Lori's mom not interested in story on Mark Hacking
Recent tabloid story 'hardly worth the ripple,' she saysShe goes to work daily and is eager for the trial to 'come and go'
By Lucinda Dillon Kinkead
Deseret Morning News
In the grocery checkout line this week, Thelma Soares glanced at a tabloid newspaper's layout of photos, excerpts and text billed as an "ENQUIRER world exclusive."
"Mark Hacking's jailhouse letters," the headline read. The story hinged on four handwritten letters that accused murderer Mark Hacking wrote to "pen pal" Scott Bauer between August 2004 and January 2005 — letters in which Mark Hacking noted 2004 was "not a fun year for me" and that writing a book was "much more difficult (than) I thought it would be, both mentally and emotionally."
"It seems no matter what I do to make things right, people will assume the worst about my intentions," Hacking apparently wrote in one letter. "I understand this is the product of my own bad choices."
Thelma Soares took one quick look at the story written about the man accused of killing her daughter, then put the tabloid magazine back on the rack.
"I didn't think it was hardly worth the ripple," she said when contacted by telephone Thursday.
It has been just more than seven months since investigators say Mark Hacking shot his wife as she slept in their downtown Salt Lake City apartment. The young woman's disappearance and the details that emerged of her husband's double life, captivated Utahns and much of the country through the summer.
Mark Hacking, a supposed University of Utah student near graduation, led police and the community on a search for his missing wife, but police uncovered a web of lies about Hacking's claims of university graduation and admission to medical school in North Carolina.
Hacking was arrested and the search for Lori Hacking suspended after he allegedly confessed to his brothers that he killed his wife in her sleep and left her body in a Dumpster. Her badly decomposed body was found Oct. 1 in the Salt Lake Valley Solid Waste Facility.
Mark Hacking awaits trial April 18 on first-degree murder charges and three counts of obstruction of justice.
Thelma Soares spends her days simply, now that the barrage of letters and media attention has mostly died down.
Lori's brother, Paul Soares, made a short appearance on Court TV's "Catherine Crier Live" program this week, but Thelma Soares has stayed mostly quiet, remembering Lori every day and gearing up emotionally for the trial.
She has not been in contact with Mark Hacking. She wrote to him back in August after his arrest, but he didn't respond.
"Life goes on," she said. "I go to work every day and, in a way, it will be nice to have the trial come and go."
The Lori Kay Soares Hacking Memorial Scholarship Fund has collected more than $180,000, far more than she expected when she established the fund in her daughter's honor to help a business student through college.
"It has stunned me, how much has come in," she said. "It's been wonderful. That's the only way I can describe it."
People from all over the world have written and phoned. The mother of Modesto murder victim Laci Peterson called a couple of times, expressing her sorrow for Thelma's loss.
On Thursday, like most other days, Soares logged on to rememberlori.com, the Web site that has become a grounding place for people to honor the young woman with thick curly hair and a winning smile. A note from Nairobi, Kenya, was entered Thursday.
About 673 computer pages are now filled with entries to Lori's guest book. There are sentiments from India, Turkey, Malta, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Israel, Iran, Iraq and even from the McMurdo Station, built on bare volcanic rock at the southernmost point of solid land in Antarctica.
"This whole thing has helped me to see there are still so many good, honorable people in the world," she said.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600114669,00.html
can't wait 
