Kevin Price, who was found dead at the Garfield Hotel, suffered 56 separate knife wounds, prosecutors saidRachel Smith Court reporter and James Holt Senior Live and Breaking News Reporter
19:27, 15 May 2025
Kevin Price, 59, was found dead in Garfield Hotel(Image: Lancashire Constabulary)
A hotel owner was found naked and knifed to death following a ‘frenzied’ attack at his own premises, a court heard.
Kevin Price, 59, suffered 56 separate knife wounds and was found in a pool of blood at the Garfield Hotel in Blackpool on November 10, 2024.
Adam Saunders, 50, admits stealing from Kevin – who he says lent him money in exchange for sexual favours – but denies murdering him at a trial at Preston Crown Court. A jury has been told how Kevin ran the Garfield Hotel as a guest house until he became ill with diabetes around five years ago.
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However he remained living at the property, as it fell into disrepair. On November 10 last year, his friend Asuna Ricci became concerned as she had been unable to contact him for several days, LancsLive reports.
She made her way to Blackpool and let herself into the hotel using keys Kevin had given her. Inside she found his two Yorkshire Terriers, distressed, and his walking stick, the jury heard.
Ms Ricci was so concerned she went to a neighbouring hotel, the Northern Lights, and asked the owners to call the police to report Kevin missing. She returned to the hotel to wait for officers but at 3.46pm, Saunders let himself in – using Kevin’s keys, court was told.
Saunders said Kevin had gone to Walsall and left the keys with him to look after the hotel but, doubting him, Ms Ricci followed him out of the hotel to take the keys from him, the prosecution said.
When officers arrived later that evening, they found Kevin stabbed to death in a ‘frenzied’ attack in room 2 of the hotel. He had 56 separate injuries to his neck, back, leg, arm and genitals. Some of the wounds damaged his jugular and the blade had penetrated his heart and injured his lung. He also had defensive injuries to his hands, the jury was told.
Saunders, of Regent Road, Blackpool, admits that on October 31 he stole a bag containing Kevin’s TSB bank card, which he used fraudulently to buy around £150 of goods. On November 7 and 8 further transactions were made on Kevin’s Nationwide bank card, totalling £153.
In the days that followed, Saunders and his friend Helen Kenyon sold tools and a TV to Cash Converters.
But on November 13, Saunders was arrested on suspicion of murder. He answered no comment but later gave a prepared statement in which he told officers he had been a friend of Kevin’s for several years after staying at the hotel for three months in 2021, the trial heard.
“Price lent me money for sexual favours”, he said. “He gave me a yellow gilet on Friday or Saturday. The TV I took out of the premises belolnged to me. I admit to stealing Price’s credit card, he found out about it and told me he had informed the police. I also stole a bag belonging to Price with passport and other papers in it which I later returned.
“I admit stealing a speaker and some tools from Price’s property which a friend of mine, Helen sold at Cash Converters. When I entered the hotel I saw a male who I believed to be called Pete, I had been in the hotel on Thursday night to visit Kevin.
“Kevin told me Pete was drunk and banging on the door and he wouldn’t let him in. The last time I saw Kevin alive was on the Thursday or Friday when he gave me £20. I am not responsible for the death of Kevin.”
He denies murder. The trial continues.