Utah Man pleads guilty in wife's death

April 16, 2005

Salt Lake City (Utah) resident and hospital orderly Mark Hacking pleaded guilty Friday to killing his wife Lori, and placing her body in a dumpster.

Mrs. Hacking’s disappearance last summer touched off an intense, weeklong search in Salt Lake County which a wire service report said was similar to the other sensational Salt Lake crime, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart from her own bedroom.

After Hacking admitted details of his crime to his family, earlier, he suffered a breakdown and was placed in a psychiatric hospital. He was seen in court Friday with his hands cuffed behind his back.

He admitted to the judge that he killed his wife while she slept. His motives, according to prosecutors, were his anger and despondency when she discovered that he was not accepted into a North Carolina medical school as he had claimed, but would remain a hospital orderly.

Mrs. Hacking is reported to have broken down sobbing at her workplace, a Wells Fargo brokerage, after discovering her husband’s deception. She had placed a call to the medical school’s administrators and been told he was not enrolled. He had lied to her about graduating from the University of Utah as well.

Mrs. Hacking’s mother and father were in the courtroom to hear their son-in-law declare: “I intentionally shot Lori Hacking in the head with a .22 rifle.” They said it was like a “knife in the heart” to hear that, but were happy he owned up to the crime.

The attack occurred last July. Volunteers scouring a landfill found her decomposed remains after three months of searching.