Search for missing student turns up ‘person of interest’
SALT LAKE CITY • A man whose home was searched as police investigate the disappearance of a Utah college student was named a “person of interest” in the case Thursday, and police were trying to find a mattress that had been inside his home.
The announcement came shortly after authorities spent about 19 hours searching the man’s home in a middle class Salt Lake City neighborhood.
Neighbors described officers entering the home with shovels and police dogs. Investigators were also seen taking large brown bags out of the house.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said the homeowner spoke with investigators but was not in custody and declined to name him.
But authorities said they believe the house has an unspecified connection to the disappearance of 23-year-old Mackenzie Lueck.
Online court and property records identify the man as 31, divorced this year and with no criminal record in Utah. The Associated Press is not naming him because authorities have not done so.
Investigators want to find a mattress and box spring they say the homeowner gave away last week, and speak with whoever took it, Brown said.
Lueck disappeared June 17 after taking a Lyft from the city’s airport to a park, where police said she met someone at about 3 a.m. They have said the Lyft driver had no connection with her disappearance.
The home that police searched Wednesday into Thursday is about 5 miles from the park.
Brown would not say if the homeowner met Lueck at the park, or if police have identified the person she met there.
Police generally use the term “person of interest” for someone they believe might have information about a crime that leads to a suspect, or may be eventually become a suspect.
The homeowner has lived there about two years and has rented out part of it on Airbnb, said next-door neighbor Tom Camomile. Before he moved there, he lived briefly in an apartment and did coding work from home, said roommate Zach Slater, who lived with him in 2015.
He remembered him as a quiet, nice roommate who dated a number of women.
Police investigators search a home in Salt Lake City as part of the disappearance of University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck that carried on into the early morning hours of Thursday.
