Ayoola Ajayi, the man charged in connection with the disappearance and murder of 23-year-old University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck, allegedly has a history of violence against women. Ajayi allegedly sexually assaulted a coworker in 2014, although she declined to press charges, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The woman claimed she visited Ajayi's home and "one thing led to another," but when she told him that she didn't want to have sex, he didn't stop. She then went to the police to report the incident "in case he did the same thing to someone else."
His estranged wife Tenisha Ajayi has said that he was controlling and abusive throughout their marriage. "If I wouldn’t do what he told me to do, he got real aggressive," she told KUTV. "He was like, 'I’ll have someone come kidnap you and kill you.'"
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Last week, Ajayi was charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and desecration of a body. The Salt Lake City police said it was able to link him to the murder by tracking Lueck’s cell phone data around the time she was last seen. Ajayi allegedly burned Lueck's body, which led to the discovery of DNA evidence in his backyard.
According to a report by BuzzFeed News, two characters in Ajayi's self-published book Forge Identity were burned to death. The 31-year-old has no previous criminal history in Utah, apart from a few minor traffic violations.
Lueck disappeared the night of June 17 after taking a Lyft from the airport to Hatch Park in North Salt Lake. Police have yet to disclose the motive behind her murder, or how Lueck and Ajayi were associated prior to their contact the night of her disappearance and death.
Earlier this week, Barstool Sports writer Francis Ellis was fired after writing a blog post about Lueck's disappearance that mocked her for being active on "sugar baby" dating websites and otherwise made light of her situation, despite the fact that she had been missing for over 10 days.
Lueck, who was studying kinesiology and pre-nursing, was expected to graduate from the University of Utah in 2020.