of religious intolerance. In 1838, the governor proclaimed: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace--their outrages are beyond all description."(1) The Governor's term of "outrages" referred to alleged thefts that he could not describe. More than a century and a half later, the State of Missouri identified me as a Mormon, and charged me with stealing a library book from the State. Yet they could not describe me, nor could they describe the library book. So in reliable Missouri style, they charged me with "outrages beyond all description."

That may seem implausible to an outsider, but here in Missouri an accurate description of an alleged thief, or the property he is accused of stealing, is not required in court. In my case the evidence was sufficiently intelligible for the prosecutors: "We certainly have probable cause to believe, given that he's a book dealer and a fanatic Mormon, that he is the perpetrator of this offense."(2)

Columbia, Boone County, Missouri was where the prosecution of me originated. Astoundingly, it was also the site of parallel persecution in the 1830s, when Joseph Smith Jr. was scheduled for trial there after being charged with "receiving stolen goods" and "larceny," among other indictments.(3) Smith was being transported to the Boone County jail when he escaped on 16 April 1839 and fled to Nauvoo, Illinois, rather than face an unjust trial in the Circuit Court of Boone County. Parley Pratt, the most famous Mormon missionary, was imprisoned in the Columbia jail, but also escaped on Independence Day, 4 July 1839, and joined Smith in Illinois. Justifying the escapes four years later, in the case of Missouri v. Joseph Smith, Pratt proclaimed:

On these grounds, and having had all these opportunities to know, I testify that neither Mr. Smith, nor any other Mormon, has the least prospect for justice, or to receive a fair and impartial trial in the state of Missouri. If tried at all, they must be tried by authorities who have trampled all law under their feet. . . . Therefore, Mr. Smith, and the Mormons generally, have suffered the end of the law, of which they had no choice, and therefore, the state of Missouri has no further claims, whatever, upon any of them.(4)

Moreover, the problem of false allegations of stealing by Mormons was so pervasive that the church published an editorial in its periodical:

You have doubtless heard of the thievish propensities of the Mormons. They are not such great rascals as they are represented. Much stealing is done on their credit, of which they are not guilty. They have been charged in this world with much of which there will be no record against them in the next.(5)

For me, it all began Thursday, 29 April 1993, when, according to a librarian in Columbia, Missouri, she thought that a book disappeared from the State Historical Society of Missouri. She claimed that at 1:00 p.m.,(6) a researcher asked to look at the first edition Book of Mormon. The librarian recounted that she strived to coax him into accepting a modern copy instead, along with a book derogatorily opposing the Mormons.(7) As she later admitted, when the student objected to the mistreatment, she left to retrieve his requested books, and in the spontaneous moment of pulling the Book of Mormon from the shelf, she nevertheless again "debated about the possibility of getting the reprint instead."(8) If she ever intended to give him the book he wanted, she must have made an error, for call slips were not consistently used by the State Historical Society of Missouri, and the librarian elaborated: "I'm not sure whether he gave me one . . . I assume he did, because it stops accidents from happening [by] pulling the wrong book," so much as to say that she did not know if a book was stolen, but that she assumed her allegation.(9) Thus, either through insistence, on impulse, or by accident, the librarian evidently gave the scholar a reprint Book of Mormon, not a first edition.(10)

At 3:00 p.m. the student departed the library, leaving the book, which was clearly the same Book of Mormon, on the table as is standard procedure in special collections libraries.(11) The librarian went over to the table, and verified that the book was still there. Instead of returning the book to a special storage case, she abandoned it on the table until 1:30 p.m. the next day. According to the librarian, as the Book of Mormon and other books lay on the table, "I [the librarian] kept watching them thinking . . . 'I really need to put them away,'" but then decided to leave them: "'Well,' I said, 'I won't put the rare books away.'"(12) However, she did go back to the table a second time at the end of the day, and a third time at the beginning of the next morning, to physically handle and reexamine the Book of Mormon. The book was firmly in her custody, and each time she recognized it as the same one that she checked out to the patron.(13) While the book lay on the table, the State Historical Society of Missouri served approximately one hundred and fifty additional patrons.(14)

Friday, 30 April 1993, the librarian was relocating the book to her own desk to reserve it there through the weekend, when she realized that the Book of Mormon that she held was not a first edition--although it appeared to be the one she checked out to the researcher. She needed to guide a tour at that moment. Confused, she handed the book to other staff members, asking them to check the records to verify whether or not the State Historical Society of Missouri owned a first edition.(15) When she returned from the tour, to her dismay, the director of the society had been summoned by her subordinates. According to the librarian: "Everyone was greatly upset. And they were saying that nope--I'm sorry--no, the book was not in the library. And that this was definitely not the right one."(16)

After her superior confronted her, the librarian had to do some explaining. "He was standing there and we were sort of--I said I thought it was an accident." The director just said, "Huh," and returned to the front office to telephone the police.(17)

Where were you on 29 April 1993, between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.? That would be an appropriate query from an investigator in New York or Los Angeles, but this was Missouri. During their excitement over my being Mormon, the detectives never considered that I would have an alibi. Imagine how confounded they felt two years later when they finally subpoenaed my cellular telephone roaming records and credit card statements anticipating to prove that I was in Columbia, Missouri at the time of the alleged theft. The records and statements (and my signed receipts) demonstrated, instead, that I was in Illinois--not central Missouri.(18) Nor did I even live in Missouri at the time of those events, as did thirty-six thousand members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and twenty-eight thousand members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (any one of whom would have an equal motive to look at the book). Rather, I lived in the peaceful state of Wisconsin.(19)

Although I have an alibi proving my innocence, I am intrigued by the infeasibility that any person stole a book from the State Historical Society of Missouri on that day. The facts of the visit to the library by the questionable patron are less sensational than anyone could imagine, since the patron was not actually caught taking a book. The librarian said she did not see him "conceal" a book, nor did she see him "carrying anything as he left."(20) She acknowledged that she saw him both enter and leave the library without any books.(21) He was not pursued out of the building. He was not carrying a briefcase or any other container, though the State Historical Society of Missouri did not forbid them.(22) Moreover, the librarian had watched the patron use the books from just "twenty feet," while "facing him."(23) He was "practically straight in front" of her, and she could "see him clearly."(24) Explicitly, she could also "see the books clearly,"(25) for her "concentration was more on the books in front of him."(26)

While inside the State Historical Society of Missouri, according to the librarian, the patron did not do anything "suspicious," nor anything "unusual."(27) He even bypassed less experienced staff and asked to see the head librarian.(28) She said the patron's request to use the Book of Mormon was incidental. He had previously visited the State Historical Society of Missouri, and on that particular visit "getting the Book of Mormon was sort of an afterthought."(29) She saw him "look through" and "busy using" various books, while he was meticulously "studying" and "doing research."(30) Certainly, the student was credible to the librarian--but the next afternoon she had some explaining to do, since the Book of Mormon was signed out in her name.(31)

Before the librarian settled on her allegation that a theft had occurred, she attempted to reach the questionable patron to learn if a mistake had been made.(32) When she could not find a local listing for the person, she concluded that he must have used a pseudonym (fictitious names are allowed in Missouri by express law), like many visitors at the State Historical Society of Missouri who choose to retain the privacy of their names, addresses, and research topics.(33) That is not surprising, since the American Library Association has a policy that "special collections librarians must keep confidential [any] information about the activities and research of their readers which they gain in performance of their duties."(34) In conflict with that policy, the State Historical Society of Missouri used a guest register and checkout sheet that allowed disclosure of private information. But that particular time the bashful writer seemed Mormon, and she surmised that he stole a book.(35) The State Historical Society of Missouri observed: "Any small theft or unexplained crime was blamed on the Mormons."(36)

The overpowering element of surprise in my defense case was our evidence that the State Historical Society of Missouri lost the book between 1974 and 1978. Indeed, the librarian acknowledged that multiple people, including a notorious book thief, had stolen books from the library during that period, but that she never discovered which books were missing.(37) We used acquisition announcements in fifty-year-old issues of the Missouri Historical Review to analyze purchases during the same period as the Book of Mormon (bought in 1941). We proved that few of the rare books still existed at the State Historical Society of Missouri--even though many of them were listed in the card catalog. There was also a likelihood that the book (which the State Historical Society of Missouri records indicated was worn, marred, and incomplete) was simply replaced and discarded, for so did the librarian concede: "If they are removed they are to be destroyed. . . . Torn up, if it takes that."(38)

Most likely, the State Historical Society of Missouri never knew whether they had a rare book or not. Original letters, written by the former head librarian in 1971 and 1972, illustrated that the State Historical Society of Missouri mistakenly identified other modern Mormon books as early editions, including some that never existed there, and one that was never actually printed.(39) A national census of rare Mormon books at college and research libraries was taken in 1978, but no Book of Mormon owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri was included as a first edition, though the State Historical Society of Missouri participated in the census and listed its other valuable Mormon books. The card catalog and manuscript acquisition record indicated that the modern book checked out to the researcher actually was the State Historical Society of Missouri's book, which incidentally was bound in their own standard library binding.(40) Besides the physical evidence, we found both material and expert witnesses whom we expected to testify that the State Historical Society of Missouri did not contemporarily possess the Book of Mormon. Paradoxically, the 1941 book catalog of the bookseller, Eugene L. Schwaab, indicated that the State Historical Society of Missouri had purchased the wrong book in the first place.(41) In any event, the checkout sheet for the Book of Mormon and the testimony of the librarian demonstrated that neither the librarian nor any patron had seen an older Book of Mormon since 1974.(42)

Countering our defense that the book did not exist, the librarian attempted to describe its features, recreating a memory of a first edition. She consulted with her cataloger and then her acquisitionist, "to see if she could identify it better than I [the librarian] could or remember anything that might have been unique about it." They helped her make up a written description that was "as close as we could come to what it probably looked like." That of course, was after they went "through all of the different possible records that might list identification factors on it."(43) Then she consulted experts and bibliographies. She simply had no independent recollection of how a first edition Book of Mormon was supposed to look, and had obviously never seen one. The missing book was "beyond all description."

Then she developed a scheme, saying: "In the original I handed to him, there had been a note that a librarian previously had typed and placed in here on yellow pages saying that it was an original."(44) Assuredly, anyone with such a vivid memory as to recall bright colors must be believable, she seems to have thought. The unfortunate librarian forgot that she had already testified, "There were little notes, I think, in there. I'm not sure." That itself was a novel response to rigorous cross examination (in which she was unable to explain why she thought the book that she held was different from the one that she checked out earlier).(45) Because color is also useful as a writing technique, her vibrantly colored discrepancies are selected for this monograph from among hundreds of more abstract mistakes that she made.

Another of the colorful errors that she committed in describing the book was that it was "probably dark navy," and "like a dark navy," and that she "believed" it was the same color as the reprint, which was blue.(46) Clearly, if she could not even remember something so basic as its color, her entire memory was recreated. Moreover, her description was inconsistent with a genuine 1830 book since the Book of Mormon was invariably bound in brown sheepskin or calfskin--cloth binding was not used in America until 1837.

A third kaleidoscopic error of the librarian was to contradict her earlier description of the questionable patron wearing a "wind breaker, shirt and slacks, colors unknown."(47) Gradually, the wind breaker of unknown color became a "pale--kind of light blue, robin-egg blue jacket."(48) To prove opportunity, the librarian utilized memory recreation to accentuate the story of a jacket, though the questionable patron was at the library in gusty April, and all visitors were permitted to wear jackets into the State Historical Society of Missouri.(49) I have never worn a robin-egg blue jacket, and I include her testimony with confidence that all of my acquaintances will know that I am "beyond all description."

Thus, I am innocent of the charge of stealing the Book of Mormon, and I am just another Mormon receiving Missouri injustice. Besides my having an irrefutable alibi, it is doubtful that the State Historical Society of Missouri ever owned a first edition Book of Mormon, and certain that none was stolen by any patron that day.

1. Lilburn Boggs, Governor of Missouri, Executive Order Number 44, 27 October 1838, emphasis added.

2. Kevin Crane, Boone County Prosecutor, Closing Argument, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, 15 September 1994, emphasis added.

3. Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c., In Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons, and the Evidence (Fayette, Mo.: Published by Order of the General Assembly of Missouri, 1841), pp. 152-56.

4. Parley Pratt, witness examined in State of Missouri v. Joseph Smith, 30 June 1843 to 2 July 1843, in Times and Seasons, 15 July 1843.

5. Times and Seasons, 1 May 1843.

6. The time of day from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon is carefully documented by Laurel Boeckman, State Historical Society of Missouri, Report, 3 May 1993; Donald Wilfley, University of Missouri Police Department, Incident Report, 3 May 1993; Direct Examination of Laurel Boeckman, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 9: 24-25, 11: 15-20; and Direct Examination of Laurel Boeckman, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 2: 16-21.

7. Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 6: 18-23.

8. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 24: 20-23; and Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 13:23 - 14:3.

9. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 22:24 - 23:3, emphasis added.

10. She pulled the book from the same "rare" book case that held what she considered to be another rare book, a late printing of the second edition of Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1977).

11. See, for example, Researcher Registration/Rules, State Archives, Bureau of History, Michigan Department of State. "Patrons should not reshelve books or refile microfilms they have used. Books may be left on tables or returned to the reference desk . . ."

12. Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 13: 6-11; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 34: 11-12.

13. Laurel Boeckman, State Historical Society of Missouri, Report, 3 May 1993; Laurel Boeckman, Preliminary Hearings, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August and 15 September 1994; and Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995.

14. Based on an average of more than one hundred and fifty patrons, derived from claims by the State Historical Society of Missouri (annually in the Missouri Historical Review) that it serves more than fifty thousand patrons per year.

15. Laurel Boeckman, State Historical Society of Missouri, Report, 3 May 1993.

16. Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 37: 22-25.

17. Ibid., 39: 17-22.

18. See for example the subpoenaed telephone records of John Hajicek, 414-573-1864, Ameritech Cellular, attached to their letter to Boone County (Missouri) Prosecutor, 29 December 1994, and faxed to Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department; and the subpoenaed American Express statement of John Hajicek, 3 May 1993 for purchases of 29 April 1993. See also Ameritech Mobile Communications statement, 2 June 1993, pp. 7-15, for calls made 29 April 1993 from 414-763-1864; American Express credit card receipt for Super 8 Motel, 29 April 1993; and United Consumer's Federal Credit Union, VISA credit card receipt for Mobil Kwik Store, 29 April 1993. Those records were disclosed to the court and attached to Defendant's Exhibit List, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Jackson County, 29 January 1995. See also Journal of John Hajicek, 29 April 1993.

19. The alleged theft occurred on 29 April 1993, and I did not live in Missouri until 12 July 1993. See receipts of Fry-Wagner, United Van Lines, Inc., 14 July 1993, and Journal of John Hajicek, 12 July 1993.

20. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 21:1, 30: 17-19; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 35:22 - 36:1.

21. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 19: 8-14.

22. Ibid., 20: 1-3; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 35: 16-18.

23. Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 11: 8-9.

24. Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 16: 10-12; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 28: 6-9.

25. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 28: 6-9.

26. Ibid., 20:15.

27. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 36: 2-5; and Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 18: 15-17, 30: 16-20.

28. She said, "But he did come directly to me rather than somebody else sitting at the desk" (Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 22: 21-23).

29. Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 25: 22-23.

30. Laurel Boeckman, statement to Donald Wilfley, University of Missouri Police Department, Incident Report, 3 May 1993; Laurel Boeckman, State Historical Society of Missouri, Report, 3 May 1993; Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 10: 16-19, 16: 16-17; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 44: 20-25.

31. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 22: 12-16.

32. Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 15:1 - 16:6.

33. See for example the Guest Register, State Historical Society of Missouri, 2 March 1993, in which John Hajicek is the only person who properly filled out his name, address, and research topic, among thirty patrons who registered.

34. Rare Book and Manuscript Section, Ethical Standards Review Committee, Standards for Ethical Conduct for Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Librarians . . . (Chicago: Association of College & Research Libraries, 1992), p. 211.

35. The Hajicek defense discovered a scholarly Mormon book and half a dozen published articles written under the same pen name as that of the discreet researcher--who certainly did not steal a book. In May 1994, immediately after my arrest, and under the advice of my attorney, James Speck, I had a set of the publications notarized and mailed to me in a registered envelope with all edges sealed and postmarked.

36. Missouri Historical Review, July 1974 (Publication of the State Historical Society of Missouri).

37. Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 51: 20-21, 52:3. She identified the book thief as someone she called "Stephen Blumberg."

38. Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 50: 20-21, 51: 1-7.

39. The State Historical Society of Missouri believed, among many examples, that it owned the only known sample of the single extant issue of the Upper Missouri Advertiser, published by Mormons on 11 July 1832, when the issue is owned by the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts; and believed that it owned a specimen of Oliver Cowdery, Defence in a Rehearsal of My Grounds for Separating Myself from the Latter-day Saints (Norton, Ohio: Pressley's Job Office, 1839), without realizing that it was a 1906 forgery. See original letters, documents, inventory, and census in possession of John Hajicek.

40. See "shelf list card" typed with handwritten alterations, photograph in possession of John Hajicek. The acquisitions record, though introduced in court, was concealed through the legal discovery process (see Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994).

41. Eugene L. Schwaab, Catalogue M-112 (Brooklyn: Eugene L. Schwaab, 1941).

42. See typed checkout sheet for "Book of Mormon," with name of "Richard Brownlee" as the past director of the State Historical Society of Missouri, and handwritten alterations to make the date "1830"; and Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 27: 3-6.

43. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 26: 16-23, emphasis added.

44. Laurel Boeckman, Direct Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 26: 2-12.

45. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 25: 1-2, emphasis added.

46. Laurel Boeckman, Book of Mormon Description, 2 May 1994; Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 23:15; and Deposition of Laurel Boeckman, 3 January 1995, 35: 15-16, emphasis added.

47. Donald Wilfley, University of Missouri Police Department, Incident Report, 3 May 1993, emphasis added.

48. Laurel Boeckman, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994.

49. See defense videotape, 18 November 1994, 4:30 p.m., showing employees leaving the State Historical Society of Missouri with bulky coats and hefty packages. One item I bought that year from a private collector was a two-ton sculpture, hardly pocket-sized, that was the most expensive Mormon-related item ever sold.

Book Copyright � 1995 John Hajicek.  All rights reserved.