Arraignment of Hacking puts case in lawyers' hands

Now that Mark Hacking has been charged with murder, prosecutors will begin delivering piles of police reports, witness interviews and crime lab reports to defense attorney D. Gilbert Athay.
   In those piles, Athay will find statements made to police by Hacking's parents, brothers, co-workers and friends, all of whom have provided information leading to criminal charges.
   Athay will also find testimony from Lori Hacking's co-workers, the couple's neighbors and witnesses who believe they saw Lori or Mark, or both, in the hours surrounding her death.
   Among those witnesses will be Amy Bagwell of Farmington, who was walking in Memory Grove Park at 6 a.m. the day Mark Hacking reported his wife missing. Bagwell saw a man fitting his description smoking a cigarette in a car that was similar to Lori's.
   "It might sound weird, but he gave me a creepy feeling," Bagwell told The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday. "He had an angry look on his face and I didn't want to go anywhere near him."
   How fast the case moves may depend on the extent of Athay's own investigation, in which he will search for holes in each witness' testimony that might lead jurors to have a reasonable doubt about Mark's culpability.
   For instance, while Bagwell's recollection seemingly places Mark in the park where Lori's car was found hours earlier than he supposedly awoke on that morning, Bagwell acknowledges she can't be positive about whom she saw.
   It was two days after the search began that Bagwell called police after learning that Lori's car had been located at the park.
    David Finlayson, president of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the so-called "discovery" stage of the case could take considerable time.
   "Gil's going to be gathering information and figuring out what they've got for evidence," Finlayson said. "It'll take months."
    Finlayson, who represents accused Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Wanda Eileen Barzee, said the discovery in that case consists of tens of thousands of documents.
   Athay also will be talking to prosecutors at the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office.
   "I expect there has already been extensive dialogue on this case," said Salt Lake City defense attorney Mark Moffat. "And while they may or may not be negotiating a resolution, certainly there's been an open channel of communication between Athay and the DA's office."
    Moffat believes a plea agreement, if any, would be weeks or months away.
   "As a defense lawyer, you want to be in command of the facts, you want to know what all the facts are before you negotiate with the state about a potential resolution," Moffat said. "You want to assess the strength of the prosecution's case and strength of any defenses, to know if an offer is appropriate."
   The next major step in a felony case is the preliminary hearing, where the prosecution must present enough evidence to convince a judge there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that the defendant committed it. Defense attorneys will want to have thoroughly digested the evidence before proceeding to the preliminary hearing.
   "They will also be following up on their own leads and ideas relevant to defenses or holes in the prosecution case," Moffat said. ''Sometime the defense will want to conduct their own investigation of the case. Also, you may hire your own forensic experts. A good defense lawyer never takes the prosecution's experts at face value.''
   Meanwhile, Athay may ask for a bail-reduction hearing, where a judge would assess Hacking's risk of flight and danger to the community. He currently is being held in lieu of $1 million cash bail.
   "In high-profile cases, a bail reduction is hard to come by. But there's no harm in trying," Moffat noted. "You are better served by having your client out of custody. He's more accessible to you, and it's easier to discuss discovery and strategy.
   "But with a very serious crime, you have to look at practical realities. If there is a reduction, it may not be much. It may not be anything your client can afford."
   Athay may also ask the court to inquire into Hacking's mental competency - his ability to appreciate the charges against him and assist his attorney in his defense. But Moffat said many defense attorneys first obtain a private competency assessment by hiring their own mental-health expert.
    "Your own expert is cloaked in the attorney/client privilege," Moffat said. "If you rush to file [for a competency inquiry], it can lead to disastrous consequences. The client might say things or do things that could hurt your defense.
   "You want to have a legitimate belief [he is not competent]. Otherwise you can march him into a process that yields unfavorable results."
    According to Moffat, "A good attorney will consider any defense."
    In the Hacking case, that could include pushing for quick preliminary hearing and trial settings in an attempt to obtain a verdict before Lori Hacking's body is found.
    Because the woman was purportedly five weeks pregnant, discovery of her body could lead to capital murder charges.
    But Moffat cautioned that the body is just one item of evidence. "It may not be the determinative item of evidence," he said.
   "If the evidence in absence of a body is very weak, a lawyer may consider a quick trial," he said. "But if there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence, it may not serve the client to rush to trial.
   "It's completely dependent on the nature of the evidence the prosecution has."
   Prosecutors have said that if the body is found and if Lori Hacking was pregnant, they could amend the current murder charge to a capital crime - as long as a trial has not occurred.
   The Constitution protects against a defendant being tried twice for the same crime.
    Even if a body is found, medical experts said it would be a daunting task to determine whether she was pregnant.
   "It would be difficult. Not impossible. But difficult," said Howard Adelman, a retired New York City medical examiner and forensic consultant.
   The best way to determine pregnancy, of course, would be an autopsy. But the results would depend on the condition of the body and the degree of decomposition, which may vary widely depending on many circumstances.
   Still, with the victim dead for approximately three weeks and the body exposed to the heat of the summer, the uterus would have significantly decomposed, said Kevin Cooper, director of pathology and laboratory medicine at Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital in Wadsworth, Ohio.
   Although Cooper does not have forensic training, he said a blood or urine test for pregnancy-indicating hormones would also be out of the question, as those break down within a few days.
   Testing the blood found in Lori's car and the couple's apartment probably would not reveal pregnancy evidence because it probably had already dried by the time it was found, rendering it useless for those purposes, Adelman said.
    shunt@sltrib.com
   mlaplante@sltrib.com
    ---
    Tribune reporter Ashley Broughton contributed to this story.

Lori's obituary in today's paper:

Lori Kay Soares Hacking 1976 ~ 2004 Our precious daughter and sister, Lori Kay Soares Hacking, slipped into eternity July 19, 2004. She was the daughter of Thelma Black Soares of Orem, Utah and Eraldo Soares of Fullerton, California. She was born December 31, 1976, in Los Angeles, California. In her early years she attended Pacific Drive Elementary School in Fullerton where she had many friends. After moving to Orem, Utah, in 1988, she continued her schooling at Windsor Elementary, Canyon View Junior High where she was elected 9th grade class president, and Orem High School where she graduated in 1995. She spent one year on scholarship at Weber State University and then transferred to the University of Utah. While there she was selected by the Hinckley Institute of Politics as the George S. Eccles Intern in Business Policy for the semester of work she did at Mendez England and Associates, a public administration group in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She also received the University of Utah President's Award for outstanding scholastic achievement 1996-1997, and graduated cum laude in December, 1999. In 2000 she was selected for membership in Beta Gamma Sigma, the honor society for collegiate schools of business. During her university years in Salt Lake City, she worked at Hinckley Dodge, then upon graduation, at American Express and later at Wells Fargo. Lori married her high school sweetheart, Mark Hacking, on August 7, 1999, in the Bountiful Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was an active member of the Church, and was dearly loved by her family, her in-laws, and her many friends, roommates and work colleagues. A memorial service will be held Saturday, August 14 at the Windsor Stake Center, 60 East 1600 North in Orem at 11 a.m. Friends may come at 9:30 a.m. to visit a display of her life in the Relief Society room. In lieu of flowers you may contribute to the Lori Hacking Memorial Fund at any Wells Fargo Bank. We hope to establish a scholarship or other type of memorial to honor her name. Her beautiful face and smile that always lit up any room she entered now light up celestial realms. Goodbye, our angel baby, until we meet again.

Published in the Deseret News on 8/11/2004.

More information.

Letter Suggests Strife in Hacking House

A letter found in the apartment of a missing Salt Lake City woman suggests she was having marital problems with her husband, who is now accused of killing her.

"I hate coming home from work because it hurts to be home in our apartment," said the letter, excerpts of which were included in a police document released Wednesday. "I can't imagine life with you if things don't change. I got someone I don't know I want to spend the rest of my life with unless changes are made."

The document does not explicitly say who wrote the letter, but Mark Hacking's first name was written on the outside of the folded note. The warrant does not say whether the note was typed or handwritten.

In a 42-page affidavit, police revealed dozens of items seized from the couple's apartment, their vehicles and Mark Hacking's workplace locker. Other items taken include a hunting knife, a piece of bloodstained carpet, a personal computer and a stained pillowcase retrieved from a trash bin outside the apartment.

Hacking has been charged with murder, accused of shooting his wife, Lori, after an argument provoked by her discovery that he had been lying about his college education and plans to enroll at a medical school. Prosecutors filed court documents detailing Hacking's confession to the slaying, made to his brothers when they visited him in a psychiatric ward.

An executive with a security-camera company said Wednesday that police were reviewing surveillance images from a hospital where they believe Mark Hacking dumped his wife's body in a trash container.

Justin Harryman, a vice president of FutureTech, said his company helped investigators review images taken by 16 motion-triggered video cameras at and around the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute, where Hacking worked as an orderly.

It took police three hours to methodically review images from just one of the cameras, Harryman said.

"It's hard to say if it's him," said Harryman, who refused to elaborate.

It was not immediately known what the person on tape was seen doing. Police did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The body of Lori Hacking, 27, a stockbroker's assistant, is believed buried under tons of trash at a county landfill.

Her family placed an obituary in both Salt Lake City daily newspapers Wednesday, saying she "slipped into eternity" July 19. A memorial service is scheduled Saturday.

The obituary describes Mark Hacking as Lori's high school sweetheart. The couple were married Aug. 7, 1999.

Hacking, 28, told his brothers he shot Lori in the head as she lay sleeping, then put the body and a .22-caliber firearm in separate trash bins about 2 a.m. July 19, according to court documents.

He disposed of a mattress in another trash bin at a church, according to the documents. Police found the mattress but they lack Lori's body, the murder weapon, bed sheets and the mattress pillow top, which was cut off and may have been used to wrap the body.

Detectives discovered Lori's car keys and wallet in a purse at her apartment, even though her husband said she had driven her car to a city park for an early morning jog.

Her car was found at the park, and police said the driver's seat and mirrors had been adjusted for a large man. Lori Hacking, 5-foot-3 and barely 115 pounds, couldn't have reached the pedals or steering wheel in that seating position, the documents say.

Police also said that after Hacking reported his wife missing, he went to a store across town and bought a new mattress before going to the park to look for her.

"The police from Day One suspected Mark and have conducted their investigation as though he was the prime suspect," said Greg Skordas, a Salt Lake defense lawyer and former chief deputy district attorney.

Authorities believe Lori Hacking was killed after confronting her husband over his deceptions about his college education and plans to become a doctor. The couple were packing for medical school where, she had apparently just discovered, he wasn't enrolled.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.