American nurse, 31, killed while vacationing in Budapest

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FILE - A photo in Budapest’s Liberty Square on Nov. 30, 2019. Photo: FOX Television Stations

An American woman was killed this week while on vacation in Budapest, Hungarian officials said. 

The victim, 31-year-old Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on Nov. 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest. 

Hungarian authorities launched a missing person’s investigation and began reviewing security footage from local nightclubs, and saw Michalski at several of the clubs with a man later identified as a suspect. People Magazine reported her friends had photos of her at the popular ruin bar Szimpla Kert.

FILE - A photo showing the main bar area of Szimpla Kert, a popular "ruin bar" in Budapest, Hungary, from Nov. 29, 2019. Photo: FOX Television Stations

Michalski has since been reported dead and a 37-year-old Irish citizen was taken into police custody Nov. 7. 

Investigators said Michalski and the suspect met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man's rented apartment. The man killed Michalski while they were engaged in an "intimate encounter," police said.

The suspect, whom police identified by the initials L.T.M., confessed to the killing, but said it had been an accident. Police said that 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 90 miles southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooden area outside the town of Szigliget.

Video released by police showed the suspect guiding authorities to the location where he had left the body. 

Police said the suspect 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 is said to have made an internet search inquiring on the competence of Budapest police.

Who was Mackenzie Michalski?

Mackenzie Michalski was a 31-year-old American woman killed while on vacation in Hungary. 

She lived in Portland, Oregon, and was originally from Fredonia, New York, according to a GoFundMe page. She worked as a neurosurgery nurse practitioner at Providence St. Vincent, according to a local report from FOX 12 KTPV. 

A statement from the hospital released to KTPV said "Kenzie’s" coworkers would describe her as kind and loving. 

According to a post by an administrator of a Facebook group called "Find Mackenzie Michalski," which was created on Nov. 7, Michalski "will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman."

Michalski’s family traveled to Hungary in the wake of her disappearance, and attended a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday. 

Her father told the Associated Press Michalski had visited Budapest before, and called it her "happy place." 

"The history, she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here," he said. "This was her city."