Barstool Sports, a media company known for its crass and often questionable content, fired a writer Friday night after he posted an article joking about missing University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck. Shortly after it was published, police announced charges against a man in her death.
On Friday morning, Francis Ellis posted a seemingly optimistic update based on that morning's New York Post report that Lueck's friends had noticed activity on her Instagram account Wednesday, more than a week after she went missing. Although he began the blog post reminding anyone who may have seen the missing woman to contact authorities, Ellis went on to focus on reports that claimed that Lueck used "sugar daddy" dating websites, which feature women looking for relationships with older men, according to images of the since-deleted post.