Going West: True Crime - Lori Hacking // 80

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

In 2004, a soon-to-be-mom was getting ready to make the move from Utah to North Carolina when she received some life-changing news. 2 days later, she went missing. After detectives began investigating her disappearance, they discovered a slew of incredibly unusual circumstances. This is the murder of Lori Hacking. BONUS EPISODES: https://www.patreon.com/goingwestpodcast LUMI CBD: http://lumicbd.com/ Get 20% off your order by using code 'GOINGWEST20' at checkout! CASE SOURCES: https://www.deseret.com/2004/8/3/19843357/lori-hacking-disappearance-time-line#0 https://people.com/archive/cover-story-bloody-lies-vol-62-no-7/ https://billingsgazette.com/news/national/security-tapes-may-show-disposal-of-lori-hackings-body/article_15b82791-bc0c-5b36-bba9-ccf2fcc79439.html https://www.deseret.com/2004/7/23/19841698/mark-hacking-breakdown https://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/hacking-mark.htm https://www.oxygen.com/a-lie-to-die-for/crime-time/mark-hacking-killed-wife-lori-fake-medical-student https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/saltlaketribune/obituary.aspx?n=lori-kay-soares-hacking&pid=2507191 https://www.donnunn.com/spiel/lori-hacking/ https://people.com/celebrity/police-reveal-lori-hacking-letter-to-mark/ https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/ci_2392564 https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/ci_2392209 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8122608/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/utah-man-sentenced-killing-his-wife-last-year/#.XyhLqC2ZPow Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Pretty cool announcement. Heath and I are working on a second podcast. Yeah, we're working on a new podcast. It's gonna be different though. It's not gonna really pertain to True Crime. We'll tell you more about it later, but it's gonna be really fun. Yeah, I think you guys are gonna like it. We're hoping to release it this October and we're really excited about it, so we'll announce more soon. Also, you guys have been leaving us some really, really great reviews,

but some folks forgot to leave their name in locations, so we weren't able to give you guys a shout out. Remember, if you do want to leave us a review, and you want a shout out, make sure to leave your name in your location. Also, those reviews really, really help us out, so please, if you dig going west, go over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a nice review

And we'll give you a shout out at the end of the show. Yes Thank you guys so much and if you're all caught up on going west head over to patreon.com slash going west Podcasts last week we released a brand new bonus episode on the murder of cursed and costas that happened in the 1980s It's very Heather's like case if you guys have seen the 80s movie, Heather's. So yeah, if you guys are all caught up, click the link in the description below.

Yeah, also we're gonna be releasing two more for the month of August, so stay tuned for that as well. All right, guys, this is episode 80 of Going West. Holy shit, 80 episodes. So let's get into it. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background In 2004, a soon-to-be mom was getting ready to move to North Carolina with her husband when she discovered some life-shattering news. Within two days, she would be reported missing. But as the detectives began to investigate her disappearance,

they found a real whirlwind of clues leading them to believe that she was killed. This is the murder of Laurie Hacking. Lori was born on December 31, 1976 in Los Angeles, California and was immediately entered into the foster system. Soon after her birth, she was adopted by Felma and Harold Sores, who already had a seven-year-old son named Paul. At this time, Harold, who was born with the name

Araldo and raised in Brazil, worked as a language teacher at a high school in Fullerton, California. So in early 1977, Laurie became Laurie Sores, and the family just adored her. She was a beautiful, curly, brunette baby who was incredibly loving, and she was raised in Fullerton, California, which is a city in Orange County, just outside of Los Angeles. She and her family were Mormon, and members of their local Latter-day Saints or LDS Church, and in fact, her adoptive parents Thelma and Harold actually met when they

were serving as missionaries for an LDS Church in Rio, Brazil. First, Laurie attended Pacific Drive Elementary School in Fullerton, where she collected a ton of friends, but right before she was about to enter junior high, her parents divorced. After the 1987 divorce of Thelma and Harold, Laurie moved with her mother to Oram Utah, which is just about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City. After moving to Utah, Laurie continued her school at Canyon View, Jr. High. At this Jr. High School, the grades went from 7th to 9th grade, and she was actually elected class president in 9th grade at this school.

The next year, she went on to attend Oram High School, and it was during her years here that she met a man named Mark Hacking. During a trip to Lake Powell in Utah with friends, Mark burned his hand in the bonfire and Laurie stayed up with him that evening to help him patch it up. And that was how they started talking and really got to know each other. After the Lake trip, they were completely smitten with each other. And Laurie went on to tell her mom and all of her friends about her huge crush on Mark. And after that evening, they began dating.

In 1995, they graduated high school together, and Lori went on to attend Weber State University in Northern Utah. She was granted a scholarship for her first year, so after freshman year, she transferred to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. And Lori really excelled in college. She was definitely what you would call an overachiever. Because during her college career, she was selected for a very prestigious internship.

She was chosen to be in Beta Gamma Sigma, which is an honor society, and she received the President's Award at her university for outstanding scholastic achievement. And then she graduated Magna Cum Laude, so she was in the top percentiles of her class with a bachelor's degree in management in 1999. That same year, about three months before her college graduation at the age of 22, she married her high school sweetheart Mark Hacking. Since Mark was also a part of the LDS community, they married at the Bountiful Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah.

After graduation, Laurie worked for American Express and then later as a stockbrokers assistant at Wells Fargo in Salt Lake City. Mark had also graduated from the University of Utah, but was interested in going to medical school to become an oncologist, which is the study of cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. He had always been interested in medicine, and he had even worked in the children's psychiatric unit at the Salt Lake City Hospital.

And he worked as a licensed healthcare assistant. But the school that he stated he got accepted to was the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. So he wanted Laurie to pick up and move across the country with him so he could become a doctor. And she agreed because they were in love and by all accounts, they had a wonderful and loving marriage.

And Laurie's family absolutely loved Mark. He was caring, goofy, and helpful, and they were all incredibly close. And he himself actually came from a really nice and successful family of doctors, so it all just kind of seemed perfect. At this point, it was 2004, and Mark was newly 28 while Laurie was 27 years old. While planning their move for the fall that year, Laurie found out that she was 5 weeks pregnant and they were incredibly excited. Mark was great with kids and his old co-workers at the hospital in Salt Lake City that he worked at remember him loving and entertaining the children admitted there.

Since Mark was focusing on school, he wasn't really working. He would kind of work part-time here and there, but Laurie was the one who had the career. And since she was pregnant and moving to North Carolina, she had to quit her job. So in mid-July 2004, she put in her notice at the Wells Fargo, and all of her coworkers were really sad to see her go. By that time, she had been working there for a while and she really built great relationships with everyone, but they were all so excited for her next step in life and for her to raise a child because they knew that she would be such a great mom.

A couple days later, on Friday, July 16,-workers threw her a big going away party. The party wasn't until the evening, and while Lori was at work, she received a phone call from someone, and this call made her incredibly upset. She hung up the phone crying, and her co-workers asked her if she was okay. She said she was fine and was gonna leave early. And they didn't want to pry, but they all really wondered what this call was about, but she didn't mention it. Although, one of her coworkers had seen her on the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill website before she received that call. That night,

she went to her going away party, which was held at one of her colleagues' cabins in the mountains, with Mark, and seemed to be in a great mood. So none of her coworkers even thought about the call that she took earlier that day. Two days later, on Sunday, July 18th, she and Mark attended a housewarming party for one of their close friends, and once again, Laurie seemed to be in good spirits. She never mentioned any upsetting call, and she was reportedly acting very normal and optimistic about their move, which was going to happen about three weeks later in early August. The following morning, which was July 19, 2004, at 1049 AM, Mark Hacking called 911 to report Laurie missing. He informed the police that earlier that morning, his wife went on a

jog and she never came back. And since he knew where she usually jogged, he told police that he had run that route twice before calling police to ensure that she wasn't somewhere on the trail. Laurie also didn't show up to work that day, so that was a huge red flag. Before Mark called the police, he called Laurie's friends around 10am to see if anyone had seen her because he believed her to be missing after not returning from her run. So as early as 10am, he was like, this doesn't feel right. And then he didn't call the police for about 50 minutes. Police immediately began investigating Laurie's disappearance because they were kind of worried that she had been abducted during her morning jog,

because it was just weird that she didn't come home, she didn't go to work, it just didn't make sense. And usually that's the case as well. When we talk about cases like that, where somebody goes on a jog and then they don't return, we just cover the case like that actually. So they were within that thought process, the police were. So they began by searching the hacking's Salt Lake City apartment with Mark's permission

since they didn't have a warrant. And that's when they saw Lori's purse inside her apartment. And this was odd right off the bat because Lori had left for a jog that morning and she had taken her car with her. So the lead investigator, who's a woman named Kelly Kent, started thinking that was a bit strange. I mean, you could say that most people don't run with their purses, but if she's driving to a park and then going on a jog,

she'd probably need her bag. And even weirder, her car keys were inside her purse. Yeah, that's pretty weird. Yeah, so this didn't make any sense because obviously her car was not at the apartment So a witness quickly came forward actually stating that She believed that she had seen a woman who looked like Lori Hacking around 6 a.m. That morning Stretching before her run at memory Grove Park. So this originally made police feel that she had been abducted during her run Originally made police feel that she had been abducted during her run, but later, the witness explained that they only saw her from behind and couldn't confirm at all that it was really her. So now police are thinking, did she even go on a jog?

As they continue to search the apartment, Detective Kelly Kent noticed an abnormally large bouquet of flowers. They didn't have any anniversary or birthday recently, so she starts to wonder why they could possibly be there. To Kelly, this likely meant that Mark had screwed up in some way and tried to fix it with a gift, as if there was some sort of trouble in their marriage. And then she found a letter that Laurie had written to Mark. The letter was typewritten, and it sat on a shelf in their guest bedroom.

It read, I hate coming home from work because it hurts to be home in our apartment. I can't imagine life with you if things don't change. I want to grow old with you, but I can't under these conditions. There was no date on this letter, so police were unsure when it was written. They noticed that the apartment was in massive disarray, but that's because they were in the process of moving. There were boxes of half-packed things, so nothing seemed too strange here. But around the same time, the officers found this letter, they also found a blood-stained hunting knife and a bedside drawer. During their search of the apartment, officers found a pillow with a brownish stain

that looked to have been cleaned. It was found in the dumpster behind the hacking's apartment building. They also took a blood stained carpet sample from the apartment. Between missing Lori, the letter, the bloody hunting knife, and the blood stains, police were confident that Lori had been murdered. And to make matters more odd, one of the investigators smelled bleach in the bathtub, which at this point was as clean as can be. Not that there's anything wrong with cleaning your bathtub with bleach? Great to keep a clean house, but odd timing and suspicious timing.

Yeah, a little bit suspicious in my mind as well. At this point, police asked Mark if they could search his car, since again, they didn't have a proper warrant. He agreed and told them where it was parked. So Mark was being very cooperative here and he wasn't acting suspicious at all according to police. But inside his car, the investigators found a receipt. The receipt stated that 25 minutes before Mark called the police But inside his car, the investigators found a receipt.

The receipt stated that 25 minutes before Mark called the police on the morning of Laurie's disappearance, so at 10.23 a.m., he purchased a new, queen-sized mattress at a store. And this is during the time that he was supposedly worried his wife was missing and was out on her jogging route looking for her. And remember, he called her friends saying, I think Lori's missing do know she is at 10am. So why are you buying a mattress? 20 minutes later. And then calling police after you buy a mattress. So huge, huge red flag. While police were searching the dumpster behind the hacking's apartment building, they found the packaging for the new mattress that he purchased, but they didn't find any old mattress. So they decided to ask Mark

about it. When they questioned him, he explained that he threw the old one away because Laurie had bled on it while she was menstruating. But the weird thing about this is that she was five weeks pregnant, so she wouldn't have been menstruating at all. At this point, police knew Mark was hiding something. Before that quick break, we told you that Mark Hacking got rid of their mattress on the morning of Lori's disappearance. So a couple things here. First of all, let's say she did menstruate on it the last time that she had been on her

period before she found out she was pregnant, which would have been like two months earlier. So why would he buy a mattress that morning? The morning when he's thinking that she's missing. On top of that, there are weeks away from moving, so it doesn't make any logical sense to buy a brand new mattress in Utah and bring it to North Carolina. You know, why not just wait three weeks and buy one when you get to your new home across the country?

I mean, Heath and I just moved from Los Angeles back up to Oregon and we didn't even bring our mattress and we were only a state away. Like we just got a new one. Yeah, that to me, that's actually a really, really good point. Something that I didn't initially think about is the fact that you're really not going to need a new mattress if you're going to be moving. Just all in all, I feel like Mark really has something to hide and it's just going to get worse. There are definitely people who move with their mattresses, you know, if you're taking

a whole moving truck or whatever, but I don't know what their plans were regarding that. But when you're moving across the country, it just seems too expensive to bring all your stuff. Like you may as well just go and buy new things, which again is exactly what Heathen I did, and we only moved to state away. So I don't know what their plans were, but that's just really, really odd to buy one before you move. Yeah, I guess that also makes sense too.

Like if you had a lot of very large items in your house and you wanted to bring those with you, you'd probably rent a moving truck, but we don't know if that was the situation or not. I just find it odd that that particular morning, he goes out and buys a new one. Exactly, and on top of that, the old mattress isn't there. So investigators are thinking, why did he throw all his new mattress stuff away and not just throw the old mattress here? Where is the mattress? Yeah, typically if somebody's gonna get rid of their mattress, they're probably gonna put it in a dumpster that's near by, or sometimes they put it out on the street,

like here where we live, we see that kind of stuff happen all the time because we sort of live in a college town. So college kids usually leave their mattress or their old couches out by the, like, on the sidewalk and you can pick them up, you know. People do that everywhere. I mean, people do and you pick them up. People do that everywhere. I mean, people do that in LA, people do that everywhere.

So why, especially a mattress, like you're not gonna lug it somewhere far away, it's huge. You're gonna dump it in the smallest proximity from your bed as possible. So just super confusing. Yeah, and actually this really confused investigators as well. So Detective Kent Kelly and her team were determined to find the old mattress and see what was

really going on there, and if Mark was telling them the truth, because none of this was making sense to them. But going to a landfill to try and find this particular mattress seemed to be a huge pain for everyone involved. And to do so, they'd have to pretty much halt all of the trash so that they could search since they were just hours away from when Mark would have thrown that trash away. So they had to like, they would have had to have jumped on it and just, you know, because the more trash that continues to come in from all around the city, the harder it's going to be for them to

search. Exactly. So they decide to try other dumpsters first. They check the other dumpsters around the Hacking's apartment building, but no dice. They know Mark doesn't have a full-time job, and he's not currently in school because it was late to lie, so they think of places that he frequents most often. And that's when the idea to check his LDS Church's dumpster comes to mind. And crazy enough, when they get there, they find a mattress in the Church's dumpster.

A plus detective work. Obviously, checking the landfill is a really good idea, but since that's so difficult, they're like, let's just check other dumpsters to see if he may be put it somewhere else because think about it this way. If they were looking in the dumpster outside of his apartment building and they found stuff, that trash obviously hadn't been picked up yet. So they know that they probably wasn't at the landfill and that's why they decided, you know what, we have to check other dumpsters first because it's probably not at the landfill yet anyway.

Yeah, because nothing has been picked up yet, right? Exactly. And I think that their trash was picked up on Mondays, which it was Monday. They just hadn't come yet. But the crazy thing is that it wasn't just a mattress that they found in the LDS Church's dumpster, but it was a mattress with the entire top cut off with what seemed to be a jagged knife. So when she means cut off, you mean like the top layer that you lay on top of? Yes, yes, like that layer was cut out,

like a square was cut out. Yeah, like he literally just like cut the top of the cake off, you know, which normal people don't cut off the tops of their mattresses. If top of the cake off, you know, which normal people don't cut off the tops of their mattresses. If you're throwing it away, you just throw it away. Exactly. So it seemed like whoever did this was clearly trying to hide something, and by the way, the top of the mattress was not there, which made it even more odd. So they take this mattress in for processing to help conclude that it is indeed the Hacking's mattress. And they believe that the bloody hunting knife they found in the Hacking's bedside drawer is the same one that was used to cut off the top of the mattress that they found in the church's dumpster. That Monday morning, Lori's entire family,

as well as her friends and her community, were out there looking for her. Although Mark was being looked at as a person of interest, Lori's family was incredibly supportive of him. They didn't think he had done anything wrong, and they were right by his side the entire time. Because again, everyone just thought that he was a great guy. Please found Lori's car at the entrance of the park that she jogged at,

but she was still nowhere to be found. So the search really began at the park, and thousands of volunteers came out to make sure that she wasn't out there injured somewhere. Meanwhile, police search her car and find that the mirrors and seat seem to be adjusted for someone that's much taller than Laurie. Laurie was just 5'4", tall or 1.6 meters and 115 pounds or 52 kg. So she was a petite person. The way the seat was moved back and the rear view mirror was moved up, it was just for a much taller person.

Yeah, like they, I think one of the investigators sat in the car and they're like, there's no way that her feet would have been able to hit these pedals with the way it was adjusted. Right. And me and Daphne always have a, we have this joke whenever I get into her car because she's probably the same height as me, but she likes to be right up close. No, you're taller than me. I'm like 5'10, you're like 6'5". Yeah. But it's funny because if my car is parked behind him or he just wants to take my car, then he'll send me a picture of his legs in my front seat and say, God, was there an elephant here? And then whenever I get into my car after he adjusted it,

I'm like, who was in here, the Do green giant so it's very much a thing like if it was adjusted way too far back like she wouldn't been able to sit in that seat and drive right and from what we know about more packing he was a pretty tall guy. Yeah, at least seemed pretty tall. He would I mean we'll post pictures of them on our social media, Instagram at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West Pod, and then we also have a Facebook Going West True Crime. So you can look at pictures of them. He is very, very much taller than her. Yeah, he's kind of like a big old oof, oof. A big old oof. A big old oof, oof. So while they were in the backseat of the car, the investigators, they also found small traces of blood and they sent those in for testing with the rest of the DNA samples that they took from the car, the mattress, and the hacking's apartment. And when the results came back, it concluded that all the blood samples that they found

came from Lori Hacking, surprise, surprise. So they found out very quickly because of all these samples that she was more than likely dead. So of course then they knew file play was involved and they were looking for someone who killed her. And the weird thing about this though is how easy it seemed to be. Like there was blood in the house, there was blood on the mattress that they found and there was blood in the car. Like this was just a very messy job. Yeah, not very well done for whoever killed Lori.

While police interviewed Lori's co-workers, they were informed about the disturbing call that Lori received the week earlier. And when they dug into this, they discovered that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, aka the college that Mark was supposed to begin attending that fall, had returned Lori's call to inform her that her husband Mark Hacking was not enrolled at their college, nor did he even apply. The reason that Lori reached out to them in the first place was because she was inquiring about financial aid options, and she was also checking in to see if they had any housing options for the students, so they would have somewhere to settle in when

they first got to town. Yet the school was really confused by her call because they didn't have a mark hacking enrolled at all, And you can only imagine the confusion that this gave Lori. Because she didn't have any kind of question about this at all. She was like, he's going to the school. We're moving to North Carolina so he can go to this school. And I'm just going to find out about financial aid options and housing options. And now it's like, what mark hacking doesn't go here? He's not enrolled here.

Yeah. And I can only imagine what she was thinking in that moment. Exactly, and that's why she was so upset, and that that's why she left work early that day. So when investigators discovered this, they quickly determined that the typed up letter that Laurie supposedly wrote was likely written after she discovered that Mark had been lying to her. And on top of that, Mark had never even earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah. And I had a conversation with you before we started doing this episode about how he even

got a job at a hospital without having those qualifications without having a bachelor's degree. I don't know what you need to become a licensed healthcare assistant in Utah. That would be something interesting to look up, especially in 2004. I don't know what the requirements were, but maybe you didn't need a degree. I don't maybe his dad or whoever was the doctor and his family wrote him a good recommendation or something like that, but he did not graduate, which I still can't believe he got away with

for as long as he did, especially since Lori graduated from the same college. So how did he explain why he didn't have a graduation ceremony or anything like that when he lied about graduating? Yeah, that's kind of strange to me, like how did she not notice? Like, because obviously he didn't have a graduation

Ceremony unless he faked it which I wouldn't put it past him because at this point this whole thing is kind of a long Con like he didn't get his bachelor's degree now he's telling his wife He's gonna go to medical school in North Carolina, which he's not so it seems like this guy's been doing stuff like this for a long time Right, but it's so weird because like why are you moving to North Carolina then what's the motive behind moving across the country when both of your families are in Utah, you both grew up in Utah, Laurie had a good job there. If you're not going to school, why are you trying to move to North Carolina? And how are you going to keep this up forever? That's also kind of my question, why are they going to North Carolina?

That doesn't make any sense to me if there really isn't a medical school situation, like what is the point? Do you have a lover that lives in North Carolina? Do you just need to get out of Utah because you're going crazy? I mean, what is it? I have no idea.

And he was really convincing with this whole scheme. In June of 2004, when the idea of moving to North Carolina really came into play, he showed Lori's family his new stethoscope at a family gathering and told them that he was going to get his name etched into it and use it during school. And I think I had read something that something about how he didn't even know how to spell oncologist, which is what he was going to become supposedly. Oh, no. And I don't know why he would be in the position where I think it was Lori's dad or something who who noticed this that he couldn't even spell oncologist.

So that's just bad news right there. That does not look good. And he also told them all about the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and explained his great excitement to start school that fall. And apparently, when he pretended to go to school in Utah, he would leave the house, head to class, or so he said, and then wait until Laurie left for her classes or job, and then he would go back home and play video games. So all this time, when he's like, oh, I'm going to these classes, he even told Laurie's

sister about this abnormal psychology class that he was supposedly taking, which he wasn't because he was not even going to the University of Utah anymore, and told her about this class he was taking. Meanwhile, all he's doing with his days is playing video games at home and lying about getting an education. He probably took that class earlier, like in his first years of going to the University of Utah and then just remembered stuff about that class and was like, yeah, I'm taking this class now. Totally.

You're probably right. That's probably what happened. And a friend of his who would often come over and play video games with him actually confirmed this. So he was just living this huge lie. And it wasn't just his career. He hit a lot of other random things from Lori. For example, drinking alcohol is prohibited in the Mormon religion, but he drank alcohol.

And he kept this a secret. He also smoked cigarettes which I would assume was probably against the rules in when you're a Mormon. Right, and so he's doing all the... it's weird to look at this whole thing. He's like living a double life. He's two different people. But what does that feel like to just go about your days and lie all day long to the person who's supposed to be closest to you, your wife. Yeah, and that to me, people like that scare the shit out of me because you never know what those type of people are capable of if they'll go to any lengths to cover up. I mean, even just minuscule lies, like what else will they do? Well, right, and trust is a huge thing, and this whole relationship,

Lori, is completely in the dark. And I mean, like, how exhausting to keep up with all these lies. And I also really wonder how he planned to keep all of this up. Because if he was going to pretend to go to medical school and then pretend to graduate, and then pretend to get a job at a hospital or a doctor's office, but not actually have this be his reality. How would he cover this up for the rest of their lives?

Like, how are you going to pretend you have an income when you don't? Yeah, at some point, it's just all going to come to a head. And I think if anything, this gives him motive, especially if she found out that he was lying, you know, the jig is up. He was about to become a huge disappointment to his entire family. He'd probably have to get a divorce and he would then have to go get a real job,

which his lazy adult ass would hate. But according to his dad, he lied about his academic career because of all the pressure that was put on him to be as successful as his two older brothers, one who I think was a doctor and the other who was a computer engineer, which is obviously ridiculous, but it does kind of make sense. So Mark was one of seven children, and all of his siblings were making strides in life at this time.

And growing up, all the kids, they like sang in the choir, the boys were Eagle Scouts, and his mom was the PTA president, aka parent teacher association, like they were that family. So he probably felt a lot of pressure to make his family proud of him, but at the same time, he was obviously interested in medicine a little bit if he enjoyed working at the hospital. So why not just stick with that or find something else cool to do for a career? Like making up an entire scheme is doing the opposite of making your family proud. And I wonder how much the Mormon religion had an effect on his life because

it seemed like the dude just wanted to play video games and drink and smoke cigarettes. That's, there's nothing wrong with that, but when you're going through these lengths to cover it up, then there's something wrong with that. Like, if you don't want to be in a part of the Mormon church, then don't, but you don't have to create all these like, zany, wonky schemes to cover it up. Right, maybe he felt like he was too restricted in life, and so he felt like he had to lie to be

able to be the person that he wanted to be. But just like you're saying, if you're not happy in your life, go do something that makes you happy. At the end of the day, making up this whole lie isn't going to make your situation better. It's going to make things a lot worse. Right. And by this point, investigators are feeling very confident that Mark hacking is guilty of something. Due to the multiple blood samples found of Lori's, they pretty much know that she's deceased at this point. And since they now know that Mark is a huge liar, he's looking like a pretty good suspect.

The day after Lori's disappearance, which was Tuesday, July 20, 2004, Lori's family holds a press conference to plead on television for the safe return of their daughter. Because remember, they don't think Mark has anything to do with what happened to Lori. By just the second morning, they had already plastered hundreds of missing posters around Salt Lake City, so they were just hoping to get Lori's face out there as much as possible and hoping that she would return. Later that evening of the second day missing, someone called the police to report a man running around naked outside of a Salt Lake City motel. When Detective Kelly heard this news, the operator told her that the man's description matched that

of Mark hacking. So Detective Kelly Kent heads down there to find a completely nude and hysterical mark running around causing a huge scene, and he's asking the officers to take him to a mental hospital for an evaluation because he needed help. Apparently, the loss of his wife was just too hard on him and it caused a full mental breakdown. But police didn't buy this for a second because they noticed that he was wearing sandals. And to them, this meant that he was in his right mind enough to put on shoes before running

outside naked. So this must not have been a mental breakdown at all, but just deploy to be pitied. It's amazing that they caught that subtle detail, which is something I would have never thought of, but the fact that they did, pretty good police work there. No, they did a really good job in this case, and although they already had their suspicions about him, Detective Kelly Kent, she just, she just looked at every piece of everything. So she saw he had shoes on and she's like, no, this is bullshit. But he did go to a hospital and his family was incredibly supportive of him and by his

side at the hospital, comforting him regarding Laurie's disappearance. But a few days later, on July 24th, investigators clued them in on the fact that Mark had been lying about everything. So now his siblings had questions. During his time in the hospital, Mark hacking confessed something huge to his brothers. He explained to them that the night before Laurie's disappearance, he and Laurie got into a fight about him lying, which she had discovered just a couple of days prior. And after this fight, Laurie went to bed before him. He was so upset about her finding out about his lie that he grabbed his rifle and shot

her while she was sleeping in bed. So this would explain why Mark had to get rid of that mattress because Laurie had died in that bed. So this would explain why Mark had to get rid of that mattress because Lori had died in that bed. So the only way to cover it up was to get rid of the mattress altogether. Also, police had found traces of blood on the couple's headboard, bedroom carpet, and also their bedpost. So this really did line up with the evidence that they found that she had to have died in that bed. Exactly. And Mark's brothers, of course, were completely stunned by this.

And they encouraged him to tell the police, but in the days leading up to this confession, police had already found some more incredibly incriminating evidence that Mark was involved in what happened to Laurie. As we mentioned, Mark didn't have a full-time job, but he did work part-time at the University of Utah Neurocyciatric Institute, like we mentioned. Since they had already checked his church's dumpster, they decided to do the same for the dumpster outside of the hospital. But because the trash had already been picked up before they began investigating the area

of the hospital, they got the wise idea to check out all 16 of the security cameras that surrounded the outside of the building and around the building to see if they could see anyone dumping anything around the time Lori disappeared. And lo and behold, after spending hours reviewing the tapes, they saw the shadow of a person throwing a body into the dumpster behind the hospital. Since it was dark outside, they couldn't tell who it was, but they thoroughly believed that it was Mark hacking, throwing the body of his wife, Lori hacking, into the trash. What looked like a rifle was then thrown into the dumpster as well.

In another security video from the area Lori's car was left, showed evidence of a man who looked like Mark driving Lori's car in the direction of the said park on the morning of her disappearance. Wow. So everything is just really lining up here. Yeah, man. I mean, when it rains, it pours.

Exactly. Again, Lori's body wasn't in the dumpster outside of the hospital when police got there, so now they have a whole other issue on their hands. They pretty much know that it's Lori Hacking, who was disposed of in that trash, so now they have to search the local landfill for her body, which wouldn't be an easy job to do. So as they spend much of their time doing that, Mark's brothers go to investigators and explain to them what Mark confessed to them.

Between that second hand confession, the surveillance footage, the mattress with the top cut off, her blood being found on the knife that was in the drawer, her blood in the car, and other evidence in the car, and the lies that Mark was caught telling police arrested Mark hacking for suspicion of the aggravated murder of Lori Hacking at 11am on August 2nd, 2004, so just two weeks after Lori's disappearance. His bail was set at $1 million. Mark was accused of shooting Laurie in the head with his 22 caliber rifle while she slept on the evening of Sunday, July 18th, or the early morning of Monday, July 19th, before dumping her body and the dumpsters

behind his work. Less than two weeks later, a memorial was held in honor of Laurie, and her mother Thelma set up a $12,000 scholarship fund in her name. Within a few weeks of setting it up, news had spread to Oprah Winfrey, who donated $50,000 to the fund, which was to be awarded to a woman at the same university Lori attended, and who was in the same business program she was in. But a woman who needed financial assistance after being disadvantaged by hardship, abuse, or family difficulty.

Around this time, Mark announced that he was going to write a book, quote, about everything, and that all the proceeds would go towards Lori's scholarship fund. Fuck you, Mark. It's so ridiculous. He's acting like he's doing a good deed, like he's trying to make amends, but he didn't even end up releasing the book, by the way.

He supposedly did write in detail what happened, and he let his own family and Lori's family read it so that they could understand what went down, but he didn't ever release it. And by the way, earlier we discussed how supportive Lori's family was of Mark originally, but once they found out that he had actually murdered their daughter and their sister, they were disgusted and horrified, and they couldn't believe it, but they definitely didn't support him anymore.

Yeah, this guy's just such a fake. I mean, everything about him. Like, he is acting like this prominent. I'm gonna be a doctor, and also, Laurie was pregnant. Like, he was gonna be a dad as well, and all he wanted to do was sit around, drink, and play video games, like this guy's a fucking loser.

And it's so scary, like you said earlier, it's so scary how much he lied about and that she was completely in the dark about it. Here she was, she's gonna move across the country for him, she quit her job, she's gonna be a mom, and it all just came crumbling down. By this time, Mark had officially confessed to murdering Lori Hacking. And although they didn't have her body, they still felt that this was enough, along with everything else that they had, to formally charge him with aggravated murder. But of course, they continued to go to the local landfill daily doing everything that they could to find Lori's body.

And they did this for quite some time with the help of cadaver dogs, but they had multiple acres of literal trash to sift through, which you can only imagine how awful and difficult that really is. And it's also the summertime, so they're going through potentially hazardous materials as well as just nasty hot garbage. Finally on October 1st, 2004, so just over two months after Laurie was reported missing, they found her body at the Salt Lake County landfill. One of the police sergeants who was helping search had been using his hands to sift through trash,

and that morning around 8 a.m. as he hands to sift through trash. And that morning around 8 a.m. as he grabbed this huge bunch of trash. He noticed that there was some hair. And from that, the rest is just horrifying. Because again, this was over two months later in the summer. And I mean, nonetheless, it's a body that they've been spending so much time looking for. And here it is. In the body that they've been spending so much time looking for, and here it is. In the bag that he had been looking through, he just found hair, teeth, and a jawbone. So although they didn't find all her remains, they did find some more of them within this area,

and they quickly were able to determine that they were a match to Lori Hacking. They were not able to recover the murder weapon, which is supposedly a 22 caliber rifle, but they felt that the body was enough to win the case against Mark Hacking. Because at this point, they could at least prove that Lori was dead and that she had been murdered. And they had a lot pointed to Mark being guilty anyway. Despite his confession, Mark hacking pleaded not guilty during his arrangement on October 30, 2004, and Laurie's mom and family were absolutely devastated by this, because

at that point they knew he was guilty. They'll must aided in pleading not guilty. Mark continues to hurt us, but his defense wanted to try and prove that he wasn't mentally competent to stand trial due to a head injury. He sustained after falling off a roof he had been working on during a construction job when he was around 19 years old. So this is literally like 10 years earlier than that? Yeah, they're trying to prove that he had a head injury that could have screwed some things loose and that's why he did it because he's not in his right mind.

But that didn't really hold any weight and they didn't end up pushing for this. And the following year in April 2005, Mark Hacking stood before a third district judge for the murder of Laurie Hacking, where he confessed to murdering his pregnant wife by shooting her in the head with a 22 caliber rifle as she slept on the morning of July 19, 2004. So he pleaded guilty, but this was to avoid the death penalty. And it's said that before, during and after his confession, he remained completely void of emotion. With this, they didn't even feel like he needed a trial because he confessed.

And with that, Mark Hacking was found guilty of Laurie's murder. But he was only sentenced to six years to life in prison, which was the maximum sentence under Utah law in 2004, which was actually later changed to 15 years to life thanks to Laurie's dad, pushing for a new law in Utah called Laurie's Law. But the parole board did not intend on letting him out after six years by any means. Yeah, so it was kind of like, this is the sentencing we have to give him, but we do not at all plan to release him after only six years. Exactly, they're like, yeah, that's definitely not happening. You're not going to get prouled.

And remember, at most it could be life, so it still could be life. Mark's final words to the court were actually pretty emotional. He cried and said, I killed her and my unborn child. I put them in the garbage. I can't explain why I did it. I know I wasn't myself that night, but that's no excuse. I am tormented every waking minute for what I have done. I deserve to be in prison, probably for the rest of my life. He then went on to say his wife was his heart and soul, and he loves her still and misses her every day. Mark hacking will be considered for parole in the year 2035, so 30 years after his arrest when he's the age of 59.

Once Lori's family knew that Mark was behind her death, they removed the name hacking from her headstone. So it now just reads, Lori K. Sores Filinea. And Filinea is Portuguese for little daughter. I may have butchered that, but that's what it means. Mark released one final statement to the press after his arrest, and it was read by his father. I know prison is where I need to be. I will spend

my life there doing all I can to write the many wrongs I have done, though I realize complete atonement is impossible in this life. I have a lot of healing and changing to do, but I hope that someday I can become the man Laurie always thought I was. To the many people I have hurt, I am more sorry than you could ever know. Every day, my soul burns in torment when I think of what you all must be going through. I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could take back all the lies I have told and replace them with the truth. I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could take back all the lies I've told and replace them with the truth. I wish I could put Lori back into your arms.

My pain is deserved. Yours is not. From the bottom of my heart, I beg for your forgiveness. There is no such thing as a harmless lie, no matter how small it is. You may think a lie only hurts the liar, but this is far from the truth. If you're traveling a path of lies, please stop now and face the consequences. Whatever those consequences, they will be better than the pain you're causing yourself and others. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you so much everybody and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. This was a really crazy case to dive into because it just was so obvious they found out so much it was just such a whirlwind of information coming at them so fast. Laurie had such an amazing life filled with friends and family, and she had an incredible life ahead of her as well being pregnant and being a mom. And this asshole took all that away from her. I'm so glad that Justice was served in this case. I know, it's just so sad to read about all of her accomplishments and

how amazing of a person she was. Into her adulthood, she really had this style and class about her. She had this just amazing kind heart. And like you said, because this asshole, she doesn't anymore. So really sad and tragic case to dive into for sure. Yeah, but thank you guys for listening and sticking with us on it. Yeah, thank you guys so much. And it's time to get into the shout out.

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