Mackenzie Lueck: Disappearance, Ajayi’s Role, and Sentencing

Mackenzie Lueck, a 23-year-old University of Utah student, was murdered in the early hours of June 17, 2019, by Ayoola Ajayi, a 31-year-old Salt Lake City man she had met through the sugar-dating site Seeking Arrangement. Ajayi pleaded guilty to aggravated murder in October 2020 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹

Who Mackenzie Lueck Was

Lueck grew up in El Segundo, California, and graduated from El Segundo High School in 2014, where she played varsity water polo.² At the University of Utah she studied kinesiology and pre-nursing and belonged to Alpha Chi Omega.³ Her academic advisors said she had talked about nursing or medical school after her expected graduation in May 2020.⁴

The Night She Disappeared

Lueck had flown to Los Angeles in mid-June 2019 for her grandmother’s funeral.⁵ Her return flight landed in Salt Lake City around 2:00 a.m. on June 17. She took a Lyft from the airport to Hatch Park in North Salt Lake, and the driver later told police that another car appeared to be waiting for her there.⁶

Phone records later established that Lueck had been texting Ajayi and that both of their phones were at Hatch Park within one minute of each other at roughly 3:00 a.m. All activity on Lueck’s phone stopped at that moment.⁷ She was never seen alive again. Salt Lake City police were officially notified of her disappearance on June 20.

How Police Identified Ajayi

Detectives described the case as a digital forensic investigation built on cell phone records, IP addresses, texting apps, and social media accounts. Data from a dating app and cell phone evidence pointed them toward Ajayi.⁸

On June 26, police searched Ajayi’s home in Salt Lake City’s Fairpark neighborhood, a property he had listed as an Airbnb rental. Neighbors reported having seen him pouring gasoline on items and burning them in the backyard on June 17 and 18. A forensic excavation of a freshly dug area in the yard turned up charred personal items belonging to Lueck along with female human tissue, and the Utah State Lab confirmed the tissue’s DNA was consistent with her profile.⁷ Police also seized boxes of ammunition and a pitchfork.⁶

Two days later, on June 28, detectives tracked Ajayi to a friend’s house and took him into custody at 9:20 a.m. after a nine-minute phone call in which they persuaded him to come outside.⁷

What Ajayi Did

Lueck and Ajayi had connected through Seeking Arrangement, a site that pairs so-called sugar daddies with sugar babies, and arranged the Hatch Park meeting for after her red-eye flight.⁹

At the plea hearing, Ajayi’s defense attorney, Neal Hamilton, told the court that Ajayi had decided to murder Lueck before the meeting even took place and had disabled his home security cameras to avoid recording her arrival.¹⁰ After they met at the park, Ajayi took her to his house, bound her hands behind her back, pushed her onto her stomach, and strangled her with a belt. Hamilton told the court that Lueck “protested this and told Mr. Ajayi to stop” and that “Mr. Ajayi did not stop.”¹¹ Investigators also determined she had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.¹²

Ajayi burned and buried Lueck’s body in his backyard, then moved the remains once police began questioning him. Through his defense team, he later told prosecutors where he had reburied her, and on July 3, 2019, her charred remains were recovered from a shallow grave in Logan Canyon, roughly 80 to 100 miles north of Salt Lake City. Her arms were bound behind her back with rope and a zip tie.¹³¹²

Who Ayoola Ajayi Was

Ayoola Adisa Ajayi was 31 at the time of his arrest. A native of Nigeria, he had attended Utah State University on a student visa between 2009 and 2016 without graduating. In 2012 he was banned from the USU campus after a theft investigation; records showed he had been living in a janitor’s closet and other campus buildings, and officials told him his visa had lapsed.¹⁴ He served briefly in the Utah Army National Guard in 2015 before a discharge for failing to meet medical standards, and his LinkedIn profile listed IT roles at Dell, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft.¹⁵

North Logan police investigated Ajayi in 2014 over a rape complaint. Officers believed there was a “strong case,” but the woman chose not to pursue charges.¹⁴ Aside from traffic matters and a 2016 eviction, he had no criminal record in Utah before the Lueck case.¹⁵ A separate woman told police that in March 2018 Ajayi, whom she had met on a Latter-day Saints dating app, pinned her down and assaulted her at his home; she came forward only after seeing coverage of Lueck’s disappearance.¹⁶

Guilty Plea and Sentence

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill originally charged Ajayi with aggravated murder, a capital offense under Utah law, along with aggravated kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and desecration of a human body.¹⁷ A separate case charged him with 19 felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after child pornography was found on his computer, and another case charged him with aggravated kidnapping and forcible sexual abuse over the 2018 incident.¹⁸

On October 7, 2020, Ajayi pleaded guilty in Utah’s Third District Court to aggravated murder and desecration of a human body in Lueck’s death, and to one count of forcible sexual abuse in the 2018 case. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty and dropped the aggravated kidnapping and obstruction charges, and the 19 child pornography counts were dismissed as part of the deal.¹¹ The agreed sentence was life without parole.

Judge Vernice Trease imposed that sentence on October 23, 2020.¹⁹ Lueck’s parents, Diana and Greg Lueck, gave victim impact statements in the courtroom. Diana Lueck said the sentence would not bring her daughter back but expressed hope “it will keep this defendant out of the public eye, and from being able to commit such a heinous crime again.” Greg Lueck said he had “no compassion” for Ajayi and told him, “I sleep better knowing that your sorry ass will spend every waking hour looking over your shoulder.”²⁰ Ajayi briefly addressed the court and said, “I’m sorry for what I did. I know this won’t bring her back.”²¹

1
Salt Lake County District Attorney. Ajayi Sentencing
2
Daily Breeze. Utah Man Who Killed MacKenzie Lueck of El Segundo Sentenced to Life Without Parole
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Salt Lake Tribune. Who Was MacKenzie Lueck
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University of Utah. MacKenzie Lueck: A Kind and Devoted Friend
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Los Angeles Times. MacKenzie Lueck Memorial
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CBS News. Police Raid Salt Lake City Home in MacKenzie Lueck Investigation
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Salt Lake City Police Department. Arrest Made in MacKenzie Lueck Homicide Investigation
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KSL TV. Police Release New Photos, Info in MacKenzie Lueck Murder Case
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New York Daily News. Stone Cold Killer Admits to Murdering Utah Student MacKenzie Lueck
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Salt Lake Tribune. Ayoola Ajayi Pleads Guilty
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People. MacKenzie Lueck’s Killer Pleads Guilty, Said He Planned Killing Before He Even Met Her
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Salt Lake Tribune. Timeline of the Disappearance
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CBS News. MacKenzie Lueck Death: Ayoola Ajayi Pleads Guilty
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CBS Austin. Reports: MacKenzie Lueck’s Alleged Killer Was Banned From USU Campus, Accused of Rape
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KSL. What We Know About Ayoola Ajayi
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Oxygen. MacKenzie Lueck Case: Ayoola Ajayi Accused of Sexual Assault
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NBC Los Angeles. More Charges Filed Against Accused MacKenzie Lueck Killer
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KJZZ. Man Charged in MacKenzie Lueck’s Death Pleads Not Guilty in Child Porn Case
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Deseret News. Ayoola Ajayi Sentenced in Murder of MacKenzie Lueck
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KJZZ. MacKenzie Lueck’s Killer Sentenced to Life Without Parole, Says He Deserves It
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ABC News. Man Apologizes, Sentenced to Life in Prison in MacKenzie Lueck Slaying