Information in this book was current as of 1995

Chapter 4

Investigation, Search, and Arrest

Almost in tandem with the Graceland College plot, the State Historical Society of Missouri reported their Book of Mormon missing in Columbia, Missouri. Eventually, the State Historical Society of Missouri divulged that it was in contact with the RLDS Church on the precise day that the State Historical Society of Missouri reported the book missing.(1) Furthermore, there is an organizational interlock, since the president of the RLDS Church, Wallace B. Smith, like his father and grandfather in precession, is on the Board of Trustees of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Smith is also the ex officio president of Graceland College, since it is technically owned by the RLDS Church.(2) When apprised of my formidable defense, Smith explained that he was not "personally acquainted" with me, but implied that he could have otherwise intermediated peace.(3) In his view, peace was for friends rather than strangers, because he could not be too cautious with people different from himself.

Conspicuously, neither the RLDS Church nor the State Historical Society of Missouri gave my name to the police, though RLDS librarians and archivists later asserted that they were convinced from the onset that I was the thief. Instead, the University of Missouri police were roused by the State Historical Society of Missouri to find the culprit independently. A police detective sergeant frittered away more than six months (eventually working on the case two excessive years), searching across the country, with no evidence to lead him to me. Meanwhile, Ron Romig thoroughly sowed suspicions that would direct the police right to my door. Evidently, he conveyed his "hunches" to his counterpart archivist at the LDS Historical Department in Salt Lake City, who had been separately developing his own conflict with me.(4)

A year earlier, in 1992, the LDS Church exploited the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the City of Burlington (Wisconsin), to use state funds to erect a religiously biased historical marker in a publicly owned park in the community where I lived. Essentially, the marker was a dramatic assertion that all of Wisconsin's early Mormons emigrated to Utah. Factually, they unanimously stayed behind in Wisconsin with James Strang, Lyman Wight, Jason Briggs, and Zenus Gurley.(5) Worse, the LDS Church attempted to wash out the minor groups by strategically building the marker in the historical community of Burlington, where the Strang movement thrived from 1835 to 1856 and exists today, in a way that was hurtful to members of the minor church, and excluded them as Mormons just as Mormons are often excluded as Christians. I prepared a paper for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin opposing the marker (the paper was endorsed by the state legislature and made a splash in the local newspapers).(6) The librarian at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin agreed with me, saying that the marker "represents bad history."(7)

On 18 November 1993 I made a quarterly visit to the Historical Department of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, where the staff is usually expert and professional. While I was there, the archivist rebuked and counseled me for opposing the Wisconsin marker. Someone in Wisconsin had transmitted my paper to him, and he was disconcerted about its effectiveness. He had dealt with me before on the Strang research topic, and whenever I needed to use significant documents he gave me a generic response: "Because of the nature of your study, you cannot use this item at the present time." I left the LDS Church office building near closing at 4:30 p.m., and looked over my shoulder to see the archivist consulting with other LDS Church officials and LDS Church security.

At exactly 8:00 the next morning, 19 November 1993, the LDS Church security supervisor called the University of Missouri police to try to link me to the book supposedly missing from the State Historical Society of Missouri. The LDS Church security supervisor acknowledged that he could find little to implicate me. First, I only "resembled" a generic artist's sketch that could equally well have applied to most male Mormons between the ages of sixteen and forty.(8) Second, there were merely "similarities" in penmanship, because it was in universal and basic block printing rather than writing (only two characters were determined to be even similar). But the LDS Church had more, he declared. He conveyed to the police that "one of the librarians informed him that Hajicek is a member of the Strangite group, which broke off from the Mormon church in the 1800s." The University of Missouri detective sergeant fervently jotted down that exclusively momentous clue.(9) Unknown to me, I then became the primary suspect in an alleged crime that I did not even realize had occurred.

At last, the RLDS librarians and archivists jumped back onto the bandwagon with their sundry suspicions, including their Graceland College case. After influencing the LDS Church to call the police, and hearing back from the LDS Church that the act was done, they seemed suddenly to overcome the fear that they would be accused of conspiracy. Within two weeks after the LDS tip, at least six different RLDS-affiliated librarians or archivists had "independently" been on the telephone offering to the police their own blurry insights.(10)

Conversely, the LDS Church seemed to recognize that it had been swayed by the RLDS Church. They evidently soon softened their impressions, for they gave me indirect financial support, and refused to provide their Hajicek file to the police without requiring them to first complete a complicated interstate subpoena process. Some suspicions were allayed as a result of an independent investigation by some of their officials to verify the provenances of books that they knew that I had acquired. Individually, the most renowned rare book expert in the LDS Church became an expert witness in my defense, and I thank him and his friends for their exceptional ethics.

After the simultaneous tips from the LDS and RLDS churches, the police worked vigorously on the case for exactly one month, and then the investigation stalled. There was simply insufficient evidence to proceed. During the next six months, they patiently searched for the Book of Mormon across the country, and gave up.(11)

On 28 April 1994, the last day of a year since the alleged theft, the police revitalized their investigation. The principal of the case was a campus detective sergeant by the name of Frank Brown, from the unaccredited police department that specializes in parking control at the University of Missouri.(12) Bewildered that the missing book could not be found among my clients, he conjectured that it would be in my house.

Brown recognized that the Constitution protected me against an unreasonable search of my books and papers. He knew that he could not conduct a search without probable cause to believe that he would find the Book of Mormon at the time and place of the search. As he privately told me later, he considered the Constitution an impediment to law enforcement, he needed a route of circumvention, and he found one.

Brown's theoretical foundation for a search had three elements: He alleged that (1) he had probable cause to believe that I (impossibly) stole the Book of Mormon--an assumption, (2) he could prove that I had not sold the Book of Mormon, and (3) therefore the Book of Mormon must be in my possession. Probable cause has a minimal standard of sufficiency in Missouri. The task was for Brown to articulate his affidavit (for which he required literary assistance) to obtain a search warrant in a way that conveyed that he was certain to find the book for which he was looking. His argument was based on the testimony of expert prosecution witnesses in the rare book profession. Precise records of the State Historical Society of Missouri said the Book of Mormon was hammered and incomplete, and described its copy-specific stamps--they were made with perforations and indelible ink on the most significant pages of the book, including the title page, such that nobody would want the book. The experts determined that the book's deficient and defaced condition rendered the book unsalable.(13) That confirmed the experiences of the State Historical Society of Missouri and Brown in being unable to find the non-existent book in a nationwide search. Since Brown assumed that I stole the book, and the book was unsalable, he concluded that I would possess it--but since I did not possess it, and it was unsalable, his assumption was wrong.

The final strategic mechanism came from a so-called "confidential informant," who in a purposeful guise attested that, assuming that I stole the book, I would keep such a book in either of two large book vaults in my archival room. What he did not divulge was that he had been given free access to my safes, handled my first editions including the Book of Mormon, and could return to see it all again--but had never seen any library stamps. We know all of that because when we unmasked the tipster, he turned out to be none other than my own father-in-law, Ron Hagaman.(14) He was another detective sergeant, but from the Independence Police Department instead of the University of Missouri. So enthralled was Hagaman in the associations, fraternities, unions, and leagues of the police, that he trusted a muddler like Frank Brown instead of his own faithful daughter.  Anyone who is astonished that a father-in-law could treat his son-in-law and his daughter this way over religion, should study how Joseph Smith was persecuted by his father-in-law, Isaac Hale. 

Hagaman did not acknowledge his bias and interest, nor disqualify himself from the case. Besides being a weightlifting champion, he had aspirations to autonomously compensate for not attending his professed church--Hagaman had a reputation for acting on his own discretion as a sometime henchman of the RLDS Church, for example carrying a gun to church during authority disagreements. He had once retorted to me that he "knew enough about King Strang," and better never hear the name again. Hagaman was probably displeased with the rumors about a book missing from Graceland College where he was paying for the tuition of the son of his exacting second wife (who later also elevated herself as supposed witness against me, in something so trivial as my hair color).(15) Additionally, his best friend was vice president of Graceland College, and Hagaman would have wanted to impress him. Most of all, he was indignant that one of "King Strang's loyal subjects" had eloped with a Hagaman daughter. When he finished overseeing the case against me, he received the long-awaited promotions to lieutenant and then captain--the rewards of allegiance, not considering familial disloyalty nor his forsaken daughter.

Outfitted with his theoretical belief that I stole the book, proof that I did not sell it, and the collaboration of my in-laws, Frank Brown left Boone County, Missouri hoping to obtain a search warrant in Jackson County on 6 May 1994. He clearly planned to conduct two searches (one without a warrant, and one with a warrant but without real probable cause), both technically unconstitutional.

Brown had been on the telephone with Diane Shelton, the librarian from Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. He told her that he was getting a search warrant for the Book of Mormon, and he asked her to fax to him a list of twenty missing books, for which he could unlawfully search our house. He had said he would be traveling to Independence for the search, so she ought to fax it to him in care of the Independence Police Department. Shortly before 9:00 in the morning, the faxed list arrived from Graceland College with Shelton's words of unchristian-like revelry, "Good Luck, & Thanks!"(16) She was aware of the impending search for her books, and she gloried in imperiling a household.

Three hours later, Brown obtained his warrant to look for a Book of Mormon with a specific description, and any receipts indicating that I sold the Book of Mormon. Any outsider would have presumed that the police would have applied for a warrant to search for the Graceland College books too, but not Brown. He clutched the faxed booklist with satisfaction--one warrant was sufficient to enter the house, and with no accountability for police (the good-faith doctrine), he could get away with whatever extralegal behavior he fancied once there, including warrantless searches, and perjure himself later for sustenance.

How Brown obtained the warrant at all, with a deficiency of probable cause, was apparently the result of Ron Hagaman maneuvering him through the right prosecutors, the concoction of a misleading affidavit, and directions with that affidavit to Alan Slayton, a Judge of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri. Slayton was a friend of Hagaman, and was later overheard familiarly referring to the case by its identification with Hagaman. Of course, Slayton was also a major financial contributor to and member of the RLDS Church, and helped pay for the elegant building used by the Woods Chapel Congregation near his posh Lakewood home. He should have understood that his church was a party implicitly interested in the imminent complaint. Furthermore, as a member of the combination known as the RLDS Bar Association he joined other lawyers who were "strong supporters of service to the church" and "who recognize the stewardship of their professional skills and [who] make them available to the Church . . ."(17) Because he was an alumnus of Graceland College, he had explicit conflicting interests--surely apprised of the motive and expanse of the search. In Jackson County, the site of populous Kansas City, there would have been an ample quantity of judges who had not graduated from the tiny college in Lamoni, Iowa. Yet, Slayton did not recuse himself from the case--instead, he gave Brown the long-awaited search warrant at 11:45 a.m. on 6 May 1994.(18)

Brown must have felt the exhilaration of finally being in Jackson County, from where twelve hundred Mormons were banished in 1833--besides already being in Missouri, from where a total of twelve thousand Mormons were further expatriated in 1838. What a sensational irony it was, to be in the county where a historical Mormon press was smashed to the ground from an upper window, pied lead type was scattered in the street, and uncut book signature sheets were tossed to drift breezily into the early summer cornfields, all with the approbation of the State, to prevent the Mormons from printing their books in the first place--and now Brown was here because he believed a Mormon stole a similar book back from that State. Brown drove to my neighborhood, impatient to disentangle yet another Mormon from this region, and certain that he would be looking at the missing book within minutes.

Brown could have been anybody's grandfather. Polite, friendly, and mild, he spoke carefully but agonizingly slow. On the day of the search, he wore a neat, albeit mismatched, blue polyester suit. Brown was accompanied that day by the Independence Police Department, including a plain-clothes detective, burley and seemingly uneducated, who nevertheless was more keen than the higher educated Brown. Before coming to my house, the two men had a leisurely lunch while harmonizing their plans. They were to be assisted by a uniformed sergeant with two district officers, who all rendezvoused with the two detectives inside the Walnut Gardens RLDS church building (somehow furnished for the surveillance of my house). Since five police cars were insufficient, two more patrol cars were summoned to block streets out of the new Independence subdivision where we live. An eighth car was called to carry me to jail after my capture. Brown briefed the officers on the multiple book titles for which he was looking, and the mob drove to our house at 12:30 p.m.

My wife, Dena, was home with our youngest daughter that day, and I was absent on business with our eldest daughter in Kansas. Expecting me on the lower level, Brown went to the side driveway and my shop entrance. Other police officers dispersed to cover the other exit doors from the home. With Brown pounding at the rear door, Dena saw shadows at the main entrance and answered there instead. Brown was undoubtedly disappointed not to be the first to see her distress, but even more concerned that I was not present to be apprehended. Still, Dena was more forthright than he hoped that I would have been.

When he made it to the door, Brown wanted to know immediately where the Book of Mormon was kept. Taken by surprise, Dena told him about a copy that I had recently bought from Mrs. Cleo Settles in McAllen, Texas. Impressed by Dena's truthfulness, but not making any headway, Brown switched to the other twenty books for which he was searching. Dena recognized only one of them, the Book of the Law of the Lord. That was the Graceland College book for which there was no evidence that I stole--and did not--but at least Brown knew that I would have trustingly bought if it were on the market. Naturally, Dena told him that we had multiple copies of the book, but they were all locked in the vaults and she had forgotten the combinations. The Independence detective responded by threatening to call the Independence Fire Department and torch the safes open, displaying his uncultured insensitivity to the historical value of the contents.

Brown, of course, became exceedingly frustrated. Yet, the inability to access the vaults confirmed, in his mind, that the Book of Mormon must be right there in the room with him, after a year of searching elsewhere. He resorted, for the present time, to rifling the papers and books in my library, archives, office, and storeroom--with disappointment.(19) The other officers fanned out and searched our dresser drawers, bathrooms, kitchen cabinets, closets, and other personal places upstairs.(20) They verified that there was not a rare book anywhere, except in the safes.

Brown later described his three and one half hour search through twenty thousand Mormon books in my library. Neither he, nor the officers working with him, could locate a single book stamped with any library markings. The only evidence that Brown and his men found interesting was that I had an entire bookcase dedicated to various editions of the Book of Mormon. Those were represented in diverse colors, sizes, languages, publishers, and years, and had been purchased from dealers across the country. They still had the prices inside indicating what I had paid for them, and, as Brown testified, they "were different colors" and had been "marked different prices," proving that they were not identical as he afterwards asserted.(21) He wanted to connect the specific modern edition Book of Mormon possessed by the State Historical Society of Missouri to my publishing past, but in that he was disappointed. We later proved that the State Historical Society of Missouri's book was unlike any book ever manufactured or owned by me, and we introduced our own samples along with witnesses who had purchased them.

Meanwhile, Dena reached me in Kansas, and I immediately returned to the state that sought me. As I approached my neighborhood, the drivers of other automobiles flashed their lights to warn me of impending danger, but I continued. The police boxed-in the Meadow Hills subdivision behind me, and my Jeep was encircled in the driveway--so I opened the electric garage door by remote control, and drove inside--since it was my home. There, I surprised the police with my smothering cooperation and insistence on their mistake. (Brown later claimed that I also identified myself as a "preacher," but that is unMormon-like terminology. What really happened is that Brown emphasized that he was himself a Baptist and that "this whole matter of the Mormons is dubious.")

Brown was immediately troubled by something else as he sized me up and down; he recognized that I was different from the person whom the librarian at the State Historical Society of Missouri had described. I was "beyond all description" since (1) there was a 50 percent difference in age, (2) there was a 40 percent difference in weight, (3) there was a difference in hair length, and (4) there was a difference in hair color.(22) Beyond the unmatched verbal description, Brown knew that the so-called artist's sketch was afterwards altered to more closely resemble me, but he suddenly realized that even in that it failed. He dared not put me in a lineup, or even a photograph array.

Brown moved on to other factors of identification and later recounted, "I asked him if there was any reason his fingerprints would be on the society's check-in sheets or on papers left behind by the thief. He [Hajicek] responded that he had been to the historical society many times and denied stealing any books."(23) Brown knew that fingerprints could be the strongest evidence linking me to the alleged crime. He was deceptive, however, in that my fingerprints had not then been found on the checkout sheets, and never were, and the "loose papers" mentioned in early reports had mysteriously disappeared.(24) However, I volunteered that I was a member of the State Historical Society of Missouri. That amazed Brown, who did not know even that much after investigating the case for more than a year. According to the librarian, there is no conflict of interest for rare booksellers to enter rare book libraries;(25) it is consistent with the necessity for them to be historians in their specialties, with the fostered professional relationships between themselves and fine libraries, and with their right as other citizens to enjoy their own cultivation.

The royal-blue vaults were very imposing to the officers. They crowned a temperature-controlled and humidity-controlled room, which was lined with glass showcases and fireproof file cabinets, while rare Mormon art adorned the walls. Even the large-in-stature Independence detective described the safes, in his memory, as being "eight feet tall."(26) I spun the precise dials and cranked the stainless steel handles while they stepped back, and in succession I swung open the two heavy doors. Inside were velvet-lined shelves with hundreds of rare books, each delicately preserved, many in shades of black and brown leather, occasionally interrupted by one in crimson or azure; and others in crafted conservation boxes. Brown felt elation as he handled the books, then shoved them aside to find the Book of Mormon. Every significant Mormon book that was ever printed seemed to be in the safes. There was even a first edition Book of Mormon. Then his heart sank--there was no Book of Mormon stamped "State Historical Society of Missouri," since I did not steal the book.

Brown stared at the other books in the vaults, thoughtfully. If he looked inside any of the other books, which bore no external indications of library markings, it would be a warrantless search. Then, one-by-one, he and the Independence detective opened them up. Brown went through one safe, and the Independence detective went through the other. They started at the top and worked their way to the bottom.(27) One book was inscribed "Lamoni, Iowa," inside. The Independence detective raised his eyebrows, but I pulled out a carbon-copy checkbook proving that the book was purchased just one day earlier, and he clenched his jaw. Eventually, the Independence detective found another Book of Mormon, and pressed open the frail leather cover, eager to find the date. The forced calfskin painfully cracked along its hinge, and the 1837 date turned out to be the wrong year. But it was an expensive book, and the damage was serious, so I pleaded with him to handle the books more gently.(28) For that, and to prevent the retrieval of any more receipts, I was thrown against the file cabinets and handcuffed while my little girl plaintively cried, "Daddy! Daddy!" Yet I continued to be "cooperative"(29) with the officers, whom I viewed then as confused.

At last, among an estimated twenty thousand books, Brown found something interesting. After looking inside each of seventeen identical copies of the Book of the Law of the Lord, in particular, he found inscribed in one, "Eld. John Shippy, Lamoni, Iowa."(30) The RLDS librarians and archivists had predicted that I would buy such a book. But there were problems for Brown, including that the John Shippy inscription did not really match the inscription supposed to be in the Graceland College copy.(31) Nor were there any library stamps visible in the book, as the librarians had promised Brown.(32) Besides, it was a warrantless search, and he could not take the book without my permission.

Brown explained how he nevertheless obtained the book: "I told Hajicek that I would like to take the book to check with Graceland College about it. I told him that I would give him a receipt for it and return the book to him if it was not the stolen book. He agreed to this arrangement."(33) The Independence detective concurred:

Sergeant Brown then asked him if he had any objections to him taking the book back to the University of Missouri with him so he could get in contact with Graceland College and confirm whether or not this was the book that they had missing from their library, and if it was not, he would return the book to him. Mr. Hajicek agreed to that--Sir, this book was not seized. He was given permission to obtain this book."(34)

My other requirement of Brown was that he agree to specific instructions on how to handle and carry the book. The receipt from Brown was less important to me, but he insisted that it was for my protection. Willing to be accommodating and affable, I told him that I could easily buy a replacement for one hundred dollars.(35)

The value of the Book of the Law of the Lord at the time and place that it was in my possession became the subject of testimony by defense expert witnesses and price precedents in the Midwest, because the prosecutors assigned diametric emphasis to my estimating an ethically conservative value. They believed that the book was worth five thousand dollars, but their evidence of value was the word of a specialist in children's books in Columbia, who was expected to testify by hearsay that a book dealer in the East offered one for sale at that price.(36) She was unaware that the dealer failed to sell the book while publishing forty subsequent catalogues.(37) The value was a paradox since price is determined at the equilibrium of supply and demand, and they simultaneously argued that I was the sole person interested in (demanding) such a book, and admitted that I already had an abundant supply.

Naturally, I expected Brown to discover that the Book of the Law of the Lord did not belong to Graceland College, and return it to me in the same condition. Brown, however, had no intention of ever returning the book. Later that afternoon, he related, "I [Brown] called Diane Shelton of the Graceland College Library and described the recovered book to her. She said it was definitely property of their library."(38) How she was so certain that she recognized Brown's description is a conundrum, for earlier that very morning she said there was "no physical description available" to identify the book, and later remarked that she had never before seen the book.(39) The book was "beyond all description."

Back at the house, Brown and the Independence detective had me taken outside in handcuffs through a crowd of neighbors (to prevent the retrieval of my receipt), taunting my inability to memorize where each of twenty thousand books originated. According to Brown, "Hajicek had first stated, he had a receipt for every book in the house. When confronted with this book Hajicek stated, he could not remember where it had come from."(40) The two statements are compatible, not mutually exclusive. The first clause refers to written records and the second refers to memory. But he implied that I had a receipt for every book in my possession except that one.(41)

The police never returned for the proof of purchase, and I have held it since as a testimony against them. They evidently realized their haste in departing without the receipt, and when the chief of police in Lamoni, Iowa determined that "it cannot be proved that Hajicek removed any books from the Graceland Library," they decided not to arrest me for the theft of that book.(42) Instead, while I waited for them to return for the receipt or to restore the book into my possession, the Independence detective went back to Alan Slayton in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, on 9 June 1994. He filed a complaint that I "received stolen property, knowing or believing that it had been stolen."(43) Suddenly the receipt lost its significance. Nevertheless, I looked forward to producing it in court.

Proving that I knew or believed that the Book of the Law of the Lord was stolen was inherently impossible. However, if the police could demonstrate any falsehood in my statements, then that could be used as evidence of consciousness of guilt, or an indicium that I knew that the Book of the Law of the Lord was stolen. For that purpose, Brown used two comparative statements from me. First, Brown recorded that when he asked me if I had ever been to the State Historical Society of Missouri, "He [Hajicek] responded that he had been to the historical society many times."(44) Next, Brown recorded that when he later asked me a sequence of questions about various libraries, "He [Hajicek] told me he had never been in the Missouri Historical Society."(45) Apparently Brown did not realize that those two historical societies (the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Missouri Historical Society) are independent, separate, and competing libraries. The first is in Columbia, and the second is in St. Louis, and they have absolutely no connection with each other. They are as different as the University of Kansas is from Kansas State University, or as the University of Utah is from Utah State University. Brown wasted the next year trying to prove that I had been at the State Historical Society of Missouri, where I freely and readily acknowledged that I was a member.

On the day of my arrest, Brown was frenzied over what he thought was the conspicuous discrepancy in those statements. He was certain that I must be his "culprit," having been told by so many people about my heritage in a minor Mormon church. What he needed, he surmised, was fingerprint evidence. At the Independence Police Department, he fingerprinted me twelve successive times, repeatedly shook his head, and then restarted with the black ink--as though my fingerprints could be recast. He could not obtain prints from me that matched those that he had found in the library, and I was free to leave without ever entering a jail cell.(46)

1. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 5 May 1993.

2. The RLDS Church identifies itself only as Graceland College's "sponsoring denomination." Graceland College 1994-95 Catalog (Lamoni, Ia.: Graceland College, 1994), p. 7.

3. Wallace B. Smith to John Hajicek, 23 January 1995.

4. The communication between the two archivists is inferred from a combination of testimonies from numerous people to whom Ron Romig conveyed his suspicions, conversations of both archivists with me about their close relationship with each other, the threat of Romig that my future was dependent on the good will of multiple libraries (not just his own); and because the investigation turned to me on the exact day of my visit with the LDS archivist during which he and I discussed Romig.

5. Besides James Strang's settlement of Voree, Wisconsin, consider for example the roots of the RLDS Church in Beloit, Yellow Stone, and Zarahemla, Wisconsin; the settlement of Lyman Wight in La Crosse, Wisconsin before he went to Texas; and the settlement of most of Strang's remaining supporters around Jackson County, Wisconsin after the 1856 dispersion from Beaver Island.

6. John Hajicek, Mormons in Wisconsin: A Closer View of the Early Settlements, 1835-1875 (Burlington, Wis.: John Hajicek, 1992).

7. Michael Edmonds, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library, to John Hajicek, 8 September 1992.

8. The State Historical Society of Missouri had already altered the sketch (which originally showed a suspect with long hair), to resemble me, but it was still too vague to have been the source of the LDS Church's suspicions.

9. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 19 November 1993.

10. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narratives.

11. There was no reported work done on the case after 17 December 1993 until 28 April 1994, according to Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative.

12. The information that the police department is unaccredited is in the University of Missouri Police Department, statistic report concerning the amount and intensity of crime at the University, available from the department.

13. Affidavit of Frank Brown before Judge Alan Slayton, Judge of Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, 6 May 1994.

14. The extent to which Ron Hagaman took part and controlled the local portion of the investigation is detailed at length in the Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, pp. 26-35; and in the Deposition of Ritch Meadors, 17 April 1995, pp. 7-10.

15. Yvonne Hagaman said convicting me was so important that she wanted to travel to the out-of-town trial as a witness. She provided the wedding portrait given to her by Dena and me, which had a visual apparition created by the techniques of the photographer to accentuate Dena's white wedding dress with high contrast against a black background, while not showing me in the best light. Yvonne seems to have felt that the portrait depicted someone who looked different than me--of course, she sliced Dena from the expensive photograph to prevent the jury from seeing us together.

16. Diane Shelton, Graceland College, Fax Message to "Sgt. Frank Brown c/o Detective Meadors," at 816-325-7270 (Independence Police Department), 6 May 1994, 8:51 a.m.; and "Items Missing from the Du Rose Rare Book Room," 5 May 1994.

17. The First Presidency, RLDS Handbook Directory: RLDS Professional and Vocational Associations, 1966-1968, Contributors to the Storehouse of Professional and Vocational Skills (Independence, Mo.: The Auditorium, 1966), p. 2-3, 31-33.

18. Alan Slayton, Search Warrant, State of Missouri, County of Jackson, 6 May 1994. Slayton later refused to hear motions on suppression of the warrant.

19. "We did search through file cabinets and ledgers but couldn't located [sic] anything that would be beneficial to the investigation" (Ritch Meadors, Independence Police Department, Narrative, 6 May 1994). I should here mention that the officers browsed through personal journals and tax records, and discovered a hidden source of rightful income along with proof of full compliance with tax laws.

20. Deposition of Ritch Meadors, 17 April 1995, 16: 5-19; and 29:25 - 30:13; see also Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 65:18 - 66:18.

21. Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 55:7 and 56:7.

22. My hair color is sandy, and Brown had learned previously that all of my past driver's licenses indicated my hair color as its closest equivalent classification, "BLD" or blond (see Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation, Division of Motor Vehicles), while the librarian described a patron with "dark brown" hair. For further study, differentiate my high contrast wedding photograph of December 1989 (to accentuate my bride's wedding dress) with the normal photographic contrast in my photograph of July 1990, or with my driver's license.

23. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 6 May 1994.

24. Brown repeatedly said that he received "loose papers" that the suspect left behind (Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 19 May 1993; Frank Brown, Cross Examination, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994; and Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 66:17).

25. She claimed that she became a book expert after twenty years of "talking to people that have come in that are rare book dealers" (Laurel Boeckman, Voir Dire Examination by Defense, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 4 August 1994, 31: 6-11).

26. Ritch Meadors, Independence Police Department, Narrative, 6 May 1994.

27. Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 59:21 - 60:10; and Deposition of Ritch Meadors, 17 April 1995, 21:4 - 22:7.

28. Deposition of Ritch Meadors, 17 April 1995, 22:11 - 25:19.

29. Besides agreeing that I was "cooperative," Frank Brown affirmed that "He [Hajicek] became very upset because he stated that those officers were abusing his books. . . And then the officers responded to his objections by arguing with him and then handcuffing him" (Cross Examination of Frank Brown, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 67: 6-9, 68: 2-8).

30. Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 59:21 - 60:10.

31. The Graceland College copy was supposed to be inscribed "Property of Elder John Shippy, Lamoni, Ia. Presented by grandsons of J. Shippy (Roy Cheville)." Shippy was a Great Lakes Mormon living on Beaver Island when the book was printed in the spring of 1856 (see Northern Islander, 22 May 1856). He would have had multiple copies of the book, for "the number of copies distributed among the Saints varied from 50 to 150, passed out 'for safekeeping . . .'" (Dale L. Morgan, "A Bibliography of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [Strangite]," III: 31, in The Western Humanities Review, Winter 1950-51).

32. Diane Shelton, Graceland College, Fax Message to Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department at 314-882-6636, 5 May 1994, 4:29 p.m.

33. Frank Brown, University of Police Department, Report Narrative, 6 May 1994.

34. Deposition of Ritch Meadors, 17 April 1995.

35. Property Receipt, University of Missouri Police Department, 6 May 1994; and Return/Receipt for Search Warrant at Independence, 12 May 1994.

36. The prosecution's expert was Annette Weaver, Columbia Books, Columbia, Missouri, whose specialty line in the AB Bookman's Yearbook (Clifton, N.J.: Bookman's Weekly, 1994), begins: "Children's Books, Illustrated Books, General."

37. See Wm. Reese Co., Catalogue Eight-Five, and Catalogue One Hundred Twenty-six, New Haven, Connecticut. He had not yet sold the book on the date the trial was to begin.

38. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 6 May 1994, emphasis added.

39. Diane Shelton, Graceland College, Fax Message to "Sgt. Frank Brown c/o Detective Meadors," at 816-325-7270 (Independence Police Department), 6 May 1994, 8:51 a.m., emphasis added; and Deposition of Diane Shelton, 23 December 1994, 74: 13-21.

40. Raymond VanDerLinden, Lamoni Police Department, Acting Chief of Police, Investigative Report, 6 May 1994, emphasis added.

41. The Hajicek defense introduced provenances for $525,000.00 in purchases prior to the charges, including receipts for an estimated twenty thousand books, among which was the Book of the Law of the Lord. See Defendant's Exhibit List, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Jackson County, 29 January 1995. See also work product, "Book of the Law of the Lord, Provenance of Acquisitions by John Hajicek," listing the provenances by name, address, telephone number, date of transaction, and purchase price, for each of seventeen copies of the Book of the Law of the Lord.

42. Raymond VanDerLinden, Lamoni Police Department, Acting Chief of Police, Investigative Report, 6 May 1994.

43. Ritch Meadors, Complaint, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Jackson County, filed 9 June 1994. I should here point out that Meadors was unable to spell my name, determine the correct title of the book, nor accurately cite dates on his charges.

44. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 6 May 1994.

45. Frank Brown, University of Missouri Police Department, Report Narrative, 24 May 1994, emphasis added. Later, Brown repeated again that the question was "about whether he had been in the Missouri Historical Society in April 1993 . . . he said he had never been to the historical society," Deposition of Frank Brown, 3 January 1995, 68: 1-16. Also see references to the Missouri Historical Society in the Direct Examination of Frank Brown, Preliminary Hearing, Missouri v. Hajicek, Circuit Court of Boone County, 15 September 1994, 52:18; and Ritch Meadors, Independence Police Department, Narrative, 6 May 1994.

I should here explain that Brown and Meadors, the two detectives present, contradicted one another about when they read my constitutional rights as required by Miranda, whether they were read before or after questioning. However, the technicality was not a hinge of this case because of my alibi and proof of purchase.

46. The arrest was carried to two hundred and fifty newspapers by the Associated Press. See, for example, "Dealer of Mormon Relics Suspect in Theft of Rare Book," Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune, 13 May 1994; "Historian Charged in Theft," Independence (Missouri) Examiner, 14 May 1994; "Book Dealer Charged," Kansas City Star, 14 May 1994, "Dealer Charged with Stealing Rare Book of Mormon," Salt Lake Tribune, 14 May 1994; and "Dealer Charged in Book of Mormon Theft," Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 14 May 1994.

Book Copyright � 1995 John Hajicek.  All rights reserved.