Informant Says Husband Told of Killing His Wife as She Slept

SALT LAKE CITY — Mark Hacking told a person at a psychiatric ward that he killed his wife as she slept, then threw her body in a trash bin, a court filing released Tuesday shows.

The police affidavit said investigators found a bloody knife in the bedroom of the Hackings’ apartment and blood on their headboard and bedrail.

Blood from the bedroom matched traces of blood found in Lori Hacking’s car, according to the probable-cause statement, which was filed to keep Hacking in custody until he could be charged with murder.

Authorities would not identify the informant or say whether he was another patient, employee or someone else at the University of Utah psychiatric ward where Hacking, 28, was taken after being spotted running around wearing nothing but sandals the night after the search for his wife began.

The witness told investigators that Hacking confided to him July 24, five days after he reported Lori Hacking, 27, missing and during a communitywide search.

The sworn affidavit from a homicide detective said police found a mattress in a trash bin near the Hackings’ apartment that matched the serial numbers of the box spring recovered from inside the apartment.