First-degree felony murder convictions will carry an increased minimum sentence -- up to 15 years from five years -- under a bill Gov. Jon Huntsman signed into law Monday.

The legislation is known as "Lori's Law" for Lori Hacking, a Salt Lake City woman shot and killed by her husband in 2004.

Utah has indeterminate sentencing, meaning that judges sentence within a range of time to be served, but the state Board of Pardons and Parole has the final say about how long a convicted felon stays behind bars.

The new law also allows judges and the state Board of Pardons and Parole to consider a trust-based relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, such as a marriage, as an aggravating factor in sentencing or when considering parole.

Hacking's father, Eraldo Soares, spent much of 2005 urging state prosecutors to change the minimum-sentencing law. Both of Hacking's parents were at the bill signing Monday.

Bill sponsor Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, has said the state's sentencing laws worked in the past because few convicted killers are released from prison in fewer than 20 years. Last year, the parole board said Mark Hacking, whose crime made national news, wouldn't get a hearing until 2034, some 29 years after his sentence of six years-to-life was imposed. He was sentenced to an additional year for use of a firearm in a crime.

But it was the perception that there was a possibility someone convicted of murder could be released in five years that Fowlke wanted changed. Under the new law, the board won't grant parole hearings to convicted murderers for at least 15 years.

Hacking initially told police his wife of five years had gone jogging in a city park and never returned. His televised pleas for her return launched a widespread search of the park and surrounding areas by 4,000 volunteers.

Nine months later, Mark Hacking pleaded guilty to murder, admitting that he shot his wife in the head as she slept after they argued because she had discovered he had lied about having been accepted to medical school. Mark Hacking left her body in a University of Utah trash bin. Her remains were recovered three months later in a Salt Lake County landfill.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.