Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist killed while vacationing in the Hungarian capital mourned their loss as a 37-year-old suspect was in police custody 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 began a missing persons investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect at several clubs the night she disappeared.

The man was arrested on November 7 and questioned by police, then confessed to the murder.

Before the confession, Michalski’s family and friends had launched a campaign to find her, creating a Facebook group to gather information on her whereabouts. Her parents traveled to Hungary to help with the search, but along the way they learned that she had been killed.

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At a candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday evening, the victim’s father, Bill Michalski, told The Associated Press that he was “still overcome with emotion” over his daughter’s death.

“There was no reason for this to happen,” he said. “I’m still trying to understand what happened…I don’t know if I ever will.”

Police arrested the suspect, an Irish citizen, on the evening of November 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, who police identified by the initials LTM, confessed to the killing but said it was an accident. Police said he tried to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and hiding Michalski’s body in a closet before buying a suitcase and placing her body inside.

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

A video released by police shows the suspect leading authorities to where he left the body. Police said the suspect had conducted internet searches before being apprehended about how to dispose of a body, police procedures for missing persons, whether pigs actually eat corpses and the presence of wild boars in the Lake Balaton region.

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He also conducted an internet search to inquire about the competence of the Budapest police.

Crime scene photographs released by police showed a rolling suitcase, several items of clothing, including a pair of fleece-lined boots, and a small purse next to a credit card bearing Michalski’s name.

According to a post by an administrator of a Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” created Nov. 7, Michalski, who went by the name “Kenzie,” was a nurse practitioner who “will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate.” young woman.”

At the candlelight vigil in Budapest on Saturday, Michalski’s father made brief comments to those gathered and wore a baseball cap he said he received as a gift from his daughter.

Michalski had previously visited Budapest and called it his “happy place,” his father told the AP.

“The story, she loved it and she was so relaxed here,” he said. “It was his town.”