Victim, suspect have dramatically different backgrounds

FORT WORTH, Texas — The lives of 18-year-old University of Texas student Haruka Weiser and the teenage suspect in her killing differed dramatically.

Weiser grew up in a tight-knit community in Oregon, where she attended an arts magnet school and danced with the Portland Ballet.

By contrast, Meechaiel Khalil Criner, the 17-year-old runaway arrested in her death, was intellectually disabled, abandoned by his mother as an infant and in Texas foster care, his uncle, Leo Criner, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Authorities say Weiser and Criner’s lives intersected violently on UT’s Austin campus, leaving Weiser dead in a creek on school grounds Tuesday and Criner jailed two days later in Travis County on a $1 million bond.

She grew up near Beaverton, Oregon, in a four-acre co-housing community established in 1998.

Spector said Weiser loved ballet and hip-hop dancing and wanted to study medicine, emulating her father, a doctor in Oregon.

She attended Arts and Communications Magnet Academy in Beaverton, and also performed with the Beaverton Dance West Troupe, Portland Ballet and Oregon Symphony.

Leo Criner said his nephew, Meechaiel, was bullied throughout his childhood in Texarkana, Texas, and has the mental capacity of a 10-year-old.

“I refuse to believe he just maliciously killed this young lady,” the uncle said in a phone interview from Texarkana, where he lives.

Mary Wadley said authorities had told her that her grandson, Meechaiel, was caught shoplifting in McKinney, Texas, shortly before he was admitted into an emergency youth homeless shelter Monday in Austin, about 225 miles away.

Weiser was last seen leaving the UT campus drama building Sunday night. Waller Creek, where her body was found Tuesday, is along the route she took from her dorm to the drama building, police have said.

Police released surveillance video that showed a man they said was a suspect walking a women’s bicycle. Firefighters later recognized the man as Criner, whom they had spoken to in connection with a trash fire near the UT campus on Monday.

Criner wasn’t arrested for the fire but was instead taken to a Life Works shelter. Police found him there Thursday and took him into custody without incident. His arrest affidavit said he was in possession of a women’s bike, as well as Weiser’s duffel bag and her laptop.

Haruka Weiser performs at ACMA Performing Arts Center in Beaverton, Ore. A homeless 17-year-old has been arrested Friday in the killing of the University of Texas dance major, whose body was recovered on campus.