Transcript
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Hello listeners and welcome. I'm Bridges.
Caroline: And I'm Caroline.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You are listening to Hearth Home and Homicide, a family production about family murders. Caroline and I research and narrate each story. Andy is our producer.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Caroline and I try to figure out what is going on with this family at the center of the case. We do know that the ripple effect of family murder never ends.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And we see how a killer in the family is responsible for immeasurable destruction and trauma. So listener discretion is advised.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So, Caroline, today we're going to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Laurie Hacking was murdered by her husband, Mark Hacking, who was a lifelong liar and con artist.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: who murdered her in the night between July 18th and 19th, 2004. four You know, I've been to Salt Lake City, Utah, and I can tell you that it it is very, very, very impressive to me how wide and how straight the streets are.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I never understood how how do you build a city with this wide of the streets? Well, when the Mormons were coming over the Rockies to settle in Utah, ah they deliberately had the streets very, very wide, wide enough so that the biggest wagons hauling the biggest supplies to their new encampment that became Salt Lake City um could go all the way down the street and turn around in the street and go the other way without having to do a lot of backing up and backing all the, you know, the five point turns that you have to make.
Caroline: Oh, wow.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I just feel like, you know, What kind of organization does it take to get that going? And that's one of the things that I learned about the Mormons, especially the early Mormons who were outcasts from their society back east.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They were very deliberate planners.
Caroline: Well, that's cool.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And, you know, they believed in the house we lived in in Idaho, Caroline, had a full basement house. designed exclusively for the preservation of food for two years.
Caroline: I remember that. That was one of my favorite homes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yeah, mine too.
Caroline: There was such an elegant, like, Victorian nature to that home because it was all those levels. And you're right. I remember all that storage. That was, like, built-in storage.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, and the shelves, and they had a sink down there where you could cut up all the fruit.
Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: and Oh, my God, it was heaven.
Caroline: It was awesome. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So, anyway, that's what I know about the Mormons. That's a positive thing I want to say to sort of, you know, soften the blow of this idiot madman that she married who murdered her.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So, again, you know, Mark was just a lifelong liar, which I want to talk about.
Caroline: Thank you.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He had no acquaintance with the truth. He murdered his 27-year-old Lori K. Suarez Hacking when she discovered his lies about being a student in medical school in North Carolina.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And we'll get into that because that's just such a, that's a horse lie, meaning big as a horse. The last time Laurie was seen alive in public was on the night of July 18, 2004, when her husband, Mark Hacking, dropped by a convenience store with her in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they lived.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So she was on camera that night at the convenience store, and the next morning, all hell broke loose when Mark tried to pretend like she was missing.
Caroline: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Where could she be? Now, i really want to talk about Laurie because I just felt like she had the face of an angel and pretty, pretty, very curly, long brown hair and just sparkling dancing eyes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: That's what I remember about the videos and the pictures that I saw of Laurie hacking as time has gone by. And I do remember this murder, and I remember...
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: just believing that some some devil in disguise picked her up when she was jogging and, you know, kidnapped her.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: That's what I thought. I did not know it was her husband who was out there pleading for her return.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So let's talk about Lori. Lori was the adopted daughter of Thelma and Eduardo Suarez, formerly of Fullerton, California. She was adopted.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: at just a few days old, along with a baby boy. Eraldo Suarez was a Spanish and Portuguese teacher in Sunny Hills High School there in aldoot Fullerton, California, excuse me and he was a native of Brazil.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He met Thelma when they both served as missionaries for the Church of lee ah church of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And Rio de Janeiro is where he was born. Laurie's parents divorced in 1987, and Thelma, Laurie's mother, and Laurie moved to Orem, Utah, the following year.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Well, Utah is the home of the Mormon church, so they probably were seeking some ah comfort and and a community is what I'm thinking after the divorce in Aurum.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Aurum is just 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, so it's not like they, you know, crossed the country. they
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They were there already, and they just moved to a different house.
Caroline: Almost. It's like a suburb of Salt Lake City.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely, yeah.
Caroline: Yeah. yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Laurie met Mark Hacking when she and Mark both attended Aurum High School, about 40 miles, as I said, south of Salt Lake City. Laurie was a strong and beautiful girl. She was very athletic and intelligent.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She was devoted to her mother and the LDS church. That was her life.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: That was her life. She wasn't playing any games. She wasn't trying to be a Hollywood star.
Caroline: right
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She wanted a simple life of love and devotion to family and her church. Laurie liked it that Mark was funny and clever all the time throughout high school. and She was drawn to him.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: he was just a charismatic and strong. He was an LDS member also. And she believed that he wanted all the things that she, Laurie Hacking, wanted with all of her heart.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he convinced her that that was true. She wanted a family of her own. And they would live a clean family life with the LDS community alongside them.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: That was the dream. Her family would make happy memories, this family that she's creating, with Mark.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And she wanted that forever family that never stops loving. So, remember, her mother and father had been divorced.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And so, she's just thinking, well, that was never going to happen to me and you, Mark, is it? Oh, no, that's never going to happen.
Caroline: I mean, that's a common, I think that's a common dream to want family, love.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, absolutely.
Caroline: And you go looking at it or for it in someone who you know is a lot like you, you know?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely. if you have If you have a lot in common, if you're drawn to that person. And she was very comfortable with Mark. She'd known him all through high school. And no doubt she poured her heart out to him.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he poured his lying heart out to her.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So Laurie was very much a serious and playful person at the same time. After high school, she worked while Mark went to school, college. she He wanted to be a doctor.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And, you know, he was smart enough to be a doctor.
Caroline: Oh.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She was reliable at work where she looked up. She was looked up to as an assistant to a stockbroker. Now, one of my closest friends' daughter works as an associate in the for a stock program. That is hard work, but it's work with people. And when you're good with people,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And you can follow all of the science behind the flow of money and economics and so forth.
Caroline: Yeah. Hmm.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's a great job. And it's it's a it's a dignified job. And and ah certainly Laurie was, you know, loved with what they did not know was that Laurie was five weeks pregnant.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And she was just they did they did see that she was devoted to the person who killed her. But, you know, they they didn't know that she had become pregnant.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: What they knew was that she was going to be leaving that job because she was going to be moving with Mark to North Carolina where he was going to go to medical school.
Caroline: Okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So that's the that's what's unraveling here.
Caroline: Okay. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But they loved her, and she was part of that community where she worked at Wells Fargo. So, you know, i suppose we have to talk about Mark Hacking and the murder of Laurie. I don't want to.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In this case, it's very difficult.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'll just say that Mark was a good looking, fun loving, sweet, adorable guy on the outside. And I can say that with personal authority because I saw him on TV and I thought there's no way this man is a killer.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: No way.
Caroline: and Which is, I mean, and that even at that time, you were always you always had sort of an inkling about, you know, Agatha Christie, the murder mysteries. Like, you were you were always, you know, we watched Murder, She Wrote in the eighty s Like, it was just unselfly mysteries, all of it.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: yeah Oh, yeah. Oh, murder, murder. And i did think I had an eye for who was dangerous and who was not.
Caroline: Right.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: What a fool I was. I mean, you know.
Caroline: Well, I mean, it just, yeah, it just goes to show this is the scariest part about human beings, you know?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yes, yes. Well, this was 21 years ago.
Caroline: Yep.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: i wasn't an idiot still, but I was not on my way to not so idiotic about murder. perpetrators. So, you know, here we have a man who can emulate.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He's not like, you know, that idiot that just got sentenced to four consecutive life sentences where, you know, you can look at him for two seconds and know that he's got dead eyes.
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: Yeah. In Idaho. Yeah.
Caroline: Psycho. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, that is not Mark. Mark did not have dead eyes.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He was a normal-looking person, whatever that means. So he was perfect, really, except for the murder part. And he was also, behind those murders, was a long history of habitual lying.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And that habitual lying became more important to him than his wife and the child that they were going to bring into this world. And when I say habitual, I mean addicted.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean that the same addiction that people can get with drugs, smoking, gambling, alcohol, cheating, shopping, us ah eating, all of the above, all of the above.
Caroline: ah
Caroline: shopping eating all of it yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's all you you feed a habit until it is running your life.
Caroline: Yes, yep.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And that was what had um going on with Mark Hacking.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: On the morning after the last sighting of Mark and Lori, remember in the supermarket or ah the quickie mart or whatever, Mark woke up and his wife was not in bed. Now I'm pretending that he doesn't know what has happened to her, but this was his story.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: he woke up and she was not in bed and he thought, you know, she was she went jogging and and so forth. But then he found out that she never showed up for work.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: and never came home after work. So what did he do?
Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He called the police. Now, I can remember pleading for his wife's safe return on network TV. This handsome, normal-looking guy on his way to medical school, coming from a family of medical doctors and medical professionals, and there were some TV ah blips where they were with him during the search.
Caroline: so
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You know, they were all down where she would have been jogging.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And the nation was riveted to this guy, Mark, who wanted his wife back sake safe and sound. And he was not blubbering.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He was felt like he looked deflated and worried.
Caroline: OK. Yeah.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean, what a chameleon.
Caroline: I was just going to say, because, you know, this kind of speaks also to the, ah when we have nationwide sort of stories going viral nationwide, right? Like Petito, Gabby Petito, like these things.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yes.
Caroline: It is typically the attractive, ah you know, members of our community and they're doing the archetypal success things within the community, having a family, going to medical school. I mean, it's,
Caroline: That is the kind of thing that's going to catch the heartstrings of the community around you and the community nationally because it is what we're all striving for, that a dream of a family, the dream of success. like So when you see a person on the screen that is able to portray that for you, like to pull on that one of your heartstrings, which is a common string in all of our hearts, that's well, yeah, you're going to start to fall under the spell, right?
Caroline: I mean, that i could I could easily see that happening. i don't I don't know what this man looks like, thankfully, but, you know, that tends to happen with TV.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Well, I, yeah, I mean, you know, i was fooled.
Caroline: If they're...
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'll tell you that.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: The other thing about it is that what we generally see on network news is more white people.
Caroline: Yep, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: who have befallen something like this, we see the wealthy, the prominent people, and it becomes a real new story, those three words in quotes.
Caroline: Yep, yes.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And um I was probably, like everybody else, maybe not everybody, but I was certainly guilty of thinking that it was only white women who these things were happening to.
Caroline: ah Right, it's an inference, right?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I really was. And, I mean, you know, and we've come ways.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I would say that we've come a ways on a long, long journey ahead of us. For example, tribal women who disappear out by the score every year.
Caroline: and Oh.
Caroline: I mean, and since pre-1970s that's been happening to them, so yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yes, yes. So I digress. I don't mean to do that. But, yeah, he was very, very, very, very very
Caroline: Me neither, sorry.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Believable, and the nation was riveted, and it was just like Gabby Petito. Everybody was watching.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: have they Have they found her yet? Have they found her yet?
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: As a massive search was underway, the worried facade mo Mark had presented to the world via the media began to crumble behind the scenes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Mark had been deceiving everyone in his life, including his wife, about being accepted to this medical school in North Carolina and about to attend that school and ah that they were going to move to that place so that he could be at that school.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Those working the case believed Mark Hacking chose rather than come clean about these lies to his wife, Mark killed his wife, Lori, in a last-ditch effort to cover up his lies.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And you know, the thing about addicted to lies your whole life person, I think, is that they have learned how to believe their own lies the minute that it comes out of their mouth.
Caroline: Yes. and And we know that the way that the brain works is that the brain is not a hard sell on that as a method for survival.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Right.
Caroline: Yeah, I'll lie to you. Hell yeah. That's a great story. i mean. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: it In simple terms, it's like, you know, if I were to go to, i you know, I don't go to chain restaurants anymore for food, but let's and but I do have cravings for it every now and then.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So it's almost like if I went to this, um we'll say McDonald's, and I had, you know, I'm not even going to say the words, but all the stuff.
Caroline: yeah
Caroline: Yeah, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: All the good stuff.
Caroline: All the stuff we know about.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I had all that in my mind is that nobody has to know that I did this. And not only that, but it's never going to happen again. That is what goes through the mind.
Caroline: oh
Caroline: yes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I'm speaking on behalf of just me. And I am projecting that.
Caroline: I relate though.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: i have I'm projecting that on Bark Hacking. He really believes she's missing at this point.
Caroline: ah you're You're right, though, because there has to be an element of that present in the in the psychology of just the way we know things work. Like, I literally just read another article about how to take a good picture, and it says you have to smile naturally, and to do that, you have to think of something that makes you naturally laugh or smile.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: So you're right, I think, that there had to have been some manipulation within his own brain to allow him to be this convincing at the time.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, I know. Millions of people couldn't believe that he was capable of murder.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: based on his appearance and his emotional pleas to help me find my wife.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She doesn't deserve this, all of these things. He wasn't whimpering over the top drama. he was It was genuine appearing. On July 19, 2004,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: ah Mark Hacking contacted Salt Lake City Police at 10.07 a.m. to say that his wife, Laurie Hacking, had not returned from jogging earlier that morning. We already know that.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He phoned them again, though, at 10.46 to report he'd found Laurie's car parked near the canyon where she had gone running.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: A search began with numerous volunteers stepping in to help. When I say numerous, I mean hundreds of people who didn't even know him. But they all, you know, rushed to the scene.
Caroline: Well, they were as, yeah, they were as compelled as you were when they saw him on the TV.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely. And it's a community.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This is a community of people who share a ah faith community.
Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So there's going to be a lot of people showing up for that reason.
Caroline: Stronger.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He seemed very grateful for this assistance in a humble way. As he spoke in front of the television cameras that day, hook, and me like like you know hook line, and sinker, I bought it.
Caroline: He gotcha.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: For those who knew the Mormon couple, there was no reason to believe that Mark had any involvement in his wife's disappearance. The two who were wed in 1999 appeared to have a happy marriage.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: the Family had been told Laurie was five weeks present privately. So the family of Laurie had been told that, you know, and Mark, that that she was pregnant shortly but before she went missing.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So that, you know, they were but out there searching for her and so worried that something had happened to her and the baby.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She had given notice to Wells Fargo, where she worked, as a stockbroker's assistant, and her last day at work was just a couple of weeks away. The couple planned to move so Mark could attend the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This is one of the best schools of medicine in the country.
Caroline: well
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And um we'll talk more about, you know, how he got into that school. Not so anyway.
Caroline: I was just going to say, he probably just was like, what's the top school? Okay, I'll say I'm going to that one. I mean, you know.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, it' it's better that it's better than that, Caroline. I mean, it's it's meaner, it's awfuler than that, so buckle up. Police soon saw Mark as a highly potential suspect.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In between his two calls to them, he'd said he was trying to find his wife, and instead, investigators learned he'd been buying a new mattress.
Caroline: o
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: you're Let's just see, does this add up? Your wife is missing and she you found her car where she went missing, but you can't find her?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She's been abducted? Oh my God.
Caroline: yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: is she in ah Is she in a culvert? Where is she? Where is she? Where is she? Oh, I got to go get a new mattress.
Caroline: Yeah, like that's, I mean, it's as shocking as like we know with the Watts case, like when you walk in on the, you see on the police cam video, you walk in and the mattress has no sheet on it. Everybody was like, oh, ah hello like problematic.
Caroline: You know, I mean, you don't do stuff with a bed if you didn't murder people.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Right. And, you know, ah why would you buy a new mattress when you're about to cross the country?
Caroline: I mean, really, it's probably because he got all the blood on the one mattress from killing his wife. I mean, honestly, it's just.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Well, that's, of course, what the police thought. And so then they got a search warrant based on that information. They got a search warrant.
Caroline: Well, yep.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They went into his house, his apartment, and found that here's Laurie's purse, here's her wallet, and it's got her blood on it.
Caroline: Oh, my God.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In addition, Caroline, this is just the day after she went missing. I mean, they're looking for her in the park. they She was just on videotape last night.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So this is the same day.
Caroline: And then Mark has already, has Mark gotten on TV yet? Or is he, this is already?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yes, yes, he'd been on TV.
Caroline: Dang, he's fast.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, but he had to run off to the mattress store. You know, I don't know if he, I might have that wrong.
Caroline: I would.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Because he he called them in the morning.
Caroline: Yes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And the second call was at the mattress store. So had he been seen on camera yet?
Caroline: Oh, okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm not sure.
Caroline: Okay. Cause I wonder if the, police you know, the police, like, I think they get,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: there's probably a nerve that gets struck when perpetrators do this. You know, they try to pull the wool over the police eyes right away. But I also think the police really appreciate these kind of like, you know, self-aggrandizing types of people because then they go out there on TV and now everything's captured and I get to analyze every single move you just made and every single word you just said, you know, so it is kind of helpful.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Mm-hmm. Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: right can you see Can you imagine that bulletin board or the chalkboard or the or the the magnetic board that police use and they have a timeline? And number one, called us.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Number two, search began.
Caroline: Hot mattress.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Number three, he found his car. Number four, he called us again. Turns out he was at the mattress store buying a new mattress.
Caroline: What the heck?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Uh-huh. Then they found all this stuff at his house, her stuff, as well as a hunting knife with blood on it.
Caroline: Oh, Jesus.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: God. In addition, the driver's seat in Laurie's car had been adjusted for someone much taller than her, and there was blood in the back seat of the vehicle.
Caroline: Oh.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Why didn't he just write a short story about what he did to her and post it on the internet? I mean, i don't know.
Caroline: Right? Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So what does this prolific liar and now murderer do to get out of this net closing in on him? Well, in the early ah morning hours of July 20th, this is the second day, right?
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: he's just He just got to the Barton-Bowder car. And now the next day, in the early morning hours, after the search had begun, police received a disturbance call that Mark Hacking was running around outside a hotel wearing nothing but his sandals.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So he was naked.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Then he was admitted to a psychiatric facility. Now, you know, everybody instantly thought, oh, this poor lost man, because we did not know what the police knew at that time.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This poor guy, he's gone insane because he misses his wife. That's what was thinking.
Caroline: Well, yeah, and it's easy because the um news cycle tends to move so quickly, even in 2004 it did. And so you pick up whatever narrative you feel like has been put down and you run with that until there's a shift in the narrative and then you focus on that.
Caroline: on And so I could see how everything now is just gonna go in the category of this poor man, this poor man, this poor man, running around naked with sandals on is a little bit off.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This poor man.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It is off, however, one of my favorite people on the internet with her own podcast, former FBI profiler Candace DeLong. Her podcast is...
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um ah explains why serial killers do what they do, why killers do what they do, and, you know, what to look for and all this stuff.
Caroline: Oh, OK. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So anyway, like her, Candace DeLong, and she says he kept his shoes on, his sandals. That's not generally something that we see in someone who is truly psychotic.
Caroline: That makes sense. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: ah Mark Hacking's lies to Laurie and family are about to be revealed. The search for Laurie continued, but by July 21st, so three days later, Mark and Laurie's families learned that Mark had not been accepted to the medical school in North Carolina and had also lied about graduating from the University of Utah in 2004.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In fact, he had dropped out in 2002.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean, you know, he had had graduation parties. He had had all of these things.
Caroline: so
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He pretended for two years, two years, poor Poor Lori is sweating away at Wells Fargo, trying to earn a living for both of them, but he is going to go to medical school and this will all be worthwhile.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He was pretending to attend classes, study textbooks. He even wrote term papers.
Caroline: What the hell?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, police found all of that in his home.
Caroline: What the hell? That's pretty far. I mean, that's pushing it to a degree that seems weird.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Well, this is this is why I think he's been lying his whole life, which I'll get into.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm not just saying that about him. You know, there's evidence that he, you know, he was a consummate liar, but he was also addicted to lying.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I believe he really believed his lies, so he acted them out.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I do.
Caroline: I genuinely believe that's true um affliction as well that we don't focus on.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yes. Right. It's not insanity legally.
Caroline: No, but it's lying, which is, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But it'll get you one, you know, one flying over the cuckoo. So, yeah. um So anyway, his family found this out.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He had also traveled across the country many times to fake interviews at different medical schools.
Caroline: I mean, he literally purchased the tickets to go to these places.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yep. I'm sure his family helped him out.
Caroline: That's crazy. I mean, that's crazy.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm sure they did.
Caroline: Why wouldn't you, why like, why why not fake a flight number? Why not bla fake up and to go stay at a local hotel or something? I don't know. This weird to me.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He traveled across country is what, you know, is in all of the news articles about this story.
Caroline: Yeah. That's just, that's committed, I guess.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: There's a lot here to digest, Caroline.
Caroline: yeah I'm struggling.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's like you're watching a aliens as they come down from your, up to that point, just suspicious skies.
Caroline: Yeah, I don't get it. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Now we know that there are aliens. And they're landing right in front of us, and we can't hardly believe it. That's my take on this story.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Their family members were stunned. Stunned. Education was highly valued in Mark's family of origin. His father was a pediatrician, highly regarded.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: His mother was a nurse, highly respected, appreciated.
Caroline: media
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: His brothers all had excelled in school and had very good careers in science, and no one
Caroline: well
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: No one expected little Mark to lie like this about his educational path. Yet Dr. Kathy Yates, a forensic psychiatrist, says it wasn't surprising to learn about Mark's ability to dupe those closest to him.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She says he was able to deceive with such detailed accuracy in terms of creating a persona. that he wanted everyone to believe, and that that alone, these this this persona ability, this this these detailed accuracies, tell me, said Yates, that he is very, very bright.
Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She says if somebody is clever and crosses every t dots every eye and they are in appearingly healthy relationships with people,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: it would be very hard for those closest to them to not be deceived. So that made me feel better for thinking that he was an innocent, cute guy.
Caroline: Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah.
Caroline: Well, I mean, and this is this is that interesting sort of framing where, you know, people who maybe are stealing their hand to mouth and then they get caught and and everyone wants to just say like, you're just this low life.
Caroline: Actually, no, they're a human in survival, right? And so what that, that it's like what she's saying where he's bright. I mean, obviously to create this level of detail, to have an understanding of what that life might look like and need to sound like, you do have to have a sense of intelligence, a real wiseness to, you know, reading the room, quote unquote, which is something a lot of people don't know how to do.
Caroline: But I just think, That makes this all really, really hard in terms of like human relations and like trying to keep yourself around only safe humans, right? Which is my objective here in looking at all of this stuff.
Caroline: It's hard because the people who are most dangerous are going to be probably the smartest on how to look the least dangerous, right?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Caroline: Oh,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Caroline: woof.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: That's what he was. I think you mean, oh, yeah.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But anyway, yeah.
Caroline: ah well who
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: ah word All I can say is I feel vindicated that, you know, ah we can expect to fall for a mastermind wolf in sheep's clothing.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They even wrote a book about it.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Poor little Red Riding Hood.
Caroline: It's got staying power, that story. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It really does. Who among us has not been in her situation? However, Mark's deception started to unravel a few days before Laurie went missing. On Friday, July 16th, Laurie called Mark's Medical School in North Carolina to ask about financial aid, probably because she was pregnant.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: At that point, she was told that he had not enrolled in medical school and, in fact, had not even applied. We've never heard of him.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Coworkers that when she was on the phone with this call, with this university, saw her in tears before she left work early that day.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But at her going-away party that night, which she attended with Mark, she seemed contented once more. Now, to me, this looks like Mark was trying to teach Laurie how to be false, and she was so shocked and frightened, she went along with the happy face, and it makes me sad and angry, and I'm just guessing.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But I don't think Laurie had a lying bone in her body. I don't. I think that she did think highly of her friends and didn't want to spoil the party that they threw for them.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Now, that's what I was thinking, but it was later revealed
Caroline: Oh no.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: that Laurie's concerns had been allied that evening after Mark told her a computer problem at the school was to blame for not including him on its incoming student roster.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Laurie then left a message for the school administrator stay stating that her husband had straightened everything out.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Because she contacted the school after 5 p.m. on the East Coast, no one would hear her message until Monday when Lori was already dead.
Caroline: So he did.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Isn't that the saddest thing?
Caroline: So really, that is that is a good indicator that the catalyst for her being murdered by him was that she was reaching this precipice of, you know, no more lies. She was going to find out.
Caroline: She was going to find out. She probably even told him or maybe he found out that she made this follow up call saying, oh, I've worked it all out. Now I know that it's, your you know, your error or whatever. He maybe just felt like the corner I'm painted in is now my feet are coated in paint. I mean, he just it's the end, you know.
Caroline: Can't lie to her anymore.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's the end. And also police revealed that they had found when they did the search warrant in his home, in his apartment, and they found, you know, a bloody, you know, so mess in the bedroom and the new mattress sitting there over, you know, the blood all over the floor and that they had found all of this stuff when they looked, when they got the search warrant.
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: Oh my God.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um they also found letters that she had written to him about lies that she had been telling him all along about little things. And that she wrote him a letter saying, we have got to get you the help you need to stop this lying or ah we cannot continue to be together.
Caroline: So for her, it was coming to this place of like, hey, I see what's going on here and no more. And that could have even been why she was calling. the You know, she was maybe developing her own coping strategies around knowing her husband's a perpetual liar, verifying with phone calls to people, you know.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She just wants to believe him so bad.
Caroline: It's
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This lady is pregnant. This is her loving husband. She does not want the humiliation.
Caroline: hard.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She does not want the ah casting out.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You know, she people she could lose her entire community.
Caroline: Totally.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I don't know what was going through Laurie's mind, but I do know that sometime in the night he decided she was not going to let this go.
Caroline: No, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he couldn't trick her anymore.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And police and prosecutors, they all believe that Laurie's outreach to the school may have triggered Mark to kill her since that's when his lies started to be exposed.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So what happened to Mark Hacking? Last time we checked, he was in the and mental institution for streaking through, you know, just running, but had his shoes on.
Caroline: yeah yep yep
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So what happened to his sandals? Mark Hacking. While Mark Hacking was held on a psychiatric hold where two of his brothers visited him, and believe and remember, they're in the they're Mormons, they're his family, they're forgiving of him, they're trying to help him, um and they go to see him.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And they just spent a lot of time with him, just begging him and urging him, and making the case for him to tell the truth. On July 24, he confessed to his family that on July 18, so this is less than a week, Carolyn, he and Laurie had argued after he told her the truth about the medical school.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Later that night, he shot her while she slept, then put her body in a dumpster.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: The brothers shared the confession with Mark's attorney. who informed the police. Mark was arrested on August 2nd and charged with first-degree murder on August 9th.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So there was some time there where, you know, they had to get him out of the psych ward.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um The police searched for Laurie's remains at a municipal landfill until they were discovered. Caroline, it took two months
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And what happens is, what were you going to say?
Caroline: Well,
Caroline: I was just going to say, I know there's a, I think you're about to say it, there's a methodology with how landfills are ah filled up. So that's the only way you can start a grid search is by knowing that formula by which the land, you know, the garbage is placed into the landfill.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Exactly.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely, that's exactly right. And, you know, there are some videos of the ah eight or ten deputies out there searching, or and crime techs also, searching in the landfill where they knew her body had been dumped.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But by the time they got the information, there had been a lot of compaction, there had been a lot of heaping on day after day after day after day after day.
Caroline: Yep.
Caroline: Yep.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It was very, very hot. It was very, very hot.
Caroline: August, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um Yeah, July and August and into September
Caroline: Mm-hmm.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: and um at the landfill. And they kept going through these, they would open up bags where they felt they could tell that hair was in them.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But all they kept determining that, you know, this was just hair from like a barbershop or a beauty shop or, you know,
Caroline: Right. Regular hairbrush letting out in the garbage.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, all all of the above, you know.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So every time they ran across a, a ah you know, a plastic body, I guess she was put in a ah plastic trash bag, maybe.
Caroline: Okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Although I don't, I don't know.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But they, they, they were looking in everything.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They may have known or not known whether she was wrapped up. And I never got that information from what I had read. So they finally one day,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: opened up one of those bags that had some hair sticking out, and they found her skull. And they found some other body parts, but not many because of the compaction and, you know, the heels.
Caroline: What's the heat? The heat mixed with all that bacteria is going to speed up decomposition, I'm imagining. i don't know science very well.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yes, oh, yes, yes. Oh, my God. Yes. On April 15, 2005, Mark pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. As Laurie's remains were too decomposed to verify her pregnancy, Mark did not face the death penalty.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You know, in Utah, they shoot you.
Caroline: Oh, really? They do now in Idaho, too.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yes. Firing squad. Yeah.
Caroline: Idaho got jealous.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm for it. You know, it's faster. You know, it's cheaper.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm not even for the death penalty. But then sometimes I see something i'm thinking, OK, I'll make an exception.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm not kidding.
Caroline: I've, yeah, no, me too. i I actually thought I was fairly anti-death penalty for the most part, then but but but ultimately it's none of my business.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, me too.
Caroline: And I always kind of knew that because I'm not impact i'm not in that story. So it's none of my business. But at the same time recently, and I'm sure you guys can all figure out what recently has changed my mind.
Caroline: I think it's entirely something that should be like a 70, 30 up to the families of the victims. You know, none of my business.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, that is a change that I would love to see. But on the other hand... No, I mean, that would be chaos.
Caroline: We have to have order. i
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And that's why we have a separate legal system. and But I'm with you. You know, I i have heard judges say, after listening to the family, after hearing the impact statements, after this and this, I sentence you to do.
Caroline: Yeah. Absolutely.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So it influences some judges, but not all judges.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Anyway, he pled guilty. He said in court, and I quote, I intentionally shot Laurie Hacking in the head with a.22 caliber rifle on July 19, 2004.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: two thousand and four He was tas telling this to the court. At his sentencing, he declared, she was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but I killed her and took her life and the life of my unborn child and put them in the garbage, and I cannot explain why I did it.
Caroline: Wow. what What a powerful statement, actually. Wow.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yep. Yep. Of course, he wants people think he's crazy.
Caroline: Well, this is the tough part because I want to have compassion after hearing something that feels very truthful and authentic. But then in reality, maybe that was part of a show. What was he doing? Was he really crying? Was it real? And then like you said, maybe he's just really good at making those emotions look real.
Caroline: I don't know.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He was good at making it look real.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In fact, one of the things that confuses me about mark hacking is I always say that these killers, they're so narcissistic. They cannot imagine ah the context of other people.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: They can't imagine what other people go through. They have no compassion. I mean, I say things like that all the time. They have no... no empathy, they're missing that piece.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean, this is how I explain to myself how these people can do these murders of their loved ones.
Caroline: Right. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I just, you know, that's my, that's been my go-to.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And now I'm kind of looking at it again because I'm thinking to myself, this man had insight into other people. He was a con man. He could tell very quickly what the other person was feeling, thinking, and what they were all about so that he could con them.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely.
Caroline: Yeah, like what their motivators were, right? Because that's kind of like, I think that's the art of communication, right? It's like identifying the motivating ah forces of the person you're attempting to influence, right?
Caroline: Like, so he was just really good at that, which is scary.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Absolutely.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's very scary. I like to think, well, these people are, you know, they're psychopaths, they're sociopaths, so therefore they they're narcissists, so they can't really get into the head, mind, and heart of the other person.
Caroline: Right. Right.
Caroline: Right. Right.
Caroline: right
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Mark Hacking just blows me out of the water because... i All I can say is he he made me, in studying this case closer for this podcast, he made me go look up compulsive lying and how dangerous it is.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um
Caroline: Well, you know how I feel about lying. It's entirely dangerous. You can't.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yes, yes.
Caroline: False realities. Can't do it.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yace believes that the Marx pathological lying likely developed the in response to interactions in the community and with other people.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Quote, as he grew up and was watching other family members get successful and be successful, and he was not, remember his father's a pediatrician.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: His mother's a highly trained nurse.
Caroline: And his brothers. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You know, his brothers are all doing good.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um You know, they are and he's not. And there's also an element of grandiosity. He felt like he felt like he deserved more than he was getting in life, but didn't want to put his energies into achieving the kind of goals that he probably could have achieved.
Caroline: I was just going to say, like, this is a what what did he what did he want to do? I mean, you know, that's the thing, like, because I think this is actually really common, especially among siblings, more than two. When you have more than two siblings, well, it'll even happen with two.
Caroline: But you're going to see everyone in your family is going to have some niche that this is what it's going to feel like for you. Everybody has a path but me. What's my path? I don't have any path. They're good at this. They're good at that.
Caroline: I'm not good at anything. That's such a common conversation yeah amongst siblings. There's always going to be one having that conversation with themselves. Like, and then they're going to try things that don't fit with them because they're trying them because they think, well, I have to be successful in the same ways as my siblings in order for the success to be real.
Caroline: I can't go carving out my own success that doesn't make sense to anyone else. I think, but did he ever even stop to ask himself, like, what do I want to do? Maybe I don't want to be this textbook successful.
Caroline: Maybe I want to go to open a business and be a salesman or something.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I, everything he said, i completely think is exactly what happened.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But there were other things happening too. And I want to talk here about what I learned from a 48 hours episode on this case that he had early in his early life, he began lying and he just couldn't quit.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Mark was sentenced to... I'll talk about that minute. So um Mark was sentenced to a minimum of six years in prison. Okay, that's that's a jaw-dropper.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: The legal guideline at the time, but he will not be considered for parole before 2035. twenty thirty five So in other words, what happened was... He was sentenced to six years to life.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So the starting range is six years.
Caroline: Oh.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So maybe somebody killed somebody, but there were situations, as you know, facts there that he could this person could get out in six years.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But he he was sentenced to six years to life.
Caroline: Okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He went for parole. He asked for parole.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: at six years, and the parole board decided no, and also decided and had the power to do so in Utah, that you will not be able to ask again until 2035. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Caroline: Wow, what an interesting way to set it up. Okay. I mean, but it worked. So that's cool. So they can just deny him for another 15 years.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: yeah
Caroline: Don't even ask me again for 15 years.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: ah there ah yeah yeah Yeah, yeah.
Caroline: Wow.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: 2035 is, you know, 10 years more. And then this was like, I can't do math right now. He is currently serving his time in the Central Utah Correctional Facility.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um So I want to um want to go back to what I said about his early life of lying.
Caroline: yeah oh yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In the 48 Hours episode, um He was depicted this way. They had some video of him from the family, you know, family photos and all this, that he was a bit clumsy and he would fall down and people would laugh and he enjoyed making people laugh.
Caroline: oh yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So he started doing things on purpose in his life, pretending that he was doing something that he wasn't doing or setting up situations that were goofy and weird
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he was constantly looking for a way to manufacture his environment and the people in his environment in order to get a rise out of them, a laugh out of them, fun.
Caroline: Okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay, well, he decided that lying is just better than truth.
Caroline: Like he just liked that world better than the real world altogether.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yes, that he became, he became... oh this is what he was of all about is what can I manufacture as reality so that the reality will get me what I want which is attention
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: Right. It was like a grand play. He was continuously putting on every new entrance of a person in the life becomes a new character i can manipulate in the story I create.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: yes he can have his own universe pretty soon he is the god of his own universe
Caroline: Yeah. Yep.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he just lived that way.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This was his pattern of living.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This was not a pattern in his living. This was the pattern of his living.
Caroline: right that That explains the ah like grandiosity of the of of the participation in the lie, not just painting the lie, but but physically going to other places I say I'm going to go for interviews or whatever, even though I have no business there.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Living the lie.
Caroline: that That kind of gives me a sense of why so grand. Most people just lie about it and then they go to some place no one will find them for two weeks that's real close by. But he actually would fly around and play act at this role he had created.
Caroline: i mean, it was that's pretty elaborate.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Right. at Right. Yep. So in 2006, and six and i remember he's in prison, in 2006 he was found to be providing autographs and other items for a murder memorabilia site.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Did not know that there was a murder memorabilia site.
Caroline: Rose.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But anyway, though he voluntarily agreed to stop. um With encouragement from his family, he has also written a quote-unquote life history while in bars.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay,
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: this is good on you, family, for trying to get him to do something that would tell the truth. I'm sorry for you, because i asking an inveterate liar to write their life history
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Now, wait a minute, maybe that would be a good play or a good movie script, but it's going to be fiction.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
Caroline: It's gonna be fiction.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But I think they're trying, you know, I'm reading into this. I think that they're trying to get him to recall some of the truth of what was happening in his life and why he chose to lie.
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: Well, that's it. Well, that's it.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: What was the lie he told?
Caroline: they that's It's true but because they say to try and catch a liar, you often are asked, just ask them to continue to repeat the story. That's how you can catch someone in a lie because the deviations begin to flow.
Caroline: You know you begin to see where the lies are. You can even start to pinpoint why the lies are being told that way, maybe from this exercise. So I actually do think this is a great exercise because...
Caroline: At least, you know, we did this with people like Bundy with the tapes or Son of Son. You know, we have all these tapes now of these people talking about their crimes. Whether they're admitting to it or not is kind of irrelevant because now it's just it's this repetition of the gathering of the information consistently.
Caroline: that allows us to paint a more accurate picture later as we lay that all out. So I do think, even though we know people are liars, continue to ask them the same questions and them write it down. Because over the course of 10, 20, 30 years, you're going to get a better sense of the realities of the story versus the fictions of the story, you know?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like what the FBI did when they went out and they interviewed killers and they found some some similarities and they plotted it all out and they did a lot of scientific work to determine, you know, here's how we can predict who your a killer is.
Caroline: Yep.
Caroline: Right.
Caroline: Yes.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: look You need to look for a painter with a Volkswagen who gets up at six in the morning.
Caroline: That's right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: and And they can do that, and they've done it successfully. and and It doesn't always work, but they've done it successfully many times.
Caroline: Oh, yes. For a decade. And it's only going to get better. I mean, that's the thing about data.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Caroline: I, you know, I i know.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Wait till AI gets ahead of all of it.
Caroline: Don't let the AI get too smart on that one. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: ah yeah Yeah, really.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay, so I do want to say something about Laurie. I've got to go back to Laurie. um In 2004, when all this happened, you know, Laurie's brother...
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: is given an impact statement.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Now remember, Laurie was adopted and her brother was adopted at the same time by the same people.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And Laurie's brother Paul Suarez said in her relationship with Mark, quote, he didn't have to be a doctor.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: a president, whatever it was, if he was doing his best, she would have loved him.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean, you know, I bet the night she died, she was not talking about, I'm going to leave you, as much as she was talking about, do you understand how much help you need?
Caroline: No. Yeah.
Caroline: That part.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: this is This is really, really, really bad.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I might have mentioned this before, I think I did, but during the investigation into Laurie's disappearance, a typewritten letter from Laurie to Mark was found in the couple's spare bedroom. It's unknown when she wrote it, but it may have been connected to the July 16 call she made to the medical school that she thought Mark was attending. In the letter, she pleaded with Mark to change his behavior, writing, I want to grow old with you, but I can't do it under these conditions.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I can't imagine life with you if things don't change.
Caroline: Wow.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: You know, here she's just pleading.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: it She's throwing herself at his feet.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She loved him.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Laurie's remains were buried at a grave site that bears her maiden name, Suarez, not her married name. In her honor, her family established the Laurie K. Suarez Hacking Memorial Scholarship at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I think she probably did that in concert with his parents, and that is why in this memorial scholarship, um which they probably donated to, um the her ah married name ah came out
Caroline: Okay.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But when they put her name on her tombstone, it did not.
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But anyway, they um they came up with a ah a way to honor her. And the same school, this was the same school that Laurie had attended, University of Utah. um The scholarship aids women in disadvantaged situations and those facing personal challenges.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So she's, they're trying to find people like her and help them.
Caroline: Yep. Yeah. yeah
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: In 2004, the a and e aired a documentary about the case Deadly Deception, the Mark Hacking Story. um that That story broke my heart.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Listeners, if you can find it on YouTube and and and watch it, it broke my heart. Lori's mother, Thelma Suarez, has exchanged letters with Mark in prison.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She says she has forgiven him for her own peace of mind, but she still grieves her daughter's death. You never get over it, she said in a 2014 interview with Deseret News, which is a Utah Mormon newspaper.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm not over it now. I will never get over it. What you get over is the immediacy of it, but you never get over the loss.
Caroline: Yeah, she's right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: She's right. Now, Caroline, this... this story, when I started to research the truth about what happened, it really shook me up.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Like, what? You know, you can be addicted to lying. And I guess I sort of frivolously always thought that. But this is real.
Caroline: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: This man was just, you know, not clinically, you know, not legally insane.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: But he did not know truth from fiction.
Caroline: He didn't want to.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: So I looked at, I did some reading.
Caroline: he He wanted complete authorship over any truth that that was available, right?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: No.
Caroline: Which, of course, you can't control for others. Like, truth is subjective on some fronts, but not on any of these fronts. But, you know, I mean, he just, like you said, I think early on, I mean, he just, he got caught up in the show.
Caroline: And then it became like, I don't like any any of the elements about my real reality. I'm going to live entirely in this falsified reality. one that I get to write as a script.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And I wonder if he didn't want to move to North Carolina and then once they were there, break it to him because he was trying to get away from his ah Mormon background, his community, faith community, his parents, his father, the doctor, his brothers, the superior thinkers who are doing good in life.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He wanted to get away from that and he wanted Laurie with him and he wanted this baby. But, you know, when she found out, um he didn't know how to solve his problem.
Caroline: Yeah. He didn't know how to get out of this pickle of people know.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He didn't know, it she wasn't going to move to North Carolina way away from her family with with no medical school and no sense of purpose, right?
Caroline: With no sense of purpose there. ah there's Yeah. like it was a lot It was a facade, the whole reason why she would even go out there. And she's got a community here that she wouldn't want to leave.
Caroline: Yeah, but you're right. I mean, for him, all the things you listed, that's all just accountability. Accountability he can no longer even think to face because he's been doing it his whole life.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Right. So I did look it up. Here were the four things that I found in every article I i read. People who become habitual liars and con artists do so ah for a combination of psychological traits and situational factors.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I mean, you know, and I'm not a shrink.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: i've got a I've got a microphone and a computer. That's all I have.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: um And I don't know, but this is what I read.
Caroline: We got Google.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And here are some of the traits. Manipulative nature. Many con artists and liars possess a natural tendency to manipulate others. That's just their tendency. Some people like to swim.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: you know such Some people want to go to the moon. you know ah Some people want to manipulate others, often using charm and persuasing persuasion to deceive others.
Caroline: and
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: The other one, psychological truck tactics. Successful car artists employ various psychological tactics, such as creating empathy and support with their victims to maintain their illusion of truth.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And so ah this this rings true to me that, you know, and I did not know that a killer could do that, but they do.
Caroline: Me too. Yeah.
Caroline: Well, look, let me frame it in a way we all can understand. When you get pulled over because you've been speeding or doing some other thing that could get you a ticket, the first thing you're going to do is attempt to build rapport with that police officer. Gosh, I'm so sorry. You know, my child is ripping me a new one from the backseat and I just couldn't, you know, blah, blah, blah. You're trying to build a rapport. You're looking at the officer thinking, do you have kids?
Caroline: Do you know what I mean? Are you ever late for work? Like, you know, you're trying to build a sense of sympathy. And sometimes it works and they give you a warning.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Yeah, I mean, so a little bit of manipulating others to get what you want is in all of us.
Caroline: It's a survival trade.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: It's in all of us. But successful con artists and liars employ, ah they're doing it all the time when telling the truth would be better for them.
Caroline: Larger scale. Yes. Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: The third one, human nature. The tendency to trust others can make individuals more susceptible to deceit, especially when offers seem too good to be true.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay, now I am not one of those people.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm a very distrusting person, but I trusted Mark Hacking.
Caroline: Yeah. Which is good. Isn't that funny? um so I think it's so important to keep emphasizing that, that you were, you know, you know that he fully pulled on your heartstring in a way that was no questions asked.
Caroline: Right?
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I think it was real. What he was coming across with was real because he believed it was real because of all the things we've been saying.
Caroline: Yeah.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Also, the last thing that was common among what everybody has to say about these liars is compulsive lying. Some individuals may develop a compulsive habit of lying, often as a coping strategy for insecurities and past traumas.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay, bingo.
Caroline: Bingo.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: He had that too. So I think he had all four of these things.
Caroline: Yeah.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: And he was just ah a um lethal weapon.
Caroline: Yeah. But these are all, like, that last one, you know, often is a coping mechanism mechanism for insecurities and past traumas. i mean, who hasn't done that? Who hasn't lied about, like, I'm
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Oh, I do it all the time. Somebody tells me, will you come over to my house? I'd love to, but I've got blah, blah, blah, blah bla going on.
Caroline: Right.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I'm sorry.
Caroline: Because you just, I mean, so the line is so thin.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: I don't want to hurt him.
Caroline: And so, you know, but yes, always be looking out for these things and also try to overcome some of those little ones. I know that's what I think when I read this is like, yeah, maybe just do that one time less when you notice it's happening, Caroline.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Okay, here's what I have to say. Our research is solely based on public documents, including legal documents, articles, and books about our subject, all in the public domain.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: Episodes are aired every other week. Please tell your friends to join us and give us a review and subscribe. It helps new listeners find us. Well, thank you listeners for joining us. We really appreciate you listening to our story today.
Andy, Bridget and Caroline: of this family murderer. And one other thing. Don't forget to live and let live. So bye-bye, Caroline.
Caroline: Bye-bye. butbye
