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Richard Piatt ReportingA judge today sentenced Mark Hacking to six years to life in prison for killing his wife Lori last year. The judge handed down the sentence after listening to nearly two hours of emotional testimony. Hacking today said he is "tormented every waking minute by what" he did.
Eraldo Soares, Lori's Father: "I thought he was as phony as possible. I didn't believe one word. His remorse, I don't believe in that."
Utah's Board of Pardons and Parole will decide whether Hacking is ever set free. Mark Hacking's six years to life prison sentence legally closes the book on his case. But the story still carries emotional power: for Lori's family, the Hacking family, for a community, even for those who watched the case unfold from out of state.
There's been so much media attention, so many strong emotions from around the nation, even speculation in the National Enquirer. At first it looked like Lori Hacking's disappearance might be just a week-long news story during a news drought. But it turned into something else, something both fascinating and revolting -- a story of love and lies.
National attention could have been attracted to Utah because Mark and Lori Hacking were so much like so many couples here. Married on a bright, summer day; she was pretty, spirited, and full of life. He seemed fun loving and kind.
Now, looking back, it's hard to wonder if there were clues about what would eventually happen in everyday, ordinary life, back when friends thought they knew the young couple well. Looking back we do know there were clues the day Lori was reported missing: clues that the man responsible for her death was trying to get away with it.
When the lies started to unravel, when Mark Hacking was found wondering, naked, near a hotel, it became a story that raised eyebrows. Still hundreds of volunteers searched the canyons and waterways for signs of Lori. We now know police were searching that week too-- dumpsters, the Hacking apartment, the store where Mark bought a mattress--all for evidence of a murder.
And even as Mark and Lori's moms went on TV together, pleading for information, Mark was confessing to his brothers he had shot Lori overnight, wrapping her body in garbage bags; throwing her and the evidence in the trash.
By then the nation was drawing parallels to the Scott and Laci Peterson case. But there was more -- a two month search in the landfill for evidence to support Hacking's confession. When her remains were found there was relief nationwide. It was a conclusion nobody wanted, but that everyone expected.
Lori Hacking's name was now familiar, known as a missing woman, a murder victim. Only from photographs do we know of the life she knew, or thought she knew, with Mark Hacking.
