"Either this guy is guilty as sin of killing his wife, or he's a poor chump who just saw the lie that was his life unravel in front of him. Either way, the breakdown is significant."
That's a good theory. My personal theory is that he knew he was going to be exposed very soon. His father was supposed to drive with him to North Carolina yesterday, and the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down quickly. Maybe his Dad was even paying his med school tuition.
He had to be twisted to keep up the elaborate lie for this long. I think, in his mind, the only way to avoid going to medical school that someone would believe was to have his wife disappear. That way, no one would expect him to go this year, and he could pretend for the rest of his life that he was just too crushed to continue with his "goal."
That way, when he was still an orderly at age 40, his family would say, "Poor Mark. He was such an achiever. On his way to medical school when someone kidnapped his wife. He's never been the same." Instead of, "Mark is a lying loser."
BTW. This is so heartbreaking for the family. Mark's dad is a fine pediatrician with 7 otherwise sterling kids. Both Mark and Lori went to the same high school my kids did.
It certainly would explain the breakdown. Is that enough to make a guy snap, and lash out at even a wife he loves? Sure. But he could also have broken down because wife he loved got killed by someone concurrently with his life's deception being exposed. Alternate theory of the crime, committed by someone else. I wouldn't want to prosecute this guy without some kind of forensic evidence available to me.
If I were defense counsel, my first question would be if he were competent enough to stand trial. There's enough here that makes me wonder.
That would be the easy part. Just go to med school for a few weeks, act stressed out and quit from the enormous pressure. And it's far enough away from home... that would have made more sense.
I came up with a very similar theory, and I think that if he did it, then he must have been planning quite far in advance. When he told everyone that he had been accepted into med school (around April of this year -- whenever letters of acceptance are sent?) he must have already devised distraction/reason/event that would give him a future excuse for not enrolling in his "classes." But if he planned it that far in advance (~4 months?) wouldn't he have created a better alibi?
And another thing, can't you imagine his wife's outrage upon finding out from the med school about the deception. Think about it: she had quit her job for this move, and no doubt became pregnant thinking that her and her baby's future would be financially secure because her husband would be a doctor. I wonder if he created some kind of fake acceptance letter to show her. It's all so sad.