Killed as she slept

Mark Hacking killed his wife, Lori, while she was sleeping and then dumped her body in a Dumpster, a court filing says.

He also told someone about the killing — and that person told police, according to the probable cause statement, a sworn police affidavit, filed Tuesday.

Hacking was arrested Monday for investigation of aggravated murder and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail. Tuesday, a judge set bail at $500,000, cash-only.

The new probable cause statement also amended the booking charge to criminal homicide, under which various degrees of felony murder could apply when prosecutors actually file formal charges. Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom said Tuesday the original booking charge was simply a computer error.

Also released was a more detailed probable cause statement after a judge deemed the original document "insufficient." It included two short statements indicating the date Mark Hacking reported Lori missing and that a confidential informant had told police that Mark was responsible for her death.

In the new information, police say that in a search of the couple's apartment, 127 S. Lincoln St. (945 East), they found a bloodied knife and blood samples on the headboard of the Hackings' bed. A mattress, which was matched by serial numbers to a box springs in the apartment, was located in a Dumpster about a block away. Flakes and smears of blood that matched the blood found on the knife were also found in Lori's car, which was parked near the entrance to Memory Grove.

There are also details about the time frame of Mark Hacking's report to police of his wife's disappearance and his purchase of a mattress from a South Salt Lake store at 10:23 a.m.

Initially, Salt Lake detectives said Mark Hacking's first call to police dispatchers came in at 10:46 a.m. July 19. But according to the probable cause statement, he first reported her missing at 10:07 a.m. He called a second time at 10:46 a.m.

Another surprise in the probable cause statement is that Mark Hacking told a "reliable citizen witness" about the killing on July 24, just five days after Lori vanished. At the time, a volunteer search for the young woman was in full swing. And it wasn't until a week later on July 31 that her family called off those search efforts based on information provided to them by Mark.

The identity of the witness was not immediately made public.

The identity — and the fact that Mark told this person about the killing while in a psychiatric ward — may present challenges for prosecutors, Brigham Young University law professor Marguerite Driessen said.