Suspect arrested for killing American tourist in Budapest

A 31-year-old American tourist was killed while on holiday in the Hungarian capital and the suspect, a 37-year-old Irishman, was arrested, Hungarian police said on Saturday.

The victim, Mackenzie Michalski of Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on November 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest. Police launched a missing persons investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs in which they observed Michalski with a man who was later identified as a suspect at several clubs on the night of her disappearance.

Police arrested the man, an Irish national, on the evening of November 7th. Investigators said Michalski and the suspect met at a nightclub and danced before heading to the man's rental apartment. The man killed Michalski during an “intimate encounter,” police said.

The suspect, whom police identified by the initials LTM, later confessed to the murder but said it was an accident, police said, adding that he tried to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and Michalski hid her body in a closet before buying a suitcase and putting her body in it.

He then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, about 150 kilometers southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a forest outside the town of Szigliget.

A video released by police showed the suspect leading authorities to the spot where he left the body. Police said that before his arrest, the suspect researched online how to dispose of a body, how police handle missing person cases, whether pigs really eat corpses and whether there are wild boars in the Lake Balaton area.

He also conducted an internet search and inquired about the competence of the Budapest police.

Michalski's parents are currently in Budapest, police told The Associated Press.

According to a post from an administrator of a Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” which was created on Nov. 7, Michalski, who called himself “Kenzie,” was a nurse who “will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman becomes”. Woman.”