Wow. I admit I didn't think he had anything to do with her disappearance. I thought the local news was blowing his involvement way out of proportion.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
And I assumed that he was the primary suspect from the beginning.
Just think, she is bonded to him forever through marriage.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
*hangs head*
Not so.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Guess someone was paying absolutely no attention to the Laci Peterson case... didn't this guy know that they seem to always look at the spouse first?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Oh, if he killed her, that's not an issue.
My friend Molly told me about this the other day. That's just awful.
<off topic> I know it's not the topic, but this:
quote:If Lori's body is recovered and a pregnancy is established, authorities will confer with the district attorney about bringing any additional charges, Dinse said.
It's still irritating that it's not okay for the father to kill the baby, but it's okay for the mother. How can you be charged with killing something that is not officially recognized as being human? Either the fetus has a life to lose or it doesn't.</off topic>
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Husbands are always the first suspects in a wife's disappearance with good reason.
And once his lies came to light, in addition to certain irratic behavior prior to his wife's disappearance, I was firmly in the "oh hell, another one" camp.
-Trevor
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Sorry Kat - welcome to the inconsistent, unspoken double-standards that permeate our legal system.
-Trevor
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I think my problem is my basic distrust and dislike of television news. I am more inclined to think that they are trying to make something out of nothing to keep the interest up.
Also, Mark Hacking's dad was our daughter's pediatrician until we moved. He was a very nice man. I wasn't inclined to think ill of his family right off the bat.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
As a fan of "Forensic Detectives" and similar shows, cops like to move in methodical patterns.
Random murders almost never happen - statistically low percentages. Which means the police start looking at friends, family and acquaintances of the victim for clues as to who might have done it and why.
Once immediate family and friends have been ruled out, the investigators will typically expand their search into other areas of the victim's life. Failing that, the case will often go cold unless there is some evidence to point in a new direction.
-Trevor
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
I'd really like to find out what's going on with this guy psychiatrically.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
He's got a screw loose?
I dunno - his web of lies was coming down around his ears and finding out his wife was pregnant and she knew about the deceptions probably pushed him over the edge.
Of course, it's his own bloody fault for dancing on the damned ledge to begin with.
-Trevor
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
That's interesting, TMedina. I suppose that makes sense.
Mack, I didn't want the old mental illness stigma to be everybody's pet motive in this case.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
He might have an actual mental illness.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
afr--what do you mean?
I mean, if the guy is mentally ill, it doesn't excuse his actions. And if he truly IS ill, once his condition improves, imagine his own shock and horror about finding out what he's done to his wife (if he did do it).
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
He might - and as you say, it would be interesting to see.
I don't think he's bright enough to fake a mental illness by dancing naked and drawing attention to himself.
Of course, if he was capable of long-term strategic thinking, he wouldn't have lied about college and medical school either.
-Trevor
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:It's still irritating that it's not okay for the father to kill the baby, but it's okay for the mother. How can you be charged with killing something that is not officially recognized as being human? Either the fetus has a life to lose or it doesn't.</off topic>
When killing the pregnancy involves killing the mother, it is given weight as an addition to murder. You are intentionally misstating the circumstances to argue an abortion-related topic. Had he fed her abortives, that would also fall under an already established law (something akin to poisoning someone), so that would also not be similar to the abortion argument. On the other hand, cases involving a father who wants the mother to have an abortion against the mother's wishes, or vice versa, would be an applicable argument. Otherwise, it is hyperbole.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
My first thought upon hearing of the disappearence and of the plan to move to go to medical school brought to mind two other murders in which the exact same thing occurred.
[ August 02, 2004, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I find it interesting that CNN.com found that announcement (that he had been charged with her murder) important enough to bump the terror threat down to a sub-story, and make the Hacking case lead story. (While ABCNews made the murder case secondary). I wonder who decides the headlines?
FG
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
All the lies and such could be symptoms of a pervasive and serious mental illness.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Individual editors with their own sense of propriety, I suppose.
-Trevor
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Possibly, Mack.
Of course, I'll wait until an independent medical analysis has been done and not trust what his defense team says.
-Trevor
Edit: For incomplete thoughts
[ August 02, 2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: TMedina ]
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Well, yes, I imagine that his mental illness was a big factor in the whole thing. I don't think you can be all there and cut someone up with a knife.
But when the news broke that he had been admitted to the psych ward directly after her disappearance, I cringed because that's what the news was doing--playing on the mental illness stigma, reaffirming that people with mental illness are always violent and dangerous. I didn't immediately think that there was a necessary connection. My first thought was that the stress of having his wife go missing was the trigger that sent him over the edge.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
I don't have access to a lot of news channels - so most of my understanding has come from the web and web-based offerings like ABCnews.com and CNN.com and, of course, CourtTV.com.
Insofar as I am aware, no news outlet has been playing up the possibility of mental illness as any particular aspect.
Locally, we just had a wife and her lover arrested for murdering her husband in the Frito-Lay plant. Did I mention the lover was the youth minister and the dead hubbie was some figure in their church?
-Trevor
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
It was the local news that was doing all the sensationalist stuff, I think. They had reporters posted at all the locations, and they were constantly hounding family members and friends for new nibbles of information. When the families finally came out with the statement that they weren't going to make any more statements, they had analysts analyzing the statement.
I think the whole reason it made the top story slot in the first place was that Mark Hacking went to the psych ward shortly after Lori went missing.
Posted by rubble (Member # 6454) on :
Jutsa,
I'm not following your logic yet. Are you saying that in this case, the attacker was attempting to kill the pregnancy, and in the process killed the mother?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Re: this vs terror
"The terror threat" isn't news anymore. After all, we've been assured that its been going on for decades and that the war on terror is ongoing (and thus it hasn't been eliminated). Everything else is just details except for attacks (in the US, that is, the news agencies have grown bored of reporting attacks outside the US).
This is news.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"All the lies and such could be symptoms of a pervasive and serious mental illness."
Only if one considers extreme narcissism and laziness to be a mental illness.
And just as he (presumably) assumed that his "trauma" upon the "disappearence" of his wife would provide alibi for him not attending medical school, he's playing with "his audience" once again by running around naked and (predictably) getting locked up in a psychiatric facility. "I didn't do it...blah blah blah."
[ August 02, 2004, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Actually, extreme narcissism IS a mental illness.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Wow, I would have been shocked to find out that Mark DIDN'T do this.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
As the information slowly seeped in, it started to look more and more like he had. But at first, it seemed that the two events were not connected in a way that made him suspect.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I was just asking my brother in law about this last night. Mark Hacking was his trainer at the Neuropsychiatry institute. They were orderly-type dudes. In that vein:
quote:I don't think he's bright enough to fake a mental illness by dancing naked and drawing attention to himself.
I would not be surprised if he has been doing his dangdest to pretend to be insane.
Also, did anyone notice that Mark himself was the first to bring up parallels between his wife's disappearance and the Laci Petersen case? He knew the spotlight would be on him.
Now he's obviously a complicated individual, but I all the reports I have seen point to him being pretty well collected until after the investigation began.
There was an article implying the interest in this case is due to media favoring whites. But Lori was part Hispanic. I think it's because the last name is "Hacking". Hello.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Hmmm.
Could be borderline personality disorder.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
It's difficult to speculate without having any factual data to draw upon.
Although I don't doubt we will be hearing about the surviving Hacking's mental state in the coming trial.
-Trevor
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
One would hope.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I wonder how easy it is to fake the kind of behavior that will get you a bed in the psych ward. The social workers and psychologists who screen the patients are fairly discriminating, as there are a limited number of beds.
I'd say you have to be acting pretty consistently off-kilter to get admitted. Running around naked once wouldn't do it.
Plus, like I said before, you have to be fairly out of it to murder your wife and then lead everyone on a wild goose chase. If he was faking it, he wasn't faking most of it.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Referring to afr's previous post: I don't know, afr. I heard that a woman who was five weeks pregnant disappeared, and big warning signs went off. I assumed that she had just told her family that she was pregnant and the husband freaked, and I thought that before I ever knew a thing about the husband. Not that I'm overly cynical, but it seems like five weeks pregnant is a heckuva (and obvious) time to disappear.
[ August 02, 2004, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: PSI Teleport ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Running around naked generally gets you arrested for indecent exposure.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
afr, the military ward I was in was pretty much dedicated to figuring out who was really nuts and who was trying to get out of the service with disability benefits. It is not at all an easy thing to sort out.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I'm holding that Mark was already pretty up in the sky for a while, maybe even before telling everyone he had been accepted to medical school. The irrationality of the lies he told smack of hypomania. He was probably on his way off the charts around the time Lori found out she was pregnant.
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
quote:I think it's because the last name is "Hacking". Hello.
And? I'd never heard the name before this case? Are they celebrities or something?
[ August 02, 2004, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: maui babe ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Yeah, I'd like to see the results of his psych testing.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Pooka, yes, but I've been through the admittance process at the psych ward Mark stayed at. Not for myself, but with a close relation. I've also been through it down at Utah Valley hospital. It surprised me how close they came to not admitting her even in the state she was in. I can't imagine being able to pull off that kind of behavior just for show.
But I gotta go now!
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Conditions for psychiatric admits are usually if a person is homicidal, suicidal, psychotic, or a combination of those.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Maybe Utah makes an exception for public nudity I think admittance decisions are also very dependent upon demand at any given time. They are paid to stay full, after all.
I don't have any reason to think he was faking, except that he has demonstrated elaborate lying, and he has extensive experience with psychiatric patients. (He wasn't treated at his former workplace, by the way).
P.S. maui babe, I meant "hacking" as in terms of "stabbing repeatedly". Not as a celebrity name.
[ August 02, 2004, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Yeah - it's like finding out Scott Peterson is (was) a fertilizer salesman.
I mean, c'mon.
-Trevor
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Uh, I don't understand Trevor.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It DOES amaze me that apparently every Hatracker from Utah has, at one point or another, run into this nutjob's family.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Pooka...
He sells manure for a living.
*coughcoughBullshitcough*
-Trevor
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Oh, okay. I had never heard that before. It doesn't really go with the "squiring the young ladies" image.
Tom- yeah, weird, huh?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'll go ahead and bump this because it's over a day old. I have to wonder what happened to tuition that Mark paid for going to the U of U when he actually wasn't. The report that he forged a diploma suggests to me that he was planning to go onward with the schooling deception through medical school.
Whether he was just planning to get money from his wife for tuition, or from his dad, her knowing that he hadn't been accepted to medical school threatened a rather large racket that he had planned. Who knows if he even intended to forge a med school diploma and license? He may have even thought that with her disappearance, this would have increased the likelihood of his dad financing his education.
Anyway, to me it seems like he had a real motive. And as a broker, I'm sure she had some life insurance to boot.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
quote:Also, did anyone notice that Mark himself was the first to bring up parallels between his wife's disappearance and the Laci Petersen case? He knew the spotlight would be on him.
Now he's obviously a complicated individual, but I all the reports I have seen point to him being pretty well collected until after the investigation began.
There was an article implying the interest in this case is due to media favoring whites. But Lori was part Hispanic. I think it's because the last name is "Hacking". Hello.
Hmmmm. Well, then, there's at least one other parallel with the Peterson case - Laci Peterson was also part Hispanic. However, in both cases, the couples appear to be young, upwardly mobile, and physically attractive according to current standards of attractiveness. I think that has a lot to do with all the media interest.
I'll just warn all of you in the SLC area. Get ready for it: the publicity isn't going to go away any time soon. The Peterson case is local to my area - it happened about an hour or so up the road from where I am, but is considered "local" because of TV coverage areas and the fact that Amber Frye, the girlfriend, is local.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Why didn't I concur? I should have concurred!
I did watch the featurette about the real dude.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Broker's assistant - so I'm not sure what exactly that entails.
I have to admit, the case is fascinating in and of itself - in a clinical, slightly morbid manner.
And other people have noted the media spotlight on Peterson and Hacking - whereas non-whites don't get the same air time.
Which, I think, is overly simplistic.
-Trevor
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I can only imagine the gut-wrenching sorrow if my husband was murdered and on top of that I was the top suspect. That has gotta suck big time. But of course, if the guy is guilty.... It's just so hard to know.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
It's unfortunate, but it happens often enough the cops have reasonable justification for looking at family and friends first before moving outward.
People get angry when cops pursue that line of investigation, but from the outside looking in - you may know you're not guilty, but the cops can't know that until they start to investigate.
Of course, it's always easier to be dispationate when you're not the one being looked at.
I am finding myself wondering if Mark is sterile? Maybe a discovery of pregnancy incited jealous rage.... Oh the drama of speculation.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
quote: "I have no idea what his mental status is," Yocom said about the alleged witness.
How can someone be an alleged witness?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Hmmmm...
the article portrays him as a "devout Mormon" but then it mentions on the video he is seen buying cigarettes...
..that's a little out of place.
Farmgirl
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
I've been following the story in the Deseret News. To all appearances he was a devout Mormon. His family are practicing, devout members. His cigarette habit was on the sly. One more lie to add to the growing pile.
I feel great sympathy for the families. They have lost their daughter, but can hope of reuniting in Heaven afterward. Their son maybe lost forever.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
PSI - they haven't verified the information or the source of the information.
I could run around saying I saw the Great Pumpkin crawl through a window and eat my roomie's cat, but until it could be verified, I would be the "alleged witness."
It's not unheard of for people to fabricate statements in an effort to sway the evidence for or against, depending on their own bias.
-Trevor
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
For updated info you can check with The Deseret News Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
I thought of this local case due to the mention of non-white vs white media coverage. I was surprised ther was not much national media attentio. Of course, there won't be a trial here.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
You're probably right, Trevor, but for the sake of argument, I would say that if you were saying you saw the Great Pumpkin, then you wouldn't be an alleged witness because either you saw it, or saw the place where it wasn't. At best I might call you a lying witness. That doesn't make much sense but give me a break, I'm sick.
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
TM-- the Deseret News is reporting that it was his brothers that he confessed to and they notified the police.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
I read that as a headlining story off of a CNN, Drudge, or GoogleNews on the day it happened, romanylass. Possibly it was on other news services as well, but I only felt the need to read it once (and I'm also sure that what I read wasn't from the site you linked to).
So I'm not sure what your "non-white vs white media coverage" is about. The perpetrator is known&dead, everybody involved with the story died; no mystery. There just isn't anything there to give the story more than a day's coverage.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Wendy - yep, I read the article as well as other updates. I wish I could be surprised.
PSI - I suppose it depends on who said "alleged witness." According to Webster's, "alleged" has several definitions, including:
quote:accused but not proven or convicted
So someone decided to be hyper-accurate in specifying a witness has claimed, but the information has not been verified. Using the "alleged" qualifier on a witness can either be used to create a sense of distrust of the witness' credibility or to literally specify the witness testimony is uncorroborated at this point.
As to the "white versus non-white" coverage, there has been several allegations that crimes against whites draw more media attention and therefore more police attention than crimes against non-whites.
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
And? I'd never heard the name before this case? Are they celebrities or something?![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I think admittance decisions are also very dependent upon demand at any given time. They are paid to stay full, after all.