A University of Texas student killed on campus last week appears to have been sexually assaulted and was the victim of strangulation, based on preliminary evidence gathered by detectives, according to several law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation. 
 
 Forensic examiners collected DNA samples from the body of Haruka Weiser, 18, and police were awaiting lab results Tuesday before possibly filing additional charges against 17-year-old Meechaiel Khalil Criner. 
 
 Criner remains in the Travis County Jail charged with murder. His bail has been set at $1 million, and a judge has appointed Austin lawyer Ariel Payan to represent him. Payan couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday. 
 
 It is likely that investigators will submit DNA from the crime scene to law enforcement databases for any potential matches to other crimes across the state, officials told the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV. 
 
 The disclosure marks the first public release about how investigators think Weiser died. Police have said she appeared to have been randomly targeted. But as to her cause of death, authorities have previously said only that the theater and dance major from Portland, Ore., was assaulted, but wouldn’t elaborate. 
 
 + Haruka Weiser × 
 
 The sources declined to be identified because of the ongoing investigation and because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the case. 
 
 The Travis County medical examiner’s office is conducting the autopsy on Weiser’s body, which was found in Waller Creek, but the final conclusions aren’t expected for several weeks. 
 
 The case has garnered national attention in the days since a University of Texas police officer found Weiser’s body behind the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center on the eastern edge of the campus of more than 50,000 students. The case — the first homicide on the main UT campus in a half-century — rattled the community. 
 
 + Meechaiel Criner × 
 
 Weiser was last heard from April 3 by a friend she called as she was leaving the Winship Drama Building at about 9:30 p.m. 
 
 Around that time, surveillance footage from UT cameras recorded a person believed to be Criner near the Liberal Arts Building, across from Winship off of 23rd Street. Video also captured a woman, believed to be Weiser, walking past him. He watched her and then put down the kick stand of his bike, the affidavit said. 
 
 He reached into the back of his pants, pulled out a “shiny rigid object,” the affidavit said, and followed Weiser behind the alumni center, which is adjacent to the west bank of Waller Creek. 
 
 Criner isn’t seen on video footage again until about two hours later walking east on 23rd Street with a slight limp, the affidavit said. The footage also showed him carrying a small duffel bag that he didn’t have when he was first caught on video, the affidavit said. Weiser was reported missing Monday; police found her body Tuesday in Waller Creek. 
 
 Police connected Criner to Weiser’s death shortly after they released the surveillance footage Thursday. The key tip came from the Austin Fire Department. Firefighters at the campus-area station said they encountered a teenager Monday who resembled the suspect in the video, right down to the clothing and the bicycle, Criner’s arrest affidavit said. 
 
 The firefighters found Criner at the scene of a fire that was reported at 8:21 a.m. Monday in an abandoned building just north of campus. Criner, who told firefighters he was homeless, was burning various items, the affidavit said. After extinguishing the fire, firefighters told Criner they would keep his bicycle while authorities took him to a LifeWorks shelter. 
 
 Some of the items Criner was burning were likely Weiser’s possessions, the affidavit said. They included a shoe and college coursework, the affidavit said. At the shelter, police found a laptop affixed with a Portland, Ore., sticker, like the one Weiser’s parents said was on her laptop, the affidavit said. 
 
 A judge has signed two search warrants related to the case, but those warrants have been sealed, according to a court order obtained Tuesday. 

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 In this image taken from a video, Haruka Weiser performs at ACMA Performing Arts Center in Beaverton, Ore. A homeless 17-year-old has been arrested Friday in the killing of the University of Texas dance... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image taken from a video, Haruka Weiser performs at ACMA Performing Arts Center in Beaverton, Ore. A homeless 17-year-old has been arrested Friday in the killing of the University of Texas dance major whose body was recovered in the heart of the bustling campus â€” unnerving one of the country's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The lives of 18-year-old University of Texas student Haruka Weiser and the teenage suspect in her killing differed dramatically. 
 
 Weiser grew up in a tight-knit community in Oregon, where she attended an arts magnet school and danced with the Portland Ballet. 
 
 By contrast, Meechaiel Khalil Criner, the 17-year-old runaway arrested in her death, was intellectually disabled, abandoned by his mother as an infant and in Texas foster care, his uncle, Leo Criner, told The Associated Press on Saturday. 
 
 Authorities say Weiser and Criner's lives intersected violently on UT's Austin campus, leaving Weiser dead in a creek on school grounds Tuesday and Criner jailed two days later in Travis County on a $1 million bond. 
 
 She grew up near Beaverton, Oregon, in a four-acre co-housing community established in 1998 around the values of community, service and sustainability, where residents share tools like lawn mowers but also responsibilities like gardening, said Weiser's neighbor, Helen Spector. 
 
 "She always had sunshine in her smile wherever she went," Spector told the AP by phone Saturday while preparing soup for Weiser's grieving parents and younger sister and brother. 
 
 Spector said Weiser loved ballet and hip-hop dancing and wanted to study medicine, emulating her father, a doctor in Oregon. 
 
 She attended Arts and Communications Magnet Academy in Beaverton, and also performed with the Beaverton Dance West Troupe, Portland Ballet and Oregon Symphony. 
 
 Weiser's parents could not be reached for comment Saturday but said in a statement a day earlier that they "remain steadfast in our desire to honor Haruka's memory through kindness and love. Not violence." 
 
 Leo Criner said his nephew, Meechaiel, was bullied throughout his childhood in Texarkana, Texas, and has the mental capacity of a 10-year-old. 
 
 "I refuse to believe he just maliciously killed this young lady," the uncle said in a phone interview from Texarkana, where he lives. "This kid don't know nothing about killing. His mind don't compute like that." 
 
 Mary Wadley said authorities had told her that her grandson, Meechaiel, was caught shoplifting in McKinney, Texas, shortly before he was admitted into an emergency youth homeless shelter Monday in Austin, about 225 miles away. 
 
 McKinney police spokeswoman Sabrina Boston did not return messages seeking comment. 
 
 Wadley, who also lives in Texarkana, said she planned to travel to Austin on Monday. 
 
 Weiser was last seen leaving the UT campus drama building Sunday night. Waller Creek, where her body was found Tuesday, is along the route she took from her dorm to the drama building, police have said. The creek is near the alumni center and football stadium, an area that hums with activity day and night. 
 
 The killing shook a campus of about 50,000 students. 
 
 Police released surveillance video that showed a man they said was a suspect walking a women's bicycle. Firefighters later recognized the man as Criner, whom they had spoken to in connection with a trash fire near the UT campus on Monday. An Austin resident who reported the fire also called police when she saw the surveillance video, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said Friday. 
 
 Criner wasn't arrested for the fire but was instead taken to a Life Works shelter. Police found him there Thursday and took him into custody without incident. His arrest affidavit said his clothing matched that of the man on the surveillance video and that he was in possession of a women's bike, as well as Weiser's duffel bag and some of her other belongings, including her laptop. 
 
 The arrest affidavit said Weiser's body had "obvious trauma." An autopsy showed she had been assaulted, but police have refused to release further details about how she died. 
 
 The affidavit also said campus surveillance video not made public showed the suspect watching a female thought to be Weiser as she walked in the direction of her dorm with her head down, looking at her cellphone. 
 
 As she passed, the affidavit said, the suspect produced "what appeared to be a shiny rigid object" and followed her. The pair dropped from view as they reached the creek bank, though, and the suspect wasn't seen on video again for two-plus hours. 
 
 Police have said a crime scene weapon hasn't been recovered, however, and Acevedo wouldn't speculate on motive. 

 Meechaiel Criner, 17, found in possession of Beaverton woman's property, burned some. 
 
 The affidavit used to obtain a warrant to arrest a 17-year-old boy in the murder of Beaverton-area resident Haruka Weiser last week details some of the evidence against him. 
 
 I have good reason to believe and do believe that Meechaiel Khalil Criner murdered Weiser, wrote Anthony Nelson, the Austin Police Departments lead detective. 
 
 The assault and murder took place at the University of Texas campus in Austin, where the 2015 Arts & Communication Magnet Academy was an 18-year-old freshman on a full-ride dance scholarship and also studying pre-medicine. 
 
 According to the affidavit, Weiser called a friend at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, April 3, to let her know Weiser was on the way to her dorm from a class at Winship Hall, the campus drama center. 
 
 After Weiser didnt return home or attend class on Monday morning, friends called the University of Texas Police Department, which resulted in a cursory search that day and a more extensive search Tuesday, when Weisers body was located near Waller Creek close to her walking route home. 
 
 As part of the investigation, detectives reviewed surveillance camera footage taken along Weisers route home. 
 
 The footage showed a young black male similar in appearance to Criner trying the door of a van parked near a college building. The subject left the area on a womans or girls bicycle but returned less than 20 minutes later at 9:38 p.m., around the same time Weiser could be seen walking through the area while looking at her cell phone. 
 
 The subject is seen putting the kickstand down on the bike and reaching into the back of his pants and pulling out a shiny, rigid object and then following Weiser along a sidewalk that goes along the creek and out of the cameras view. 
 
 The subject isnt seen on area footage again for more than two hours, at 11:47 p.m., walking alongside the bike. He now had a slight limp and carried a small duffle bag that he hadnt previously had in the footage, which Weisers friends identified as being similar to one she used to carry possessions such as a laptop computer and phone. 
 
 On April 7, investigators released part of the surveillance footage to ask the public for help identifying the subject. Later that day, a captain with the Austin Fire Department called investigators to report that fire crews were dispatched at 8:21 a.m. to an abandoned building in the direction the subject was last seen walking. There they found Criner burning items. 
 
 Austin Police were called at that time because Criner was a minor and homeless. Arriving officers on April 4 transported Criner to LifeWorks, which provides housing and other services for young people and families who are homeless or have other needs. He was in possession of several bags and a backpack. Fire officials held his bike for safe-keeping. 
 
 With the new leads and Criners identification, investigators later tied property both in Criners possession and that burned at the abandoned building to Weiser. 
 
 Police then detained Criner at 5:20 p.m. April 7 at LifeWorks, initially for evidence tampering related to the fire. They found several additional pieces of evidence related to Weisers murder, including her Mac Book computer with its identifying Portland sticker. 
 
 In a hand-written note, the judge who approved the arrest warrant set Criners bond at $1 million. 
 
 Read the full affidavit here 

 US Marshals and Lone Star Fugitive Task Force walking UT murder suspect into APD HQ after being apprehended. PIO4 pic.twitter.com/9Btr6ymFl3 — Austin Police Dept (@Austin_Police) April 8, 2016 
 
 The sister of the 17-year-old accused of killing University of Texas student Haruka Weiser is coming to the defense of her younger brother.In an exclusive interview with abc13, Meechaiel Criner's sister says she's still trying to process the gravity ofCriner's sister invited Eyewitness News into her Houston-area home. We're not using her name because she says she has already faced a lot of backlash."It's actually really hard to look at his picture because that's who he is," she said, pointing to a photo of a smiling Criner and their grandmother on the wall.The photo was taken a couple years ago when they were all in Texarkana celebrating a birthday.Criner's sister, 23 and a second-year law student, says they had a tough upbringing. Their mother was a drug addict who committed suicide. A brother was kidnapped and they still don't know what happened to him. Meechaiel never met his father. He was the youngest of the five children."The day I found out she was pregnant was when she came home with a baby," she said.They bounced between their grandmother's care in Texarkana and Child Protective Services (CPS). Criner ran away from his grandmother's last fall and ended up in a group home in Austin. His sister says he is mentally ill and stands by him."He's slow on a lot of things. It takes him longer to pick up than the average person, but he's not slow enough to say I'm going to kill this person and take her purse and carry it with me," she said. "No one is that slow. Meechaiel is not that slow. Meechaiel is not that crazy to do that."State officials confirm Meechaiel was in foster care, but classified as a runaway, when Wesier was murdered. Criner's sister says CPS bears some blame."It's not a hidden fact he had mental issues," she said. "How would you possibly let a 17-year-old mentally-issued child out of your system for that long?"The young woman believes Meechaiel was an easy police target and hopes to talk to him soon about the evidence against him. She does have a message for the victim's family and plans to stand by her brother."My condolences go out to the Weiser family. I am greatly, deeply sorry this happened. I'm deeply sorry but I assure you Meechaiel Criner did not do this," she said.
– More details are emerging about the "unthinkable brutality" police say University of Texas freshman Haruka Weiser endured at the hands of homeless teen Meechaiel Criner. Though autopsy results aren't expected for several weeks, police sources tell the Austin American-Statesman that Weiser was sexually assaulted and died of strangulation. A campus surveillance camera shows a man believed to be Criner attempt to open the door of a van parked on campus after 9pm on April 3, reports the Portland Tribune. He disappears but returns around 9:30pm and watches as Weiser walks past him looking at her cellphone, per an affidavit. The man then takes a "shiny rigid object" from a back pocket and follows Weiser behind the alumni center where her body was later found with "obvious trauma," the affidavit says, per the AP. Criner is next caught on camera two hours later walking with a limp and carrying a bag Weiser's friends say was hers, the affidavit notes. The next morning, firefighters found Criner burning several items, including a shoe and college coursework, in an abandoned building near campus, per the affidavit. Firefighters told police that Criner, who was taken to a homeless shelter, matched the suspect seen in a surveillance video. Police then found Criner in possession of Weiser's laptop, the affidavit says. A murder weapon has not been found. In an interview with ABC 13, Criner's sister says her brother—the youngest of five siblings, who never knew his father—is mentally ill and was staying with his grandmother after his mom committed suicide, but ran away last fall. His uncle says he has the mental capacity of a 10-year-old.