SALT LAKE CITY, April 15 (UPI) -- A Utah man pleaded guilty Friday to murdering his wife and then claiming publicly she had disappeared while jogging.
Mark Hacking will face life in prison when he is sentenced June 6 for the shooting death of his wife, Lori, last summer as they were preparing to move to North Carolina where he had falsely claimed he was enrolled in medical school.
Salt Lake City police believe Hacking killed his wife when she was about to discover her husband not only had lied about medical school but had also not graduated from college as he had claimed. Hacking was taken to a psychiatric facility after suffering an apparent breakdown the day after he reported his wife missing.
The Salt Lake Tribune said Hacking confessed to his brother a few days later that he had killed his wife. Her body was found last fall buried under tons of trash at the Salt Lake County landfill.
