Salt Lake City

Missing woman’s spouse charged with murder

A first-degree murder charge was filed Monday against Mark Hacking, who allegedly confessed to relatives that he shot his sleeping wife in the head and threw her body in a trash bin.

Lori Hacking’s body has not been found.

A probable-cause statement released Monday states that Hacking told his brothers that he and his wife had been arguing July 18 when he revealed to her that he had lied about his education and future plans.

Lori Hacking later went to bed, and Mark Hacking stayed up to play Nintendo. As he continued packing for the couple’s planned move to the medical school at North Carolina, he came across a .22-caliber rifle, walked into the couple’s bedroom and shot his wife, according to the probable-cause statement.

Atlanta

Lawyers group censures handling of detainees

The nation’s largest lawyers group condemned the government’s handling of foreign detainees Monday over the objections of members who called it a cheap shot at the White House.

The American Bar Assn. criticized what it called “a widespread pattern of abusive detention methods.” Those abuses, it said, “feed terrorism by painting the United States as an arrogant nation above the law.”

The ABA was responding to abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and concerns about the treatment of about 600 terrorism suspects detained in Cuba.

The Bush administration has aggressively defended its imprisonment of men whom it classifies as enemy combatants. Government officials have said abuses at overseas prisons have been isolated and those responsible are being punished.

Phoenix

Five die after crossing border into Arizona

Five illegal immigrants died after running out of water while trekking through a rugged area of southern Arizona’s hot, treacherous desert in the state’s deadliest border crossing in three years.

Two adults and two juveniles survived the journey from Mexico. Authorities called off the search for the 10th member of the group Monday after wind storms wiped out tracks they had been following.

One survivor, Gerardo Galvez-Ramirez, sought help Sunday morning at a ranch west of Gila Bend, about 75 miles north of the border, said Andy Adame, a Border Patrol spokesman.

Galvez-Ramirez said he had to leave the nine others Sunday after they walked about 50 miles through sand and sage brush. They had run out of water — each had carried only three gallons — and were exhausted and dehydrated.

Galvez-Ramirez, 27, and a juvenile survivor were in Border Patrol custody Monday. Two others remained hospitalized in stable condition and were expected to survive, Adame said.

Florida

Probation workers fired in slayings investigation

Four probation workers, including one of the Department of Correction’s top executives, were fired Monday after officials said they missed two opportunities to jail a man charged days later in the brutal killings of six people in Deltona, Fla.

“Yesterday when we found out that Troy Victorino was on probation, we pulled the case file and we determined that our probation officer had failed to follow the policy. It is unacceptable,” said James Crosby director of the Florida Department of Corrections.

The probation officer could have had Victorino arrested on two occasions just before the slayings, Crosby’s department said.

On Monday, a circuit judge in Daytona Beach ordered Victorino, 27, and three other men held without bond until trial.

Police believe the killings may have stemmed from revenge over the disappearance of Victorino’s X-box game device.