 AP Photo |
Posted on 07/31/2004 10:26:24 AM PDT by MizSterious
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Fri Jul 30, 7:34 PM ET
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By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY - By all accounts, Mark Hacking was fun to be around and loving to his wife. He wanted to be liked and respected and, like his father, to become a doctor.
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But years of deceptions are catching up to Hacking, a 28-year-old former nightshift hospital orderly who has become the focus of police in the disappearance of his wife, who vanished as they were packing to move to a medical school where, it turns out, he wasn't enrolled.
And friends and co-workers are recalling moments when they believe Lori Hacking discovered her husband's propensity for lying. Not only was he never accepted to a North Carolina medical school, he had dropped out of college, even though he kept textbooks spread open around his apartment.
Detective Phil Eslinger said police are trying to build a "rock-solid" case, but they lack one important piece of evidence that had cadaver dogs working a municipal landfill this week.
"We need a body," Assistant District Attorney Bob Stott said Friday.
Mark Hacking often hung out at a neighborhood store — refilling sodas, eating hot-dogs and smoking Camel menthols — when his wife was at work and he was supposedly attending classes or studying for medical exams.
Clerks say he asked them never to reveal his cigarette habit to his wife. He told them he was a therapist.
Like his wife, Mark Hacking is a Mormon who isn't supposed to smoke.
His history of deceptions, petty and grand, took family members by surprise when they started unraveling last week, says his father, Douglas Hacking, a pediatrician.
"We didn't see it coming," he said. "We got completely blindsided by it."
Mark Hacking was taken to a psychiatric ward a day after the search for his wife began, after he was seen running around at night naked in sandals outside a motel where he'd taken a room.
Doctors are trying to "sort out what is going on in his mind," his father said. The family hired a noted Utah defense lawyer, D. Gilbert Athay, who was seen at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute as recently as Thursday. Athay will confirm only that he has spoken several times with Hacking.
Mark Hacking never was on track to become a doctor, nor is he a therapist. State records show he is a licensed health care assistant, a job he resigned July 23 that is being advertised at the University of Utah. The job posting says health care assistants start at $8.42 an hour and must be available for odd work hours.
Records show Lori Hacking, a 27-year-old stockbroker's assistant at Wells Fargo, graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Utah in 1999. She put her plans to pursue an MBA on hold until her husband could graduate from medical school.
Once, in 2000, a friend of Lori's recalls her confiding that Mark Hacking "just lied to me" about having enrolled one semester at college, both Salt Lake City daily newspapers reported Friday.
But it is believed to be a bigger lie that left Lori Hacking stunned and sobbing on Friday, July 16, three days before her husband reported her missing.
Her colleagues say she had been trying to make some arrangements at the North Carolina-Chapel Hill school. They believe an administrator was returning a call that day to say her husband wasn't enrolled there. A private woman, Lori Hacking didn't share her grief with co-workers, but took up their suggestion to leave work early.
Later that night, she showed up with her husband at a going-away party at her boss' mountain cabin, betraying no sign of distress. She was last seen by friends Sunday night, July 18, and failed to show for work the next morning at 7 a.m.
Mark Hacking has told police his wife didn't return from a sunrise jog July 19, but his timeline is falling apart.
Police don't believe Lori Hacking ever went jogging at a city park and doubt his claims he jogged the route before reporting her missing. They say he was crosstown at a store buying a new mattress at 10:23 a.m, before alerting police at 10:49 a.m. Police have recovered the old mattress from a trash bin in their neighborhood.
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Sounds like a very loving and open relationship. /s
No, he's looking mighty guilty, so far. My guess--she would have loved him just as much if she didn't think he was going to med school. What a waste.
I remember that case! Not long ago there was an episode of "American Justice" (A&E) on the case, too.
I heard them report this (about the mattress) this morning on Fox & Friends--and so I went looking for an article that mentioned it. So I've heard/read about it in two different places so far, but on the other hand, I've seen articles stating that the police are saying they don't have any evidence of foul play. So go figure.
Therefore she never detected any smoke odor in my hair nor on my clothing.
I can't say, really, but sometimes I think we wear our tinfoil hats a little to tight. While 'rats are devious, I doubt they go around committing murders so as to knock other stories off the news.
Well, not something like this, no, but remember the day Bill Clinton discovered terrorism? That very same day Monica Lewinsky gave her first testimony to a federal grand jury.
Not that it has anything to do with this case, but this sort of thing happens all the time in Japan (the lying that is, not the murder), where the work ethic is so strong it makes us Americans look like the French. There are many hundreds of thousands of Japanese "salarymen" who get up every day, put on their suits, leave home, and come back late at night after "drinking with the guys," but spend their entire days hiding in libraries or other places they'll never be recognized. They all lost their jobs, but can never bring themselves to admit it to their families because of the shame it brings upon them.
Obviously, Japanese culture is much harsher on this sort of thing than American culture, but I'm not surprised to see occasioanl examples of the same charade popping up here.
I once knew a guy like this. He'd lie even when the truth would do. He'd lie knowing that it would be found out in short order. I don't know what goes through these people's heads, but they're sure a pain to be around. Dangerous too, from the looks of this case.
Are you talking about Clinton or someone else?
Can you add me to the Hacking ping list? This whole thing is weird enough to fascinate me.
"That she went to the going away party with him that evening instead of going home to Mom leaves me wondering tho."
Maybe he threatened her... and then he still killed her... That's my guess...
Sure thing. You might also freepmail Bonaparte, because he posts most of these threads. One or the other of us will ping you, though.
I think pride has a lot to do with Hacking's lies. I gather that most of his family are "over-achievers" so it seems logical he'd want to keep up with them. It might well have played into the murder, too.
T-Storm here. To save for when I get back.
"Mainstream" news media racism and classism. Pretty white females from middle- and upper-class families aren't "supposed" to have these sorts of things happen to them, so they get covered. If it was some black woman from inner-city Detroit, you wouldn't hear a word about it no matter how bizarre the story might turn out to be.
Thanks Miz! Bonaparte, I wouldn't mind being on your ping list either. :)
It looks like Mr. Happy got the Bobbit treatment!
(Can't have LDS members looking TOO silly, can we?)
With the multitude of chemicals she sniffs all day long, it's a wonder she could 'smell' anything!
I guess this would explain a lot of it.
Not true. She detested customers that came in smelling
of perfume/cologne & had to endure it up her nose.
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