But even while noting that landfill searches are "historically unsuccessful," Dinse said he was reasonably sure that Hacking's body is in the area that is being searched.

"Our best information is that, yes, that is where she was placed, in the landfill," he said, answering speculation that Mark Hacking may have continued a years-long pattern of lies when he told his brothers that he put his wife's body in a Dumpster near his workplace after killing her in the early morning hours of July 19.

"There are other things consistent with what he said," Dinse said. He declined to elaborate on the statement.

Police first contacted landfill officials to halt dumping on the area on July 19. Mark Hacking's brothers say he didn't confess to them until July 24.

The search continued Friday night. Dinse said his department was half to three-quarters of the way through an estimated 4,000 tons of tightly compacted trash at the landfill.

He said "landmarks" - trash known to have been in the same truck in which Hacking's body was thought to have been transported - have been located. But he lamented that those indicators don't necessarily mean investigators are in the right area of rubbish because trucks, compactors and bulldozers have spread the garbage from more than 600 dump trucks over an area the size of 1 1/2 football fields.

Dinse said the search would continue at least until the entire pile had been reviewed by cadaver dogs. At that point, he said, he may consider ordering a separate visual review of the trash.

But the search can't last forever, he said.

"At some point, we're going to have to say, 'We can only do so much.' ''