Dad guilty over 16-inch machete attack on man he blamed for his son’s death
A grieving dad who attacked a man he blamed for his son’s death has been found guilty of attempted murder.
Samson Price, 48, took a machete to Patrick Brown outside PureGym in Northwich, Cheshire, in September 2021.
Price had placed a tracker on Brown’s car to monitor his every movement several weeks before.
He wrongly believed Brown had killed his son, Samson Jnr, 18, who drowned in a pond a year earlier after ‘taking LSD’.
Police concluded his death was an accident, but his father refused to accept it and resented Brown and two others being released without charge.
Price admitted grievous bodily harm with intent but pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, claiming he did not intend to kill him.
However, a jury found him guilty on the more serious charge at Chester Crown Court on Monday.
Prosecutor Simon Mills previously said: ‘Patrick Brown’s survival was a matter of sheer luck, and prompt medical care.’
During the trial, the jury heard how Samson Jnr drowned in a pond near his family home in Wigan, Greater Manchester, in October 2020.
It is believed he went there to take LSD with friends when he wandered away from the others.
But his parents felt the police investigation had been ‘botched’ with ‘many mistakes’.
Text messages between them, before the attack on Brown, showed the ‘understandable grief and raw emotion of a grieving mother and father’, the prosecution said.
Price told his wife he considered himself to have died after his son’s death.
He wrote: ‘These feelings are hardest to deal with. Nothing will bring him back. It’s the senselessness, the unfairness and the injustice of it.’
His wife wrote back: ‘We should be rowing and worrying about him going to all these festivals. I cannot get it into my head that he is not here and I will never hear his voice.’
Price carefully made a plan to attack Brown, following him as he left the gym and slashed him with a 16-inch machete between 15 and 20 times.
He only stopped the attack when his victim fell to the floor covered in blood.
Police and paramedics arrived quickly, rushing Brown to Aintree Hospital where he received lifesaving treatment.
Price fled in a nearby car and went into hiding for around three weeks before handing himself in.
The dad, from Sefton Road, Wigan, also pleaded guilty to the charge of possession of a knife in a public place.
He has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on March 23.
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