Lori Hacking — Her body found
Emotions run high as long search ends
The Utah Office of the Medical Examiner was able to use dental records to identify Hacking's body about six hours after the discovery.
"The condition of the body allowed the medical examiner to come up with it fairly quickly," Salt Lake City police detective Phil Eslinger said.
The body — found 33 days after police first began searching the refuse pile — was "heavily decomposed," but most of the remains were recovered, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said.
A Salt Lake police officer, Sgt. J.R. Nelson, who has been among the more than two dozen volunteer searchers combing the landfill with pitchforks for the past three weeks, discovered the body about 8:20 a.m.
"It was very tough, a very tough time," Nelson said as he left the landfill Friday afternoon. "I probably had the worst time of it myself after turning over the pile and locating her."
The discovery was emotional for officers at the scene, bringing many to tears, Dinse said.
But none were more moved than the parents of Lori Hacking, Thelma and Eraldo Soares.
A private family service will be held to inter Lori's remains once police have released them to her family, said David Gehris, a friend of Thelma Soares, who has served as a spokesman for the family. A memorial service for the missing woman was held Aug. 14.
The search
Lori Hacking, 27, was reported missing July 19, when her husband, Mark Hacking, called police to say his wife had not returned from a jog in Memory Grove. Within hours, however, police had determined that Mark Hacking's story didn't add up; within days they knew that Mark had also lied to many about the details of his life, including his acceptance to medical school in North Carolina.
A communitywide search for Lori drew thousands of volunteers, but those efforts were suspended after Mark Hacking allegedly confessed to his brothers that he had shot his wife as she slept and left her body in a Dumpster near the University of Utah. Hacking allegedly said he had used a .22-caliber rifle in the slaying.
Police believe that Lori, a stockbroker's assistant who had been married to Mark Hacking for five years, had discovered her husband's deceptions and that her slaying was precipitated by an argument between them.
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