An Irish man has been convicted of murdering American nurse Mackenzie Michalski in his Budapest apartment on November 5, 2024, following a night out. Lorcan Tadgh Murphy, 37, was sentenced to 14 years in a Hungarian prison and faces deportation after his release, with a 10-year ban from Hungary.
Michalski, 31, a nurse from Portland, Oregon, was on a European trip with a friend and exploring Budapest's nightlife before her scheduled return flight to the U.S. According to Murphy's court testimony, he saw Michalski at a bar, interpreted her looking at him as an invitation, and they spoke before going to a more secluded part of the bar and later a nightclub.
Video footage shows the two walking hand-in-hand to Murphy's apartment building and entering the elevator, which is the last known footage of Michalski. Murphy later claimed that consensual sadomasochistic sex occurred.
However, Michalski's autopsy report indicated she was strangled for approximately three minutes, had her hands tied with a belt during the assault, and showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head and other injuries. Police discovered video footage of Michalski's abused body on Murphy's phone.
Investigators also found Murphy's search history, which included inquiries about disposing of a body, whether pigs consume human remains, wild boars in the Lake Balaton area, and the competence of Budapest police. Murphy admitted to purchasing a suitcase to conceal Michalski's body before driving it nearly 100 miles to a wooded area where he disposed of it.
Michalski's parents refuted Murphy's claims in court, asserting that she was not involved in any perverse or BDSM sexual culture. Hungarian law initially protected Murphy's identity with initials LTM, but the Irish Independent later identified him as Lorcan Tadgh Murphy.
Murphy claimed the killing was an accident during an intimate encounter, but his defense lawyers have appealed the murder conviction, calling it "absolute nonsense." The court granted him a reduction of 18 months for time served before his conviction. He will be banned from Hungary for an additional 10 years following his release.