A homeless man accused of stabbing to death a UCLA student who worked at a boutique furniture store was found guilty Tuesday.
A Los Angeles County jury has found Shawn LaValle Smith, 34, guilty of the brutal murder of Brianna Kupfer. The jury also found Smith guilty of the special circumstance of murder during an ambush in the Jan. 13, 2022, murder and of using a knife during the crime. Fox Los Angeles Reported.
Kupfer, a 24-year-old architecture graduate student, was working alone at Croft Houses in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles when Smith, a homeless man with a long criminal record, entered the business and stabbed her dozens of times for no apparent reason.
Who is Los Angeles stabbing victim Brianna Kupfer?
Sean LaValle Smith, 34, was convicted of stabbing Brianna Kupfer, 24, multiple times to death in 2022 while she was working alone at a furniture store in Los Angeles. (KTTV/Linkedin)
In his closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian told jurors that Smith hated women and went from business world to business world “searching for them alone.”
Varian said when he saw Kupfer alone in the store, he pretended to be a customer.
Kupfer was stabbed 11 times, suffering wounds in two places in the chest, two in the abdomen, one in the pelvis, two in his right arm, five in his left arm, two in his right leg and three in his left leg. Prosecutors said security camera footage showed Smith inside the store and his DNA was found on the knife.
He was arrested a few days later.
Brianna Kuffar sent ominous message to friend before being stabbed to death
Flowers have been left outside Croft House Furniture Store in memory of graduate student Brianna Kupfer. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
Prosecutors said Smith left behind audio recordings of the killings as well as a digital audio recorder containing audio of him yelling hateful rants about women.
Smith's lawyer said the recording was a “foul-mouthed and somewhat incoherent rant” and not a “manifesto or conclusive evidence of the horrific murder that took place two and a half weeks later,” the news station reported.
“The decision to attack Brianna Kupfer was made in a split second and was in no way planned,” the defense attorney said.
If the judge finds Smith was sane, he faces life in prison.
Days after the killing, mourners gathered at the furniture store to remember Kupfer.
A memorial service was held for Brianna Kupfer, a Pacific Palisades resident who was found dead on January 20, 2022, inside a crofter house on North La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. (Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily via Getty Images)
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“Bree was the bright spot of the day for anyone who interacted with her,” Alex Segal, co-founder of the store where Kupfer worked for about a year, said at the time. “The question just screams out why and how we are here and why this is happening.”
