This case is actually pretty interesting Meg...
Posted on 08/01/2004 7:25:22 AM PDT by JockoManning
Search now 'unnecessary,' say families of Lori Hacking By Jennifer Dobner Deseret Morning News
Mark Hacking told his family something important Saturday — and whatever it is, it apparently makes any further volunteer searches for his missing 27-year-old wife unnecessary.
That news came late Saturday, not from Salt Lake City police but by way of a statement faxed to the Deseret Morning News and other media by Mark and Lori Hackings' families. "The families understand that Mark Hacking has provided information that makes it unnecessary for individuals or groups to continue the volunteer search," the statement reads. "At this time, the families ask that all efforts from volunteers cease and that anyone with information that they feel might be helpful contact the Salt Lake City Police Department directly." Salt Lake City police were to meet with family members late Saturday, and the family was expected to share with investigators details of their conversation with Mark Hacking, detective Phil Eslinger said. "To my knowledge we are going to work through the night with the family to determine what that information is," Eslinger said. "All I know is that it was a legitimate fax from the family. This is not another one of those cruel jokes or rumors." Police are expected to hold a news conference sometime today.
No further statements are likely from the Hacking or Soares families in the near future. Their statement included a plea that their privacy be respected in what was described in the families' statement as "this difficult time" and indicated they plan to make no further statements about the case. Contacted at his home Saturday night, attorney D. Gilbert Athay, who has been hired to represent Mark Hacking, said he had no comment. Lori Hacking disappeared July 19, allegedly while jogging in Memory Grove just before 6 a.m. Volunteers' search efforts in the park and nearby canyons, which over a week drew more than 4,000 people, were unsuccessful.
Police now say they believe Lori, who had just learned she was five-weeks pregnant, was never in the park. Mark Hacking has been hospitalized since the day after he reported his wife missing. He has also been named a "person of interest" in the case by police but as of Saturday had never officially been called a suspect. However, investigators took numerous pieces of evidence from the couple's apartment at 127 S. Lincoln St. (945 East), including box springs and computers. Also among the evidence being evaluated by forensic experts is a knife said to have blood and hair samples. Before Lori Hacking disappeared, the couple was supposedly moving to Chapel Hill, N.C., where Mark was to attend medical school. But three days into the case, it was learned that Mark Hacking had lied about his acceptance to medical school, as well as his recent graduation from the University of Utah. Over the past two weeks, more and more information has trickled out indicating that Mark may have been lying to his friends and family for as long as 18 months about his present and future life. The details and the time line of events Hacking shared with police also quickly crumbled. Mark Hacking said on July 19 that he had learned Lori had failed to arrive at work about 10 a.m., but a mattress store clerk said Mark was shopping for a mattress at the time. A credit card receipt showed he had indeed purchased one, just 26 minutes before he called police at 10:49 a.m. Until Saturday, it appeared that Mark had also maintained he knew nothing about his wife's disappearance. In a conversation with his father, Douglas Hacking, Mark said he had lied about his life because he felt pressure to be successful like his father and siblings. But he said he didn't know what had happened to his wife.
"He looked me in the eye and said, 'No,' " Douglas Hacking said when recounting his conversation with his son to reporters July 23. No one is certain what Lori Hacking knew of her husband's deception or when she knew it. However, co-workers at Wells Fargo Bank have said that the Friday before she disappeared, Lori received an upsetting phone call and left in tears. Police have focused most of their search efforts on the Salt Lake Valley Solid Waste Facility, sifting through piles of refuse on four separate occasions with investigators and four cadaver dogs. That search was temporarily suspended on Friday, with police saying the dogs needed a day or two of rest. So far, the only comment from police about the landfill searches has been that "nothing of consequence" had yet been found. Landfill searches are expected to resume, but police have not been specific about when. The task of finding what is presumably Lori Hacking's body in the landfill could be seen as nearly impossible. More than 2,500 tons of refuse is deposited there daily by more than 600 dump trucks. Police have focused their efforts on a one- to two-acre segment of the facility. Police apparently believed the landfill held significant clues as to Lori Hacking's whereabouts as early as one day after she went missing. Landfill executive director Romney Stewart told the Deseret Morning News last week that police asked him on July 20 to suspend dumping in a certain area so that it could be searched.
E-mail: jdobner@desnews.com
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595081258,00.html
I thought about that too. He's such a LIAR.
The media, not the police, have said they have a knife...
Apparently, they have the mattress with knife "cuts"
in it, but "no bloodstains."
This case is actually pretty interesting Meg...
That's Fox and I have been burned by the "evidence of a rage killing"...knife found, blood found reports...I take it all with a block of salt...the police have something...I just don't know what!(Except for his bizarre timeline, calls, mattress purchase, lies)
The apartment manager say the only thing in the apartment that is strange or evidence of anything wrong is a that a small piece of carpet is cut out.
DON'T DO IT! Save yourself from getting hooked!...;)
They likely found bloodstains (something that looks like
bloodstains), on an area of the carpet and cut it out
for forensics.
Were I the police chief and I had willing volunteers, the search would continue, regardless of what that liar Mark told her folks, until the body was positively I.D.'d. I'd certainly send a team to look where he says the body is, in case he IS telling the truth. However, this business of "call off the dogs and parties and we'll tell you where she is LATER" is B.S.
If, for example, she were being held someplace and died between the time the search was called and the location was revealed, I couldn't live with myself as an officer of the law.
Should we be buying all of Rita's sources?
It's the volunteers that have been called of by the family..The police were told nothing and I believe he let something out to either the doctor or lawyer and they told the family to call off volunteers
...Rita Cosby says sheete, padding from mattress or mattress pad are missing..They know the color of the sheets and consider the mattress cover, sheets are what she is wrapped in..That's what they are searching for in the landfill....I report, you decide...;)
If this is true, WTH did Mark not say this long ago?
Thanks! But if I were a volunteer searcher and I had the time, I'd still be out there searching. "Mark said what?!? Okay, what do YOU say, Chief? If you don't have a body, I'll continue the search with you."
Volunteer searchers aren't allowed in the landfill
and that's where they're searching. To be spending
so much time at the landfill, they have a good sense
that's where Lori's body is.
No, that's "sources" for Rita's report..As far as Mark's family being told anything , their message does not indicate he told them anything. They "understand that Mark has given information"..to doctor or lawyer most likely..
They probably know nothing specific but something like "might as well call off volunteers. Mark has indicated the police are correct in their focus at the landfill, let the police handle it"..I think they are probably looking in the right place but it's likely they won't find her in that mountain of garbage.
I heard Dr. Baden say last night, in a case in NY,
they were searching for a body in a landfill and
found it 18 feet deep in the rubbish.
I hope they find her..It will help her family so much and also aid the police.
I do, too. And I've been hoping all these past
days they would find her. I am sure, once they
do find her body, it is mumified, and been
compacted a few times over. Won't be much left
to recognize. (Awful, just awful.)
If they could talk Mark into admitting guilt (on the off chance he doesn't claim insanity or mental defect), that would take the death penalty off the table, wouldn't it?
I'll bet the ranch he's totally sane. Feining insanity is much more likely. I've thought this from the git-go.
Rita has some of the best sources in the industry...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.