Hacking search tactics changing

For the first weekend in more than one month, searchers with cadaver dogs will not comb a west Salt Lake landfill looking for the body of Lori Hacking, whose remains are believed to be buried there. And they're looking to a Mesa County, Colo., case for hope that the search may be successful.

A similar search in the Colorado case discovered the body of one of two murder victims who had been disposed of in the landfill.

Beginning next Tuesday, Salt Lake police will launch phase two of the search for the missing woman and comb through more than 4,200 tons of garbage by hand. So far, they have trekked through about two-thirds of that garbage.

"We're going to go through the bags and hope we find something," detective Phil Eslinger said Friday.

Police Chief Rick Dinse said a week ago that at some point police would switch from one method of searching to another but didn't say when. Eslinger said Friday he didn't know why the decision was made this week.

Hand searching will begin sometime during the day Tuesday and search efforts will continue on daytime shifts, as opposed to the nighttime searches that were conducted with dogs, Eslinger said. It remained undecided Friday how many people would work the search and for how long each day.

Sources have told the Deseret Morning News that Salt Lake police asked six or eight other police departments from around the valley to lend staff to the search, with the idea that larger search teams could get through the refuse more quickly.

Representatives from the Department of Public Safety, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, and police departments in West Jordan, South Jordan, West Valley City, Sandy, West Valley City and the University of Utah all said they had been contacted, and most told the Deseret Morning News Friday that they planned to send one or two officers.

Police believe Lori Hacking, 27, was shot and killed by her husband, Mark Hacking, on the morning of July 19. Mark Hacking, who faces criminal charges of murder and obstruction of justice, allegedly confessed to his brothers that after he shot his newly pregnant wife he deposited her body and the .22-caliber rifle he used to kill her in a Dumpster near the University of Utah.

Police have made about 25 searches of the landfill to date without significant evidentiary finds.

Lori's brother, Paul Soares, said Friday that he did not know that police were changing their search strategy but felt encouraged by the news.

"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."