BUDAPEST – Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist who was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital mourned their loss while a 37-year-old suspect was in custody Saturday.
The victim, Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on Nov. 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest. Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.
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The man was detained on Nov. 7 and questioned by police, and later confessed to the killing.
Before the confession, Michalski's family and friends had launched an effort to find her, starting a Facebook group to gather tips on her whereabouts. Her parents traveled to Hungary to assist in the search, but while en route learned that she had been killed.
At a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday night, the victim's father, Bill Michalski, told The Associated Press that he was “still overcome with emotion" at the death of his daughter.
“There was no reason for this to happen,” he said. “I’m still trying to wrap my arms around what happened ... I don’t know that I ever will."
Police detained the suspect, an Irish citizen, on the evening of Nov. 7. Investigators said that Michalski and the suspect met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man's rented apartment. The man killed Michalski while they were engaged in an “intimate encounter,” police said.
The suspect, whom police identified by the initials L.T.M., confessed to the killing, but said it had been an accident. Police said that he had attempted to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and hiding Michalski's body in a wardrobe before purchasing a suitcase and placing her body inside.
He then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, around 90 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooden area outside the town of Szigliget.
Video released by police showed the suspect guiding authorities to the location where he had left the body. Police said the suspect had made internet searches before being apprehended on how to dispose of a body, police procedures in missing person cases, whether pigs really eat dead bodies, and the presence of wild boars in the Lake Balaton area.
He also made an internet search inquiring on the competence of Budapest police.
Crime scene photographs released by police showed a rolling suitcase, several articles of clothing including a pair of fleece-lined boots, and a small handbag next to a credit card bearing Michalski's name.
According to a post by an administrator of a Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” which was created on Nov. 7, Michalski, who went by “Kenzie,” was a nurse practitioner who “will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman.”
At the candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday, Michalski's father gave brief comments to those who had gathered, and was wearing a baseball cap he said he had received as a gift from his daughter.
Michalski had visited Budapest before, and called it her “happy place,” her father told the AP.
“The history, she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here," he said. "This was her city.”