The most dangerous social predators are, unfortunately, also the most common and the best

camouflaged. Charismatic psychopaths rely upon their natural trademarks–glibness, magnetism and
charm–to lure others into their lives. Romantic relationships with such individuals tend to have one
thing in common: they initially appear to be absolutely perfect, the very picture of happiness and the
envy of all your friends. Charismatic psychopaths give their partners flowers and say all the right things
to win their trust and love. They engage in ostentatious public displays of affection that leave other
women drooling, wishing they too could have such romantic partners. But we must remember the age-
old adage: what seems too good to be true usually is. If predators weren’t especially alluring and didn’t
behave exceptionally well at first, they wouldn’t trap so many victims into their dangerous nets. They
also wouldn’t be able hold on to the partners they inevitably come to mistreat. Few women are so
masochistic as to be enticed into a relationship by overt and immediate signs of abuse. Yet many remain
trapped in abusive relationships with psychopaths because of the lure of the initial honeymoon period
and the vain hope that they can somehow recapture it. In their international study of 75 women who
got romantically involved with psychopaths, entitled, appropriately enough, Women who love
psychopaths, Sandra Brown and Liane Leedom observe:

“The early days of being wooed and lured by a psychopath are the most exciting times that women
remember. Consistently described as ‘charming’ the psychopath is irresistible in his personality traits.
Women described him as ‘a charming and engaging conversationalist, agreeable, insightful, sweet,
twinkling eyes, a compelling talker, funny, a great storyteller, fun to be with, delightful, exciting,
companionable, loyal, enthusiastic, upbeat, fun-loving, intense and sensitive.’ From this list of traits, it’s
easy to see why women are enamored with his personality. By this list, what’s not to like?” (93)

As it turns out, what’s not to like is absolutely everything about this dangerous and sometimes deadly
charmer. His image of perfection is only a mask, set up to ensnare his target into a vision of her dream
come true, which eventually turns into a nightmare. This is precisely what happened to Lori Kay Soares
and Rachel Entwistle, two young women who believed that they had married their dream lovers. In
actuality, however, they fell into the clutches of psychopathic partners who killed them for the flimsiest
of reasons. The most common question people ask when they hear or read about such cruel and
senseless crimes is: why did he or she do it? Even the journalists who cover these crimes ask this
question, which shows quite clearly that they lack a basic understanding of the kind of people they’re
dealing with. Once again, psychopaths don’t have rational or comprehensible motives. They don’t steal
primarily for money, which they could get through honest means. They don’t rape primarily for sex,
which they could get voluntarily. They don’t kill their spouses primarily for freedom, which they could
get through a legitimate divorce. They have malicious motivations. They harm others primarily for
pleasure and fun; for the sport of it. Hurting others, sometimes even killing them, gives psychopaths the
greatest rush of euphoria and power. This constitutes their only real purpose in life. Fooling their
families, their lovers, their colleagues, their buddies, the media and even the police into thinking that
they’re decent, caring human beings–or, when caught, that they feel genuine remorse or have been
victimized themselves–offers the extra bonus. It’s the icing on the cake, so to speak. It also enables
psychopaths to sometimes get away with their evil deeds.

Mark and Lori Hacking

Mark Douglas Hacking and Lori Kay Soares appeared to be the perfect couple. They were both in their
late twenties and had been together for ten years. Their seemingly idyllic relationship was the envy of
Lori’s friends. From the moment they met on a trip in Lake Powell, Utah in 1994, Mark and Lori fell in
love and become practically inseparable. Mark in particular seemed absolutely crazy about his wife. He
was an outgoing, fun-loving young man who appeared to have a promising future ahead of him. The
couple planned to move to Chapel Hill, where Mark was supposed to attend medical school. Lori was
expecting their first child. According to family and friends, the couple was looking forward to the birth of
their baby and to their promising life together in North Carolina. But tragedy struck on July 19, 2004,
when Lori went out for a walk and didn’t return. That morning, Mark called Lori’s work to inquire about
her whereabouts. Lori’s colleague, Brandon Hodge, told him that she didn’t come to work yet. This
struck him as somewhat unusual, since Lori was punctual. Mark responded that his wife went jogging
earlier that morning. He claimed that was the last time he saw her. Although Lori had been missing for
only a few hours, Mark sounded very concerned. He told Hodge that he went jogging for three miles on
the trail his wife took, but couldn’t find her. About half an hour later, Mark called the police to report his
wife as missing. They informed him that a person must be gone for at least 24 hours for them to start an
official search.

Lori’s family, friends and colleagues, however, were sufficiently alarmed to assist Mark in the search for
his wife that very day. On the following day, Lori’s parents held a press conference. They asked for the
public’s help in finding their missing daughter. Since Lori was extremely well liked in the community,
1,200 people volunteered to search for her. Mark, however, felt too distraught to join them. Police
found him wandering around a local motel wearing nothing but a pair of sandals. He was admitted to
the University of Utah psychiatric unit to recover from his apparent anxiety attack. The police, however,
expressed skepticism. They wondered if Mark had faked his nervous breakdown to avoid a more
thorough interrogation. Their initial inquiries led them to believe that he might have been involved in his
wife’s disappearance. Upon questioning Lori’s family, colleagues and friends, they discovered that, in
fact, the marriage wasn’t going all that well lately. The couple had fought earlier that week after Lori
found out that Mark had deceived her about whom he was and what he was planning to do in life.

Dr. Douglas Hacking, Mark’s father, told the police that his son had lied to his wife about graduating with
honors in psychology from the University of Utah. He also deceived her about being accepted to the
University of North Carolina Medical School. Lori discovered the lies by accident, when she called the
medical school from work to ask about financial aid for her husband. Some of her colleagues stated that
she was visibly upset during that conversation. She left work early that day, probably to confront Mark,
they speculated. For a few days, however, the relations between the couple improved. As it turns out,
Mark succeeded in persuading his wife of yet another lie. He told her that the reason he wasn’t in the
University of North Carolina’s records was because of a computer malfunction. Apparently, however,
Lori didn’t buy that excuse for long. She proceeded to verify his claim. Afterwards, the situation went
from bad to worse. A few days later, the couple had another altercation.

The extent of the deception led investigators to suspect that if Mark lied so easily and for so long to his
wife and others about his education and life plans, he could just as easily be lying to them about his lack
of involvement in Lori’s disappearance. In addition, the evidence they found at the Hackings’ residence
led them to conclude that they were dealing with a homicide, not a missing person case. From that point
on, they considered Mark to be “a person of interest.” Inside the Hackings’ apartment, they collected a
receipt for a new mattress and bedding, a bloody knife found in the drawer of the couple’s bedroom,
clothing and a letter supposedly written by Lori warning her husband that she’d leave him “if things
didn’t change.” Outside, they gathered a cut up mattress that matched the box spring found in the trash
bin of University of Utah hospital, where Mark worked. They also removed a clump of dark hair
matching Lori’s from a dumpster outside a gas station near the hospital. In addition, the surveillance
tapes taken from various locations–the hospital, a Mormon church near the park where Lori supposedly
went on a walk and a convenience store–told a different story from the one that Mark shared with the
police.

The tapes revealed that on the morning when Mark told police he was searching for his wife in the park,
he was actually buying a new mattress at a local store. In addition, the seat of Lori’s car was adjusted for
a tall person rather than for her petite frame. Mark was six feet tall, while Lori was only 5’4”. More
significantly, Mark’s two brothers told investigators that he had confessed to murdering his wife.
According to them, this was neither a premeditated murder planned long in advance nor a crime of
passion perpetrated in the heat of the moment. Mark told his brothers that on the evening of July 18th,
Lori confronted him about his newest lie, concerning the supposed computer malfunction. He finally
admitted to her that he had deceived her for years about his education. This resulted in a heated
argument. Lori then went to bed and Mark began packing his belongings. During this process, he came
across a .22-caliber rifle. Around 1:00 a.m., he shot his sleeping wife in the head. He then wrapped up
her body in garbage bags and disposed of it in a local dumpster about an hour later. He also cut up the
mattress (with the knife that the police removed from his bedroom drawer) and discarded it in the
dumpster near the hospital, where it was later found.

Because the investigators couldn’t find Lori’s body for a few months, the prosecution team charged
Mark with first-degree murder without seeking the death penalty. Two months later, on October 1,
2004, they found Lori’s remains in the Salt Lake County Landfill. Her husband pleaded “not guilty” at the
arraignment hearing. During the April trial, however, Mark confessed that he had murdered his wife. As
he described how he killed Lori and disposed of her body, he showed no signs of emotion. Lori’s family
expressed not only grief, but also a sense of perplexity. They couldn’t understand what might have led
this seemingly adoring husband to kill the woman who was, by all accounts, the love of his life. They
were also puzzled by the fact he disposed of her body in such an irreverent fashion, as one does of a pile
of garbage.