Two men who were sent to a downtown Salt Lake City hotel to provide “security” for a sex worker after a payment dispute with a client ended up being shot dead, police say.
Salt Lake City Police officers were called to a Comfort Inn in the early hours of Tuesday after receiving a report about a shooting. Upon arrival, officers found two men suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite efforts to save them, both were pronounced dead at the scene.
The killings made them the first and second homicides in Utah’s largest city of 2025.
It has since emerged that officers arrested three people at the scene, none of whom is the man who pulled the trigger, the SLCPD said in a statement Tuesday. The gunman’s identity has not been made public.
At the scene, Kendra Mitchell 38, told officers that she was working as a sex worker and had booked the gunman as a client. When the pair’s appointment was finished, there was a dispute over payment.
Mitchell was arrested for aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary and Kevin Thrower, 56, was booked for obstruction of justice, police said. Tiffany Papach, 40, was arrested on similar charges, as shown by the online arrest records.
After Mitchell got into the dispute, she contacted Papach and urged her to send two men to the location for “security” and “protection,” police said. When Papach and the two men arrived at the hotel, they forced their way into the room.
The two men—one of whom police said was armed with a handgun—assaulted the suspect, demanded money, and stole his car keys.
Police have not revealed exactly what happened next, but at some point, the gunman gained the upper hand on the two so-called security men and shot them, according to authorities.
Thrower has been accused of lying to police at the scene by telling them that Mitchell fled the scene, even though an officer could see her. Later, he denied even knowing her or knowing anything about the shooting.
For her part, Mitchell told the detectives that she had told Thrower everything that happened before the police arrived. She claims he told her not to talk to the police.
An unnamed guest told KSL that they heard a loud commotion coming from a first-floor room in the hotel, prompting him to call 911. The station reported that a white sedan was seen being towed from the hotel parking lot on Tuesday.
“Woke up and found crime tape curled around my door. It kind of made me nervous, to see if it was even finished yet, to be honest with you,” another guest visiting from Nevada said.
The shooter’s identity has not been made public by authorities. The investigation into the crime is continuing at the Comfort Inn.
