Last week, the Austin Police Department reported that they were searching for the “person of interest” shown in a video connected to the murder of a University of Texas at Austin freshman. According to the New York Daily News, a 17-year-old “homeless runaway” is now in custody for the crime and has been booked at the Travis County jail.
“We are very certain that the suspect we have in custody…is responsible for the death of this beautiful young woman,” said Art Acevedo, Police Chief of Austin PD.
Meechaiel Khalil Criner was arrested on Thursday and formally charged with first-degree murder for the killing of 18-year-old dance and theatre student, Haruka Weiser. Police apparently were able to apprehend a suspect after being tipped off by the local fire department.
As of now there is no known motive for the crime, though it is still under investigation.
Criner is said to have had a tough upbringing, facing abuse at the hands of his grandmother. The Daily Mail reported that Criner had run away from home several times. When he was interviewed for a story published in a Texas high school publication in December 2014, Criner also claimed that he was a victim of bullying.
“I’ve been bullied almost my whole life,” he said. “In elemenatary school, I would come home crying almost every day. It was because of my accent, you see. People couldn’t understand me.”
Criner ran away from his grandmother’s house in Texarkana in August 2015. His whereabouts and what he may have been doing since then are still unknown, but police believe that he may have been squatting in a building close to UTA campus. In that same building, police found remains of Weiser’s belongings that had been burned.
The students at the university have since been mourning the loss of Weiser but campus police chief David Carter assured everyone that, though the suspect is now in custody, police are still doing everything they can to assure the safety of the students.
“We believe this is a safe campus,” he said. “The campus continues to grieve. Yes, we feel better that the suspect is in custody, but we continue to grieve.”