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| University of Texas students embrace during a gathering for fellow student Haruka Weiser on campus, Thursday, April 7, 2016, in Austin, Texas. Weiser, a first-year theater and dance student from Oregon, was found dead on campus after she was reporter missing earlier this week. |
AUSTIN, Texas
(AP) -- A homeless 17-year-old has been arrested, and police
said Friday he'll be charged with murder in the killing of a University
of Texas dance major whose body was recovered in the heart of the
bustling campus - unnerving one of the country's best-known schools.
Meechaiel
Criner wasn't believed to be a university student and hadn't been
living in Austin long. Police Chief Art Acevedo said Criner could face
additional charges in the slaying of 18-year-old Oregon-native Haruka
Weiser.
"We are very certain that the subject
we have in custody ... is responsible for the death of this beautiful
young woman," Acevedo said at a campus news conference.
Weiser
was last seen leaving the campus drama building Sunday night. Her body
was found Tuesday in a creek near the alumni center and UT's iconic
football stadium, an area that hums with activity day and night.
The
slaying shook a campus of about 50,000 students. University President
Greg Fenves called it "horrifying and incomprehensible."
"It
was unsettling," said 20-year-old Jasmine Chavez, who was on UT's
central mall area Friday but hails from Houston. "I feel better now that
they've caught the guy."
Police released
surveillance video that showed a man they said was a suspect walking a
women's bicycle. Firefighters recognized the man on the video as Criner,
whom they had spoken to in connection with a trash fire near the UT
campus on Monday. An Austin resident who reported the fire also called
police when she saw the surveillance video, Acevedo said.
Criner
wasn't arrested for the fire but was instead taken to a shelter. Police
found him there Thursday and took him into custody without incident.
His arrest affidavit said his clothing matched that of the man on the
surveillance video and that he was in possession of a women's bike, as
well as Weiser's duffel bag and some of her other belongings, including
her laptop.
Weiser's autopsy showed she had
been assaulted, but police have refused to release further details about
how she died, except to say that the route she took from her dorm to
the drama building often passed Waller Creek, where her body was found.
Criner's affidavit says Weiser's body showed "obvious trauma."
It
also says campus surveillance video not made public showed the suspect
watching a female thought to be Weiser as she walked in the direction of
her dorm with her head down, looking at her cellphone.
As
she passed, the affidavit says, the suspect produced "what appeared to
be a shiny rigid object" and followed her. The pair dropped from view as
they reached the creek bank, though, and the suspect wasn't seen on
video again for two-plus hours.
Police said they hadn't recovered a crime scene weapon, though, and Acevedo wouldn't speculate on motive.
Texas
Department of Family Protective Services spokeswoman Julie Moody said
Criner "had been in Child
Protective Services care" but that she
couldn't elaborate on where, for how long, or provide any further
details, citing privacy rules and the ongoing criminal investigation.
Police
have not released much about Criner's background, though a person with
the same name and birthdate as the suspect is listed in driver's license
records as having lived in Texarkana, about 350 miles northeast of
Austin.
A 2014 article in a Texarkana high
school publication featured a Meecchaiel Criner who described being
bullied and difficulties in foster care as a child, saying, "What I want
to leave behind is my name - I want them to know who Meechaiel Criner
is."
Fenves said increased police patrols on
campus, which have included state troopers in cars, on bikes and on
horseback, would continue for the time being. The Department of Public
Safety also is conducting a security review on campus, including
checking video monitoring, lighting and building security systems.
"We
will honor Haruka's life and what she stood for," Fenves said. "We will
take this as an occasion to do as Haruka's parents asked us to do,
learn from this and make this a better community and a safer community
for everyone."
The university said that
Weiser's was the first on-campus homicide since former Marine Charles
Whitman climbed to the top of UT's bell tower on Aug. 1, 1966, and
opened fire, killing 14 people and wounding scores of others.
Authorities later determined Whitman also killed his wife and mother in
the hours before he went to the tower. A 17th death would be attributed
to Whitman in 2001 when a Fort Worth man died of injuries from the
shooting.
Weiser's family said she had planned
to take on a second, pre-med major soon and to travel to Japan this
summer to see relatives. In a statement Friday, it said "we are relieved
to hear" an arrest had been made.
"We remain steadfast in our desire to honor Haruka's memory through kindness and love," the family said "not violence."
