Student, 16, ‘lured to hotel on promise of cleaning job where she was stabbed 58 times and sexually assaulted

A 16-year-old girl was lured to a hotel on the bogus promise of a cleaning job before being stabbed 58 times and sexually assaulted, a court heard.

College student Sasha Marsden’s body was then set on fire and dumped in an alleyway after she had been killed, a jury was told.

The teenager suffered ‘terrible and catastrophic’ injuries as she was stabbed 58 times to the head, neck and face with a kitchen knife.

She ‘struggled ferociously’ in a vain attempt to fend off her ‘sexually motivated’ murderer David Minto, 23, in Blackpool, Lancashire, the court heard.

Police who found her body thought a mannequin had been set on fire because she had suffered such severe injuries, it was said.

Her injuries were so bad that she could only be identified by DNA from her toothbrush, Preston Crown Court heard.

Minto, 23, is alleged to have removed her partially clothed body wrapped in carpet underlay, a black bin liner and bedding and set it alight behind the Grafton House Hotel in Kirby Road, Blackpool.

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said the knife wounds were ‘deep and penetrating’, with 48 of the wounds mainly to the back of the head.

He said: ‘There were a large number of wounds to her fingers, hands and forearms which were entirely consistent with what are known as defence wounds.

‘In other words Sasha had struggled ferociously with her assailant in a vain effort to save her own life.’

Minto was arrested shortly after the incident on January 31 and went on to tell ‘a series of lies’ to hide his involvement including a claim that Sasha, a child care student, had ‘thrown herself’ at him sexually, said the prosecutor.

Forensic tests showed the teenager’s blood was found on the defendant’s clothing, throughout the hotel and on the murder weapon.

Her blood-stained Adidas top, pink and white training boots, pink purse and mobile phone were found in a waste bin in the rear alleyway.

The phone had been dismantled and the battery removed, the court heard.

Mr Wright said: ‘It is the prosecution’s case that Sasha was subjected to a ferocious attack within the hotel.

‘She was stabbed repeatedly by the defendant during the course of which she was sexually assaulted and, notwithstanding the valiant struggle she had put in, she succumbed to those injuries and died.’

Minto then embarked on a ‘determined effort’ to clean up the property and dispose of any evidence connecting him to the murder and his sexual assault of her, said Mr Wright.

Following his arrest the defendant said in a prepared statement that Sasha arrived at the hotel at about 3.45pm and he showed her what she needed to do for the job.

‘He then suggested she had thrown herself at him when he came out of the toilet and he accepted that sexual contact had taken place between them,’ Mr Wright added.

‘He went on to say that she carried on cleaning and that she had then had a severe nosebleed while kneeling down in the hallway. She told him this happened a lot.’

When told that the body could be that of Sasha, Minto told police: ‘If this was Sasha then I’m shocked and very saddened.’

Mr Wright told the jury: ‘We say nothing could be further from the truth. The truth was that this was a sexually motivated murder of a young girl by this young man in the confines of a hotel when she was alone and vulnerable.

‘The truth is that Sasha Marsden met her death at the hands of this man. He set out to and he did in fact kill her.

‘He set fire to her body and he disposed of her clothing and valuables as he tried to erase any evidence of his involvement in her death.’

Minto met Sasha, from Staining, near Blackpool, through a mutual friend on a night out in Blackpool towards the end of 2012, the court heard.

Source: Dailymail