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CaliGrl35
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« on: February 23, 2005, 09:13:12 PM » |
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Lori's brother: I never suspected Mark Hacking of murder until lies surfaced
By Andres Martinez
Court TV
Lori Hacking's brother spoke to Court TV's Catherine Crier Wednesday about his initial shock when he learned police suspected his brother-in-law, Mark Hacking, of murder.
"Before all this happened I thought Mark was a hard-working, dedicated and loving husband — a person that would never do any harm to anybody and would take care of Lori," Paul Soares said on "Crier Live."
Mark Hacking has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of his wife. He faces life in prison if convicted.
On July 19, 2004, Hacking contacted police and family members after Lori's coworkers said she never showed up at work. Hacking claimed his wife never returned to their Salt Lake City home after going for a morning jog.
When Lori disappeared, the couple had been together for 10 years and had just found out that Lori was five weeks pregnant. Police launched a manhunt that eventually included more than 1,200 volunteers.
On July 20, officers found Hacking wandering naked in a motel and admitted him to the University of Utah's psychiatric unit.
Detectives saw inconsistencies in Hacking's story and designated him as a person of interest. Mark's father, a doctor, told reporters his son never graduated from college and that he had not been accepted to medical school at the University of North Carolina, as he had claimed.
"To be honest, [Hacking's guilt] didn't even come to my mind until the lies about med school started coming out," Soares said. "I couldn't believe it."
Police found a bloody knife in a drawer next to the couple's mattress. DNA tests revealed that the blood on the knife matched Lori's DNA.
Hacking's brothers told police on July 25, that after being confronted, Mark admitted he killed his wife. Both families were shocked, especially Lori Hacking's family, who had supported Mark, Soares said.
Lori Hacking disappeared on July 19, 2004.
"Mom's doing good. She is still having a really, really difficult time with all this," Soares said. "She is a strong woman. She has a strong foundation."
Prosecutors contend that Hacking shot his wife in the head with a .22-caliber rifle while she slept. His brothers told police that Hacking admitted he dumped the body in a Dumpster along with the bloodstained part of the mattress.
Police arrested Hacking on Aug. 2. He was transferred from the psychiatric ward to the county jail.
"We are still as baffled as we were on day one," Soares said. "I talked to his brother in the beginning. It makes no sense to anybody."
Lori's relatives, who originally supported Hacking, wrote him letters while in jail. Soares said he did not receive any responses and was not aware that anyone else did, either.
"'Mark, you keep saying you want to do the right thing and you want to come out ahead,'" Soares said he wrote to Mark. "I encouraged him to plead guilty, to just end the [suffering]."
What had been an almost all-volunteer effort to find Lori was scaled back to a few dozen experts, including teams that had searched for remains after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
A police sergeant found a bag with hair, a jawbone and teeth in a Dumpster on Oct. 1. Police confirmed that the remains were Lori's.
"If he needs some help, we should definitely get him some," Soares said. "But, on the same token, he needs to pay for what he did."
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