Organizers call off search for missing pregnant woman; police return to landfill

As police and family members cleared out Mark Hacking's apartment, his lawyer refused Tuesday to publicly defend the husband who has become a focus in the disappearance of his wife, Lori Hacking.

D. Gilbert Athay, a staunch death-penalty opponent who has built a career of defending accused murders, said he has spoken several times to Mark Hacking since being hired by the family last week.

But Athay refused for a second day to characterize those conversations or say whether his client is asserting his innocence. Athay said defendants — Hacking has not been charged — deserve the presumption of innocence, but then added, "There isn't a lawyer in town who will say if his client is guilty or innocent."

Mark Hacking reported his wife missing after an early morning jog July 19. But his credibility has been damaged by revelations he lied to his wife, family and police about being accepted to a North Carolina medical school, where the couple was packing to move.

Police have said Hacking was at a store buying a new mattress just before reporting that Lori was missing. They returned with cadaver dogs Monday night to a municipal landfill, but didn't say if they turned up anything.

Police have removed crime-scene tape from the front door of Mark and Lori Hacking's apartment, and family members were seen Tuesday taking out the last of their belongings. Police say they never formally declared the apartment a crime scene and had turned it over to the family last week.

Also Tuesday, community organizers said they were calling off a volunteer search that brought out hundreds for each of the past seven days since Lori Hacking turned up missing.

Hacking family spokesman Scott Dunaway said a search could be resumed later with specialized teams. He said the decision was not related to the police decision to concentrate on the landfill.

Mark Hacking, a 28-year-old nightshift hospital orderly, was checked into a psychiatric ward by his family after police found him running around naked in sandals the night after the search for his wife began. He isn't confined there and would be free to leave if he chose, said assistant district attorney Bob Stott.

Hacking didn't return a phone message left Tuesday with an administrator at the University of Utah hospital.

The last day her co-workers saw her, Lori Hacking, a 27-year-old assistant stock broker who just learned she was five weeks' pregnant, was heading home for the weekend after getting a phone call that left her stunned and sobbing.