Hunt For Pregnant Jogger Widens

The search for a pregnant woman who apparently vanished during a morning run was expanded Wednesday from a park and canyon into nearby neighborhoods.

Reporter Mark Koelbel of CBS station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that Lori Kay Hacking, five weeks pregnant with her first child, did not return from a 6 a.m. jog Monday morning. Police found her car parked at the park at the mouth of the canyon.

Volunteers took fliers door-to-door in downtown Salt Lake City neighborhoods in their search for Hacking. Among the volunteers helping Tuesday were relatives of Elizabeth Smart, who was allegedly kidnapped in 2002 by drifters and found with them nine months later in a Salt Lake suburb.

Hacking's tearful parents said they assume she has been abducted and pleaded on television for her safe return.

"I believe that Lori is still alive," her mother, Thelma Soares, told the CBS News Early Show. "We have not found her here. And that's good news."

Describing her daughter as a "very kind person" and "a very bright young lady, good worker," Soares appealed to people to go to findlori.com to help with the search.

"And I'm sure that whoever has her, if that's the case, I would beg him to please let her go, to return to us," Soares said.

Salt Lake City detective Dwayne Baird told the Early Show that there are several theories about Hacking's disappearance, but refused to speculate on her fate.

Baird said Lori Hacking was seen by a witness Monday morning when she was stretching near the park; he said her car was found near the front gates of the park.

More than 1,200 volunteers scoured the Memory Grove Park and City Creek Canyon area where Hacking, 27, was last seen. The canyon was searched twice Tuesday, but there were no signs of Hacking.

Lori and her husband, Mark Hacking, were set to leave soon for medical school in North Carolina. Mark Hacking was described as "devastated" by the disappearance of his high school sweetheart and wife of five years.