Tragic twist after missing student’s remains found
A man arrested for allegedly abducting and murdering a university student who was missing for 11 days had been texting her in the lead up to her disappearance.
Mackenzie Lueck, 23, from Salt Lake City in the US state of Utah, had flown back from California after her grandmother’s funeral on June 17.
She arrived at Salt Lake City International Airport and caught a Lyft car to meet someone in a park north of the city at 3am. It was initially thought she caught the Lyft car home.
On Friday, police arrested Ayoola A. Ajayi, 31, and charged him with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body.
Ajayi’s arrest came as police discovered he was the last person Ms Lueck communicated with, police searched his home on Wednesday and Thursday.
He was described as a “person of interest”.
In his backyard, police said they found a “fresh dig area”, and charred items that belonged to Ms Lueck.
They also found burned human remains that matched her DNA profile, Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said.
Chief Brown said Ajayi’s text conversation with Ms Lueck’s was her last and phone location data shows them both at the park within a minute of each other.
“This was the same time as Mackenzie’s phone stopped receiving any further data or location services,” he said.
He declined to say whether or how exactly they knew each other.
Ajayi has acknowledged texting with Ms Lueck about 6pm on June 16, but denied talking to her after or knowing what she looked like — despite having photos of her on his phone, Chief Brown said.
The police chief said investigators were seeking to determine if others were involved. A second person was questioned at the time of his arrest and later released, Chief Brown said.
Police have not discussed a motive for the killing, or specified a cause of death. A judge ordered Ajayi be held without bail.
The accused is an information technology worker who attended college on and off but never earned a degree and was briefly in the Army National Guard but didn’t complete basic training.
He has worked in information technology for several companies including Dell and Goldman Sachs, according to his LinkedIn page.
Goldman Sachs confirmed he worked as a contract employee for less than a year at the Salt Lake City office ending in August 2018. Dell said Ajayi had worked there but didn’t provide his dates of employment.
Ajayi also appeared to have pursued employment in modelling with a bio page on a website called modelmanagement.com. Court records show he is divorced.
He was arrested without incident Friday morning by a SWAT team.
with The Associated Press
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