Search now 'unnecessary,' say families of Lori Hacking

Deseret News ^ | 8/1/04 | Jennifer Dobner

[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

[Lovergirl]

Put me on the ping list,please?

[the Deejay]

I just figured it out today, it's one of the "pillow top"
type mattresses, an inch or two thick with a lot of
cotton filler inside. That would absorb a lot of
liquid, i.e., blood.

[the Deejay]

Usually true. Depends on the local LE. It's not easy
to prove oneself "insane", just acting the part while
in custody and during mental exam won't cut it.

[Netizen]

Why would they say they aren't going to go back to search the landfill until Friday?

Bad weather? Give the dogs a longer break? I don't know. I wish Cosby would tell us if the conference is still planned or not.

[sonserae]

Yes, that is a great excuse! "My son was dropped on his head when he was a baby and now he's a big liar but he can't help it!"

[marajade]

Maybe they have other blood evidence and don't need the body.

[the Deejay]

I'm with Dr. Baden on the dogs. In that situation, with so many things rotting, it's near impossible for the cadaver dogs to sort out a body from the tons & tons of rotting......you name it.

Think of all all the rotting diapers in that heap. (Oh, I am so annoyed with untreated human waste tossed in the garbage!)

I rinse my grandbaby's diapers into the toilet and then wrap the diaper for disposal.

[the Deejay]

IF they have a body, they need to MAKE SURE, it is or isn't Lori's. (It could be one they weren't looking for.....it does happen.)

Oh, i'm sure they have blood evidence. Whether results are back or not, they aren't saying.

[Netizen]

Did they say preliminary tests on knife are Lori Hacking's hair and blood. The dogs become available again Friday.

[Netizen]

hmm sounds like Mark Hacking may have told family members info that was passed on to the police. If so, then I'd guess that the family has suggested that he tell all so that they could move forward.

[the Deejay]

I'm sure tests have been done on the knife. But LE isn't giving out results info.

Fancy this, he's sitting pretty and safe in hospital, and letting LE do the searching in the hell hole of the landfill. Now, think about this, what if the body's not in the landfill? Yet, Mark keeps them looking there. They could be looking there until Christmas.

I agree with one of the talking heads, you can't believe anything this guy has said so far. Why should anyone believe him today?

[sonserae]

One thing I know about sociopathic liars is that they can put on a good act of remorse or sorrow....like OJ...they can put on the pitiful "feel sorry for me" act and manipulate people so well it's believable. That's why people keep going back and trusting them when they know they've been burned so many times. "I swear, this time I'm telling the truth...I've been such a jerk in the past but now I'm coming clean"...all the while, they are still playing their lying game.

[spectre]

Bingo!

Once a liar, always a liar. Not a shred of truth to his act. Not even that he is "crazy".

sw

[the Deejay]

If he didn't kill her and put her body in a dumpster, then why tell them to keep looking in the landfill?

Good enough for the makings of a confession as far as I'm concerned.

Looks like he may well be arrested this week, per Rita's report. If she's correct, then LE has test results, enough to arrest him with and/or a body.

[the Deejay]

Correct! And a liar does not = insanity.
That dog won't hunt.

[BizzeeMom]

*****If he didn't kill her and put her body in a dumpster, then why tell them to keep looking in the landfill?*****


I've thought about this....what if he did, as someone on an earlier thread suggested, take her body the night of the murder, far away, to a remote area, and bury it and roll a boulder on top.

They might never find her body, but if they do, more time passes, more decomposition= a more difficult case for LE to make against him.

[the Deejay]

Decomposition set in within 48 hours. She's most
likely mumified by now, crushed a few times over.

[shezza]

Hey, Miz. Would you be so kind as to add my moniker to the Lori "ping list"? Thanks.

[blu]

please add me to the ping list, thanks!

[MizSterious]

A more recent story:

---

Police to Search Landfill for Utah Woman

1 hour, 2 minutes ago

By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY - Mark Hacking directed a relative to give police new information about his wife's disappearance that has police turning again to a municipal landfill, detectives said Sunday.

AP Photo

Authorities investigating the case were surprised by the family's request that volunteers stop searching for Lori Hacking based on new detail from her husband.

The statement released late Saturday by the families of Mark and Lori Hacking did not say what Mark Hacking had told them.

Authorities would only say that the relative provided "additional substantive new information," said Detective Dwayne Baird. He declined to comment further.

Baird said police would renew a search at a municipal landfill. Cadaver dogs would not be available until Friday, however, when the all-night searching can begin, he said.

Mark Hacking's parents, Douglas and Janet Hacking, refused to comment Sunday, as did his lawyer.

Lori Hacking, 27, has been missing since July 19, when her husband told authorities that she failed to return from an early morning jog.

Lori Hacking's father, Eraldo Soares, said late Saturday that he was unaware of any new information about his daughter.

The organized search for Lori Hacking was called off by the families earlier this week, a decision they said was made out of concern for the volunteers' safety. The search was in neighborhoods, industrial areas and canyons near the park where Lori Hacking was said to have been jogging the morning she was reported missing.

Since that day, Mark Hacking's credibility has crumbled amid revelations that he lied to his wife about enrolling at medical school in North Carolina and about graduating from the University of Utah.

The day after Mark Hacking reported his wife missing, he was taken to a psychiatric ward after he was seen running around at night naked outside a motel where he'd taken a room.

Investigators focused on Mark Hacking, 28, after learning he was at a store buying a new mattress just before reporting his wife missing. Authorities were later seen removing a box spring from the couple's apartment. Investigators have refused to confirm reports that they found a mattress in a nearby trash bin.

Hacking has not been charged.

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