An Irish citizen is sentenced to 14 years for killing a US tourist in Hungary
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A court in Hungary on Thursday sentenced an Irish citizen to 14 years in prison for strangling an American tourist to death in the country’s capital in 2024.
The victim, 31-year-old Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was in Hungary on vacation and reported missing on Nov. 5, 2024, 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, who went by “Kenzie,” with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.
The man, whom police identified by the initials L.T.M and was 37 at the time, was detained on Nov. 7 and questioned, and later confessed to the killing.
Investigators said that Michalski and the suspect met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man’s rented apartment. The man beat and strangled Michalski while they were engaged in an “intimate encounter,” police said.
The Budapest Metropolitan Court on Thursday found the man guilty of murder and sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The roughly 1 1/2 year he has already spent in detention will count toward his sentence, at the end of which the court ordered his deportation from Hungary.
The man must also pay 2.5 million forints ($7,995) in court costs. His attorney has appealed the verdict.
After his arrest in 2024, the man claimed Michalski’s death had been an accident. But police said 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 150 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooded area outside the town of Szigliget.
Video released by police at the time showed the man guiding authorities to the location where he had left the body. Police said he 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.