Lori's Husband Gives Cops 'Substantive' Tip

SALT LAKE CITY – Through a family emissary, Mark Hacking (search) gave police a new lead on his wife's whereabouts that has police turning again to a municipal landfill, detectives said Sunday.

Police said they were acting on the tip offered by the family Saturday in a media statement saying that Hacking had provided them with some information that made a community-wide search unnecessary. That information was relayed to police, Detective Dwayne Baird confirmed Sunday.

Baird characterized it as "additional substantive information" and said police would follow up on it. He also said police planned to renew a search at a municipal landfill for clues to the missing assistant stockbroker.

That search can't begin until Friday, however, when search dogs become available.

Baird didn't say if police meantime were searching other places, and refused to take questions after a brief announcement outside the police department, where a member of Mark Hacking's family met with police overnight. The relative wasn't identified.

"This information, along with other leads, will continue to be followed up by investigators," Baird said.

Authorities were surprised by the families' announcement Saturday night that "information" provided by the 28-year-old hospital orderly had prompted them to tell volunteers to stop searching for her.

The statement did not say what Mark Hacking had told his parents or seven siblings.

His parents, Douglas and Janet Hacking, refused to comment when contacted by The Associated Press early Sunday. Defense attorney D. Gilbert Athay also refused comment.

Lori Hacking (search), 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. Soares didn't return phone messages left Sunday.

The organized search for Lori Hacking had been called off by the families last Tuesday, a decision they said was made out of concern for the volunteers' safety. But some volunteers kept searching anyway. Saturday's family statement reinforced a message to volunteers to stop randomly looking.

Police have given no indication about whether they might be on to finding a body, but plan to return to a landfill quadrant they cordoned off two days after Mark Hacking's reported his wife missing from an early morning jog July 19.

Three border collies, a German shepherd and Labrador retriever have worked that section a total of four nights over past two weeks. The dogs got diverted last week in the search for a Boy Scout who turned up after getting lost for two days in the Uinta Mountains.

The search for Lori Hacking has taken volunteers to neighborhoods, industrial areas and canyons around 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 (search).

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 in sandals outside a motel where he'd taken a room.

Investigators focused on Hacking 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, and he is not in police custody at the hospital, where he remains under his family's care, Baird said.