Mark Hacking was born on March 2, 1976, and raised in Utah in a Mormon family. He married Lori Soares in 1999, and they appeared to have a solid marriage. However, behind the scenes, Mark was hiding major lies. He had falsely claimed to be graduating from the University of Utah and going to medical school in North Carolina. In reality, he had dropped out of college years earlier and had fabricated nearly every part of his academic life.

Mark worked at a local hospital but had no long-term plans. He struggled with the pressure of maintaining his lies, and when Lori discovered the truth in July 2004 — just before they were scheduled to move — it triggered a deadly outcome. Mark was known to have a troubled mental state and had previously been in counseling. 

On July 19, 2004, just hours after Lori confronted him about his fake medical school acceptance, Mark Hacking shot her in the head with a .22-caliber rifle while she slept in their Salt Lake City apartment. He wrapped her body in garbage bags, placed it in a dumpster, and then went about staging her “disappearance,” claiming she had gone jogging and never returned.

The case gained massive national attention. Police, volunteers, and the media followed every lead. Mark made several emotional public appearances as a "worried husband," but soon inconsistencies in his story came out — especially after police discovered he hadn’t been accepted to medical school and hadn’t even graduated college.

Mark was eventually placed in a psychiatric ward, where he confessed the murder to his brothers. On August 2, 2004, he was arrested. Lori’s body was later found on October 1, 2004, at a landfill where authorities had searched for weeks. In June 2005, Mark pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to six years to life in prison — the maximum penalty under Utah law at the time for his crime. He is currently serving his sentence at the Central Utah Correctional Facility.