An Irish man is suspected of killing a 31-year-old US nurse during an “intimate encounter” at his Budapest flat before dumping her body in woodland, according to police.
Hungarian police said Mackenzie Michalski, from Portland in the US state of Oregon, was killed after meeting the 37-year-old man at a nightclub while she was on holiday in the city.
Officers identified the suspect by the initials LTM and said he cleaned up his rented apartment in the Hungarian capital and put Ms Michalski’s body in a wardrobe and then into a suitcase.
He allegedly rented a car and drove 90 miles (150km) to Lake Balaton, where he is said to have disposed of the body in a wooded area near the village of Szigliget.
Police video showed the suspect guiding them to where he left the body.
Officers said he also searched online for how to dispose of a body, and about the competence of Budapest police. Police said he also conducted online searches about procedures in missing person cases, whether pigs eat dead bodies, and if there are wild boars around Lake Balaton.
He was arrested on 7 November but claimed the killing was an accident, police said.
Ms Michalski had been reported missing two days before, and the suspect was identified after CCTV showed the pair together at a nightclub, where police said they danced and left for his flat.
Pic: Facebook/Find Mackenzie Michalski
Crime scene photos show a rolling suitcase, items of clothing and a handbag next to a credit card with Ms Michalski’s name on it.
The victim’s family flew to Hungary to help find her, but on the way found out she had been killed.
“There was no reason for this to happen,” her father Bill Michalski said at a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday night.
“I’m still trying to wrap my arms around what happened… I don’t know that I ever will.”
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Friends attended a candlelight memorial in the city on Saturday. Pic: AP
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Wearing a cap she had given him, Mr Michalski said his daughter had been to Budapest before and called it her “happy place”.
“The history… she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here,” he said.
A Facebook group set up last week to find Ms Michalski said she was known as “Kenzie” and worked as a nurse.
It said she would “forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman”.