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Police Search for Utah Jogger at Landfill

Posted on: Saturday, 24 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

SALT LAKE CITY - The search for a missing pregnant woman has expanded to include a municipal landfill and the use of cadaver dogs, police said Saturday.

"We've been out there following up on some tips and leads," Salt Lake City Police Detective Dwayne Baird said after meeting for more than an hour with the family of 27-year-old Lori Hacking, who has been missing since Monday. Baird said he did not know when the search of the landfill started.

He also said he doesn't believe investigators have met with the woman's husband, Mark Hacking, since Wednesday. He has been in a psychiatric hospital since police found him Tuesday running naked around a motel not far from his home.

Mark Hacking, 28, has been called a person of interest, not a suspect, in the case.

Speculation about his credibility was fueled by news that he never graduated from college or applied for medical school. He had told friends and family he was headed to medical school in North Carolina; Lori Hacking vanished days before the couple was to move.

Mark Hacking also had initially said his wife did not wake him up after coming home from an early morning jog, as usual, and never showed up to work. But police confirmed Friday that Mark Hacking was at a furniture store buying a new mattress just before reporting to police that Lori was missing.

Baird said police were still checking out a timeline provided by Hacking on the day his wife disappeared, one he said police consider puzzling.

"Because of the deception, we have to look at all aspects of what he has done," Baird said.

Mark Hacking still has the support of both his parents and his in-laws. Douglas Hacking said Friday his son told him he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance.

Lori's mother, Thelma Soares said she visited briefly Friday with Mark Hacking at the hospital.

"As I walked in, he was standing, and he put his arms out, and enfolded me in his arms. I just whispered into his ear, 'Mark, didn't you know that my love for you was not conditional upon you becoming a doctor?'" she said.

She said he wept but did not answer.

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