 AP Photo |
Posted on 07/31/2004 10:26:24 AM PDT by MizSterious
|
Fri Jul 30, 7:34 PM ET
|
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.
|
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.
___
That's bull chit. There ARE ways to keep one's mouth clean, doncha know! I am offended by your remarks. You must be one hellava anti-smoker!
"Unpleasant experience?" The only "unpleasant experience" I find in FR is your post! Grow up!
Have you studied yourself yet?
Welcome to Free Republic!
I think the media is getting misled and misleading us...I am sure his morning timeline , calls don't track...but as to knife, mattress, amount of blood evidence...I'm waiting until more is known...
The sensational evidence of rage killing headline from Fox has not panned out so far....Patience while they get their ducks in a row..Praying for them to find Lori's body .
Hi B, I'm here ... this is on deseretnews.com this morning,
'However, KSL Radio reported early in the day that there may be more people who saw Lori Hacking the Sunday night before her disappearance. The station said that about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Lori visited a friend who has a new baby. That was two hours after the time a convenience store clerk said Hacking and her husband purchased soda from his store. Until Friday, the clerk was thought to perhaps have been the last person known to have seen Lori.
'Eslinger could not confirm the report but said that if the story can be substantiated, police would like to speak with the new mother.'
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595081028,00.html
please tell me you're kidding.
if I knew how to post pictures (which I do not) I would post a cup of java with the caption
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE
or on the other hand I can ping you to the threads that have been posted for the past 13 days on this topic.
Eh?
I am a great judge of character and I think this guy is innocent and will be looking for the killers on every golf course across the country.
If the police don't know who this new mother is, how do they know Lori visited her?
...it doesn't look good for the husband does it.
looks even worse for the wife!
good question
I suspect IF this info is plausible that Mark Hacking told his parents to float the idea to the police to get it into the public arena so he can go for a 'she was kidnapped' version of events. He needs to remove the idea that he was the last person to see her alive. jmo
as I said on another thread,
she should have said, oh, that's OK honey, I won't embarrass you ... then waited till he was asleep or gone somewhere, gotten outside help so there would be eyewitnesses, confronted him, packed up a few essentials, moved out, and made sure to never be alone with him again.
OIC
RIGHT ON!....you go Girl!!!!!!!
Considering his father is a physician, I am a little surprised that he was able to fool his family into believing that he had been accepted into medical school. His father would know that medical schools are highly preferential to in-state candidates. Unless his father attended UNC-SOM, Hacking had almost no chance of being accepted there.
Actually, considering the medical school application process is a very singular experience, I find it hard to believe he could have fooled anybody who was familiar with the process.
I'm with you on the belief that he felt a need to "measure up" to the accomplishments of other family members.
u betcha
It's official that the police have the mattress. Rita the Washerwoman was all over this latest news in her 9 p.m. FOX program.
It's a fascinating case.
sw
Palladin.....so they have the mattress?....hope you are right....
if the newest timeline is accurate, he had only about 12 hrs to kill her, dispose of her body, and get back to the apt, clean up, and then go buy the mattress....
he had to be seen ......someone had to see him....imo
Parents have issued a statement that there is no longer a need to look for Lori...Mark has told them...Read over local news, saw on CTV site, Utah posters.
Why Would I Lie? The movie -- though he didn't murder his wife.
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.