Hacking May Have Learned Of Husband's Lies

Missing: The family hires a criminal defense attorney to represent Mark Hacking, who remains hospitalized

By Ashley Broughton
and Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake Tribune

Three days before she disappeared, Lori Hacking may have uncovered her husband's deceptions.
   She received a phone call at her work, started crying and went home early, said a colleague at Wells Fargo Institutional Brokerage and Sales.
   "I could hear her say things such as, 'But he's already been accepted. He's already applied. This can't be correct,' said Darren Openshaw, a Wells Fargo employee who overheard the phone call about 2:15 p.m. on July 16.
   Openshaw said he believes the caller was from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
   "I don't know for sure it was the school," he said. "I can only assume."
   Lori Hacking and her husband, Mark Hacking, were preparing to move to Chapel Hill, where he said he had been accepted to medical school.
   But last week, shortly after Mark Hacking reported his wife missing, police learned he had never applied at North Carolina and had lied to his family about graduating from the University of Utah.
   His family members, meanwhile, said Monday that they have retained Salt Lake City criminal defense attorney Gilbert Athay to represent him. Family spokesman Scott Dunaway said the move was necessary because of news media reports regarding Mark Hacking.
   Monday marked one week since Lori Hacking, 27, dis- appeared.
   The Salt Lake City woman, who reportedly was five weeks pregnant, failed to return from an early-morning jog in City Creek Canyon, according to her husband.
   Friends have said that Mark Hacking contacted them about his wife's disappearance about 10 a.m., claiming he had twice run his wife's usual jogging route three miles each way, looking for her before he called police.
   But police said last week that before Mark Hacking reported his wife missing, he was purchasing a new queen-sized mattress at a South Salt Lake furniture store.
   Authorities have been unable to confirm Lori Hacking was in the canyon that morning and consider her husband, Mark Hacking, the only "person of interest" in the case.
   Dunaway said relatives were not aware of the phone call Lori Hacking apparently received at work July 16.
   The last time Lori Hacking contacted her mother was by e-mail July 14 or 15, he said, making arrangements for her to take care of the couple's cat while they were preparing for their move to North Carolina.
   Before Lori Hacking received the phone call on Friday, Openshaw said, he had seen her looking at UNC-Chapel Hill's Web site.
   Afterward, "she hung up the phone and sort of sat there crying," he said. "We asked her if she was OK and if she wanted to leave a little early."
   She did. But by the time she arrived at her going-away party held that evening, she seemed fine, Openshaw said. Co-workers were so relieved at her elevated mood that they didn't bother to inquire about the phone call.
   "We didn't think of it," he said. "We assumed everything had been worked out, that there may have been a misunderstanding. Whatever it was that upset her seemed to have been resolved."
   Pictures from the party, held at a supervisor's cabin in the Uinta Mountains, show Lori Hacking in a baggy gray University of Utah sweatshirt, smiling widely with her husband's arm wrapped around her shoulder.
   Another shot depicts her standing next to her supervisor, Randy Church, and a cake that reads: "We'll miss you, Lori."
   But those present didn't intend the party to be the last time they saw Lori Hacking. Her last day at Wells Fargo was to be Aug. 5, according to a company spokesman.
   Those at the party said the guest of honor didn't speak in detail about her future plans, but seemed optimistic about the impending move.
   Openshaw said he asked Mark Hacking at the party whether he was planning on rooting for UNC or rival Duke. "He said he didn't really get into stuff like that."
   A close friend of Lori Hacking, who saw the couple at a housewarming party the night before she disappeared, said she made no mention of an upsetting phone call.
   "Lori was just acting totally normal," said Erin Galbraith, a former college roommate of Lori Hacking. "I would have sensed something weird. I was in their apartment. I was looking at boxes."
   Mark Hacking remained hospitalized Monday, Dunaway said, after suffering what relatives have called a "breakdown" the evening of June 19.
   Police last questioned Mark Hacking on Wednesday. "To go back and re-question him on the same issues when we don't feel he's been truthful the first time - I don't think that would do us any good," said Detective Dwayne Baird, a police spokesman.
   Baird said Mark Hacking has been cooperative with authorities, however.
   Police are still awaiting test results from the state crime lab. "They have a lot of material," he said.
   Athay said he was retained to represent Mark Hacking late Thursday and has met with him several times. He would not describe the meetings or discuss his conversations with his client.
   Asked why Mark Hacking needs an attorney, Athay said, "Everybody needs a lawyer when they're under investigation or suspicion."
   He said he was returning calls to reporters Monday because of curiosity regarding his role in the case, but said he will not be saying much in the future.
   "You know me," he said. "I'm pretty closed-mouthed and tight-lipped."
   Mark Hacking called his wife's office about 10 a.m. on July 19, speaking first to Brandon Hodge, another trading assistant she was training. He didn't ask where his wife was, but instead how she was doing, Hodge told The Associated Press.
   ''By the way, how is Lori?'' Hacking reportedly asked. Hodge said he replied, ''Well, she's not made it into work yet.''
   Church then took the phone and recalls Hacking saying she hadn't returned from a sunrise jog at Memory Grove, a downtown park near the office. Hacking made it seem he was calling from his apartment, Church told the AP.
   ''Oh, my God, her [work] clothes are still here,'' Hacking reportedly said to Church, who had been expecting Lori Hacking at 7 a.m. and says she was never late to work.
   ''I said, 'You need to call police immediately. Just get off the phone,' Church said.
   Police said Mark Hacking's call came in at 10:49 a.m. Monday - about 25 minutes after he used his credit card to buy the mattress at Bradley's Sleep Etc.
   In other developments Monday:
   l Salt Lake City Police officers used dogs to search the city landfill Monday night. Baird said they were finishing up a search of the area that had started last week. High temperatures and the availability of the dogs were the reason for the night search, he said.
   l Police said they are looking into a lead that Mark Hacking may have visited an R.C. Willey Home Furnishings store nearby before going into Bradley's.
   l Authorities have asked anyone who was in Memory Grove Park or City Creek Canyon between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. on July 19 to call 799-3000 or 799-INFO (4636).
   l Police continued to decline comment on reports of blood and a bloody knife found at the Hackings' apartment, saying the information is evidentiary in value.
   l Police rejected a Salt lake Tribune open-records request for initial police reports in the Lori Hacking case, as is routine in most disappearance cases. In a letter to the newspaper, Capt. Mark Peck said releasing the information might interfere with a law-enforcement investigation, disclose investigative techniques or deprive a person of a right to a fair trial.
   l A BFI Waste Services driver who picked up the Hackings' garbage at about 3:30 p.m. on July 19 said he saw nothing unusual and wasn't asked by police to inspect his collections, as is often the case in drug investigations and other crimes.
   l The Salt Lake City office of the FBI said it has not been involved in Lori Hacking's case. The FBI has offered its help through agents and profilers but police have so far has not accepted, said spokesman Bob Wright.
    aebroughton@sltrib.com
   mlaplante@sltrib.com
    ---
    Tribune reporters Stephen Hunt and Michael Westley contributed to this story.

This is the homepage:
http://samvak.tripod.com/

These are specific links to articles regarding "narcissistic injury:

http://samvak.tripod.master.com/texis/master/search/?q=narcissistic+injury&s=SS

From the first link on that particular page:

1. The Exposure of the Narcissist

The exposure of the False Self for what it is - False - is a major narcissistic injury. The narcissist is likely to react with severe self-deprecation and self-flagellation even to the point of suicidal ideation. This - on the inside. On the outside, he is likely to react aggressively. This is his way of channeling life-threatening aggression.

Rather than endure its assault and its frightening outcomes - he redirects the aggression, transforms it and hurls it at others.

What form his aggression assumes is nigh impossible to predict without knowing the narcissist in question intimately. It could be anything from cynical humour, through cruel honesty, verbal abuse, passive aggressive behaviours (frustrating others), and to actual physical violence. I would consider it unwise to leave a child alone with him in such a condition.

2. Could Negative Input be Narcissistic Supply?

Yes, it could. I make clear that NS includes attention, fame, notoriety, adulation, fear, applause, approval - a mixed bag. If the narcissist gets attention - positive or negative - it constitutes NS. If he succeeds to manipulate people or influence them - positively or negatively - it qualifies as NS.

The ability to influence other people, to induce feelings in them, to manipulate them emotionally, to make them do something or refrain from doing it is what counts.

The receipt of NS releases libido (increases the sexual drive) - see my http://narcissism.cjb.net/msla.html

3. Narcissists, Disagreements and Criticism

The narcissist perceives every disagreement - let alone criticism - as nothing short of a THREAT. He reacts defensively. He becomes indignant, aggressive and cold. He detaches emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. He devalues the person who made the disparaging remark. By holding the critic in contempt, by diminishing the stature of the discordant conversant - he minimizes the impact on himself of the disagreement or criticism. Like a trapped animal, the narcissist is forever on the lookout: was this remark meant to demean him? was this sentence a deliberate attack? Gradually, his mind turns into a chaotic battlefield of paranoia and ideas of reference until he loses touch with reality as we know it and retreats to his own world of fantasized grandiosity.

The cerebral narcissist is competitive and intolerant of criticism or disagreement. To him, subjugation and subordination establish his undisputed intellectual superiority or professional authority over others. Lowen has an excellent exposition of this "hidden or tacit competition" in his books. The cerebral narcissist aspires to perfection. Thus, even the slightest and most inconsequential challenge to his authority is inflated by him to cosmic proportion. Hence, the disproprtion of his reactions.

4. Unresolved Conflicts

The narcissist is forever entrapped in the unresolved conflicts of his childhood (including the famous Oedipus Complex). This compels him to seek resolution by re-enacting these conflicts with significant others in his life. But he is likely to return to the Primary Objects in his life (his parents, other caregivers in the absence of parents, peers) to do either of two:

"Re-charge" the conflict "battery", or

When unable to do (a) - enact the old conflict with another person.

The narcissist relates to his human environment through his unresolved conflicts. It is the energy of the tension thus created that sustains him.

He is a person driven by the imminent danger of eruption, by the unsettling prospect of losing his precarious balance. It is a tightrope act. The narcissist must remain alert and on-edge. Only if the conflict is fresh in his mind can he attain such levels of mental arousal.

Periodically interacting with the objects of his conflicts, sustains the inner turmoil, keeps the narcissist on his toes, endows him with the feeling that he is alive.

5. The Narcissist Wants to be Liked?

Would you wish to be liked by your television set? To the narcissist, people are instruments, Sources of Supply. If he has to be liked by them in order to secure this supply - he will strive to ensure their liking. If he has to be feared - he will make sure they fear him. He does not really care either way as long as he is being attended to. Attention - whether in the form of fame or infamy - is what it's all about. His world revolves around his constant mirroring. I am seen therefore I exist, sayeth the narcissist.

But the classic narcissist is also looking to get punished. His actions are aimed to elicit social or other sanctions from his environment. His life is a Kafkaesque ongoing trial and the open-endedness of the trial is itself the punishment. A punishment (a reprimand, an imprisonment, an abandonment) serves to vindicate and validate the internal damning voices of his sadistic, ideal and immature Superego (really, the voices of his parents or other caregivers). They confirm his worthlessness. They relieve him from the burden of the inner conflict he endures when successful: the conflict between the gnawing sense of guilt and shame for having invalidated his parents' judgement - and the need to secure Narcissistic Supply.

Thus, free of his past "chains" - his world in ruins - the narcissist embarks on a new voyage, to conquer a new land, to keep new promises, riding into the horizon of a continent of boundless new Narcissistic Supply, unadulterated by the quotidian and the routine and by his past.

6. Old Sources of Narcissistic Supply (NS)

One should not romanticise the narcissist. His regrets are forever linked to his fears of losing his sources. His loneliness vanishes when he is awash with Narcissistic Supply.

Narcissists have no enemies. They have only Sources of Narcissistic Supply. An enemy means attention means supply. One holds sway over one's enemy. If the narcissist has the power to provoke emotions in you - you are still a Source of Supply, regardless of WHICH emotions these are.

He seeks you out probably because he has absolutely no other NS Sources at this stage. Narcissists frantically try to recycle their old and wasted sources in such a situation. But he would NOT have done even this had he not felt that he could still successfully extract a modicum of NS from you (even to attack someone is to recognize his existence and to attend to him!!!).

So, what should you do?

First, get over the excitement of seeing him again. To be courted is flattering, perhaps sexually arousing. Try to overcome these feelings.

Then, simply ignore him. Don't bother to respond in any way to his offer to get together. If he talks to you - keep quiet, don't answer. If he calls you - listen politely and then say goodbye and hang up. Indifference is what the narcissist cannot stand. It indicates a lack of attention and interest that constitutes the kernel of negative NS.

7. Hurting Others

Narcissists do feel bad about hurting others and about the unsavoury course their lives tend to assume. Their ego-dystony (feeling bad about themselves) was only recently discovered and described. But my suspicion is that a narcissist feels bad only when his Supply Sources are threatened because of his behaviour, or following a narcissistic injury (such as a major life crisis: divorce, bankruptcy, etc.)

The narcissist equate emotions with weakness. He regards the sentimental and the emotional with contempt. He looks down on the sensitive and the vulnerable. He derides and despises the dependent and the loving. He mocks expressions of compassion and passion. He is devoid of empathy. He is so afraid of his True Self that he would rather demean it all than admit to his own faults and "soft spots". He likes to talk about himself in mechanical terms ("machine", "efficient", "punctual", "output", "computer").

He slaughters his human side diligently and with a dedication derived from his drive to survive. To him, to be human and to survive are mutually exclusive. He must choose and his choice is clear. The narcissist never looks back, unless and until forced to by life itself.

8. Narcissists and Intimacy

ALL narcissists fear intimacy. But the cerebral narcissist deploys excellent defences: "scientific detachment" (the narcissist as the eternal observer), intellectualizing and rationalizing his emotions away, intellectual cruelty (see my FAQ regarding inappropriate affect), intellectual "annexation" (regarding the other person as his extension, or territory), objectifying the other and so on. Even emotions which are expressed (pathological envy, neurotic or other rage, etc.) have the not totally unintended effect of alienating.

9. Personality Disorders are Culture-Dependent?

There is a debate in psychology ever since Freud whether mental disorders are culture dependent. Could some "personality disorders" be the norm in a different, non-Western, culture?

Could some behaviours be mandatory in one culture while derided in another? I was born in a culture which regarded the ABSENCE of physical abuse as parental neglect and indifference, for instance. Michele Foucault and Louis Althusser (the Marxist philosophers) said that mental health is used as a tool by the prevailing power structures in an effort to perpetuate their power and to propagate it. Lasch claimed that Western society in general is narcissistic. Peck suggested that modern day narcissists are "possessed" by inner demons. Many theoreticians dispute the very theoretical construct known as "personality". They say that there is no such thing.

10. Fortress Narcissism

It is not the maintenance of a double life that is at stake. It is the maintenance of LIFE itself. The personality of the narcissist is a precariously balanced house of cards, symbiotically attached to its Sources of Narcissistic Supply. Any negative input (indifference, disagreement, criticism) - however minute - shatters it, shakes it to its lacking foundations and casts an ominous pall over the narcissist's very existence. This is enormously energy consuming, so the narcissist has no energy left for others.

When it all comes crushing down (a life crisis which results in a major narcissistic injury) - a tiny and passing window of opportunity opens. The narcissist - no longer defended by his crumbling defences, finally experiences the seething abyss of his negative emotions. Many narcissists then entertain suicidal ideas. Some resort to therapy. But the window closes and the opportunity passes and the narcissist reverts to his old, time proven methods. A precious few benefit from the upheaval in their lives.

Others just keep plodding on in the grey world that is fortress narcissism.

11. Inverted Narcissists

The inverted narcissist is not "milder" than the other forms of narcissism.

Like them, it has degrees and shades. But I would agree that it is much more rare and that the DSM IV variety is the more prevalent.

The inverted narcissist is liable to react with rage whenever threatened (as all of us do)...

...when envious of other people's achievements, ability to feel, wholeness, happiness, rewards and successes.

...when his sense of self-worthlessness is enhanced by a behaviour, a comment, an event.

...when his lack of self-worth and void of self-esteem is THREATENED (so this narcissist might surprisingly react violently or with rage to GOOD things: a kind remark, a mission accomplished, a reward, a compliment, a proposition, a sexual advance).

...when thinking about the past, when emotions and memories are evoked (usually negative ones) by certain music, a given smell, a sight.

...when his pathological envy leads to an all-pervasive sense of injustice and being discriminate against by a spiteful world.

...when he encounters stupidity, avarice, dishonesty, bigotry - it is these qualities in him that the narcissist really fears and rejects so vehemently in others.

...when he believes that he failed (and he always entertains this belief), that he is imperfect and useless and worthless, a good for nothing half-baked creature.

...when he realizes to what extent his inner demons possess him, constrain his life, torment him, deform him and the hopelessness of it all.

Then even the inverted narcissist rebels. He becomes verbally and emotionally abusive. He raises unfairly things told to him in confidence. He uncannily pierces the soft spots of his target, and mercilessly drives home the poisoned dagger of despair and self loathing until it infects his adversary.

The calm after such a storm is even eerier, a thundering silence, indeed.

The narcissist regrets his behaviour but would rarely admit his feelings. He simply nurtures them in him as yet another weapon of self-destruction and self-defeat. It is from this very suppressed self-contempt, from the very repressed and introverted judgement, from this missing atonement, that the narcissistic rage springs forth. Thus the vicious cycle is established.

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