Suspect in student death charged separately with child porn

Salt Lake City police take Ayoola A. Ajayi into custody in connection with the death of University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck in Salt Lake City, June 28, 2019 | File photo by Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via The Associated Press, St. George News

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A tech worker accused of killing a Utah college student was charged Tuesday with 19 unrelated counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after investigators said they discovered child pornography on his computer.

Ayoola Ajayi had images of children as young as 4, prosecutors said in charging documents.

Investigators took the computer as part of the investigation into the death of 23-year-old University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck.

Ajayi, 31, remains in jail after being previously charged with murder and kidnapping in the death of Lueck. He has not yet entered pleas to those counts.

Police and prosecutors have not said how Ajayi and Lueck were connected or disclosed a motive for the killing.

A probable cause statement for the new charges doesn’t indicate any link between the pornography and Lueck.

Police have said Lueck was last seen getting into Ajayi’s car on June 17, shortly before her death. Her body was found with her arms bound behind her in a canyon 85 miles from Ajayi’s Salt Lake City home. She died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Police officers stand in front of the home, right, of Ayoola A. Ajayi in Salt Lake City, June 28, 2019 | Associated Press file photo by Rick Bowmer, St. George News

The Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association, which has been assigned to represent Ajayi, said it does not plan to make any comments.

Court documents show that investigators searched social media and dating sites while trying to find a link between Lueck and Ajayi, including one called Seeking Arrangement, which bills itself as a way for wealthy “sugar daddies” to meet women known as “sugar babies.”

The documents don’t detail what evidence might have been found. Prosecutors have declined to discuss the findings.

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

Written by BRADY McCOMBS, Associated Press.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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