Family of Utah Woman Calls Off Search

The husband of a missing Utah woman has given “substantive new information” on her whereabouts to investigators, a police spokesman said Sunday, as the pregnant woman’s parents abruptly ended a search effort involving more than 4,000 volunteers.

The husband, through a relative, has directed investigators to a landfill, Salt Lake City Police Det. Dwayne Baird said. Police had combed though the landfill in recent days, but the information was specific enough that the woman’s parents believed a search was no longer necessary.

One family friend said it appeared that Lori Kay Hacking’s disappearance was about to be resolved.

“Any kind of answer is better than no answer,” said Connie Payne of Orem, Utah, who is in the same church group as the missing woman’s mother.

“We are praying that this will give us some idea of what happened. Not knowing is almost more difficult.”

Hacking, 27, of Salt Lake City, has been missing since the morning of July 19, when Mark Hacking, 28, called police to report that his wife had disappeared while jogging.

The case has attracted national attention in part because Mark Hacking has been caught in a series of deceptions and declared a “person of interest” in the disappearance.

Mark Hacking has not been charged with a crime. He is in a psychiatric ward, where he also is employed as a night orderly.

His and his wife’s parents issued a joint statement to the media over the weekend, suggesting that there is no longer a need to search for her. The statement said that Mark Hacking has provided information that “makes it unnecessary for individuals or groups to continue.”

“As in any situation of this nature, the help from the public has been invaluable and the families are deeply grateful for the outpouring of love and support that they have received,” the statement said.

The families asked the media to respect their privacy.

Baird did not return telephone calls seeking additional information Sunday. D. Gilbert Athay, a criminal defense attorney Mark Hacking hired last week, could not be reached for comment.

Mark Hacking initially told police that he had run his wife’s jogging route twice -- a total of about 12 miles -- to try and find her the morning she disappeared.

Investigators said that he was at a furniture store buying a queen-sized mattress that morning. Authorities say they weren’t sure that Lori Hacking went running at all that day.

The Hackings also had told relatives that they were preparing to move to Chapel Hill, N.C., so that he could attend medical school at the University of North Carolina. But university officials have no record that he applied for admission, investigators said, and he never graduated from the University of Utah, although his wife was under the impression that he had.