Few people will ever know what it is like to have a loved one brutally murdered. Even fewer still can comprehend witnessing that person’s reputation publicly smeared in the aftermath.
Yet this is how family and friends of Mackenzie Michalski describe the experience.
The 31-year-old American nurse from Portland, Oregon, was strangled to death by Dubliner Lorcan Murphy in his Budapest apartment in November 2024 while she was on holiday in Hungary’s capital.
The pair met in the city’s popular nightlife district before returning to the apartment rented by Murphy, a former property developer turned internet marketing entrepreneur from south Dublin.
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It is 15 months since her death and more than two months since her 38-year-old killer was found guilty of her murder but claims made at his trial remain fresh in their minds.
Family and friends, looking back, remain horrified at his attempt to argue that her death arose accidentally from “consensual BDSM activity” and his claim it was a one-night stand gone awry at the hands of an ordinary guy – an allegation rejected by the Budapest court that convicted him.
“I knew in my heart that it wasn’t true,” Crystal Suarenzo, Mackenzie Michalski’s childhood friend, says in an interview with The Irish Times.
“Now, there’s some acceptance, knowing the evidence proved to the rest of the world that his story wasn’t even close to the truth.”
At his sentencing in July, when he was jailed for 14 years, the deceased’s mother, Jill Michalski, told the court how Murphy “was allowed to tarnish our daughter’s reputation” and how her family had “suffered and will continue to suffer greatly” because of his “horrific actions”.
Mackenzie Michalski’s brother, Nicholas, who attended each court hearing in Budapest, called Murphy’s conviction “a major step forward, but by no means the end”, referring to ongoing court appeals.
[ What caused the Lorcan Murphy I knew to become a killer?Opens in new window ]
“I don’t know whether I’ll feel any differently after the final judgment, but we’re not there yet. The fight for justice is far from over,” he tells The Irish Times, speaking over a social media messaging app.
Traveller, friend, healthcare provider
Mackenzie Michalski – or Kenzie as she was known to family and friends – was described variously by them as “warm”, “bubbly”, “funny”, “quirky” and “passionate about life”.
They are keen to paint the picture of the Kenzie they knew, reclaiming the public image of her and challenging the court-rejected narrative Murphy and his lawyer attempted to tell in his defence.
Suarenzo recalls Kenzie’s more expressive side, demonstrating a mischievous smile she would flash, often preceding a playful suggestion.
“She’s freakishly smart, so brilliant – very, very capable but also so deeply silly,” says Suarenzo, still speaking of her friend in the present tense.
A passionate lover of animals, Kenzie’s pets included hamsters, rabbits and even a tarantula, but her first love was dachshunds, including Juniper, her pet dog at the time of her death.
“If she saw a weiner dog in public, she’d say ‘ween!’ in a really high-pitched voice, and had no sense of embarrassment, because that was just so much of who she was,” says Suarenzo, sitting in her Portland office where she works as a therapist.
A native of Fredonia in New York state, Kenzie graduated from high school a year early and started nursing school, from which she also graduated early. She then worked as a nurse in Buffalo, New York, for eight years, later specialising in neurocritical care.
Diane Clark, her boss at Providence St Vincent Medical Centre in Portland, recalls Kenzie arriving “younger than age 30, with years of nurse practitioner experience”.
“She was so enthusiastic, passionate, but also you could tell she was trying to come across as very professional,” Clark says of her interview with Kenzie.
“To me, it was an immediate yes.”
Kenzie was a favourite among the neurosurgeons for her ability to examine and present patients to them thoroughly and seamlessly.
She could stay calm under pressure, Clark says, describing a time when Kenzie responded to a patient suffering a medical emergency.
“She was cool, calm and collected,” she says.
Anna Hoenig became close friends – “we clicked” – with Kenzie soon after she started at St Vincent in 2022 and remembers her gift for connecting with patients.
“She was just great at reading people and meeting people where they were,” Hoenig says.
Kenzie could break down “doctor lingo” for patients into “an easily digestible way to patients to help them understand the larger picture”.
A passionate traveller, Kenzie had racked up dozens of country stamps in her passport stamps from her solo travels or trips with family or friends.
Her travel included humanitarian trips to Ghana and Haiti. She departed Cairo, Egypt, just days before the Arab Spring in 2010.
She had a particular love for Egypt, Thailand and Vietnam. Before her final visit to Hungary in 2024, she had visited the country several times.
“Wherever Kenzie went, she immersed herself in the local culture. She was never a casual tourist or vacationer,” says her brother Nicholas.
“Kenzie was a lifelong student and lover of history and she never shied away from the difficult parts of history.”
In memory of Kenzie
Kenzie was reported missing on November 5th, 2024, after last being seen at a popular nightclub in Budapest. Her family and friends learned of her death three days later.
“Everything reminded me of her,” says Paula Prince, another close friend, of their shared workplace at St Vincent.
“I’d walk up the stairs and I’d see someone that I knew knew her, or I’d come around the corner and think I could just picture the two of us talking,” she said.
Kenzie’s killing came soon after the murder of Melissa Jubane, another nurse who worked at the US hospital, in September 2024. (A 27-year-old male neighbour has been charged with her killing and is awaiting trial.)
“Everyone was upset. Really upset,” says Prince of the violent deaths of two young women working in the same hospital.
There were three candlelight vigils held shortly after Kenzie’s death and three public celebrations of her life: in Portland, Buffalo and Budapest.
Friends found another way to remember her: teal (her favourite colour) tokens carrying Kenzie’s photo were snapped in various places and at landmarks around the world and posted on Instagram.
They include photos of her in Hawaii, Portugal and at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
At Providence St Vincent Medical Centre, each month nurses participate in “Michalski neurosurgery rounds” – educational seminars on topics such as types of neurosurgeries or patient diagnoses – in memory of her neurosurgery rounds.
“She would always step up to the plate,” says Prince.
In August 2025, women’s soccer team the Portland Thorns, which she supported, presented her parents with a custom-made jersey in her name. Loved ones attended wearing T-shirts bearing her face and the line: “We love you to infinity and beyond”, a nod to her love of the Toy Story franchise.
Friends and colleagues remember her in their own way.
In the hospital office of her boss Clark, there sits a memorial of Kenzie, including her photo, her funeral booklet and a dachshund figurine.
In Suarenzo’s livingroom sits an altar where a picture of the two as children, caked in mud, rests alongside letters from Kenzie over the years. Around her neck she often wears Kenzie’s birthstone (garnet) on a chain.
“Anywhere I go, she’s with me,” Suarenzo says.
Hoenig’s livingroom has a “Kenzie corner” where there is a flameless tealight from the St Vincent vigil.
“I’ll turn it on for her birthday and the anniversary of her death or sometimes when I’m missing her or when I’m thinking about her,” Hoenig says.
Life without Kenzie
Kenzie’s friends were surprised at Murphy’s 14-year sentence, viewing it as too lenient compared to the jail time a US court might have handed down for murder.
“To me, there was never going to be any amount of years that would have ever resembled anything close to justice,” Suarenzo says.
Life after Kenzie’s death has been different for different people.
For Clark, leading her team through the loss was a challenge. She made time for colleagues and sought counselling to manage her own grief.
“I manage life and death every day, but it’s not supposed to be your colleague,” Clark says. “It’s not supposed to be a friend.”
Kenzie’s brother Nicholas is steeped in grief, describing the pain as “beyond words”.
“Life without Kenzie is very empty and what’s left is very dark ... There’s no escape from the pain,” he says.
“Celebrating holidays, including my own birthday, is too painful, something that would horrify Kenzie, who always worked so hard to make these days special for her loved ones.”
Prince misses the sight of her friend walking through the hospital in her lab coat and glasses. She misses their lunch breaks.
“I’m so happy I got to know her,” she says.
Hoenig’s grief over Kenzie becomes more intense as autumn approaches, remembering their mutual love of Halloween and their attendance at the musical Sweeney Todd shortly before the trip to Budapest.
After her friend’s murder, Suarenzo experienced a paradigm shift, struggling to make sense of her place in a world with such senseless violence. “It felt like my life exploded into a million pieces,” she says.
But grief has changed her, she says; she has stopped being afraid of the unknown, her fear of flying has dissipated and she is going on spontaneous adventures such as camping or trips to US national parks, channelling her late friend’s passions, “as though some part of her spirit lodged itself in me”.
