Mark Hacking appears via video in court as Gil Athay, his lawyer, stands at a podium.
Chris Bergin, Associated Press
Posted on 08/10/2004 11:20:00 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Mark Hacking made an initial court appearance Tuesday, facing a murder charge in the death of his wife, whose body he allegedly placed in a Dumpster at the U. — action that may have been captured on video now in the possession of investigators.
Mark Hacking appears via video in court as Gil Athay, his lawyer, stands at a podium. Chris Bergin, Associated Press |
On Monday, prosecutors charged Mark Hacking with one count of murder, a first-degree felony, and three second-degree felony counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly scattering evidence of his crime.
If convicted, Hacking could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Dressed in a yellow jumpsuit with his arms handcuffed behind him, Hacking appeared in court on television through a video feed from the Salt Lake County Jail Tuesday. He exhibited no emotion as 3rd District Court Judge L.A. Dever read the charges into the court record. Hacking said just three words during the 1 1/2-minute hearing, responding "Yeah, yes, sir," when Dever asked for confirmation of Hacking's identity.
Hacking was not required to enter a plea on Tuesday. He is being held at the Salt Lake County Jail with bail set at $1 million cash.
Defense attorney Gil Athay appeared before the judge in court but made no remarks to news reporters.
"Nothing today," Athay responded when asked if he had any comment as he left the courtroom.
Lori Hacking was first reported missing on July 19. Mark Hacking said his wife had not returned from a predawn run in Memory Grove, but police now say she was never in the park but was killed by her husband either late July 18 or early July 19.
Police are still trying to find Lori Hacking's body, which they believe is in a landfill west of downtown. In the alleged confession Mark Hacking made July 24 to his brothers Lance and Scott Hacking, Mark said he dumped Lori's body, the .22-caliber rifle used to kill her and the couple's mattress in separate Dumpsters — one behind the Hackings' apartment, 127 S. Lincoln St. (945 East), one behind a church meetinghouse about one block north of the residence and one at the University of Utah's Neuropsychiatric Unit (UNI), where Mark Hacking was employed.
 Lori Hacking |
FutureTech Inc. vice president Justin Harryman said he is not at liberty to discuss what images he had seen but confirmed that he had turned over the recordings to police. Harryman said the recordings are time- and date-stamped, and although he would not be specific about the time, he said the images were from the morning of July 19.
Asked if Mark Hacking appears in the recordings, Harryman said police have not confirmed the man's identity.
"It looked like him to me," Harryman said. "I'm not saying it's wrong; I just can't say what's on there. I can't say what I've seen."
Harryman said there are as many as 16 motion-sensitive closed-circuit television cameras in and around UNI that make digital recordings to a computer. On the morning of July 19, UNI staff contacted FutureTech because the unit appeared to be broken or malfunctioning. The unit was taken to FutureTech's Draper office for repair, and police called that Friday — July 23 — asking for images from the recordings, Harryman said. He said the company turned everything over to police.
"They've got the whole recorder," Harryman said.
Police have also talked with garbage truck drivers from Waste Management, which is contracted to place and service Dumpsters at the University of Utah, including those at UNI, company district manager Mark Miskol said.
"But that didn't happen until a week and half ago," Miskol said.
That's well after Lori Hacking was reported missing and after police began their initial search of the Salt Lake County landfill, 6030 W. California Ave. (1400 South), where police believe her body may be located. So far police have searched the landfill nine times but have not yet recovered the body or other key pieces of evidence.
The trash receptacle at UNI would have been one of 40 collected by the same truck before 10 a.m. on July 19, Miskol said. Each Dumpster load is compressed with 2,000 pounds of pressure and a 6-foot-by-8-foot metal arm and then transported to the landfill, Miskol said. Dump trucks pick up trash at the UNI Dumpster on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he said.
Police were also seeking information from Waste Management about an on-site trash compactor the company services at the U., which Miskol said is emptied six days a week.
Anything that might have been in it "is buried west of town in the landfill," he said.
Prosecutors believe Mark Hacking killed his wife after she learned that he had lied about graduating from the University of Utah and being accepted to medical school in North Carolina.
Lori Hacking apparently learned of the lie about Mark's medical school while seeking financial aid.
On July 16, University of North Carolina employee Randee Alston received a phone call from Lori asking about financial aid for her husband, according to court documents. Alston told Hacking that she checked several databases but there was no record of Mark registering or applying to medical school.
On July 19, the day Lori was reported missing, there was a message from Lori on Alston's work voice mail saying that Mark told her that he wasn't showing up on their records because of a "computer malfunction and that he straightened everything out," according to court documents.
Alston told police she had never spoken to Mark Hacking.
Tuesday, the Deseret Morning News contacted Alston, whose married name is Randee Reid. She works in administration for the UNC School of Medicine.
After a reporter identified himself as being with the News, a distraught-sounding Reid said, "Please don't ask me any questions."
After a minute of silence Reid said barely above a whisper, "I can't. I can't."
Monday's news that Mark Hacking allegedly shot his wife with a .22-caliber firearm raises at least one question: Is it possible to fire a .22-caliber rifle in an occupied apartment complex in the middle of the night without anyone hearing it?
Absolutely, said several gun experts who spoke with the Deseret Morning News on Tuesday.
"They're not very loud at all," said Steve Palano, general manager of Totally Awesome Guns. "Put it against a pillow, it wouldn't be very loud at all."
Even without a pillow, Palano said the noise from firing a .22-caliber rifle registers about 101 decibels. A regular conversation between two individuals usually measures 74 decibels.
"At 1 o'clock in the morning, you fire a rifle, not many people are going to hear it," Palano said.
If the rifle is fired only once, Palano said, there's not enough time for people to wake up and register in their minds that they just heard a gunshot.
"Even without a muffle it's not going to make that much noise, even in a modern-day apartment complex," he said.
As for the final resting spot of the bullet, Palano said a .22 caliber is a "very light bullet" that "generally tends to break up."
It's most likely the bullet is still inside Lori and could be recovered as evidence if her body is found.
Palano called .22-caliber rifles very unpredictable, noting that John Hinckley Jr. shot former President Ronald Reagan with .22-caliber pistol. The shooting also injured a police officer and a Secret Service agent, and permanently disabled press secretary James Brady.
Mark Hacking's next court appearance is a scheduling conference set for 8:30 a.m. Aug. 16 before 3rd District Court Judge William Barrett.
I have insomnia, so decided to get an early start. This article is quite interesting with some new info. I remember the guy from the taping place now, they interviewed him a couple of days after Lori disappeared/was murdered.
And why does this article make Randee Alston Reid sound so scared? Puzzling.
what the heck is a U-?
I read that article and didn't even catch that. The U. is the University of Utah, commonly known as the U of U around here or the U. for short.
Thanks.
This guy isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?
You should have heard Glenn Beck talking about him today...
"And why does this article make Randee Alston Reid sound so scared? Puzzling."
I focused more on the "distraught" -- I imagine knowing that she happened to be the one who gave Lori the info that precipitated Lori confronting her husband and being murdered may be weighing heavily on the poor woman.
Good explanation. Thanks.
I wonder if they'll ever find her body. As for Randee Reid, who knows. Maybe she's upset over this. She could have been the person that Lori spoke to on the phone that friday, and LE have told her not to speak to anyone.
What did Glenn Beck have to say?
The police say that the crime scene was 'disorganized'. I think Hacking was the suspect from the get go, lady lawyer says that police were probably onto him when they looked at Lori's car parked where she usually went jogging. The seat was pushed way back and there was blood in the car.
Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense.
It seems to be open season on pregnant wives. There will be no justice done, I fear.
U- means University of Utah - it is the Nuerological? unit where Mark worked.
Sorry if I would have read further down I would have seen that you got your response. :)
Pingggggggggg...that is a really good article. I am having doubts that they will ever find her body. She is probably on the opposite end of the landfill. What a shame. Poor family of hers.
*shrug* It's just an extended abortion...
that was sick
Yes it was. Sad isn't it?
Thanks for the ping--your insomnia has sure turned up an interesting article! As for Reid--the sense I got was that she might be feeling a sense of guilt--illogical, but sometimes we humans go through something like this. She is the one who told Lori he wasn't registered there, so it could be that in her mind, she set off the chain of events resulting in her death. Like I say, illogical, but some of us experience that.
This article, though, might explain the cryptic mention of an "unidentified informant" in one of the articles I posted yesterday--maybe it was the Future Tech person. Or maybe there's still another witness?
As this case ambled on, I kept wondering if a security camera somewhere might turn up some evidence--and sure enough, here's one! Maybe there are more.
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