Lori was the adopted daughter of Thelma and Eraldo Soares, formerly of
Fullerton, California. Eraldo Soares was a Spanish and Portuguese teacher at
Sunny Hills High School and was a native of
Piracicaba, Brazil. He met Thelma when they both served as
missionaries for
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Rio de Janeiro. Lori's parents divorced in 1987, and Thelma and Lori moved to Orem, Utah the following year. Lori and Mark both attended
Orem High School, about 40 miles (about 64 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City.
Disappearance At 10:49 a.m. on July 19, 2004, Mark Hacking called
911 to report his wife Lori missing. She was 27 years old at the time. Mark told police she had left home early for a customary jog in the
Memory Grove and
City Creek Canyon area northeast of
downtown Salt Lake City, but had not returned home or arrived at work. A woman said she had seen Lori near the grove that day, but later withdrew her claim. According to family members, Hacking was about five weeks pregnant when she vanished, and was planning a move to
North Carolina, where her husband had said he would be starting medical school at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). However, police determined Mark had lied to friends and family about his academic accomplishments, due in part to his failure to achieve similar professional status of his father and brother (both physicians) and another brother who was an electrical engineer. In fact, Mark had never completed his undergraduate degree at the
University of Utah, and the medical school at UNC informed police they had no record of him being accepted or even applying. Shortly after his wife's disappearance, Mark was found running naked through the streets, and was admitted to hospital for mental evaluation. While in the hospital, Mark engaged D. Gilbert Athay, a prominent defense attorney in the community.
Mark Hacking arrested On August 2, 2004, Mark was arrested on suspicion of the aggravated murder of his wife. Police said they believed that he acted alone, killing Lori in their apartment with a
.22-caliber rifle while she was asleep and disposing of her body in a dumpster. Investigators found blood in several places in the couple's apartment, including on a knife found in the bedroom, on the headboard of the bed, and in Lori's car. In addition, Scott and Lance Hacking, Mark's brothers, claimed that Mark confessed to murdering his wife after they confronted him on July 24, 2004. First-degree murder charges were filed against Mark Hacking on August 9, 2004. On October 1, 2004 at approximately 8:20 a.m. searchers found human remains in the Salt Lake County landfill. By that afternoon, police had confirmed that the remains were those of Lori Hacking. Searchers found the carpet that Mark admitted to rolling her body into before placing it in the dumpster. On October 29, 2004, Mark pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder despite pleas from Paul Soares, the victim's brother, to "save your family the grief and cost [and] plead guilty to murder." According to investigators, on the night of July 18, Lori wrote Mark a note telling him that she planned to leave him after discovering that virtually everything Mark had told her about his background was false. She had learned that he never graduated from the University of Utah and never applied to medical school. Rather than divorce, Hacking killed her. Upon hearing this news, Lori's mother Thelma Soares issued this statement: "While it is a terrible waste of his life, [the decision] lifts a great burden from my mind and heart. The six-year minimum imposed by law is an insult not only to Lori and the baby, but to me and my family as well. I thank the members of the State Board of Pardons and Parole for their diligence and sense of justice in dealing with this tragic case. My faith in our justice system has been upheld."
Afterward The Soares family removed the name Hacking from Lori's headstone. "We just felt that Mark obviously didn't want her anymore", said her mother. Lori's married name was replaced with the Portuguese word , which translates to "little daughter." The initial sentence caused a widespread public outcry, with many expressing alarm at the possibility Hacking could be released after six years. Sibbett noted that most inmates convicted of murder have to wait between 18 and 35 years for a parole hearing, and Hacking's actions pushed it to "the higher level" of the spectrum. According to the
Deseret News, the great majority of inmates convicted of murder serve far more than the five-year minimum, and it is unheard of for a convicted murderer to serve less than 15 years. Several are denied parole and forced to wait 22 years for another hearing, while others receive parole dates that require them to serve an average of 20 more years before being released. A few have been ordered to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Nonetheless, Paul Boyden, the executive director of the Utah Statewide Association of Prosecutors, urged the Utah Sentencing Commission to raise the minimum sentence for first-degree murder to 15 years. Boyden said most people didn't understand Utah's indeterminate sentencing scheme and added that it caused "a public perception problem" for the state. State sentencing commission member Sy Snarr agreed, saying that it was "appalling" that Hacking even theoretically had a minimum six-year sentence. In June 2006, prison officials in Utah discovered that Hacking was selling personal items, including autographs, a hand tracing, various prison forms, and magazines, on an online site called Murder Auction. Officials later announced that Hacking had agreed to discontinue selling anything online. Hacking,
Utah Department of Corrections offender number 167809, is incarcerated at
Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah. == Media ==