The Mark Hacking Enigma
By Burton S. Katz/Retired L.A. Superior Court Judge
Mark Hacking, after being admitted to the Neuropsychiatric Institute, has allegedly confessed to his brothers that he had killed his wife while she was sleeping and dumped her body in a garbage dumpster. If the alleged confession holds up, the case would seem to be cast in concrete. But these cases, that seem so easy, never are. Here’s what the media has reported so far.
Lori Hacking was an attractive and pert 27-year-old who recently learned she was five-weeks pregnant. She was planning to move to North Carolina with her husband, Mark, who was going to attend medical school. On the Friday before her Monday’s disappearance, she learned that Mark was not registered to attend medical school as he had claimed. They never heard of him. Her co-workers noticed how visibly upset she was, causing her to leave early. This was very unusual because Lori never shared her personal problems with co-workers.
On the Monday she disappeared, Lori, a trading-assistant at Wells Fargo Securities Services, was due in at 7 a.m. She never made it. Mark called Lori’s office at 10 a.m. on that Monday asking how she was, and was told she had not arrived. Mark then said, “Oh my God, her work clothes are still here,” implying that he was still home. In fact, he was allegedly in another part of town (Salt Lake City) buying a new mattress. Mark also allegedly said that Lori had been jogging in a park near her work. This turned out to be false. After he bought the mattress, he reported Lori missing to the police.
It turns out that not only was Mark Hacking not registered at medical school, but also he had allegedly lied about completing college. His own parents and in-laws were stunned when they learned of this. That Monday evening, Hacking was admitted to the Neuropsychiatric Institute following a ruckus at a local hotel where he was running around nude, apparently out of control. Some two days later, Hacking hired an attorney. Among other things, a bloody knife was allegedly found in the Hacking home together with brown hair. Lori has brown hair. DNA tests are being conducted. Police are searching for the old mattress.
All of us have watched shows such as “The Practice” or “Law and Order” where it appears the defendant has opportunity, motive, has lied and fabricated and attempted to cover-up before allegedly confessing to the crime-only to escape punishment because of an effective mental impairment defense. This, despite the appearance of purposeful and methodical conduct oriented toward the goal of killing the intended victim.
Ironically, a prosecutor must be concerned that the more senseless, brutal and bizarre a killing is, the further it falls from the tree of normalcy. And as such we have greater difficulty relating such a killing to rational behavior. A good defense lawyer will seize on Hacking’s bizarre behavior following the alleged killing and the fragile ego of a person who lived in a “made-up, make believe” world that was threatened when his wife discovered his elaborate fabrication.
We need only to look at O.J. to see how skilled lawyers can tilt the axis of a case in favor of the defense. Or to the Peterson case, where defense attorney Mark Garagos appears to be filleting the prosecution case, a subject we will visit in an upcoming article.
While Utah law has done away with the insanity defense per se, it permits insanity or diminished capacity due to mental disease or defect to mitigate a murder if it can be shown to negate one of the essential elements of murder.
Here, it would appear that Hacking has set the stage for a mental impairment defense. If the alleged confession cannot be suppressed, his only hope will be to raise such a defense. Many times bizarre and “crazy” behavior following the commission of a crime is not an uncommon reaction to the realization of the enormity of the evil the perpetrator has committed. It is simply that the mind often cannot accept such inhumane behavior and cannot rationally deal with it after the fact. It is the mind’s defense mechanism, assuming such conduct is not feigned. But that has no bearing on the mental state of the killer at the time of the commission of the offense. We can rest assured that there will be a battle of defense and prosecution experts on what this all means.
Hacking’s lawyer has indeed stated that “mental illness, mental deficiency certainly will be an issue in this case.” Indeed, his lawyer will seek to suppress any alleged confession to his brothers as untrustworthy due to Hacking’s alleged impaired mental state.