Tech worker admits murdering student he met on app for women seeking ‘sugar daddies’
A tech worker has admitted murdering a 23 year-old student he met on a dating app for women seeking ‘sugar daddies.’ Ayoola Ajayi, 32, pleaded guilty to the June 2019 murder of Mackenzie Lueck at a court hearing on Wednesday, as part of a plea hearing which will see him spared the death penalty.
The court heard how Ajayi had planned to kill Lueck before they met for the first time, after sparking up an online relationship via dating site Seeking Arrangement. It bills itself as a way for women to meet financially generous ‘sugar daddies’ who will shower them with gifts.
Lueck traveled to meet Ajayi in a Salt Lake City Park on the night of her death, and later went back to her killer’s home. There, he tied her up and began to choke her. When Lueck, who had just returned home from her grandma’s funeral in California, tried to stop Ajayi, he put a belt around her neck.
The killer then pushed her down onto her stomach and strangled her. Afterwards, Ajayi burned Lueck’s body, and buried it in his backyard.
He was questioned by detectives investigating the student’s disappearance, and dug the remains up after that police visit, before burying them again in a shallow grave 100 miles north of Salt Lake City.
Ajayi was arrested two weeks later, with some of Lueck’s body parts exhumed from his yard shortly afterwards.
He confessed to burying Lueck in Utah’s Logan Canyon shortly afterwards, with the young woman’s hands found tied behind her back when detectives located her corpse.
Ajayi was a successful tech worker and former US National Guard member who is originally from Nigeria, but held a US green card.
He did not give a motive for killing Lueck, but also admitted sexually assaulting another woman he’d met on a dating app the year before Lueck’s murder.
Ajayi further admitted possessing child sex abuse images found on his phone after Lueck’s death.
The killer barely spoke during his sentencing hearing, and is expected to be sentenced to life without parole.
Prosecutor Sim Gill said Ajayi’s admission would give Lueck’s family ‘a measure of justice’ and help them get closure.
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