Ayoola Ajayi ordered to spend life behind bars for murdering Mackenzie Lueck

Defense attorney Neal Hamilton, left, and Ayoola Adisa Ajayi, right, listen as Ajayi is sentenced in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court on Friday, Oct. 22, 2020, to life in the Utah State Prison without the possibility of parole in the death of University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck. | Utah State Courts

SALT LAKE CITY — Ayoola Adisa Ajayi, who pleaded guilty to aggravated murder in the death of Utah college student Mackenzie Lueck, was sentenced Friday to life in the Utah State Prison without the possibility of parole.

More than a year after police recovered the 23-year-old’s charred remains from a shallow grave in Logan Canyon, Ajayi admitted earlier this month in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court that he had planned to kill her after meeting her on a dating website.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty and instead recommend the life without parole sentence.

Ajayi, a 32-year-old tech support worker, admitted that he strangled Lueck at his Salt Lake home in the Fairpark neighborhood, burning her body and and burying her in his yard. After detectives investigating Lueck’s disappearance knocked on his door, he took her remains to the northern Utah canyon and buried her again, his attorney said.

He and Lueck had met in 2018 on the website Seeking Arrangements, which bills itself as a platform for so-called sugar daddies to meet sugar babies. They ultimately agreed to meet up once Lueck returned to Salt Lake City from a funeral in her native California.

Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown talks about the investigation into Mackenzie Lueck’s disappearance during a press conference at the Public Safety Building in Salt Lake City on Friday, June 28, 2019.

Police said her Lyft driver dropped her off at North Salt Lake’s Hatch Park about 3 a.m. on June 17. Once he and Lueck arrived at his home after first meeting at the park, he tied her hands behind her back and strangled her, his defense attorney Neal Hamilton said.

Additionally, Ajayi pleaded guilty to abuse or desecration of a human body, a third-degree felony.

Judge Vernice Trease sentence him to a consecutive prison term of up to five years on that conviction.

In exchange for his guilty pleas and as part of the plea bargain, other charges tied to Lueck’s murder were dismissed. They include aggravated kidnapping and obstructing justice.

As part of the plea bargain, Ajayi admitted to an unrelated charge of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony, admitting that he assaulted a woman during a March 2018 date at his home. Investigators said the woman saw coverage of Lueck’s death and came forward to report her assault.

Trease sentenced him to an additional consecutive prison term of 1-15 years on that charge. Although the additional sentences won’t add any time to what is already a life sentence, they’re symbolic, reflecting the severity of his crimes.

Lueck, a part-time senior at the university, was reported missing June 20, 2019, kicking off the formal police investigation. Police found her remains in a shallow grave in Logan Canyon on July 3.

Ajayi attended Utah State University in Logan on a student visa, sporadically taking classes there. His LinkedIn page identified him as a technical support analyst for Dell.

He also wrote a novel that his Amazon author profile describes as the story of a young man who witnesses two murders and must decide if he wants to pursue a life of crime. Ajayi asserts in the profile that he “survived a tyrannical dictatorship, escaped a real life crime, traveled internationally,” and excelled in several different lines of work.

Details from the sentencing hearing will be updated throughout the afternoon.

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