Police: Body of slain college student recovered

Remains found in canyon 85 miles from Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY — The body of a slain college student Mackenzie Lueck, 23, has been recovered in a Utah canyon about 85 miles away from a backyard in Salt Lake City where other remains were found last week, police said Friday.

Authorities previously said some of her charred remains and personal belongings were found in a suspect’s backyard in Salt Lake City. The body was discovered Wednesday in Logan Canyon, north of the city.

The canyon is near Utah State University, where 31-year-old suspect Ayoola A. Ajayi sporadically attended classes for several years without earning a degree.

Lueck disappeared June 17, after returning from a trip to her hometown of El Segundo, California, for her grandmother’s funeral and took a Lyft from the airport to a park where she met someone.

Ajayi was the last person she communicated with, and his cellphone puts him in the park at the same time as Lueck.

He’s being held on suspicion of aggravated murder, kidnapping and other crimes. Charges are expected to be filed next week.

Police have not discussed a motive for the killing or how Lueck died. It isn’t clear how Ajayi and Lueck knew each other.

Lueck was missing for nearly two weeks before Ajayi was arrested.

Lueck was a member of a sorority and a part-time senior at the University of Utah studying kinesiology and pre-nursing.

Ajayi is an information technology worker who had stints with high-profile companies and was briefly in the Army National Guard.

He has no criminal history but was investigated in a 2014 rape allegation and was arrested in a stolen iPad case at Utah State in 2012. The arrest and the expiration of his student visa led to his being banned from the campus for about three years.

A native of Nigeria, Ajayi is now a U.S. citizen.