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William Law, Joseph Smith's second counselor, was deeply concerned over Joseph's monopoly of the management of real estate in and about the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. Even more than that Law was deeply troubled about Joseph's infidelity. With sorrow and suspicion Law watched Joseph's ever enlarging circle of wives. The last straw was when Joseph approached Law's own wife, Jane. Law threatened to expose Joseph before the whole world if he didn't confess his sins before the High Council, and repent. According to Law, Joseph said, "I'll be damned before I do." (No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie, p. 369) Shortly thereafter William Law and Dr. Robert D. Foster started a newspaper called The Nauvoo Expositor. One issue was published and the second one was going to print when Joseph found out that Law was going to expose Joseph's secret practice of polygamy. Joseph panicked and had the press destroyed and the building burned. Now he had committed a criminal act against the U.S. Constitution. (Amendment I of the Bill of Rights states "American citizens have the right to freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.")

Joseph was arrested for this crime and subsequently killed. But he did not die a martyr, as I had been taught. John Taylor, the third president of the Church, was in prison with Joseph and Hyrum at the time, he tells the following in the Gospel Kingdom, p. 360: "Joseph opened the door slightly, and snapped the pistol six successive times... afterwards [I] understood that two or three were wounded by these discharges, two of whom, I am informed, died." The same account is in the History of the Church, vol. 6, p. XLI and pp. 617-618. According to John Taylor, Joseph acted as a Mason at the time of his death. He tells that Joseph went to the window and made a Masonic distress sign after his gun was empty, hoping that Masons, if there were any among this mob, would rescue him according to the Masonic oath to defend one another, right or wrong.