True Crime Campfire - True Lies: The Murder of Lori Hacking

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Secrets can ruin everything. Not little ones, we’re talking big, looming secrets that might change your life forever if they were ever brought out into the light of day. Some people just can’t help themselves, stacking lie upon lie, hiding the secret truth behind an ever-growing wall of falsehood. And if that wall comes crashing down…well, some people will go to any lengths to keep their secrets safe. Go to quince.com/CAMPFIRE for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets.   Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0, Feb. 8-12 from Ft. Lauderdale to Nassau, Bahamas! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! Follow us, campers! Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/ Facebook: True Crime Campfire Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire Email: [e-mail] MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Secrets can ruin everything. Not little ones.

We're talking big, looming secrets that might change your life forever if they were ever brought out into the light of day. Some people just can't help themselves, stacking lie upon lie, hiding the secret truth behind an ever-growing wall of falsehood. And if that wall comes crashing down, well, some people will go to any lengths to keep their secrets safe. This is true lies, the murder of Lori Hacking. So, campers, for this one, were in Salt Lake City, Utah, July 19, 2004. People swarmed through City Creek Canyon, desperately searching the park for a missing woman. Lori Hacking was 27 years old, a pretty, highly intelligent young woman.

who was just on the cusp of an exciting new chapter in her life. She was five weeks pregnant and just about to move to North Carolina, where her husband Mark was going to start med school. Mark was a tall redhead, although that was hard to tell now with his shaved head. Mark was right in the middle of things, thanking people for helping search for his missing wife, giving interviews to the media. He'd always been comfortable being the center of attention.

Almost everyone in City Creek had nothing but sympathy for Mark. But that didn't include the detectives on the case, because within just a few minutes of starting their investigation into Lori's disappearance, they'd become convinced that she wasn't just missing at all. She was dead, and they believed her husband Mark had killed her. Lori was born on New Year's Eve of 1976 in California and was adopted four months later by Thelma and Eraldo Soares. They had met while doing mission work together in Eraldo's home country of Brazil, and now lived in Fullerton, where Eraldo taught high school Spanish and Portuguese. He and Thelma got divorced when Lori was 11 years old. Thelma and Lori moved to Utah, while Eraldo stayed in California with Lori's older brother Paul, who was in his late teens by then and about to get started on his own life. Lori made friends quickly in her new town. She was outgoing and smart and would soon be elected class president.

On her 16th birthday, her dad gave her a blue Volkswagen beetle, and Lori spent a lot of her free time zipping around the streets of Orham with her girlfriends. Kind of idyllic, all-American teenage years, and the same was true for Mark hacking. Mark came from a big Mormon family with three brothers and three sisters. His dad, Doug, was a well-loved pediatrician, a smart, successful man. Mark was a bright kid, but he didn't light any fires academically the way his dad, siblings, and his dad, future wife did. He was a popular, klutzy goofball, always laughing and telling tales that got more improbable the longer they went on. By 2004, Mark would be a big dude who'd made the same choice as a lot of other guys who start going bald before they're 30, shave the hair and grow a beard and look like

every state trooper you've ever seen on a true crime show. No shade. I actually kind of like that look bald with the beard, you know, especially when there are some tasteful tattoos to go with. You know, it's kind of, I I dig it. I'm on board. But when he was younger, he had a mop of curly red hair over a freckled face that more often than not was grinning ear to ear. He looked like he could have walked off the set of happy days. Mark was a boy scout who spent a ton of time outside. He was determined to become an Eagle Scout, but in a theme that would continue all throughout his life, he liked the idea of being an Eagle Scout much more than, you know, actually doing the work to become one. He never got there. Yeah, there's a reason it's such an esteemed honor. Like, it's, that shit is hard. Yeah, I knew a couple people in high school who got it. And it's incredibly involved.

Like, there's a lot of stuff that goes into that Eagle Scout designation. So, yeah, he wasn't into it. Yeah. What Mark enjoyed most of all was having people like him, having them laugh at his jokes and his stories. And if that meant stretching the truth so tight that it flew apart like a weak rubber band, then that was what he was going to do. He was a liar. An entertaining liar, sure, but a liar nonetheless. I used to know a guy who admitted he did this, by the way.

He was always like, hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, which, I mean, if you're going to do that, then at least be up front about it. And then I'm like, okay, you know, we know we can't trust your tall tales or whatever. Like, as long as you're going to admit it, that's cool. Mark and Lori both grew up in Orham, Utah, and went to Orham High School with Lori one year behind Mark. About 80% of the people in Utah live in a narrow strip beside and between the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, most of it with a suburban feel, and that was what Orham was like, endless, neat subdivisions with the mountains in the background. When Lori was a sophomore, a bunch of kids went camping down by Lake Powell, including a tall, kind of chunky redhead named Mark. Even though they went to the same school, Lori had never paid much attention to Mark until that night by the campfire. When the fire started burning low, Mark reached in with his bare hand to turn over a log, and of course, burned the shit out of himself.

Lori was very much a doer, somebody who would take action rather than sit and watch, so she tried to help the poor dumbass with his injury. Bless her. Was he a dumbass? I mean, yes, yes. Let's clear that up right now. He was absolutely a dumbass. But was he the kind of dumbass who thought he could stick his hand in a fire and not get burned? Or was he the kind of dumbass who thought a little pain was a small price to pay to get attention from a girl?

Mm-hmm. Mark was all about getting attention. So I kind of suspect the latter, just stick your hand in the fire. That's much easier than actually approaching a girl. I think it's kind of a gamble, though, because I think, like, 75% of girls might just get the ick from seeing you do that. Seriously, right? Like, honey, you know, fire's hot, right? Yeah, like, why the fuck would you do that?

Although it's very teenage, like, boy, like masculine. Like, I'm going to turn the log in the fire. Okay. I'm pretty sure the Eagle Scouts, like, if he had made it to Eagle, he would have known that fire was hot. They probably would have taught him in the Eagle Scouts. I think that's lesson number one. I think that's like, you get out of the Boy Scouts to, like, go to be an Eagle Scout. And they're like, listen, we've kept this from you all this time.

But fire is hot. It's like how if you join the Freemasons, they take. tell you all the stuff about the aliens on day one, right? Exactly, exactly. Mark and Lori hit it off, immediately feeling like old friends, and talked until it was almost dawn. They were pretty much a couple from then on. When he was 19 years old, Mark started what was intended as a two-year stretch as a Mormon missionary. This is not something people are automatically accepted into, but no one had any doubts about Mark.

He was smart, confident, and friendly, and apparently devout. After a few weeks of training, Mark was set out into the world. Now, I don't know exactly how Mormons assign locations for these missions. My guess is they pick your country based on your personality. Like, an adventurous soul might get sent to, like, Costa Rica or someplace. Mark got Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. Damn, ouch. Where did you get a sign, Jeff?

Oh, Spain? Rad. Where am I going? Winnipeg. Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, I mean, I'd classify it as less exciting than like Brazil, but at least it was more exciting than Salt Lake City. There are bars and coffee shops there. People in Winnipeg don't think of coffee as a gateway drug. And the summer doesn't last long, but while it's going on, you can probably spot a few girls in tube tops. Sweet. Mission work is also a test of the missionary. It's like an inverse of

the Amish Rumspringa, sending young people out into the big sinful world to not go wild. The church does what it can to mitigate the risk that their young missionaries will get polluted by worldly pursuits, and they do this by using the buddy system. Basically, they pair you up with a partner and you're supposed to stay close to them at all times, like an accountabilla buddy. But it doesn't always work. You know, the temptations of a big city are very real, as Nietzsche probably didn't say. If you gaze too long into Winnipeg, Winnipeg also gazes into you.

And Mark couldn't have gone more wild if he was at Mardi Gras on the last night before the end of the world. He partied, he drank, he smoked. He spent time alone with girls in their apartments. Just watching movies, according to him. Sure, Jam. Do we really think he was going home with girls just to watch The Firm or Free Willy? Insert your own jokes here. I'm making it as easy for you as I can.

Come on now, I need more of a challenge than that. It's beneath me. This is like a choose-your-own-adventure joke. True Crime Camp Fire Edition. Mark and Lori had been dating for four years by this point, by the way. But no one in Winnipeg could remember him ever mentioning her name. He got set home from his mission early. I wonder why.

I mean, his mission buddy probably tattled, right? Yeah, and also, like, what if they are also a wild child, you know? Like, you don't know, do you? They're not going to tell you, Mormon elder. I saw this entire TikTok series of a girl who fell in love with her mission buddy, like another woman. And, and, yeah.

And so, like, it was like an entire saga of her accepting her sexuality in the Mormon church. It's a beautiful story. Oh, bless it. But it's like, she was like, I don't know. didn't realize I was in love with her until they tried to separate us. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah. So, yeah, they sent him packing a little early.

This is a real puzzler as to why. Lori did not go on a mission. And unlike Mark, as soon as he left town, she didn't change much after going up to Weber State University in Ogden because she'd never pretended to be something she wasn't. She was a study hard, play hard kind of girl. But to her, playing hard meant going with her. girlfriends to Olive Garden or Baskin Robbins. And soon it meant jetting all around the country with her best friend Heidi just to see new cities. She made the Dean's List every semester. And shortly after

she and Mark got married, she graduated with honors. Lori moved into Mark's apartment. As a devout couple, there'd been no kind of cohabitating before this. And Lori was happy to discover that her new husband was kind of a neat freak, a place for everything and everything in its place. They actually lived rent-free, the two of them working as managers of the small apartment complex, which was pretty sweet for a young couple. Salt Lake isn't that big of a city, and living there wasn't much different than living in Orham, 40 minutes down the road. This wasn't kids from a small town moving to New York or Chicago. It was more like moving across town. You know, not scary at all, kind of cozy, with friends and family visiting all the time, very much the Disney Channel version of leaving home

for the big city. They were a busy couple. Lori worked while Mark went to school, finishing up his undergrad studies with the goal of going to med school like his father and older brother. They were both runners, competing in multiple 10K races, and often walked a short distance to start their jogs in City Creek Canyon, a long park that wound out of the city. They were active in the church, Lori more than Mark. His family had been Mormon for generations, and that can sometimes give people a kind of attitude toward religion. You know, you do the thing because you've always done the thing. and thinking deeply about it isn't a necessary part of the experience. Mark's activities in the church, as with so much in his life,

were mainly about controlling how people saw him, what they thought about him. For most of the week, Mark and Lori didn't really see a whole lot of each other, except when Lori would sometimes drive over to campus to grab lunch with Mark. Mark would show up with his backpack crammed full of books and they'd go grab a sandwich. Here's the thing, though. Two years after he started studying at the university, University of Utah, and two years before Lori's death, Mark had dropped out of school. He'd later blame this on an addiction to Nintendo.

I swear to God. I think at this point we're talking about stuff like Metroid Prime and Animal Crossing, which is good shit. Don't get me wrong, but dude, you have to go to class. So for this story, just assume that if we're not telling you what Mark's doing, he's playing Nintendo. Ocarina of Time, that was my favorite. somehow I still managed to have a life, though. That was a good game, though.

I miss Ocquering of time. He didn't tell Lori or anyone else that he dropped out. His dad and one brother were both doctors, and another brother was an engineer. What was he going to do, admit to being the family fuck up? Come on, there was zero chance of that. And to Mark, truth, had always had less to do with inconvenient realities and more to do with what he could convince other people of.

So he pretended to go to campus every day, but would actually just stay home while Lori went to work, packing books into his backpack whenever Lori wanted to have lunch on campus. This kind of stuff just floors me. What did you think was going to happen, man? Like, what is the end game with a thing like this? It's also so pathetic. Oh, my God. Like, going through the theater of being in school, like by packing his little backpack,

full of books he's never read is so, so pitiful. Like, I just can't, I can't get over it. It's, ugh, ugh. It's going to rub off on me and I'm going to hate it. Before long, he doubled down even further. He told everybody he was doing so well in his classes that he'd been accepted by the University of North Carolina Medical School. See, Daddy, I'm just as good as everyone else. How, Mark, thought. this was going to work, I don't know. He wasn't really a forward planning kind of guy, just making one blind leap into the void after another. From growing up with a doctor dad, he could fake the medical lingo pretty well. Maybe he could continue to fool Lori in North Carolina while she did all the hard

work, but what about after he supposedly became a doctor? How was he going to fake that? All right. Let's see. YouTube.com. Okay, here we go. How to perform. form an appendectomy. Oh, this looks easy. Like, is that, was that the plan? Mark? On Friday, July 16th, just before they were both about to move across the country, Lori called the University of North Carolina with some questions about financial aid, which I think tells us she already had some doubts about what was going on over there. Mark was the one who was going to be studying there, but she didn't ask him to call, just picked up the phone and did it herself. Yeah. The lady she spoke to,

checked every database she could before telling Lori the unavoidable truth. Mark was not registered at the school. There was no record of him even applying. Now, I can imagine how this fight went, right? She was like, okay, so what are we doing about financial aid? I don't, like, what's going on? Like, what's the plan? Because, like, I got to get a job. You're going to be in medical school. Like, what's going on? And he kept putting it off and putting it off. And she was just finally like, okay, fuck, I'll call. Jesus. Right. Like, that's speculation. We do not know what happened. But I can just feel it in my bones. Yeah, and I agree she must have had some doubts already.

She had a little voice in the back of her head. I would betcha. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When Lori confronted Mark with this information, he briefly tried to lie his way through it like he had with every difficult conversation in his life. No. See, he called up the same lady and she said the whole thing was just a computer malfunction. So everything's fine now, right?

Everything was not fine. Lori was not following from Mark's bullshit this time. The war is. is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old-school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Pickle Bottom, Everyday Mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom, a precocious 11-year-old, with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to solve mysteries. Inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name, this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life

as he unravels baffling enigmas and solves clever cases. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries is perfect for kids and is just as entertaining for grownups who love a good mystery. The whole family can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. After her death, both families would emphasize what a perfect marriage the couple had, but that was not the case. Plenty of people wouldn't share marital discord with their parents if they tried to waterboard it out of them. But Lori did share with her friends.

She'd caught Mark in so many lies. they were just little things mostly, but she'd started to feel like lying was his first instinctual reaction to anything. And she'd come home after a long day of work and Mark would be planted in front of the TV with the Nintendo and he'd stay there for most of the night. They'd been married for five years. And the last year of that, Lori had been telling her friends that things were not great. Now she pressed Mark until he finally admitted his big lie.

There was no medical school offer in North Carolina. He made the whole thing up to keep up with his doctor, dad, and high-achieving brothers. And he hadn't just graduated with honors from the University of Utah either. For the past two years, he'd spent his days at home playing Nintendo. Lori blew up. One of the important things to remember about their relationship is that Lori was a lot smarter than Mark. And that included verbal dexterity. She was witty. When she was mad, as of course she had every right to be now, that wit got a sharp sarcastic edge.

They were due to travel to North Carolina in just a couple of days. She'd given up the job she loved, was ready to give up her friends and travel all the way across the country, and it was all based on bullshit. I cannot even flip and imagine. They fought all weekend. Not only was Lori not going to North Carolina with Mark, she wanted him to pack up his shit, and and get out, go there by himself. On Sunday night, exhausted, she went to bed alone and crying, while Mark sat playing with his freaking Nintendo. She'd left Mark a note. I want to grow old with you, but I can't do it under these conditions.

I can't imagine life with you if things don't change. I hate coming home from work because it hurts to be home in our apartment. I've got someone I don't want to spend the rest of my life with unless changes are made. It's an interesting note because Lori's clearly not ending things with Mark, at least not yet. He could save their marriage, but he'd have to go through some intensely difficult, embarrassing scenes. He'd have to tell the truth, to come clean about the lie he'd been living. There was no way for Lori to know just how deep Mark's narcissism went and to what lengths a person like that will go to avoid humiliation.

She'd been with him since she was 14 years old. He'd never given her any reason to be scared of him. And even now, she thought more highly of him than he deserved. She didn't think he was a coward, but he absolutely was. There are some tellings of this story that Paint Mark is an outraged Mormon patriarch, furious that his woman would stand up and belittle him to his face, but I don't think he's that guy. He's a classic narcissist killer,

someone who'll go to any lengths to protect and control how he's seen in the eyes of others. For the narcissist, ego death is death. It's the same thing. The idea of all his friends and family knowing what he'd done, knowing what a weak, lying loser he was, that thought was more terrifying to Mark than if he'd been out in the woods and a bear started chasing him. He went to the closet in the spare bedroom and grabbed his 22-caliber rifle. It was a simple weapon, just something he had for a little fun shooting targets. He loaded around into the chamber. As Lori slept, the long curls of her hair covering her pillow, Mark pointed the rifle at her head. He fired once, and the small round killed her immediately. The sound of the shot a sharp crack, but not loud enough

to wake up any neighbors. Mark went out to the living room and sat down for a little while, then went back into the bedroom and saw Lori lying still and dead, blood seeping out onto her pillow. He decided he needed a cigarette. Now that Lori was dead, he'd be able to smoke in the apartment. Mark went into the bathroom and washed his hands, then inspected them for any sign of blood. He couldn't see any. He took off his shorts and put on a pair of scrubs and some flip-flops. He often worked night shifts as an orderly at the Neuropsychiatric Institute attached to the university hospital, and that was where he'd started wearing scrubs, but both he and Lori had since started wearing them casually because they were so comfortable. I love scrubs, I agree. He drove Lori's Chrysler a few blocks to a maverick

gas station and convenience store. The clerk there recognized Mark. He often came down to the maverick to buy cigarettes. The last time he'd come in, he'd been with an attractive young woman and had quietly asked the clerk not to tell his wife about all the cigarettes. It was a conversation the clerk had had plenty of times in Salt Lake City. Now, as he waited for the clerk to get his siggies, the security cameras caught Mark scratching and looking at his palms, as if he's still expected to find blood there. Back at the apartment complex, he backed the Chrysler in so that its rear face the patio doors of his and Lori's apartment. Inside, he discovered that Lori's head had stopped bleeding, but her blood had soaked through their pillow-top mattress topper.

The topper was built into the mattress. Mark got a big hunting knife and cut through the fabric all around it so it could be lifted clear by itself. Mark had not started this with a plan, but one was coming together now. Lori always slept in her white Mormon undergarments, and that wouldn't do. If her body was found, investigators would correctly assume she had been killed in her sleep. So Mark stripped his dead wife naked, then redressed her in her jogging clothes. He got a couple of big garbage bags and shoved Lori's body into them, one over her head and one over her feet. Then he wrapped her in the mattress topper and carried her out to the car, where he struggled to get both her and the mattress topper into the back seat.

He went back and got the rifle and put it in there too. The bloodstained mattress itself would also have to go. And if you've ever tried to move a queen mattress, you'll know what that was like, especially since their apartment was full of boxes and crates ready for them move to North Carolina. Anyway, he stumbled out into the parking lot and hoisted the mattress up on top of the seabring, just balancing it on there. God, this is so Chris Watson, isn't it? Like, that surveillance footage of him putting Shanan's body in the truck,

Like, it's just, it reminds me so much of that. And thank God they didn't have kids yet, you know. It's very Scott Peterson, too. Actually, even more Scott Peterson. And this happened just like year or two after Lacey's murder took over the news. And I find that kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, she was pregnant just like, um, yeah, just like Lacey was. So, and I mean, Shenan was pregnant too, but.

Oh, yeah. They all, oh, my God. They all were. Yeah, it's horrible. It's horrible. Jeez, Louise. driving around with an unsecured mattress, unsecured bloody mattress on top of your car is a good way to get pulled over. So Mark knew he couldn't go far.

There was an LDS church just down the block. He drove over to its parking lot and hoisted the mattress into the dumpster there. There was still lorry to dispose of and the clock was ticking. Both she and Mark were well known in the area around the university. And if he was still driving around at dawn, there was a decent chance he'd be seen by someone who recognized. him. One of his sisters lived in the same apartment complex as him and Lori. So partly out of rising

panic and partly because he was just a dipshit, Mark drove to the neuropsychiatric Institute where he worked and where he knew there was a big dumpster in a partially walled off area behind the hospital. Mark was popular there and he figured that if anyone saw him chucking a mattress top or into the dumpster, he could just say the trash at his own apartment

complex was overflowing. Like we said, like dipshit. That's the kind of information that would have witnesses, right? Like, just ask a neighbor, hey, was your trash overflowing on this day? No. Oh, Lord. In any investigation into Lori's disappearance, the only part of that theoretical interaction that would matter would be that someone saw Mark tossing some human body-sized trash into the dumpster. It's such a moron. It's just, it's baffling. But no one saw Mark dump his wife's body into the dumpster, still wrapped in the mattress topper and garbage bags. At least no one

saw him directly. Despite working there and being there hundreds of times, Mark had somehow never noticed the 16 security cameras fixed to the outside of the hospital. It's a neuropsychiatric hospital. That's one of the

places that I would think they would have fucking surveillance. Everywhere. As usual in cases from this era, the footage wouldn't end up being clear enough to positively identify Mark or the Chrysler, but it would be another brick in a solid tower. of evidence. Mark went home and tried to clean things up. As with everything in his life, except

maybe for beating Castlevania Dracula X on the S&ES, he half-assed it. The big hunting knife he'd used to cut off the mattress topper had blood on it, so he wiped it down with a paper towel and looked it over, satisfied that it was clean. It wasn't clean. There were traces of Lori's blood on it and one of her hairs, which had stuck to the blood when it had still been wet. Mark satisfied that he'd done a good job put the knife in a drawer in the bedside table. I guess

he must have really liked that knife, because dude, why wouldn't you just toss it? He looked around the bedroom and didn't see any more evidence of Lori's murder. There was plenty of it there, but Mark wasn't a hard work kind of guy. If he didn't see something that needed

cleaning up at first glance, he wasn't about to go to the trouble of looking any deeper. It was the same with the car. He'd put Lori's body in garbage bags to prevent any of her blood from leaking out, so that was taken care of. The fact that he'd then wrapped her in a blood-soaked mattress-topper apparently didn't occur to him. There was plenty of blood evidence in the back of the Chrysler, but it wasn't immediately obvious to Mark's eyes, so he just didn't worry about it. His vague plan for getting away with murder was starting to crystallize. In college, Lori had taken up running and had kept it up after marrying Mark.

Their apartment was barely a mile from City Creek Canyon, long, narrow park that stretched out from the state capital into the scrublands beyond the city limits. The long trails through the park were popular with runners, and it was considered a pretty safe place. Runners worried more about encountering moose and cougars than any human predators and worried more about the moose than the cougars. A cougar has to be pretty desperate to go after a person, while a moose will try to fuck you up over nothing but vibes, just because you had the audacity to be in the same world. woods as them on a Tuesday morning, how dare. Moose are scary, man. I'd pick the cougar over the moose. Did you know they can hold their breath and they walk underwater? No, what? Because they don't swim. They just walk on the floor of the body of what. It's very scary. If you've seen videos, it's very scary. Can you imagine you're underwater and you just see the shape of a giant megafauna?

That's so creepy. That's going to haunt me, man. It haunts me. Sorry, that got me. I got to take a second. Lori ran in City Creek Canyon almost every day, often real early in the morning. Mark drove her Chrysler there and parked at close to Memory Grove, a veterans memorial in the park. And then he just walked home. It was 5.30 a.m. and Mark's story was going to be that Lori had left the apartment to go for an early run and had never come back. But she's wrapped in a mattress topper, like, a mattress topper that they will

absolutely be able to link to you because you probably bought it with your debit card. Like, what do you mean? Are people supposed to think this idiot got into med school? Like, what do you mean? He is not smart. Bless his heart. We said he was smart earlier. I'm starting to just know, I'm going to take that back. He was not smart. Not smart. It was about six when Mark got back to the apartment. He'd spent the walk trying to decide how long he should wait before calling someone and who he should call. The police, his family. He went inside to have another quick look around the apartment and see if he'd missed anything. He'd missed a lot of things. So many things. But as soon as he went in the bedroom, one concern overrode everything else. There was not a mattress on the bed, just the bare box

spring. That would be a little difficult to explain. So across town was a nice furniture store named Bradley's Sleep, etc. owned by Chad and Lisa Downs, and right after they opened at 9 a.m., Mark walked in and said, I'd like to see a mattress. He was immediately memorable. One of our main sources for this case

is Stephen Long's book Every Woman's Nightmare, and Chad told the author, he didn't look like your typical Mormon boy who comes in here. They don't come in with goatees and shaved heads. Mark picked the first mattress Chad showed him. He didn't even lie down on it to try it out. He just bought them.

the mattress and Chad helped him tie it onto the roof of his car. Mark drove home, leaving behind a very memorable and meticulously recorded transaction. At 1030, he called Lori's mom and told her that Lori was missing, just like Scott Peterson. The first call, I believe, was to Lacey's mother. Then he drove over to Memory Grove and did a pantomime performance of looking for his wife, asking people in the park if they'd seen her. He called friends, family, and co-workers to let them know what was going on. At 1049, he called 911 and reported Lori is missing. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally, the ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more

at landrover.ca. Amazon Presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's Verde, Roja, Or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. There was an immediate influx of volunteers searching for Lori in the Park,

and by 5 p.m. Mark was being interviewed by the press. It really blows me out of the water to see how many people care and are willing to give so much of themselves, he said. I'm sure it did blow him out of the water. The search for Lori was immediately huge and out of his control. He probably should have known better. Just two years earlier in a story I'm sure most of you know, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart had been abducted at knife point from her parents' house, held captive and abused for nine months before being rescued. Elizabeth's home had been within walking distance of Lori and Mark's apartment, and a lot of people who came out to search for Lori had also searched for Elizabeth. In fact, two of Elizabeth's uncles quickly helped organize the search. Elizabeth smarts a bodybuilder now.

Did y'all know that? Good for her. I loved seeing it. I got to say, I mean, I'm not into bodybuilding personally, but damn right, sis, you go for it. Yeah, exactly. And this is another thing that reminds me of the Scott Peterson case, by the way. I don't think Scott ever dreamed that Lacey's disappearance would draw the kind of attention that it did. And I really think that's part of why he made so many boneheaded mistakes while she was missing.

Like making that Eiffel Tower call to his mistress because he just didn't think she would ever find out. He didn't realize it was going to be splashed all over the national media. Yeah. Like, we can see you. That's the thing that narcissists always forget is like people can see what you're doing. They are witnessing what's happening. And you can't just tell random. like, oh, I was actually not doing that.

I was not playing Nintendo. I was going to college. Yeah, absolutely. For now, the investigators showed nothing but sympathy and concern for Mark, but in truth, they had almost immediately became convinced that Mark hacking had murdered his wife. Lori's car was where Mark had left it on Canyon Road. Laura was 5'4 and Mark was six feet tall.

The driver's seat was pushed back far enough that Lori's feet wouldn't have reached the pedals and the mirrors were out of alignment too. My parents are like that. My dad's 6-5 and my mom's 5-6 and she always gets mad at him when the car, when the car that they share. By the way, it's not just her car. It's their car. It's the C's too far back.

She gets mad. Do you see the toilet seat up too? No. It seems like that would be in the same ballpark. No, but it's just so funny because I'm like, it's not just, like, it's his car too. He just doesn't use it that much because he works from home, but it's just. just so funny. She's like, it's so far back. I was like, yeah. Yeah, he's pretty tall.

Everything was set up for someone who was, you know, six feet tall. In Mark's Dodge Durango, they found the receipt for the new mattress he bought earlier that morning. He's so dumb. I just, I can't. Because, again, it's obviously a brand new mattress. It's probably still off-gassing from being stored. They impounded both vehicles, and by the time Mark got back to the apartment, it would be sealed by crime scene tape. Inside, investigators noticed what were very obviously new sheets on the bed, still creased from the packaging.

They found Mark's bloody knife in the bedside table drawer. They found Lori's purse with her car keys in it. She'd apparently managed to drive her Chrysler to the park without her car keys. What happened, of course, was that Mark had used his own set of keys to drive there and had brought them back with him when he left. They found blood evidence on the walls and the bedside table. They'd soon find the same in Lori's car. Great, googly-moogly. You are bad at this, my man. Evidently, the only thing Mark excelled out was Mario Kart.

You know, and getting away with murder, just terrible F-minus. And you know what? We don't have proof that he was good at video games. Like, for all we know, he was still stuck in the decou tree in Zelda. You know, like, we don't know. He's just killing scultillas and, like, trying to get down through the web at the bottom. He doesn't know how. He doesn't want to listen to Navi.

No, he's not listening to anybody. Over the course of the day, investigators' questions to Mark had become colder and less sympathetic. When he'd seen the crime scene tape around their apartment, Mark had started to feel panicky. He must have missed something. So much of his life had revolved around convincing people. He was just as successful as the rest of his family. But in his heart, Mark knew he was really just a klutzy fuck-up. He must have missed something. Yeah, quite a few somethings, you turnip. Mark had worked extensively with the mentally ill, but had never had much curiosity about how they actually acted. Almost none of his human

interactions went beneath the surface level, so when he decided to act crazy, he wasn't any good at it. Surprise, surprise. Mark quite correctly felt a legal noose tightening around him, but he knew there was a thing people called an insanity defense. And what we've just given you is the entirety of Mark's knowledge of the subject. He knew it existed as a concept, but had no idea of what it actually meant in criminal cases, and certainly didn't know that Utah has one of the narrowest possible interpretations of diminished capacity. Mark just thought that if you acted bizarre enough, you might get away with murder. There are more bars than you might expect in Salt Lake City. You might get some frowns from the elders, but if you want to get hammered, I mean, you can get hammered. So Mark got

hammered, and in the early hours of the morning staggered into the parking lot of the Chase Suite hotel. He took a bottle of sleeping pills out of his pocket and swallowed every pill in there. We, of course, don't know what was going on in Mark's mind, but based on what happened next, I'm fairly confident that this wasn't a suicide attempt. Mark got out his palm pilot and managed to drunkenly stab the stylist at it enough times to write out, this is justice. After that, he stripped butt-ass naked, then put his sandals back on and started screaming and running around the hotel parking lot. It's like if you asked a nine-year-old what going crazy looks like, although even a nine-year-old would probably recognize that it can't be that far gone if you're putting your shoes back on after

stripping naked. Mark was trying to get away with murder. Yes, but, you know, running barefoot on asphalt is very ouchy on the toe beans. We can't have that. The cops were called to the parking lot at around 2 a.m. They knew exactly what Mark was trying to do, but they weren't ready for any kind of arrest yet. They called Mark's older brother, and Mark was soon admitted for observation to the University of Utah Psychiatric Unit, where he almost immediately fell asleep. He was still there five days later when two of his brothers, Scott and Lance, came to see him. Mark was close to his brothers, especially Scott. They asked him to come clean, and he did. Lori's dead and I killed her, Mark said, and he told them the whole story, how he'd lied for years about college.

how he'd lied about being accepted into medical school, how Lori had found out. They'd argued and Mark had shot her while she slept. He told them how he'd disposed of her body, although did not reveal which dumpster he'd put her into, and the next day, his brothers went and repeated everything to the police. Investigators already had a bucket of evidence against Mark, and he was charged with his wife's murder.

It's like after all those years of lying, this major thing happens. He makes this major life-changing screw-up. and somehow that was the switch, and it just all came spilling out to the one person or two people he trusted. It's wild. He was arrested at the hospital. Mark was terrified of prison,

and to try and avoid being put into the general population, he decided to again try and use his cursory knowledge of mental illness and convince the admissions doctor that he was a suicide risk. Mark was very proud of doing this successfully, although it's a situation where any doctor is going to, air on the side of caution. He probably wouldn't have had to do any more than say, I'm thinking about killing myself. But prison suicide watch is not, in fact, a cakewalk. It's basically solitary confinement with padded walls and a video camera. Mark was very much a social butterfly, and he was

miserable in there. He decided he'd have a miraculously quick recovery. Mark's confession to his brothers had made Lori's family hope he'd plead guilty to her murder and let them start healing. But no, he pled not guilty in his first court appearance. That wouldn't last. The day after Lori had gone missing, police had called the city dump and asked them to stop dumping fresh garbage over whatever had arrived the day before, because there might be evidence in there, even human remains. They isolated an area to search, but even so, it was a mountain of garbage, 300 feet in diameter. It would take a long time to look through. God, the idea of somebody you love being dumped in a

landfill, like that that was all she meant to him. It's just beyond horrific. I can't imagine what her family went through. If they managed to find Lori, everyone knew she would not be in good shape. The trash was crushed down by tractors at the end of every day. Summers and Salt Lake are hot and the dump was even hotter with all the chemical processes of decay. A body, Buried in the trash there was like a body inside an oven. Searching the dump was stinking, disgusting, dangerous work that meant frequent puking and tetanus shots for everyone. God.

20 cops worked 10-hour shifts searching for Lori's body. On October 1st, Sergeant J.R. Nelson turned up for his stint searching the dump. He put on his protective gear, grabbed a rake, and went out with his partner to climb the mountain of trash. At 8.30 in the morning, his rake caught on something. a garbage bag that a few strands of hair fell out of. This wasn't unusual. Hair salons throughout the hair they cut. He used the rake to pull the bag open more fully so he could see more of the hair.

Lori Hacking had very distinctive hair, dark blonde, and long and curly. Sergeant Nelson knew the hair he was looking at reminded him of something, but it took a few seconds before he realized it was pictures of Lori that everyone working at the dump saw every morning. Nelson crouched and with thick rubber gloves over his hands pulled back the garbage bag. He saw a bone beneath the hair and a moment later he saw a human jawbone and teeth. He yelled out, I found her. There are only 35 pounds left of Lori hacking, most of that from her bones, many of which had been crushed and broken by trash compaction.

There was no way to determine the cause of death. Lori's skull was in pieces. If Mark hadn't told his brothers that he'd shot, no one would have known. The discovery of Lori's remains changed everything about the case. Lori had been five weeks pregnant when Mark killed her, and Utah was a state where that meant he could potentially be charged with two murders, significantly increasing the odds that he faced the death penalty. But there was no evidence of pregnancy available from Lori's scant remains. No way to be certain she'd been pregnant at all. There'd be no double homicide charge. Yeah, that's so strange to me

because I would have thought that the medical records would have been enough proof. But I guess, maybe not. I don't know. That's a strange detail to me. The argument, I guess, would be, oh, well, she had a miscarriage before. Sure. Yeah. But the discovery of Lori's body was the last piece in a rock-solid murder case against Mark Hacking,

and he could see the writing on the wall. On April 15, 2005, he pled guilty to Lori's murder. His sentence sounds absurd because of some Utah's story. specific quirks where the Utah Parole Board has more influence on time served than the sentencing judge. First degree murder carried a sentence of just five years to life. What the fuck? But the way the parole board works means that the sentence is usually a lot closer to the life end of that spectrum. In general, murderers in Utah spend more time behind bars than in most other states. After his sentencing, the parole board immediately announced that Mark wouldn't be considered eligible

for parole for 30 years, and the chairman noted that his chances at that hearing were not good. Still, there was outrage at the apparent light sentence, and within a year, a bill stretched the minimum sentence for first-degree murder from five years to 15, and this is most commonly known as Lori's law. Most likely, Mark's motivations for killing Lori were just as we've described them. He panicked about having his lies revealed, but I think we have to consider what he really intended to happen, once he and Lori had moved to North Carolina. Was he really going to fake going to medical school for years? I think there's a decent chance that Mark's plan all along

was that once they got to the other side of the country, away from all their snoopy, gossipy friends and family, Lori was going to have a little accident. And Mark would build a new life in a new land, free from the restrictions of a religion that he'd only ever paid lip service to. I think more than anything else, Mark Hacking wanted freedom.

and he was too big of a coward to get it by coming clean to the people in his life. I don't want to stick to the rules of the religion I was born in. I don't want to be married anymore. I don't want to be a doctor. That's all he had to do. And I'm not trying to say it's easy. I know it's not. It's never easy to buck the system and disappoint the people you feel accountable to.

It's not easy to opt out of the life that your family expected of you. But for some people, that's just the price you pay to be happy. And plenty of people do it. They suck it up. they tell the truth, and they go on to lead the lives they always want it. And Mark, you could have done it too, and Lori could have gone on to live a long, happy life with a partner who deserved her. Instead, she's gone forever. The baby she was so excited to carry never got a chance to take a breath.

And you, you, my guy, are going to rot in prison for the best years of your pitiful life. Hope it was worth it. Now, before we go, don't forget about a lot of it. our two amazing live shows coming up. First, we've got Summer Camp, September 10th through 13th, an amazing four-day festival in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, hosted by Dan and Lindsay Cummins of Time Suck and Scared to Death, two of our favorite people. We'll be performing live alongside them and the podcast, Astonishing Legends, in addition to a roster of awesome stand-up comedians and local bands. It doesn't that sound so much fun. We are so excited. Go to badmagicproductions.com

for more info and to buy tickets. And then we've got our true crime crews, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8 through 12, 2027. If you want to come on vacation with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, True Crime Garage, last podcast on the left and scared to death, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now and they're going fast.

So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crimewave at sea.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. you'll get $100 off plus a private meet and greet with us. The great thing is you can pay it all at once if you want to, but you can also set up a payment plan and just pay it off over time. So get on it, y'all. That's crimewave at sea.com slash campfire. So that was a wild one, right campers?

You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to Rocky, Dorian, Jennifer, Kyra, Shannon, and Amanda. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out.

Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker, a rat enamel pin, or fridge magnet while supplies last, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood.

Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan of True Crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jumped started all of our love of true crime? I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host, I Think Not, a True Crime Comedy Podcast. covering some of the wildest stories

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