Mark Hacking May Be Working on Book

SALT LAKE CITY – As police search landfills for the body of Lori Hacking, her husband, charged with her murder, is working on a book.

Mark Hacking (search) said in a letter to KTVX-TV that any proceeds from the book would go to the Lori Hacking memorial scholarship fund, which was established by the woman's mother.

The Salt Lake television station said Wednesday night that jail officials had confirmed that the letter had come from there, and Mark Hacking's father, Douglas Hacking, said it was his son's handwriting.

Douglas Hacking also confirmed that his son was working on a book, and said he had started it over, this time working from an outline.

KTVX said the book begins with the day Mark and Lori met.

Mark Hacking allegedly confessed to his brothers that he shot her while she slept and disposed of her body in a trash bin, later dumped at the landfill.

Tbe area of the landfill where that day's compressed garbage was left was marked off and the search, using cadaver dogs, began the day after Hacking reported his wife missing.

Trash was buried about 35 to 40 feet deep in a pit about the length of two football fields. Cadaver dogs spent the last seven weeks sifting through the pile at night for her body.

Police, firefighters and Urban Search and Rescue Team (search) members began going back over the garbage by hand on Tuesday.

Lori Hacking was reported missing on Monday, July 19. Her husband said she had failed to return after going for an early morning jog at Memory Grove Park (search).

Thousands of volunteers helped search for the missing woman for a week, though police suspected Hacking from the beginning. Just minutes before he called them, reporting them missing, he was buying a mattress to replace the bloodstained one found in a nearby trash bin.

The couple had been preparing to move to North Carolina, where Hacking claimed to have been accepted in medical school. In reality, he never applied, and, contrary to his stories, had not even finished college.

The Friday before her disappearance, Lori Hacking called the medical school to inquire about financial aid and learned they had no record of him.

Hacking allegedly told two brothers that the night before he reported her missing, he and Lori had argued, she had gone to bed, he "came across" his .22 caliber rifle and he shot her.

He is charged with first-degree felony murder, punishable by five years to life in prison, and with three counts of obstructing justice, which carries a maximum penalty of one to 15 years in prison.

His preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 23.

Defense attorney Gil Athay did not return a call from The Associated Press Wednesday, but KTVX quoted him as saying he knew nothing about the letter or the book.