before she went missing. here s keith morrison with the waiting car. it was a few weeks before mckenzie vanished, a meeting at a bar, with this man rob joseph. she seemed like a very bright, bubbly girl friendly. they talked for more than an hour said robbed or she did while he listened. rob is an ex-cop, which of course he told her. if you mention you re an ex cop in you re a pi, everybody all of a sudden wants to tell you they re dark secrets or risky behaviors. it s not how people react, really? yeah. you would be surprised. people just want to tell you things that you don t want to hear. anyway. he only saw mackenzie that one time, he said. didn t get her phone number and
he figured if mckenzie was missing, that just might have something to do with it. i went straight home got on the computer and got on to seeking arrangement and within an hour, two hours i had found her profile. there she was, beach baby 96. what was interesting about her profile is that it was very authentic and honest. she wasn t really hiding who she was, she was pretty specific about 23-year-old, grad student studying kinesiology, california girl. likes to drink wine, likes to go out, likes to travel, looking for somebody to do that with. a little bit more pg than some of them, maybe? yeah. soon as he founded he sent a screen grab of mackenzie s profile to the salt lake city police department. this was definitely another avenue that we had to look at, and track down anybody who might have been in contact with her. mckenzie appeared had compartmentalized information about her life. the plane ticket to los angeles, for instance had been paid for by man she had met
lunar new year celebration at a dance hall in monterrey park california. police say the suspect, at the 72-year-old man died by self inflicted gunshot wound, a motive is under investigation. and just an hour later in baton rouge louisiana, 12 people were injured after gunfire erupted in a nightclub sunday morning. all of the victims were hospitalized and in stable condition. now, back to dateline. dateline. welcome back to dateline, i m natalie morales. where was mackenzie lueck? the college student took a lyft to meet someone at a park at 3 am. but who? mckenzie was active on dating sites making police wonder if her late night rendezvous was a hook up, and her radio silence was intentional. now a tipster was about to share troubling details of his encounter with mckenzie shortly
cause to serve lyft with a search warrant. and find out where her destination was, where she was dropped off, what time she was picked up. where did she go? so, we were able to get the destination from the airport all the way up to north salt lake address and she was dropped off at hatch park in north salt lake, just before 3 am. a park? at 3 am? why would mackenzie come here? and just as important, why would a driver leave a young woman alone, burdened with luggage, at a park in the middle of the night? who would do such a thing? it was detective sayes job to track down the driver. who she discovered, was not so easy to find. we were like, is this guy dodging us? coming up mackenzie s friends have a terrifying theory about why she s missing. i assumed that the lyft driver abducted her. and here s one reason why. her last text message that we recovered was at 2:58, prior
the terminal and we followed her all the way down to the baggage claim, where she picked up her luggage. seemed perfectly normal, fine, casual? yes. nothing out of the ordinary that we can seattle. the last clip shows mackenzie, like so many other passengers, casually getting into a car outside baggage claim. but the identity of the driver? a mystery. news of this police investigation quickly spread among mackenzie s friends. the second i heard about that, my stomach dropped. so, kennedy launched her own investigation. i went on facebook. i dropped pictures of us together and i said, she s missing. if you know anything, reach out to me. reach out, police. i thought she was still in california. until i saw kennedys message on facebook. ashley fine, another of mackenzie s college friends, put up her own facebook posts. and i tagged her in it and