Hinckley was a target of threats

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The envelope was postmarked Jan. 8, 1990, and addressed to "First Presidency You Devils."

The handwritten letter inside discussed someone by name: Gordon B. Hinckley.

"You will never become president because I will kill you first," the letter read. Those last three words were written in large letters in the center of the page.

The death threat is recounted as part of a 432-page FBI file discussing the late LDS president. The Salt Lake Tribune requested the file under the Freedom of Information Act after Hinckley's death almost two years ago. The FBI released it this month.

The documents also detail how, in 1997, a Seattle man sent threatening letters to Hinckley and the University of Utah. The man wanted the U. to forgive his $24,000 in student loans and demanded help from Hinckley.

LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter acknowledged "occasional threats" against church leaders through the years.

"When they occur, they are referred to law enforcement officials for proper follow-up," Trotter said Thursday in a statement. He declined to comment further.

No arrest was made in the 1990 death threat. At the time, Hinckley was first counselor to LDS President Ezra Taft Benson.

The envelope, with its inflammatory recipient line, was postmarked in Salt Lake City but did not have a return address, according to a photocopy included in the FBI file. It was mailed to the church's South Temple offices.

The letter opens with, "You damn old Devils." Then the sender wrote "Hinkley" and a second name. The FBI redacted the second name, citing privacy concerns, but FBI documents say the second person also was a member of the LDS First Presidency.

That matches the description of Thomas S. Monson, who in 1990 was second counselor to Benson and today is the church's president.

Below the death threat, the sender wrote: "Shouldn't of cheated & etc / I GET YOU."

Church security contacted the FBI. An FBI report on the threat said agents in Salt Lake City, "felt strongly about this, and they would like to go to trial on this matter."

First, the FBI had to arrest someone. Documents show church security suspected then-30-year-old Joseph Bressman, who harassed people at Brigham Young University-Hawaii and church offices in that state.

Bressman, in 1988 and 1989, also had preached on Temple Square, claimed to be a prophet and distributed a manifesto there, according to a church security log given to the FBI. The log shows Salt Lake City police were called on multiple occasions to remove Bressman from the square and church facilities.

Three months after the threat, the FBI found Bressman in a jail in San Bruno, Calif., where Bressman was being held on suspicion of a strong-arm robbery.

Bressman told FBI agents he did not send the letters. He repeated that denial last week in a telephone interview with The Tribune .

"I don't even know who that guy [Hinckley] is," Bressman told the newspaper. He also called the agents' interview with him an "unbelievably absurd" waste of taxpayer money.

The FBI file shows agents took handwriting samples from Bressman but an FBI technician was unable to match those samples to the threatening letter. Neither Bressman nor anyone else was charged with the threat. Bressman was convicted of the robbery charge in a California court.

Bressman said he had a drinking and cocaine problem during the time of his preaching and the robbery arrest.

Bressman said he is a Midwest native who came to Utah in the late 1980s because he heard it was called "the kingdom of heaven." He began preaching on Temple Square, Bressman said, because he had questions after reading The Book of Mormon.

"I was just, 'Are you sure about this?'" Bressman said. "That was my whole attitude with the church."

Bressman still lives in California and installs window panes.

In the 1997 episode, Hinckley received a 21-page letter dated June 30, 1997. The sender, David Jay Hess, wanted Hinckley to lean on the U. to forgive his student loans.

"I am not making a threat. It is a promise," Hess wrote in a letter he did not sign. "We will take our frustration out of the head of Missionaries overseas. Eyes for an eye. That is in the bible.

"Call the police in Utah and tell them to back off. Once and for ever. I mean it. Back off."

Hess also made references to bombs detonating at general conference and during the 2002 Winter Olympics. According to the FBI documents, when he was arrested by federal agents in Seattle for the 1997 letters, Hess said one solution for his problems was to hold a classroom full of U. students hostage and kill each one.

Hess has a lengthy history of mental illness and sending threatening letters. An FBI background report on Hess said the Secret Service investigated him for threatening the president in 1983. He also was investigated by the FBI in Salt Lake City as a Unabomber suspect but was cleared. In 1988, Hess was arrested in Washington on suspicion of threatening a judge, but he was found incompetent to stand trial.

In the Hinckley case, a federal judge in Utah found Hess competent. Hess pleaded guilty to one count of sending a threat by mail and received a 32-month prison sentence.

Hess has a case pending in federal court in Utah again accusing him of sending threats through the mail. In that case, Hess is accused of mailing threats to a magistrate judge.

Hess currently is undergoing a psychological evaluation at a prison hospital in Missouri. His attorney did not return messages seeking comment.

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