Suspect in MacKenzie Lueck case wanted secret room built in his basement, contractor says

The man suspected of kidnapping and murdering 23-year-old MacKenzie Lueck of El Segundo wanted to alter his basement in a way that made a contractor feel “weird,” the worker said.

Brian Wolf turned on TV news on Thursday, June 27 and was shocked to police searching the Salt Lake City home and that the owner, Ayoola Ajayi, was named a person of interest in Lueck’s disappearance. Ajayi has since been arrested and is being held without bail.

Wolf said after seeing the news, he called police and described his encounter in April.

Ajayi wanted to soundproof the basement room and install large hooks on the wall, Wolf said. The only way to gain entry to the room, as Wolf said Ajayi explained it, would be through a thumbprint. Another door would become a secret entrance, hidden by a bookcase, the contractor said.

Wolf, 43, said he turned down the job.

“It just gave me a weird feeling in my gut,” he said. “I didn’t want nothing to do with it.”

Salt Lake City Police spokeswoman Christina Judd confirmed Saturday that Wolf recounted the story to detectives.

Ajayi was arrested Friday in a condominium complex about five miles from his home on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body, authorities said.

Lueck, who was in her senior year studying kinesiology and pre-nursing at University of Utah, had just flown in from Los Angeles, where she attended her grandmother’s funeral, in the early morning hours June 17.

She ordered a Lyft and the driver dropped her off at Hatch Park in North Salt Lake about 3 a.m. She went missing until authorities searched Ajayi’s home and made the discoveries in freshly dug areas in his backyard sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said authorities found what was “determined to be female human tissue,” and charred belongings consistent with Lueck. Those items were tested at a Utah lab and matched her DNA, Brown said.

Authorities also linked the two through digital forensic investigation. They found both Ajayi and Lueck’s cell phones were at Hatch Park within one minute of each other right before she disappeared, June 17. Ajayi admitted in a police interview to having text conversations with Lueck the previous night.

Ajayi initially claimed he didn’t know what Lueck looked like and had never seen her online profile, but detectives found him in possession of several photos of her, including one from an online profile, Brown said.

“We will continue to look into this situation to determine if he acted alone or if he had help,” Brown said Friday.

On Friday night, police said they found a mattress they were seeking in the case. They were no longer trying to locate the missing box spring, they said. They did not elaborate.

Wolf said Saturday he was referred to the home by a plumber who had just done work in Ajayi’s basement, which had recently flooded.

The contractor initially went to inspect some drywall, but he said Ajayi made the other requests after learning of his remodeling work.

Ajayi initially said he wanted the secret room to hide his alcohol because his girlfriend was Mormon and she was coming back to town soon.

“He was adamant that money wasn’t an issue and he wanted it done as soon as possible,” Wolf said.

Then Ajayi began asking for other things. He said he wanted to sound proof the room so he could listen to music.

When he asked for large hooks to be installed above head height and a thumbprint reader to gain access to the room, Wolf decided the job was too weird and he turned it down, ultimately telling Ajayi it was too far away from his Ogden home.

Wolf sent Southern California News Group screenshots of texts he exchanged with Ajayi, which match a phone number for Ajayi that a reporter found separately.

“He was well spoken, very talkative,” Wolf said. “I didn’t have any red flags, nothing triggered until he started asking for the weird requests. He struck me as just a college guy from another country that came here to go to school. I never would have thought anything like this would ever happen.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.