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SALT LAKE CITY — A judge on Monday set a preliminary hearing date for next year for the man charged with killing University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck and setting fire to her body in June.
Ayoola Adisa Ajayi, 31, will have a chance to hear the evidence against him during the two-day hearing set to begin March 11.
Following the hearing, a judge will determine whether the evidence is strong enough for Ajayi to stand trial on charges including aggravated murder, a capital offense. He is also facing charges of aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony; desecration of a human body, a second-degree felony; and obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony.
On June 17, the 23-year-old Lueck met Ajayi at Hatch Park in North Salt Lake and the two went to Ajayi’s house, police say.
Investigators found her charred remains in a shallow grave in Logan Canyon roughly two weeks later. After she was killed, prosecutors say Ajayi set fire to her body. An autopsy revealed Lueck died from blunt force trauma to the left side of her skull.
Originally from Nigeria but living in Salt Lake City at the time of his arrest, Ajayi waived his right to a speedy trial last month as attorneys on both sides said they were waiting to receive crucial evidence in each of three criminal cases against him.
Ajayi is separately accused of sexually assaulting a woman he had met on a dating app more than a year earlier during a dinner date at his home. In a third pending criminal case, he faces 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony, after police said they found child pornography on devices seized from his home.
