The man charged with killing University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck now also faces 19 counts of sexually exploiting a minor, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
The charges, each a second-degree felony, came after investigators inspected a computer seized at Ayoola Ajayi‘s home and found “images of children engaged in sex acts,” the prosecutor’s statement said.
According to a probable cause statement, which includes graphic descriptions of the photos allegedly found on the computer, girls thought to be between the ages of 4 and 8 years old are pictured in various states of undress. They are photographed performing sex acts or posing suggestively, the statement said.
The probable cause statement does not mention any link between Lueck and the child pornography.
Ajayi, 31, was charged with aggravated murder last month after Lueck’s body was found in a canyon about 90 miles north of Salt Lake City. He also faces counts of aggravated kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a human body.
He is being held without bail, according to Salt Lake County online jail records.
The 23-year-old Lueck was last seen early June 17 after a Lyft driver picked her up at the airport, where she has just landed after visiting family in Southern California, and dropped her off at Hatch Park in North Salt Lake. There, police said, she met another individual and vanished.
When authorities found her body, Lueck’s arms had been bound behind her back with rope and a zip tie, and there was a 5-centimeter (2-inch) hole on the left side of her head, the charging document says.
A medical examiner determined the woman had died from blunt force trauma to the skull.
The Salt Lake Legal Defender Association has in the past stressed that Ajayi is presumed innocent until proved guilty.
“The facts in this matter will be established in due course through the processes of the criminal justice system,” the office has said in regard to the charges stemming from the Lueck slaying.