"I'm really happy about this because at least they are still searching. My biggest worry was that they would give up," Paul Soares said by telephone from his home in California. "If they are changing strategies that means they are not giving up."

Soares also said he was grateful to all who would be willing to participate in the search.

"I'm really thankful for all the people out there," he said. "I don't care if they go on their hands and knees, whatever works to find her."

Last week, Dinse said his department is looking to a landfill search conducted by the Mesa County, Colo., Sheriff's Office in Grand Junction as a sort of benchmark for their efforts. In that June 2002 search, sheriff's deputies spent 52 days picking though about 7,000 tons of garbage looking for the bodies of Jennifer and Abby Blagg, a mother and daughter who had been reported missing nine months earlier, Mesa County Lt. Dick Dillon said.

The Blagg story is eerily similar to the Hacking case. On Nov. 13, 2001, Michael Blagg reported to police that his wife and daughter were missing. He said he came home to find a blood-stained mattress but no sign of his family. He appealed to the community for help, launching a 1,200-plus volunteer effort that lasted for several weeks.

Michael Blagg was later charged in the killing of both his wife and 6-year-old daughter, whose bodies police believe were left in a Dumpster at Blagg's workplace. Blagg was convicted of his wife's murder in April of this year.

Deputies in Grand Junction searched the county landfill by hand.

"We did what we refer to as 'pot-holing,' digging down," Dillon said. "We were task-specific on a date range, so we were sifting through, reading newspapers and anything we could find that had a date on it."

Mesa County was also looking for other specific things in the search, such as waste from Michael Blagg's then-employer, which manufactures dashboard-type instruments for heavy equipment.

Records kept by the Mesa County landfill operators also helped detectives narrow their search to two 100-by-100-yard areas that collectively contained roughly 7,000 tons of garbage, Dillon said. After 52 days of digging police cleared 4,624 tons of materials and found at least part of what they were looking for — Jennifer Blagg's body.

"We wound up finding a trail (of trash) that essentially led us to the remains of Jennifer Blagg," Dillon said. "In life, Jennifer Blagg was a 120-pound woman. She was reduced to under 50 percent of that through dehydration and mummification, all of which occurs in a landfill."

A hand search makes for arduous and hazardous work, Dillon added. Decomposition of garbage produces a lot of methane gas, which can overcome a searcher. There are other bio-hazards as well, including medical wastes or decomposing big game animals, he said. Mesa County searchers also found the landfill terrain unsteady and full of dangerous, sharp objects, some of which nearly penetrated the soles of searchers' shoes.

Abby Blagg has never been found and her case remains an open homicide investigation, Dillon said. Most believe her body is still in the landfill, but there is no active search for her, and the excavation site where police had looked for Abby has since been buried under additional refuse.

"It's just such an overwhelming task. No one would like to see a 6-year-old girl entombed there," Dillon said. "Our hearts go out to the people in the Salt Lake City Police Department. What they will endure would test the mettle of any mortal and it will be tested."

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E-mail: jdobner@desnews.com