NewsLocal News

Actions

New documents outline evidence in MacKenzie Lueck murder investigation

Posted at 10:50 PM, Jul 30, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-31 00:51:00-04

SALT LAKE CITY — A document filed by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office lists everything they’ve collected to go to trial, as they build their case against suspect Ayoola Ajayi.

The ‘Response to Request for Discovery’ is eight pages of a laundry list of warrants, evidence, interviews and data in the murder of University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck.

It also reveals more about what apps and social media sites investigators looked into when it came to the potential relationship between Lueck and Ajayi. Up until now, Salt Lake City Police have said very little about how they think the two met or knew each other.

Chris Bertram, retired Unified Police deputy chief who is now a criminal justice professor and private investigator, took a look through the pages to help explain what the document outlines.

He pointed out that it showed police have interviewed Ajayi twice. According to the document, they’ve also interviewed other people who knew or spoke with Ajayi and Lueck.

Each line represents potentially hours and hours of work done on one specific aspect of the investigation-- whether it be obtaining a piece of surveillance video, looking at bank account data, or executing a search warrant.

According to the document, 28 search warrants have been filed in the case. Investigators have taken more than 3,000 photos in different places, including at Ajayi’s home, Lueck’s home and in Logan Canyon where her body was recovered.

Detectives have conducted interviews with at least 11 different people, including Ajayi. There are four witnesses listed.

They’ve obtained surveillance video from six different locations.

The list indicates that the DA’s office has collected data and records from Lyft, Smith’s Marketplace, Airbnb, Comcast, Google, Wells Fargo and US Bank.

They’ve compiled all of the DNA evidence in the case as well, including lab reports.

“This is a significant amount of discovery that they're producing,” Bertram said.

Hundreds of hours of work, he indicated, that would take weeks to sift through in its entirety.

“I can't imagine what this actually looks like printed out,” he said. “It’s probably several telephone book-sized binders.”

The section of the document entitled “Social Media” covers what accounts detectives looked at in the case.

“You can maybe see how they potentially were introduced to each other, or maybe became acquainted with each other,” Bertram said, of Ajayi and Lueck.

According to the document, search warrants were served on both Ajayi and Lueck’s accounts on Seeking Arrangement and Tinder.

Tinder is a location-based dating app.

Seeking Arrangement is a site that advertises sugar baby and sugar daddy relationships.

“Tinder and Seeking Arrangements are commonplace in people meeting, or hooking up, or dating,” Bertram explained.

Those are the only social media apps where detectives obtained warrants for both Lueck and Ajayi’s information.

Warrants were also served on Lueck’s accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Text Me and Lyft.

“What’s interesting, is there's nothing else in this document that kind of indicates how they may have met,” he said.

It’s the first time the investigation has officially made a link with specific dating app accounts.

Bertram explained that this list is far from complete, and that it will continue to grow as the DA gathers additional evidence and information in the case.

He said the document is what Ajayi’s defense team will look over, as law enforcement and prosecutors put everything together that they will take to trial.

You can view the full documents below (Fox 13 has redacted the names of witnesses and other sensitive information included in the document).

Initial Discovery Documents - Ayoola Ajayi