When 23-year-old student MacKenzie Lueck disappeared in the early morning of June 17, 2019, after getting into a waiting car at a park, police had to work extremely hard to piece together what happened that night.
The Beautiful Coed
MacKenzie Lueck, 23, was a senior at the University of Utah (Salt Lake City) described as a beautiful, attractive young woman. On June 20, 2019, after several days of being unable to contact their daughter, MacKenzie’s family reported her missing to the police.
When officers went to MacKenzie’s home, they found her car parked outside but no sign of her. The pretty coed had seemingly vanished into thin air. She had last been seen three days prior.
On June 17, 2019, MacKenzie had flown from her hometown of El Segundo, California to Salt Lake City, Utah, landing around 1:35 am. She had been in El Segundo to attend her grandmother’s funeral. Security footage captured MacKenzie collecting her luggage and then getting into a waiting vehicle outside the airport. This was also when she texted her mother to say she had landed safely. The car driving away was the last time anyone had information about MacKenzie’s whereabouts.
Police later discovered the vehicle that picked up MacKenzie was a rideshare she had booked through an app. Authorities suspected the driver may have been involved or that their vehicle had been in an accident.
The Mysterious Car
Six days after the coed vanished, police tracked down the rideshare driver from that night. He stated he had completed the fare run before 3 am that morning. He said he had dropped the female passenger off at a park in North Salt Lake City.
With clear evidence the driver was not involved, police eliminated him as a suspect. According to his statement, as he drove away he saw the 23-year-old smiling and in a good mental state. It did strike him as strange for a young woman to get out at a park alone in the middle of the night. However, he then noticed another car appeared to be waiting there to pick her up. “It was apparent she knew who she was meeting,” the driver said.
MacKenzie’s mobile data showed that just minutes later, her phone was powered off and all traces of her had officially gone dark from that point.
The Suspicious Man
With no solid leads, the police investigation into the mysterious disappearance of student MacKenzie Lueck stalled. As the search hit roadblocks, a surprising new clue came in. A friend reported running into MacKenzie at a bar a few weeks before she went missing. In their conversation, MacKenzie had mentioned being on a dating website.
Police then checked MacKenzie’s phone records and traced a number she was communicating with the night she vanished. This led them to a residence the phone had traveled to – a home in Salt Lake City belonging to 31-year-old Ayoola Ajayi.
Ajayi was a Nigerian national legally working and living in the U.S. He was an IT worker who had been employed by major companies and had a stint in the National Guard.
Initially, Ajayli claimed he did not know MacKenzie and had never spoken to her. Any text messages could have been from someone renting his basement apartment.
However, Ajayi soon changed his story. He admitted to meeting MacKenzie through a dating app. The two had exchanged messages for a short period, but then MacKenzie lost interest and they stopped talking. Ajayi said since it was nothing significant, he forgot they had conversed.
The Suspicious House
Police then searched the exterior of Ajayi’s home and found several suspicious circumstances. There was a strong smell of bleach and a mattress was missing. Neighbors told officers about an unusual fire that had occurred in Ajayi’s backyard around the time MacKenzie vanished.
Searching the backyard, police found charred objects like clothing, a wallet, a purse, a burned cell phone, and disturbingly – several charred human remains buried in the dirt.
Authorities believed these were MacKenzie’s remains and that her body had been further disposed of elsewhere by Ajayi. Further investigation confirmed their suspicions. Through investigative methods, her body was found in a shallow grave in a canyon area nearly 100 miles from Ajayi’s home. MacKenzie’s arms were bound behind her back. The student had died from blunt force trauma to the head.
The Depraved Man
Eleven days after MacKenzie went missing, Ajayi was arrested on charges of aggravated murder and kidnapping. Ajayi was also charged with sexual abuse in a new court filing, along with 19 counts of sexual exploitation of minors after investigators discovered pornographic material on his computer.
After news of the arrest was widely publicized, a woman came forward to report that Ajayi had sexually assaulted her. She said in 2018 she met Ajayi through a dating app and agreed to go to his house for a dinner date. Inappropriate behavior occurred while they were watching TV.
Ajayi pleaded guilty to killing MacKenzie on October 7, 2020, to avoid the death penalty. He admitted meeting her through a dating app and arranging to meet her at the park. The student had no idea the man she had just met had plotted to kill her before their meetup.
The Truth Emerges
To carry out his plan, Ajayi disabled his home security system cameras before going to pick up MacKenzie that night. Once back at his Salt Lake City house, Ajayi tied up and strangled the victim. As MacKenzie fought back, Ajayi continued choking and assaulting her. The killer eventually burned and hid her body while police and loved ones searched for her.
Ajayi pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and abuse or desecration of a human body in a deal with prosecutors. Prosecutors dropped charges of aggravated kidnapping and obstructing justice. Ajayi also admitted to sexually abusing the woman he had lured to his home on a date in 2018.
Ajayi never explained his motive for the murder but prosecutors said evidence showed he wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. All of Ajayi’s actions were the result of pre-planning.
As part of the plea deal, prosecutors also dropped Ajayi’s 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. In the end, the killer Ajayi received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
