Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: BradyLS
"Following this theory, can anyone tell me what stories the Chandra Levy and Laci Petersen murders were supposed to displace?"

Here you go. Answer your own question.

30 posted on 07/31/2004 12:12:41 PM PDT by Bonaparte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]


To: Bonaparte

����?'ll have to subscribe to answer my own question. Rats! But Walter Cronkite's admonishment was interesting:


"We fall short of presenting all, or even a goodly part, of the news each day that a citizen would need to intelligently exercise his franchise in this democracy. So as he depends more and more on us, presumably the depth of knowledge of the average man is diminished. This clearly can lead to a disaster in democracy."

-Walter Cronkite as quoted in The Atlantic Monthly of January 1981.


32 posted on 07/31/2004 12:29:33 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

To: Bonaparte
Thanks for the links--here's another I haven't seen posted yet. It's from yesterday, but it has some interesting tidbits in it:



Lab: Evidence May Help Solve Hacking Case

Fri Jul 30, 7:18 AM ET

By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY - Police did a thorough job of collecting evidence that could prove useful in helping solve the disappearance of Lori Hacking, the pregnant woman reported missing by her husband, the head of the state's crime lab said Thursday.


 

Much of the evidence consists of everyday items taken from the couple's apartment that shows no obvious connection to foul play, said Maj. Stuart Smith, chief of the state Bureau of Forensic Services.

But that evidence, including such routine items as scissors, knives, tape and rope, may be needed later to match evidence uncovered from other places, including a municipal landfill where police have been diligently searching.

Police, who have spent four nights using a backhoe to burrow 15 feet deep into a huge mound of garbage and dirt, said they didn't plan to return with their cadaver dogs Thursday night.

"The dogs need a break," said Detective Phil Eslinger. He was uncertain how long the dogs needed to rest, but said their handlers would know when the dogs are up to the job again.

The landfill search may be a long shot, but police can't afford to overlook tips that led them to cordoning off a sprawling area used to deposit a day's layer of trash, Smith said.

One tip came from a neighbor of the Hackings who said someone may have used his plastic trash bin, left on the street, to dispose of a dead body. The neighbor found a foul "protein-rich" liquid in the bottom of the barrel after collection rounds the day Lori Hacking disappeared.

The landfill search is nothing if not daunting. "A car could be in there and you might not find it," Eslinger said. "This is very much like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Smith, a former state police investigator who supervises Utah's main crime lab, gave police high marks for collecting and preserving evidence in the Hacking case.

"The police followed good procedures," Smith said. "That will all bear fruit later when there's something to compare it to."

The state crime lab has a six-week backlog of samples from criminal cases awaiting testing. Smith said he was reluctant to drop everything for the Hacking case until police can identify their most important pieces of evidence.

A single DNA analysis can cost $700, he said. That makes it important for investigators to decide which pieces of evidence require a full chemical or DNA analysis. It can take several weeks to fully analyze a single piece of evidence.

The fact that Lori Hacking, a 27-year-old stock trader's assistant, was an adopted daughter is one factor that can complicate DNA testing, he said.

Smith left the impression police have yet to collect evidence from her apartment or elsewhere that would obviously point to foul play in Lori Hacking's disappearance. But he wouldn't discuss the condition of an old mattress police recovered from a trash bin in the Hackings' neighborhood.

Police said Mark Hacking, a 28-year-old hospital orderly, was at a store buying a new mattress shortly before telling police his wife hadn't returned from an early-morning jog July 19.

Mark Hacking has been named a "person of interest" but not a suspect in the case.

His credibility came under scrutiny since it was revealed he had been lying to his wife, family and police about having been accepted to medical school at the University of North Carolina. Neither had Hacking graduated from college, as he told friends and relatives.

Police said Hacking lived a life of various lies for at least four of the five years he has been married. He has been at a psychiatric hospital since he was found running outdoors naked the night after the search began.

The University of Utah has posted Hacking's job, health care assistant, which starts at $8.42 an hour and requires work at odd hours. Health care assistants work under the direction of nurses and support patients' basic needs, the job description says.

The University accepted Hacking's resignation July 23, television station KUTV reported.

37 posted on 07/31/2004 1:15:53 PM PDT by MizSterious (First, the journalists, THEN the lawyers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson