Mark Hacking Arrested for Murder of Wife

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Police arrested Mark Hacking Monday for aggravated murder in the alleged death of his pregnant wife, saying their evidence warrants the charge even as investigators look for her body.

Hacking was arrested at 11 a.m. before his scheduled release from a psychiatric ward at the University of Utah Hospital. Lori Hacking, 27, has not been seen since late July 18 and her body has not been found, Chief Rick Dinse said.

“We’re confidant we have a good case here,” Dinse said when announcing the arrest.

Formal charges have not been filed against Hacking, 28. By law, prosecutors have 72 hours to file formal charges or release him.

Dinse said police believe Lori Hacking was killed in the couple’s apartment. He also said police have recovered what he called the “instrument of death,” but wouldn’t say what that was.

Detectives also believe her body is still at the county landfill, where exhaustive searches using cadaver dogs in the last two weeks have come up empty.

Mark Hacking reported her missing July 19, telling police she had failed to return from a morning jog at a park near downtown. But the husband’s timeline and credibility have crumbled, and police believe have said Lori likely never made it to the park.

“We believed very early in the investigation that she may have been a victim of a crime and her husband may have been responsible,” Dinse said.

Her car was found at the park, and Dinse said police recovered evidence from it. He wouldn’t elaborate.

Other evidence that led to Hacking’s arrest include items taken from the apartment and a nearby trash bin.

Dinse said police still have no proof that Lori Hacking was five weeks’ pregnant, as she had told friends and relatives. If a body is found and the pregnancy can be confirmed, prosecutors could add an additional murder charge later, Dinse said.

Relatives of Mark Hacking had given police a new lead on his wife’s whereabouts over the weekend that had investigators planning to resume their search at a government landfill this week.

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

“We believe that Mark Hacking is responsible for her disappearance and her death,” said Police Chief Rick Dinse, who added that Mark Hacking acted alone.

“We know where the homicide happened and we believe it happened in the apartment,” Dinse said, without explaining how Lori Hacking was killed.

The day after Mark Hacking reported his wife missing, he was taken to the 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.

Police said Sunday that they were acting on a tip offered by the family Saturday in a media statement saying that Hacking had provided them with information that made a community-wide search unnecessary.

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

But the information was relayed to police, and Detective Dwayne Baird characterized it as “additional substantive information” and said police would follow up on it. Dinse said police planned to renew a search at a municipal landfill for clues to the missing assistant stockbroker on Wednesday.

Three border collies, a German shepherd and Labrador retriever have worked a section of the landfill a total of four nights over the past two weeks. The dogs were 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 she 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.

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