The search for a missing 23-year-old college student from El Segundo was focused Thursday on a home listed as a short-term rental on Airbnb in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, and the owner of the residence was named as a “person of interest” in the case.
Police served a search warrant on the home Wednesday night, according to Salt Lake City police Assistant Chief Tim Doubt. Bags of evidence, including ammunition and a pitchfork, were carried out of the home by investigators, KUTV reported.
On Thursday, police Chief Mike Brown said a man who owns the residence is regarded by investigators as a “person of interest” in the case, and he has been interviewed by detectives, but has not been arrested.
Brown also said investigators have learned that a mattress and box spring were “given away” from the residence recently, and detectives urged whoever received the items to contact authorities.
According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, detectives and crime scene technicians worked Wednesday night into Thursday morning, searching the house on 1000 West between 500 North and 600 North.
Police served a search warrant on Wednesday about midday and by midnight, police were seen carrying shovels into the backyard to dig around a firepit, the Tribune reported.
Brown said “multiple items of evidence” were removed from the house and are being analyzed by police.
Mackenzie Lueck was reported missing June 17 when she arrived in Utah after spending time in the Los Angeles area for her grandmother’s funeral. She texted her parents that she had landed safely and was last seen about 3 a.m. by a Lyft driver who dropped her off at a park in North Salt Lake City, where police said she got into another vehicle. Authorities did not have a description of that vehicle or its driver. Surveillance cameras at the park were not working.
“Obviously we are treating this with a high degree of care and caution,” Doubt said. “Given the nature of the case, we just don’t want to make any mistakes.”
Lueck is a pre-nursing student and senior at the University of Utah, majoring in kinesiology, according to a school spokesman.