The Mark Hacking they knew - the friend, the brother, the missionary, the scholar, the future doctor - could not have been responsible for his wife's disappearance.
For two weeks they held out hope that they were right. Come Monday, however, that hope had been replaced with an immense sadness.
"I tried so hard not to believe it," said Jamie Farrell, a member of Mark Hacking's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ward who spent one day a month as Hacking's home teaching com- panion.
"As the investigation progressed, and as it kept pointing to this, it's still so hard, because the Mark Hacking I knew was obviously a different person," Farrell said.
Now, Farrell and others are questioning whether they ever really knew Hacking at all.
"It makes me wonder whether he's changed in the last five years," said Chris Downey, who attended the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo with Mark in the summer of 1995 before both young men were deployed to Winnipeg, Canada. "When I knew him, he was the nicest guy. This just kind of makes you take a step back and look at your other relationships."
Friends and family members said Hacking's relationships were marked by warmth and compassion. Co-workers called him "a big teddy bear." Neighbors said he was always willing to lend a hand. Former classmates said he was eager to please.
His father, Douglas Hacking, has suggested that eagerness may have played a role in Hacking's elaborate academic deceptions. Though he sent out commencement announcements and showed off a University of Utah diploma, he never graduated. And though he spoke authoritatively about the medical school admissions process, he never actually applied.
The discovery of those lies - with seemingly more sinister ones that came later - planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of some of Mark's closest friends.
Even then, however, Scott Simpson relied on his gut instincts.
"Unless they find a smoking gun and he says that he did something wrong, I believe that Lori was abducted," Simpson said hours after Hacking's lies were revealed.
With his former missionary buddy now in the Salt Lake County Jail, Simpson is doubting his first impressions.
"I just don't know what to think," he said Monday afternoon. "I guess it's possible he's done something that is really just shocking. I don't know how long that will take to completely set in, but it's setting in."
And for some, that is a relief.
"I hate that it's Mark, but I need there to be something so that I can feel better about my friend," said Heidi Gregory, one of Lori Hacking's college roommates.
For Gregory and fellow former roommate Erin Galbraith, the news was nonetheless heartbreaking.
"Of course, this isn't something I didn't expect," said Galbraith, who cried when told the news of Hacking's arrest. "But to hear it - regardless, Mark was my friend. And it hurts thinking about it."
Many of those who knew the Hackings wonder now whether there were signs they missed.
"I almost feel guilty that I wasn't more observant," said Janie Butler, who has lived downstairs from the Hackings for several years.
But the apartment complex walls are thin. The hallways are narrow. The atmosphere is friendly. If the Hackings were having marital troubles, they hid them well.
Neighbors cannot recall hearing them argue. Rather, some said they were secretly jealous of the couple's seemingly flawless relationship.
It was an image the couple cultivated to the end.
"I saw nothing out of the ordinary at all," said Doug Hawkes, who was at a party with the Hackings the night before Lori Hacking vanished.
"It is hard to understand," Hawkes said. "This is nothing like the Mark that I know. He is a great guy to talk to, really friendly - just an all-around good guy."
Hacking's aunt, Vicki Purser, said she will keep that image in her thoughts.
"He was strong, kind, loving and gentle," she said. "I have to remember the Mark I knew before all of this happened."
mlaplante@sltrib.com
aebroughton@sltrib.com
---
Tribune reporters Matt Canham and Nicole Warburton contributed to this story.
