Seven climbed on board: A mother and daughter from Orem, a college-aged couple from Salt Lake City, and three retirees.

Except for what they had seen on TV or read in that Tuesday morning's newspaper, they didn't know Lori or Mark Hacking.

What they knew, as they rode in silence toward Salt Lake City's Memory Grove Park, was that a woman - a jogger who reportedly was several weeks pregnant with her first child - had disappeared the day before, on July 19.

And they knew she needed their help.

Utah is among the safest places in the nation, but Beehive State residents are not immune from tragedy. Hundreds of Utahns go missing each year. And dozens more are killed in acts of violence.

No loss is more important than any other, but the Lori Hacking case quickly grabbed the attention of the state - and the nation. It became a collective tragedy. Finding Lori became a collective goal.

On Friday morning, that goal was met. A Salt Lake City police sergeant toiling among dozens of others at the Salt Lake County landfill broke open a garbage bag and found the long-missing woman's remains.

With that find, many of those directly and indirectly touched by the case let out a collective sigh of relief.

'If it had been my daughter': As the bus passengers stepped out onto Canyon Road in City Creek Canyon and began the short walk toward the wrought-iron gate at the park's entrance, the magnitude of the community response became clear.

The sun hadn't yet broken above the Wasatch Mountains, but scores of volunteer searchers were already gathered at the gate, awaiting instructions.

Dozens of police officers had been working at the park overnight, some with infrared cameras, others with spray paint.

"When I arrived back at the command post that morning, I didn't realize it at first but I was pretty much covered with green paint," says police Sgt. Cal Kunz, who spent that first night setting up a grid for the volunteer search and then marking the road that runs deep into the canyon with large green letters and lines.

Though his direct involvement ended that morning, Kunz says he felt a great sense of relief when he heard Lori's remains had been found.

"Everybody I spoke to was quite relieved that we were able to give closure to the family and that the efforts put into this case had finally paid off," he says.

Those sentiments weren't limited to police officers. More than 1,000 volunteers showed to help on the first day of the organized search. Thousands more would turn out in the following weeks.

Among those was Beth Weekley, who lives next to the park's entrance and couldn't imagine not helping when so many others had.

For several days, life around the park was drastically altered. Search and rescue helicopters swept overhead. Searchers rested on neighbors' lawns. Generators hooked to media satellite trucks droned well into the night.

But the inconveniences didn't bother her. "If it had been my daughter . . . ," she says, trailing off a thought that needed no further explanation.

Dave Wallace, who lives up the road from the park, recalled taking his 4-year-old daughter, Rebekah, on a walk past a virtual army of journalists, police officers and searchers.

"She didn't like it," he says. "She said, 'I'm scared, let's go.' "

Wallace also had no regrets about the commotion. "You didn't hear a lot of complaints," he says.

Both neighbors agreed that Friday's discovery came as a relief - a final answer to a mystery that had to be solved.

Case affected many: The neighborhood's normalcy was restored - but more lives were affected - a few days after Lori was reported missing, when police revealed that Mark Hacking had lied about his schooling, his future plans and, most disturbingly, his whereabouts on the morning of his wife's disappearance.

Those developments pushed to the forefront of the case a convenience store clerk, the owners of a South Salt Lake furniture store and employees at Wells Fargo Institutional Brokerage and Sales, where Lori worked as an administrative assistant.

Memory Grove neighbors remained key witnesses, but so too were employees at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute, where Mark worked.

Landfill workers and scientists. Government employees and college students. The case seemed to spare no group.

And until Friday, some felt its grasp would never loosen.

The Hackings' neighbor, Lue Turner, was one of the last to see Lori alive. Though she has long since concluded that Mark was responsible - and now, in fact, lives hundreds of miles away, she was unable to set the matter aside.

"Even this week I was still thinking about her and wondering if they would ever find her body," Turner says. "I think we all have scabs that are trying to heal but that keep being reopened."

Perhaps, Turner says, those wounds would now be able to close for good.

Still looking for answers: Friday's discovery means even more for some employees of the county landfill, whose duties have been altered since police identified the dump as a probable crime scene on the day Lori disappeared.

"The only thing that was on our minds was trying to find her," says one five-year landfill employee. "It became a top priority."

Not all of the landfill's workers were involved in the search, but none could ignore it.

Though he works on the opposite side of the city, neither could Jamie Hartzell.

Hartzell, who worked with Mark at the psychiatric ward, says he knows how Lori's family felt as they waited for news. His own brother disappeared more than 10 years ago.

In 1997, four years after Hartzell's brother disappeared, his remains were found by hunters in Carbon County.

"The not knowing was the worst part," Hartzell says, noting that the discovery, while mournful, helped bring his family closure.

But while Hartzell rejoiced for Lori's family and friends, the discovery of her body has not instilled in him the same kind of comfort felt by many others touched by the case.

Hartzell still considers Mark a close friend. And he has trouble reconciling the Mark he knew with the Salt Lake County jail inmate he now occasionally sees on TV.

"I still can't get the two to mesh in my mind," he says.

For Hartzell, like many, the wounds are still too deep. "I still can't understand. And I still can't make this feel right."

mlaplante@sltrib.com,

jbergreen@sltrib.com