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SALT LAKE CITY — Defense lawyers for the man charged in the death of University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck are sorting through new information roughly a year after the 23-year-old Lueck went missing.
Attorney Neal Hamilton said Monday in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court that his office recently received a batch of evidence in the murder case for 32-year-old Ayoola Adisa Ajayi.
Ajayi has not yet entered a plea to aggravated murder, a capital offense and first-degree felony.
During the brief hearing Monday, 3rd District Judge Vernice Trease set another scheduling date for June 29. She similarly postponed a hearing in the case last month after prosecutors said they continued to sift through evidence.
Like many proceedings in the last month, Monday’s was held over video as the justice system seeks to limit the number of people in courthouses. It’s not clear whether current restrictions on the courts might lift by the June date, Trease noted.
Ajayi wore a yellow jail uniform and glasses Monday, appearing over the video feed from the Salt Lake County Jail. He has been held there since June 28, 2019, and has not yet had a preliminary hearing, meant to determine if the case is strong enough to go to trial.
Ajayi, who is originally from Nigeria but most recently lived in Salt Lake City, waived his right to a speedy trial last year. He faces other charges of aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony; desecration of a human body, a second-degree felony; plus obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony.
Lueck, a student from El Segundo, California, met Ajayi early on June 17 at Hatch Park in North Salt Lake before going to Ajayi’s house, police said. Her charred remains were found by police in a shallow grave in Logan Canyon on July 3.
In a separate criminal case, Ajayi has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman during a dinner date at his Salt Lake City home more than a year before Lueck vanished. He has pleaded not guilty, and a trial date has not yet been set.
He faces another set of charges — 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony — after police reported finding child pornography on devices during their homicide investigation.
