Man held for murder of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck allegedly raped colleague, abused and threatened wife
Police records have revealed that the man arrested for murdering University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck was previously accused of raping a former colleague. According to a report obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune, a woman lodged a police complaint against Ayoola A Ajayi in 2014, stated a Daily Mail report.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was reportedly engaging in consensual sex with 31-year-old Ajayi before she told him she wanted to stop. However, she claimed he refused and continued having sex with her anyway, stated the documents.
While the woman made an official report "in case he did the same thing to someone else", she appeared to blame herself and eventually opted not to pursue charges.
On June 28, authorities arrested Ajayi on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, and other charges in the death of 23-year-old Lueck whose burnt remains and personal belongings were found in his backyard.
Lueck went missing on June 17 after taking a Lyft from the airport to a park, where she met someone early morning, police said.
In an exclusive interview, Ajayi's estranged wife Tenisha Jenkins Ajayi said she was forced to flee after he slashed her with a butcher's knife and threatened to abduct her. The pair haven't seen each other since she fled from their turbulent marriage years ago and went into hiding.
"If he took an innocent child, he needs to spend his life in jail," she told the outlet. "If they need me to come to court and testify against him, I'll tell them how he was aggressive and controlling. This could have happened to me. This could have happened to my child."
The 35-year-old mother-of-four said she married the Nigerian IT worker out of love and not for any kind of immigration or financial arrangement.
She added that she was already pregnant with the youngest of her two sons when she tied the knot with Ajayi — nicknamed AJ — but that the doomed union was already falling apart by the time their child Jojo, now seven years old, was born.
"AJ told me he was going back to his hometown in Utah and I didn't want to go with him. That made him angry but I have kids, I couldn't just leave Dallas," she said. "He was telling me not to talk to anybody. He used to check up on me. He started to get more and more aggressive. Eventually, he said he would kill me if I didn’t go to Utah."
According to Tenisha, she last saw Ajayi at a friend's house in Dallas where he reportedly reiterated his threat and tried to grab her.
"He tried to tie me up with a phone cord. When I went running he blocked the door. I ended up jumping through a window and cutting my arm on the glass," she told the outlet. "He chased me into the street with a knife and cut me in the hand. I didn't go to the police but I moved out of my apartment so he couldn’t find me. I kept telling him I don’t want to be with you, I want a divorce. He wouldn’t sign the papers. His friend from the Army kept calling me, saying they were going to kidnap me. I was really frightened. He kept saying he was going to kill me."
Speaking of the intimacy in their relationship, Tenisha said she was too "scared" to have sex with Ajayi. However, she never saw any evidence that he had violent sexual fantasies. Nonetheless, the pair never even consummated the marriage.
"I never had sex with him because I was kinda scared of him. Not once. When he drank, he became aggressive," she revealed. "And I was pregnant with another man's child."
The suspect was taken into custody June 28 morning before investigators charged him with the murder of Lueck, who disappeared on June 17 after hiring a Lyft from the airport to a park located miles away from her Salt Lake apartment.