James Mitchell Victor

Sources

1. It Was 16 Years Ago This Summer That I Came Across A Small Book In Northern BC That Changed My Life, The Mormon Curtain, October 15, 2010.
2. Canada Halifax Mission - Elder james mitchell victor, Mission.net, June 17, 2009.

• 1. It Was 16 Years Ago This Summer That I Came Across A Small Book In Northern BC That Changed My Life

  • 15 Oct 2010
  • News article
  • The Mormon Curtain

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  Original Author(s): Cdnxmo
  Topic: MARK HOFFMAN -Link To MC Article- ↑
  Sixteen years ago this summer, I was still a Mormon, and working in Smithers, a small town of 5,000 people in northern British Columbia. One day, I went into the small Smithers library (for the first time) and started looking around.

  After some minutes, I came across a rack of paperback books. As I rotated the rack, looking at the titles, one caught my eye: The Mormon Murders, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White. I removed the book from the rack, turned it over, and started to read the summary on the back cover:

  "On October 15, 1985, two pipe bombs shook the calm of Salt Lake City, Utah, killing two people. The only link - both victims belonged to the Mormon Church. The next day, a third bomb was detonated in the parked car of church-going family man, Mark Hoffman. Incredibly, he survived. It wasn't until authorities questioned the strangely evasive Hoffman that another, more shocking link between the victims emerged...

  It was the appearance of an alleged historic document that challenged the very bedrock of Mormon teaching, questioned the legitimacy of its founder, and threatened to disillusion millions of its faithful - unless the Mormon hierarchy buried the evidence.

  Drawing on exclusive interviews, The Mormon Murders reconstructs a secret conspiracy of God, greed, and murder that would expose one of the most ingenious con men in the annals of crime - and shake the very foundation of a multibillion-dollar empire to its core."

  I had been an 'active' member when news of the 'Salamander Letter' spread through the church, which publicly released its contents in April 1985, two months before I finished my mission.

  Seven years later, I remembered the 'Salamander Letter'. "Wasn't Mark Hoffman somehow involved in that document?", I thought. Intrigued, I signed out The Mormon Murders and began to read as I walked back to the motel.

  The book revealed to me - a naяve Mormon if there ever was one - 'faith-disrupting' facts like Joseph Smith's fascination with folk magic and his use of amulets and 'seer' stones. The Mormon Murders also mentioned how Smith defrauded people in his Kirtland Bank scheme and other aspects of Mormon history that the LDS Church had not disclosed to me during my formative, mission and young adult years.

  The Mormon Murders also provided me with a critical 'piece' of a 'puzzle' that had eluded me for months. The book mentioned one David Sorenson, a successful Mormon businessman from Salt Lake City, who was a mission president in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1985 during the Hoffman scandal.

  According to the book, Sorenson was contacted by a Seventy (his name escapes me at the moment - it's in the book) and asked to buy (for a large sum of money) the much-feared McLellin Papers, which Mark Hoffman told senior church leaders he'd found. The plan, which Hinckley - who was effectively acting as church president at the time because of Ezra T. Benson's mental deterioration - was aware of, involved Sorenson discreetly obtaining the McLellin Papers and 'donating' them to the church.

  Why the secrecy? Because according to Naifeh and White, Hinckley and other senior GAs wanted to be able to say, if asked, that the church had not bought the McLellin Papers, implying that they were not in the church's possession when in fact they would be.

  Why were the McLellin Papers reportedly feared by Hinckley and other GA's? Because in Mormon circles it was rumored that they contained damning facts about Joseph Smith and early church history that if rank-and-file members discovered, would result in an exodus of people from the multi-billion-dollar church, including tithe-payers. Not only official church 'history' had to be protected, but LDS financial interests as well.

  In the summer of 1991, I attended a picnic held by the members of the ward that I attended irregularly. There I met a very socially awkward young man (18 years old) who had a high-pitched voice and strong (bad) body odor. Initially, I negatively judged him in my mind. However, I found out later that he - his name was Frank - also had cerebral palsy and experienced spasm attacks frequently.

  Some weeks after the picnic, I happened to be in the chapel hallway after Sunday meetings when Frank went into a spasm. Two of us helped him down to the floor, removed his glasses, loosened his tie, and made sure that he didn't hit the walls as he thrashed around. I was surprised at the power of his spasms, which eventually subsided. I sat down on the floor next to Frank and began to speak with him. I don't know why, but as I did so I felt strongly that I needed to become his friend. He was nearly 10 years my junior and not the type of person with whom I'd naturally want to strike up a friendship.

  For Canadian Thanksgiving that year, I asked my Mormon mother and stepfather if it would be OK if Frank joined us for dinner since he had no family locally. They agreed. After dinner, Frank was speaking with my older sister in the livingroom while I washed dishes in the kitchen. I heard him tell Lynn about a 'special' relationship with a 25-year old Mormon missionary - Elder James Victor - from Orange County, CA that he had when he was 12.

  Frank said that he spent a lot of time with Elder Victor on splits and slept over in the missionaries' apartment. He also told Lynn that he sat in Victor's lap in church, which set off an 'alarm' inside me.

  I subsequently learned from Frank that his family was very messed-up. His mother, who joined the LDS Church and participated infrequently, was addicted to drugs. Frank's stepfather hated and brutalized him, whipping him with strands of thick wire, crushing him between the washing machine and dryer, and committing others acts of severe abuse.

  Over the course of several visits with Frank between late 1991 and 1993, the truth emerged about his relationship with Elder Victor. I took notes in order to prepare a report for the police in the community where Victor and his companion, and Frank and his family had lived.

  Like Joseph Smith, Elder James Victor preyed on vulnerable people. For example, after Victor found out that Frank came from an abusive home, he promised Frank not only a bike, but that he would return after his mission and take Frank back to California with him, where he would be safe.

  However, as Frank spent more and more time with Elder Victor, the missionary's dark side emerged. One day, on a whim Victor burned Frank on his leg with a heated knife, causing a scar. He also choked Frank, and laughed after doing so. He was a sadistic bully who had been sent on a mission by Mormon men who believed and claimed to have 'keys of divine inspiration' and 'the priesthood power of God.'

  During an evening when Frank slept over in the missionaries' apartment, in the dark, and with Victor's companion supposedly sleeping, Victor laid down beside Frank. and started to caress his hair, whispering to Frank about their 'special' relationship. Then he moved his hand into Frank's PJ bottoms (* See Editor Note below this paragraph) and then put his fat body on top of the boy so that Frank couldn't breathe. At the point of suffocation, Victor finally removed himself. The next day, he, his companion and Frank attended church, where Victor took the Sacrament.

  MC Editor Note: Edited for content with all due respect to CdnXMo, the above paragraph has been edited out for graphic sexual content. Please view the entire thread here: http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/discussions/viewthread/9411/ [FLOODLIT note: we've not been able to retrieve the content of that URL.]

  Victor also told Frank that he had sexually molested his cousin before starting his mission, and another Elder/missionary told Frank that Victor had come on to him.

  Much to his credit, 12-year old Frank told a church member in the local ward - Judy - about what Elder Victor did. She insisted that the mission president be informed, which Frank did with Judy's help and support. The mission president's tone implied incredulity, according to what Frank described to me. "Had Frank spoken to any church member other than Judy about what happened?", asked the mission president. "No", Frank replied. "Good.", the mission president responded. "Make sure that you don't."

  Shortly after Frank informed the mission president about what Elder Victor had done, the missionary was transferred out of the community where Frank lived. However, the mission president allowed Victor to finish his mission. In typical Mormon patriarchal fashion, he never contacted the police about the assault and sexual crimes allegedly committed by one of the missionaries under his priesthood 'command.'

  Learning that James Victor was still in the mission field, Frank told his bishop about what happened and what he'd told the mission president. He was instructed to forgive Victor and forget the entire matter.

  Who was the mission president? Successful Mormon businessman and close 'friend' of LDS General Authorities, David Sorenson.

  [FLOODLIT note: Sorensen died in 2014 as an emeritus LDS general authority: https://www.thechurchnews.com/2014/8/29/23223230/elder-david-e-sorensen-emeritus-general-authority-dies-at-home-in-california/]

  For months after learning about what James Victor had done to Frank, I was unable in my Mormonism-'programmed' mind to figure out why Sorenson had been made a General Authority. Because of him crimes committed by an Elder under him in the mission 'chain of command' had not been investigated by police, and justice had not been served. A handicapped boy had suffered at the hands (literally) of a church officer - a missionary - and nothing had been done, or was being done, by the LDS Church to set things right.

  Why hadn't Sorenson felt the 'prompting' of 'the Holy Ghost', which 'testifies of truth', according to LDS doctrine, upon hearing what Frank told him? Moreover, why hadn't Hinckley and other Mormon 'prophets' felt that something was amiss when Sorenson's name was put forward to become a Seventy?

  I was repeatedly taught by the church during my formative years that the men in Salt Lake City who led the LDS Church had 'the power of discernment', yet Mark Hoffman had duped them into buying his forgeries, and crimes against my friend had gone unanswered because of a man who was moving way up in the priesthood ranks. Why had 'prophets, seers and revelators' of the 'one, true church' allowed a man who failed to 'heed the Spirit' and didn't do his duty upon being informed of an alleged crime become a Seventy? For months, the answers had escaped me - until I read a paperback from the Smithers library.

  The more I read The Mormon Murders, the more the 'scales of darkness' fell from my 'eyes'. I saw for the first time in my 28 years the truth about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: the organization wasn't directed by God; it was led by men who had secret agendas and were quite willing to reward a wealthy member with a prominent church position because he was willing to do them a huge favor in a 'sensitive' matter. Moreover, they used their church power and authority to ensure that the organization's propaganda about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, early church history and other aspects of Mormonism was taught to naяve people like I had been. If truth was not 'faith-promoting' and 'useful', they cared nothing for it. Such was their sense of morality and 'spiritual enlightenment.'

  Epilogue: With Frank's approval, I submitted a report to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about Elder James Victor in October 1993, the same month/year I ended my membership in the cultic LDS Church. The RCMP subsequently conducted an investigation and found enough evidence to lay charges against Victor. Unfortunately, his whereabouts have been unknown for the past 15 years. The RCMP contacted church headquarters, but received virtually no help. The file/case remains open.

• 2. Canada Halifax Mission - Elder james mitchell victor

  • 17 Jun 2009
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  • Mission.net

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  Elder james mitchell victor
  Served: 1984 - 1986
  Areas Served:
  sidney mines
  st john's nfl
  lower sackville,ns
  monton [sic. Moncton] nb
  bathhurst nb

  Your Occupation: retired
  Spouse: widower

  Created: 17 Jun 2009 Modified: 17 Jun 2009
  Last Login: 17 Jun 2009 10:38:15 PM