The second of two victims stabbed in a brutal weekend attack at a Sandy mobile park home has died.
Rex Edwards was stabbed multiple times along with 54-year-old Christopher Roe inside their home at the Hoosier Mobile Home Park near 9000 South and 135 East on the night of Sept. 2. Roe was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police say both men were reportedly attacked while they were asleep in bed.
Edwards staggered out of his trailer after the assailant had left and went to a neighbor's home for help, leaving a trail of blood down the street behind him. A pool of blood and bloody handprints were left on the trailer where Edwards sought help.
He was able to tell the neighbor who had attacked him before he was flown to University Medical Center. Court documents state that Edwards also asked the neighbor to tell police to check on his roommate. He was unconscious from the time police arrived at the neighbor's home until he died Wednesday night.
A medical examiner determined Edwards died from multiple stab wounds to his stomach. He also had numerous defense wounds on his arms and hands, as court documents state.
Police found the body of Christopher Roe, 54, in a back bedroom of the trailer where Edwards and Roe lived. Court documents state that Roe had been stabbed in the chest and neck while he was in bed.
Zachary Elliot Hain, 27, who lived in an adjacent mobile park home, was arrested shortly after the incident, booked into the Salt Lake County Jail and charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with first-degree murder and attempted criminal homicide. Salt Lake District Attorney David Yocom amended those charges Thursday with an additional first-degree murder charge.
Yocom said officials would make a decision later whether to pursue the death penalty.
According to a search warrant affidavit made public Thursday in 3rd District Court, detectives found blood on the bathroom sink and on a bathroom towel in Hain's home. Police seized a pair of men's shoes and pants that had blood on them and took multiple blood samples from both of the trailer homes. Officers also found that "one large knife was missing from a knife block in the kitchen," court documents state. That knife, and the block it was missing from, were also seized by detectives.
Hain is being held in the Salt Lake County Jail without bail. A motive for the double stabbing was not known Thursday.
