29th June, 2019
Thirty one year old divorced Nigerian, Ayoola Ajayi who was arrested Friday for the aggravated murder of Utah college student 23-year-old Mackenzie Lueck, once wrote a book on a gruesome murder.
“There is a self-published book for sale on Amazon called “Forge Identity.” The author, Ayoola Ajayi, says in his bio: “Ayoola Ajayi was born and raised in Africa. He has been a salesman, an entrepreneur, and a writer. He has survived a tyrannical dictatorship, escaped a real life crime, traveled internationally, excelled professionally in several industries, and is currently curating a multi-platform advertising campaign for his debut novel, Forge Identity, a sample of which can be found on Kindle, Amazon, Facebook, and any current social media. He lives in salt lake.”
He reportedly killed her and burnt her remains at his backyard. His motive was not clear.
Utah police said Ajayi will be charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of the body of Mackenzie Lueck.
He was arrested without incident Friday morning by a SWAT team, according to a report by AP.
Ajayi 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.
Lueck disappeared on June 17, after she returned from a trip home for her grandmother’s funeral and took a Lyft ride from the airport to a park north of Salt Lake City. She was last seen apparently willingly meeting someone there at about 3 a.m.
Her text conversation with Ajayi was her last communication and phone location data shows them both at the park within a minute of each other, police chief Mike Brown said.
After discovering that Ajayi was the last person Lueck communicated with, police searched his home on Wednesday and Thursday and described him as a “person of interest.”
In his backyard, they said they found a “fresh dug area,” and charred items that belonged to Lueck. They also found burned human remains that matched her DNA profile, Brown said.
Horrifically, “female human tissue,” was then also found, and it matched via DNA testing to MacKenzie Lueck, the chief revealed in a news conference. The suspect’s neighbours 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,” said the chief.
Ajayi 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.
Lueck was a part-time senior at the University of Utah studying kinesiology and pre-nursing, and was expected to graduate in Spring 2020. She had been a student since 2014 and had an off-campus apartment.
She is from El Segundo in the Los Angeles area and flew to California for a funeral before returning to Salt Lake City, police said. Her family reported her missing on June 20 and became more concerned after she missed a planned flight back to Los Angeles last weekend.
Chief Mike Brown said police are filing charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and desecration of a body “in the homicide of MacKenzie Lueck.”
MacKenzie’s emotional uncle read a statement for the family, expressing “their gratitude for the effort put forth by the Salt Lake City Police Department and all partnering agencies…” They also thanked the community and people who provided tips. The family did not take questions. The uncle said nothing further. Authorities also did not provide additional details of the crime or how Ajayi and Lueck allegedly first came into contact with each other beyond the texting.
Ajayi was previously investigated for rape five years ago, but police said the the alleged victim declined to pursue charges.
Excerpt from Ajayi’s book:
Ezekiel was almost 15 when he witnessed a gruesome murder. An angry mob burned his neighbour alive in the street and the man died at his feet. Sadly, it was not the last time he witnessed such horror. With his well respected father as guide and mentor, Ezekiel saw this death, then a death much closer to home when a loved one was killed in the same brutal, terrifying way 50 feet from him, and he could do nothing to stop it. Staggering to recover from these severe traumas, he finds relief and joy in meeting his first love, becomes embroiled in grand theft, and experiences heartbreaking betrayal. Ezekiel must decide if he will join the ranks of a criminal mastermind, or fight to escape the tyranny that has surrounded his young life. Or even beat them at their own game. When trust is lost, can he even trust himself?