'We'll miss her until day we die'

The words leave a sting like a slap. They are difficult to hear and even more difficult to digest for those who have known and loved Mark or Lori Hacking all of their lives.

"We believe that Mark Hacking is responsible for her disappearance and her death," Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said about an hour after Mark Hacking, 28, was arrested.

They are words bitterly painful to parents who have lost an adopted child whom they had longed for so much.

"My family and I are profoundly anguished to lose Lori, our precious daughter and sister. Our lives will never again be the same, and we will grieve for her and miss her until the day we die," reads a statement drafted by Lori's mother Thelma Soares on behalf of herself, her ex-husband Eraldo Soares and Lori's brother Paul.

Thelma's words were read to the press at a brief news conference in Orem about six hours after Mark Hacking's arrest by police.

Lori Hacking, 27, was reported missing from Memory Grove by her husband the morning of July 19. Police now say they believe she was killed by him — probably some time the previous night — in the University of Utah area apartment she shared with Mark. The couple was married for five years, and Lori had just learned she was five weeks pregnant.

Police have not said how Lori Hacking died, only that they believe her remains are located in a landfill west of downtown.

The words are difficult, too, if you grew up alongside Mark and Lori. It's hard to comprehend such a fate for the girl who drove you around town in her blue Volkswagen in high school so you could scout out cute boys. Or for the friend-since-birth with whom you played ball and went camping in Boy Scouts.

"I'm a little sick to my stomach," said Rebecca Carroll, one of Lori's best friends from high school. "For some reason, I hadn't even thought about Mark being arrested. I was more focused on finding her. It's hard to find the words to really express how you feel. I guess from the very beginning I knew she wasn't coming back alive."

But it's bewildering, Carroll added. It doesn't add up. "Not when you know them. To know that she loved him so much, it's really hard to believe," Carroll said.

Harder still, to know that Mark might be responsible for ending her life and that of their baby, said Holly Thomas, who along with Carroll organized last week's candlelight vigil in Memory Grove for their friend.

"I guess that I'm pretty angry. … There were so many people who loved him and trusted him," Thomas said.

Many believed that Mark Hacking adored his wife, was excited about parenthood and was destined for a great future after medical school at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.