Homeless teenager arrested in killing of Texas dance student -police

   

 

 

 AUSTIN, Texas, April 8 (Reuters) - A 17-year-old homeless boy has been arrested in connection with the killing of a first-year dance student at the University of Texas at Austin, after he was linked to the slaying by a trash fire, police said on Friday.
The death of Haruka Weiser, 18, of Oregon marked the first on-campus killing at the university since 1966 and sent shockwaves through the campus of about 64,000 students, faculty and staff and the surrounding community.
Meechaiel Criner, 17, was arrested on Thursday in connection with Weiser's slaying, and was set to be formally charged on Friday with first-degree murder, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a news conference.
"We are very certain that the suspect in custody is the suspect responsible for the death of this beautiful young woman," Acevedo said.
Criner, who was homeless and not a student at the university, was found with a number of items, including a bag that was believed to belong to the victim, Acevedo said.
The motive for the killing was not known, he said.
Police said Criner was linked to the killing by a surveillance video released on Thursday.
It showed a young man identified by police as a "person of interest" with a bicycle, near where the body was found.

© Austin Police Dept. Meechaiel Criner is taken into custody by Austin police. Austin Police Dept. A young woman who reported a small trash fire near the campus on Monday, the same day Weiser was reported missing, recognized the person in the video as the one who had started the blaze and told police about it, Acevedo said.
Acevedo said firefighters also tipped off investigators that the person in the video resembled the young man at the scene of the fire, who has since been identified as Criner.
On Monday, after the fire, Criner was taken to a temporary shelter because he was homeless, Acevedo said. After police were alerted to a possible connection between the killing and the small blaze, investigators went to the scene of the fire and found items believed to be Weiser's in a trash bin, he said.
Criner was questioned at the shelter and was arrested without incident, the police chief said, adding that he faces an additional charge of tampering with evidence.
Weiser left the drama building on Sunday night, likely headed for her dormitory, but never made it there, police said.
Her body was found on Tuesday behind the university's alumni center near the main football stadium on the Austin campus.
Weiser, a dance major, had planned to declare a second major in pre-med studies, according to her family.
Her death marked the first murder on campus since 1966, when a former U.S. Marine opened fire from inside a tower at the campus, killing 16 people in the first mass U.S. college shooting of the television era.

Gregory Fenves, president of the University of Texas at Austin, said Friday that increased police patrols would continue on campus. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin and Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago,