According to wikipedia, sugar dating, also called sugaring, is a pseudo-romantic relationship between an older, wealthy person and a younger, usually significantly poorer, person. Many sugar babies are college/university students who are looking for a way to pay off some debt.
Student loan debt in the United States totals around $1.71 trillion and grows six times faster than the country’s economy.
Payment can be received by way of money, gifts like designer goods, jewelry , support or other material benefits in exchange for sex, companionship or a dating-like relationship.
The person who receives the gifts is called a sugar baby (or in the case of men, traditionally a gigolo), while their paying partner is called a sugar daddy or sugar mommy.
According to SeekingArrangement’s stats, the average Sugar Daddy is 38 and makes $250,000 annually, while the average Sugar Baby is 25 and makes $2,800 monthly from her Daddies.
This blog is going to discuss two cases where women were murdered by men who they had sugar dating relationships with.
MACKENZIE LUECK
Mackenzie Lueck (23) was murdered in June 2019 by Ayoola Ajayi (31). The two had met on Seeking Arrangement in 2018- a website where sugar daddies and sugar babies can meet.
As some background into the people involved in this case, Mackenzie Speth Lueck was born on March 8, 1996. She was raised in El Segundo in Los Angeles County. She had three brothers and they were all raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
She attended El Segundo High School, where she was on the swimming team and she also played water polo. After graduating high school, she went to the University of Utah where she majored in kinesiology and pre-nursing. She was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority.
Mackenzie worked at a biological testing company in Salt Lake City. She was due to graduate in May 2020 and wanted a career in health sciences.
Ayoola Ajayi was born in 1988 in Nigeria. He held a green card which allowed him to work in the US. He attended Utah State University, but was barred from there in 2012 due to visa issues and allegations that he stole an iPad. He was allowed back on the campus in 2015 to study computer science after his visa issues were resolved, but he never graduated.
At the time of Mackenzie’s murder, he was working in IT and was briefly in the National Guard.
Ayoola had a history of sexual abuse and being violent towards women.
On March 10, 2018, he invited a woman he met on a Latter Day Saints dating app called Mutual to his home. They were watching TV on the couch when Ayoola began ‘intensely’ kissing and forcibly touching the victim. She tried to get away but he pinned her down and bit her at least three times which caused her ‘significant pain’ and bruising.
He was also investigated in regard to a 2014 rape case, but the victim in that case did not pursue charges.
Ayoola was married at one point and his now ex-wife Tenisha accused him of threatening her. She said he was going to have someone kidnap and kill her. She cut off all communication with him. She also said he would get ‘real aggressive’ when she didn’t do exactly what he wanted.
“I just stopped talking to him because I was fearing for my life,” she told KUTV. “He didn’t want me to do nothing. He didn’t want me to talk to nobody or nothing.”
In April 2019, Ayoola hired a contractor and asked them to build a secret soundproofed room under his front porch. He wanted head height hooks installed on the wall and a fingerprint scanner for entry. He told the contractor that he wanted the room made so that he would hide alcohol from his Mormon girlfriend.
The contractor was uncomfortable with this request and turned down the job.
A cleaner also said she noticed a lot of cameras inside the home with many being in the master bedroom.
In June 2019, Mackenzie went back to California to attend her Grandmother’s funeral. She returned to Salt Lake City early in the morning on June 17, 2019. She texted her parents at 1am and said she landed safely. She then ordered a Lyft to Hatch Park to meet up with Ayoola. She told the Lyft driver she was going to meet a friend and she was dropped off around 3am.
It is believed that Ayoola planned to murder Mackenzie. He turned off the cameras at his home to avoid her being documented there. He brought Mackenzie back to his home where he tied her hands behind her back with zip ties and rope and began choking her with his hands. She begged him to stop.
Ayoola then put Mackenzie on her stomach and strangled her with a belt until she stopped moving.
On June 20, Mackenzie’s father called the Salt Lake City Police Department to report her missing. He said nobody had heard from Mackenzie since she got back to Utah.
Police started looking into Mackenzie’s phone records and found that she had texted Ayoola several times in the early morning of June 17. Her last text to him was at 2.58am.
Cell phone data placed both Mackenzie and Ayoola at Hatch Park at 2.59am.
Neighbors of Ayoola reported a ‘horrible smell’ that came from bonfires that he held on June 17 and 18. Ayoola was also renting out a room in his home on Air BNB at the time.
A neighbor described the smell of the blaze as ‘something I’ve never smelled before’, while his Airbnb guest said he ‘could not believe Ayoola had ignited the fire in his backyard’.
‘Ayoola had the pallets and what he described as a white door on fire behind the garage. He said he stayed on the patio and did not approach the fire. [He] said a neighbor lady then started yelling at Ayoola and telling him if he did not put the fire out she was going to call the fire department.
‘[The renter] said he could not believe Ayoola had ignited the fire in his backyard and went inside because he did not want to be involved with the incident,’ a search warrant affidavit filed in 3rd District Court revealed, according to Deseret News.
Ayoola was also thought to be attempting to give away items from the home online after the murder.
It is believed that Ayoola first buried Mackenzie in the yard after attempting to burn her remains and belongings. He also threw some of her belongings into the Jordan River.
After he was questioned by police, it is believed that he dug up most of Mackenzie’s remains and dumped them in Logan Canyon.
On June 22, Mackenzie’s father told police his daughter had been using a credit card that he did not know she had, according to the warrants, as well as a separate bank account. She was also using TextMe, a third-party messaging app for cell phones.
On June 28, Ayoola was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and aggravated murder of Mackenzie.
Police found a human bone, charred muscular tissue, part of a scalp with hair and personal items including a cell phone in the excavation area of his yard.
Charred items were also found in an alley next to Ayoola’s home. ‘Those items included what looked like black clothing and a possible strap from a purse or backpack. Mackenzie Lueck was wearing a compact backpack, black in color, in surveillance video from the SLC Airport, the last location where she was seen on camera,’ a warrant states.
Police looked into Ayoola’s phone records and discovered that on June 25, between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m, his phone had been in Logan Canyon.
Police conducted an extensive search of the area. After what Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill described as a “lengthy search,” investigators found recently disturbed ground in a wooded area off the main road.
It was in this location where they found a charred human body in a shallow grave – this was on July 3, 2019.
Some reports say that Ayoola gave up the location of the body, but that is untrue according to KSL TV.
When she was found, Mackenzie’s arms had been bound behind her back by zip tie and rope.
The medical examiner determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma on the left side of her skull, and ruled her death a homicide.
She had a five centimetre hole in her skull, inflicted by Ayoola. This trauma was ultimately what killed her, by causing brain haemorrhaging.
Ayoola’s trial was originally set for March 12, 2020. It ended up being postponed so that prosecutors would have more time to go through evidence and give it to Ayoola’s defense team.
A three-day preliminary hearing was set for October 28, 2020. On October 7, 2020, Ayoola ended up pleading guilty to first-degree aggravated murder and third-degree desecration of a human body.
In exchange for the guilty pleas, prosecutors dropped the charges of aggravated kidnapping and obstructing justice. They also agreed to not seek the death penalty.
It was revealed in court that Ayoola had planned to murder Mackenzie.
This info is from KSL.com
“Mr. Ajayi had decided that he would murder Ms. Lueck before the meeting took place,” Ajayi’s defense attorney Neal Hamilton. Hamilton didn’t say how long his client had been planning Lueck’s murder.
On October 23, 2020, Ayoola was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was also sentenced to an additional five years for desecrating Mackenzie’s body.
Ayoola apologised to Mackenzie’s family, but the DA has said that he didn’t think it was genuine.
Mr . and Mrs. Lueck, I’m sorry for what I did. I deserve what I’m going to get,” Ajayi said. “I know this won’t bring her back.”
Mackenzie’s family spoke at the time. Her father said “My daughter Mackenzie Lueck was a sweet, amazing young lady with the world ahead of her. She was a kindhearted person that cared about others. Now, I will not have the opportunity to see her blossom in life.”
Mackenzie’s cousin stated “This is a nightmare you can’t wake up from. I will never be able to forgive what happened to her. I will never forgive the monster who took her life. Never in my life have I felt anger the way I have the last 16 months. Never have I been so fearful for my life because I know how real evil is in this world.”
Ayoola was also charged in the March 2018 kidnapping of a woman that he met on a dating app. The victim came forward after he was arrested for Mackenzie’s murder.
The trial for that case was scheduled for December 2020. Ayoola ended up pleading guilty to one count of second-degree forcible sexual abuse. He was sentenced to one to 15 years in prison for this crime.
Ayoola was also charged with 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. These charges came after police found “numerous pornographic photos of children on his computer as they investigated Lueck’s death.” .The photos allegedly depicted children between the ages of four and eight.
Ayoola pleaded not guilty in October 2020 and the charges ended up being dismissed.
There’s an article about Mackenzie published by the Salt Lake Tribune and we wanted to share some of it.
She used to bike to the Pacific Ocean. Years later, she’d re-create those days by putting on her bikini and basking in the sun that shines on the high-altitude desert that is Salt Lake City.
As a student at the University of Utah, she expressed feminist opinions.
She competed on the swim team and played water polo at her high school in Southern California. At U. football games, she cheered in the student section known as the MUSS.
“Everybody gravitated toward her,” said Carra Barbee, her close friend from El Segundo High School said Thursday, a day before the announcement about Lueck’s death. “Honestly, I didn’t know anyone who didn’t like her.”
“She’s like a nurturer,” Kennedy Stoner, one of Lueck’s sorority sisters at Alpha Chi Omega, said Wednesday. “She’s almost a mother to me. She is one of those people [who is] always cooking for you. She wants to make sure you’re getting fed. She wants to make sure if you need a drink, that you have a drink.”
Liliya (Lily) Guyvoronsky
Former Bothell City Council member James McNeal (58) is accused of the murder of Liliya (Lily) Guyvoronsky.
As some quick background into James, he served two terms on the City Council before losing his re-election bid in November. He worked in the construction industry for nearly three decades.
His criminal history was documented in detail by the local Bothell Reporter in 2015 when he ran for election.
He had a felony conviction for eluding police in 1986 when he was 19, which he claimed was the result of years of racial harassment by police.
James explained to the newspaper that it started when he was 16 when cops even ripped his stereo out of his new car at a traffic stop.
‘I remember coming home everyday as a prep cook and getting pulled over in the same spot by the same cop, five days in a row,’ he said.
‘I started to get frustrated and angry; I didn’t think ‘because I was black I’m getting pulled over’. Back then ‘racial profiling’ wasn’t a term we used.’
At the time, James admitted he drove with ‘willful and wanton disregard for person or property’ as he fled police who tried to pull him over for an expired license.
‘The driver of the motorcycle turned around and looked at the patrol car and then accelerated very rapidly, refusing to stop,’ prosecutors told the court at the time.
‘The driver then accelerated his motorcycle to 60mph in a 30mph zone… [driving] at speeds of 75 miles per hour in a residential area.’
The judge didn’t exonerate James, but agreed his crime was the result of persistent harassment and gave him a lenient sentence.
James also proved in court that police beat him up after they caught him, then falsely claimed he was injured by crashing his motorbike.
‘I got off the motorcycle and there were guns pointed at me, yelling for me to put my hands in the air… I put my helmet on the seat of the motorcycle, and as soon as I put the helmet on the motorcycle I flew in the air, and they beat the [expletive] out of me,’ he said at the time.
‘They dislocated my shoulder, they bruised my ribs, they broke my glasses, [and] they marred up my face.’
On Tuesday April 30, 2024, James’ attorney called 911 to report a “likely homicide” at the woman’s home in the 4600 block of South Orchard Street, according to a police report.
‘I’m an attorney. I am reporting what is a likely homicide… I represent someone inside the residence and am making the call,’ he said.
Police reportedly arrived at the scene to find James with both “fresh and dry blood” on his clothes. Blood was also found on the headboard, pillow and carpet in the room.
In an upstairs bedroom, officers found Lily deceased, with marks on her neck, jaw and forehead, lying on the bed nude, according to court documents. Investigators believe she had been dead for about 24 hours.
She did not appear to have any injuries that would have caused her to lose blood, police said.
James was taken on a gurney for medical treatment after he was believed to have slashed his wrists.
King County Superior Court Judge Adrienne McCoy approved a search warrant for Lily’s home, according to police. She had handwritten lists around the home, including one from Monday that read: “Do not interact w/James today,” court documents read. Investigators found bloodstains in the bedroom.
It is alleged that James and Lily had been dating for months. They met while she was working as a “stripper,” Seattle detective Scott Hatzenbuehler wrote in a report.
They dated and James bought her dresses and shoes, her parents told police. When she stopped working at a strip club, James reportedly started supporting her financially. Prosecutors estimated that support amounted to about $10,000 per month. He recently left his wife and their three children.
Her parents described their relationship as on-again, off-again, according to police.
On April 27, they broke up after a fight over expenses, Lily’s parents reported. She told her parents that James had an “annoying tantrum” and tried to control her.
She reportedly wrote in a text message to her family: “He will be mad for one day, I’ll do silent treatment, Until he gets lonely and sad, Then he will be desperate to get me back, And will start blowing up my phone and love bombing, Presents, Extra extra nice things, We go through this, Like once a month.”
Lily’s diary also included several entries appearing to refer to James, according to police. In one, she wrote to herself to “make sure you do not forget how you felt.the anger, hurt, neglect.” In another, she called him “mentally, emotionally” abusive.
‘It’s f**ked up. He got me to have sex. I was celibate for a year and a half and I was not ready. I didn’t really want to,’ she wrote.
‘But he forced a relationship and really pushed me, and honestly, really affected my mental health because I got really depressed and it triggered all my bad emotions from my past.
‘I thought I could never be played again but now I’m realizing he played a different game on me that I was not aware of and it really caught me off guard.’
‘He is really controlling and I can tell he thinks I’m stupid because I am young,’ she wrote.
‘He thinks he’s smarter and he picked me and pursued me very strategically. And he was really smart about it and he really did succeed. Unbelievable.
‘He’s been grooming me this whole time, trying to reprogram me to think about myself so I don’t expect anything.
‘Don’t ask, be easy, give him what he wants to get away with low effort and bad behavior. I’m not that dumb tho (sic), he will realize this won’t work.
‘He doesn’t like older women for a reason, and I know why. They will challenge him and be harder to control.’
‘He’s trying to put me in a place where he has all the access he wants, for nothing. But I’m not ok with that,’ she said.
‘He hates the pushback, he always says I challenge him and he gets so frustrated… he gets mad with the fact that he can’t get away with some of these things.
‘I’m not an idiot, James I know when you’re lying to me. You don’t like confrontation, I know that, who likes it, and I know you’re never going to admit that you did that but I do know what you’re doing.’
Lily said she was still seeing him because it was an intriguing ‘rollercoaster’ and described how he ‘made up characters’.
‘He pretended he was a sex trafficker at one point and he was going to sex traffic me. I had a felling it was bulls**t but I stuck around because I wanted to hear the end of the story,’ she said.
‘This guy is just crazy. The games he plays is crazy, and it’s fun, and I’ll play it back to him.’
Lily told friends though that she was getting bored with the relationship. She said that James was not giving her what she wanted and ‘I won’t settle for less’.
‘I want a lot in my life, I want to be living like a f**king queen and if he’s not going to be providing that? Guess what,’ she said.
‘He thinks maybe one day I’ll just accept it, no, I’m not gonna accept it, I don’t care.’
Lily also sent a voice message to a friend, posted online by Jonathan Choe, updating her on how the relationship was going and the toxic dynamic between them.
EXCLUSIVE: I've obtained a haunting final audio message sent to a friend by murder victim Liliya Guyvoronsky. It was received on April 28.
— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) May 2, 2024
She talks about her relationship with former Bothell City Councilmember James McNeal. The 20 year old calls him controlling and… pic.twitter.com/aY6hrf2hFB
She said James pursued her so strongly because ‘I’m a challenge, I’m not like other girls’ and she would ignore him for whole days.
‘He can get me gifts I’m not gonna be over here oh so excited. I just act like… he does not faze me, it’s not like I’ve never met a rich guy in my life, I’ve grown up with my dad,’ she said.
‘I will say no to him, I am firm with him, and because of that challenge that’s why he’s still here pursuing me, he’s so into me.’
Senior deputy prosecutor Gretchen Holmgren requested a judge set James’ bail at $3 million.
James appeared in court on May 14. He pleaded not guilty to a second-degree murder charge.
James’ attorney made a motion to not allow the media to film him and also made a motion to allow James to appear at future court appearances in civilian clothing instead of jail-issued clothing arguing for his client’s presumption of innocence, but both motions were denied by the judge.
Lily’s friends appeared in court also.
“No one deserved to murdered, she was a human and we’re going to make sure he knew that,” Madison Darner, Lily’s childhood friend, said. “It’s just another story of wealth and power getting the best of a situation from someone who’s just as valued and cared for in the community.”
“I know that the media and the news coverage portray her as broken and troubled, but she was young, she was 20 years old, she was a young woman learning the ins and outs of life and how hard it can be and how life really is, that’s hard,” said Madison.
As of the time of recording, Lily’s cause of death has not been confirmed. However, based on the preliminary investigation and evidence at the scene, it appears she was suffocated, and investigators believe, at this point, she died sometime between April 28, when neighbors last reported seeing her, and April 30 when she was found.
James’ next court date is set for June 4, and a tentative trial date has been set for July 8.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/06/29/who-was-mackenzie-lueck
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Mackenzie_Lueck
https://money.com/what-professional-sugar-baby-makes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_dating
CLIPS USED IN THE PODCAST EPISODE
Liliya Guyvornosky was not “sugaring” it is simply not accurate to this specific case. James McNeal pursued her, aggressively, he didn’t want her working, he was controlling. certainly she liked him at the beginning, but it was very far from a typical “sugaring” scenario, she did not seek out a “sugardaddy” she believed they were dating, unfortunately the salacious nature of this story has spread like wildfire and many things that people speculate are just not accurate.