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Mark Hacking -- who shot and killed his wife, Lori Hacking, last July -- was sentenced Monday to serve six years to life in Utah State Prison.

Hacking, 29, stood before a 3rd District Court bench as Judge

Denise Lindberg handed down the sentence: five years to life for

first-degree felony murder plus a one-year sentencing "enhancement"

for using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

His exact sentence will be determined by Utah's Board of Pardons

and Parole.

"I don't envy the job of the parole board but my recommendation

will be that it be a very, very long time before you are ever

considered for parole," Lindberg told Hacking.

The judge's sentence followed more than 90 minutes of statements

from members of Lori Hacking's family, who asked that Hacking never

be released, and relatives of Mark Hacking, who expressed hope that

someday he could be paroled.

The most emotional moment came when Lori's mother, Thelma Soares,

lashed out at Hacking for killing her daughter and unborn grandchild

and disposing of them like trash.

"How could you do that, Mark? How could you do that to me?" she

said, facing the killer.

"I'm sorry," Hacking replied, dabbing his eyes.

Soares then told the judge, "I can't think of one good reason Mark

should ever walk free again. I loved that young man as if he were my

own son. He now tells me he's sorry but those words come easy and

ring hollow in the face of his selfish actions. It would be a

travesty for him to be given any sentence other than life without

parole."

In his statement to the judge, an oft-sobbing Mark Hacking said,

"I know words are cheap, especially from me, but from the bottom of

my heart, I'm so sorry for the pain I've caused. I deserve to be in

prison...for the rest of my life. I don't know if I'll ever feel I've

done enough time."

In addition to the prison time, Hacking must pay fines totaling

$18,500 and restitition of $120,000 to cover police search and

recovery efforts and victim reparations.

Hacking pleaded guilty April 15 to killing his wife, admitting

that he shot her in the head as she lay sleeping in their apartment

at 127 S. Lincoln St. (945 East) in the early morning hours of

Monday, July 19.

The murder came days after the Lori Hacking discovered that

Hacking had lied about being accepted to medical school at the

University of North Carolina.

Mark Hacking called police at 10:49 a.m. to report his wife, who

was reportedly a few weeks pregnant, had failed to return from a jog

in City Creek Canyon and that he had found her car parked in Memory

Grove.

Though police organized a search that was joined in the next few

days by thousands of volunteers, detectives almost immediately turned

their sights on Hacking. Shortly before calling police, Hacking had

purchased a new mattress.

Officers also found trace amounts of blood in Lori's car, blood

and fibers on a knife in the apartment and a mattress in a Dumpster

near their apartment. The mattress' pillow top had been cut off.

In the early morning hours of the following day, July 20, a naked

Mark Hacking was observed running around naked outside a hotel near

700 East and 400 South. Police took him to the psychiatric unit at

University Hospital.

On July 24, while still in the hospital, Hacking confessed to his

brothers, Scott and Lance Hacking, that he had murdered his wife.

Police booked Mark Hacking into jail upon his release from the

hospital on Aug. 2.

Based on information he had provided to his brothers, police began

an intensive probe of the Salt Lake County landfill. Dozens of

firefighters and police officers, often with the help of specially

trained cadaver dogs, searched the dump for weeks, eventually finding

her remains in a garbage bag on Oct. 1. An autopsy failed to

establish a cause of death or determine whether she was pregnant but

the state medical examiner ruled her death an intentional homicide.

Hacking later admitted that after killing his wife, he wrapped her

body in garbage bags and disposed of her in a Dumpster. He also

disposed of the murder weapon, a .22-caliber rifle.

The gun has not been recovered.