How could Mark Hacking's family and especially his wife not know he apparently led a double life prior to Lori Hacking's suspicious disappearance?

They had to have known something, didn't they?

Those questions are being bandied around the water cooler and over the airwaves as more details about Mark Hacking trickle out.

"I am here to tell them that you can be completely in the dark," said former Utah congresswoman Enid Greene. "It's very possible because I lived it."

Greene won the 2nd Congressional District seat in 1994. But her personal and political life unraveled in 1995 when it became public that her then-husband Joe Waldholtz was involved in fraudulent financial activities.

Waldholtz deceived her in almost every aspect of their lives, from being a closet smoker to funneling money illegally into her election campaign, she said.

The couple divorced, and Waldholtz went to prison on fraud charges not directly related to the campaign. Greene did not seek re-election.

"The real difficulty is learning the deception of someone you absolutely loved and trusted," she said. "It is so shocking that you kind of go numb".

Greene, 45, and the mother of an 8-year-old daughter, said she imagines the Hacking and Soares families are going through the same thing, compounded by the fact Lori Hacking is missing.

"People can say, 'What about this and what about that?' They want all their questions answered. Well, believe me so does the family. They don't know any more than anyone else does, and in some ways less."

Greene said she discovered reading the Washington Post that Waldholtz was Jewish, not Episcopalian as he professed. She also learned from a Salt Lake department store clerk that Waldholtz had ordered Waterford crystal barware though they didn't have alcohol in the house.

"This family is going to experience this many times over the next few months. They'll think they've gotten to the bottom of it, then something else will pop up and they'll think, 'Oh my gosh, he lied about that too,' " she said.

Greene, an attorney, said for years she tried to nail down every detail about Waldholtz's secret life. The effort proved frustrating and fruitless. "I know the big pieces, but I'll never know all the little pieces," she said. She sees Mark Hacking's family doing the same.

But "the only one who knows the truth is Mark Hacking, and you can't trust what he says."

Greene said she received some 300 letters from people across the country sharing similar stories of deceit. They, too, asked such questions as "How dumb was I?" and "How did I miss this?" But they also wanted her know she wasn't alone.

As the Hacking and Soares families ponder those questions and learn new details about Mark Hacking, Greene said they will need even more community support than they are already receiving.

"There's no such thing as closure in a case like this," she said. "That's one of the things I just grieve for this family about . . . They, unfortunately, for the rest of their lives are going have to think, 'Who is he? What is he capable of?' "

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E-mail: romboy@desnews.com