DNA evidence leads Police to arrest Nigerian man Ayoola Ajayi for allegedly kidnapping, murdering and burning a lady in US

Today, the Salt Lake City Police department confirms that 31-year-old Nigerian national identified as Ayoola Adisa Ajayi has been charged with aggravated murder and kidnapping in the case of missing Utah student, Mackenzie Lueck.  

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said DNA testing shows that during a search of Ajayi’s residence, human tissue was found and subsequent DNA testing showed it was a match for the missing woman, who disappeared on June 17th.

“I will not be saying the killer’s name again,” Brown said, reported the Salt Lake Tribune, after announcing the suspect’s arrest.

Lueck, a 23-year-old University of Utah student, arrived in Salt Lake City from California after attending her grandmother’s funeral. She texted her parents when her flight landed before getting a Lyft to Hatch Park, which is about eight miles from her home.  She met a person at around 3 a.m. and left in another car but three days later, her parents reported her missing.

The suspect’s neighbors had told detectives they allegedly saw Ajayi “burning something in his back yard with the use of gasoline” on June 17 and 18. Other charred material was located which has now been forensically determined to be female human tissue. He also sold a mattress online in an attempt to get rid of the evidence

Lueck’s last communications were with Ajayi, who was briefly a member of the Utah Army National Guard in the past, but he was discharged and the location of the deceased’s and Ajayi’s phones pinged at a park within less than a minute of each other, at which time her phone stopped receiving data around 3 a.m. on June 17.