They set off the search logan canyon. it took us the better part of a day until we found her. that has to be another part tough part of your job? it was horrific, a sight that none of us wanted to see. the search for mckenzie was over, but the investigation was not. in the weeks following, a woman came forward to say that she had been sexually assaulted by a. j. a year earlier. at aj s residence, the same residence where mckenzie was killed. she said that she met him through a dating app, a religious one. aj was charged with aggravated kidnapping and forcible sexual abuse in that case. the evidence was tightening around him, evidence of what he did to mckenzie was growing. finally, october 7th, 2020, a. j. pleaded guilty to murdering mackenzie lewis. as part of his plea deal, he admitted that he thought about
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
Now we know that he had contact with her. except, there was no proof mackenzie had been abducted by a. j. or anyone else for that matter, so he was free to leave. but before doing so, he gave the detectives his cell phone number, just in case they needed to get a hold of him. his cell number registered in his name. remember police didn t have that before, they just had that bogus two zero six number used by the texting app. so now, with aj s personal cell number, they could get a search warrant for his calls, and two days later. we got the confirmation back from the fbi that mckenzie s records were showing her going from the airport to hatch park and a.j. s records were showing going from his residence and also meeting up at hatch park at the exact same time. and that was enough to get a
Around him, evidence of what he did to mckenzie was growing. finally, october 7th, 2020, a. j. pleaded guilty to murdering mackenzie lewis. as part of his plea deal, he admitted that he thought about killing mackenzie, and then he planned the killing of mackenzie, a thoroughly premeditated murder. that he knew that he was going to murder mckenzie before she even touched down at the airport he selected her as his victim, right? right. was there any explanation at all of what is motivation was to do it? none, he never offered any reasoning as to why. or even how. aj also pleaded guilty to sexually abusing his first victim. he was sentenced to life without parole. one more thing, said the
I think all i heard was how are you doing, how is your trip, basic ratings. the situation seemed very safe. she knew the person that she was getting in the car with. did mackenzie caught a car with someone that she knew with, was both good and bad news? the good news, of course, was that it meant maybe mckenzie went off with a friend somewhere. the bad news? because there was now no proof of a crime, the detectives had lost their power to get any search warrants. we had lost our what we call probable cause, that a crime had been committed. just like that? just like that. just because of what the lyft driver said, suddenly you can t be getting warrants for things? correct. that was a hard part and it s slow down the investigation at that point, because we didn t have a crime to attached to it, it was still now a missing persons investigation. without a warrant the