John Jefferson
Inset: Brianna Kupfer (GoFundMe). Background: Shawn Laval Smith in court (KCAL/YouTube).
A man with a hatred for women who went “hunting for a woman alone” was convicted of fatally stabbing a 24-year-old UCLA graduate student 46 times as she worked by herself at an upscale furniture store in Los Angeles.
Shawn Laval Smith was found guilty on Tuesday of murder and a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait in the killing of Brianna Kupfer, the LA County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release. The jury also found that the defendant used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a knife.
Kupfer’s mother and father reacted to the news, local CBS affiliate KCAL reported.
“I would say it’s an overwhelming sense of relief,” Kupfer’s father, Todd Kupfer, told reporters. “This has obviously been a brutal couple weeks for us.”
Her mother, Lori Kupfer, thanked the DA but said, “Justice will never be served because our daughter’s not alive.”
In his closing arguments on Monday, Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian said Smith hates women and was “on a crusade to hunt, to destroy and to kill for the mere fact that she was female” and alone, local station KNBC reported.
Local affiliate KABC reported Balian saying Smith “used her kindness against her.”
“He then slayed her when he was close, and he was safe, and her guard was down,” Balian said, the outlet reported.
Smith’s defense attorney, Robert Haberer, argued the murder was not premeditated.
“The decision to attack Brianna Kupfer happened in an instant,” he said, local Fox affiliate KTTV reported. “This was not planned in any way.”
The series of events leading to the murder started on Jan. 13, 2022, when Smith walked into the Croft House store on North La Brea Avenue, police said in a news release. Kupfer, who was studying architectural design at UCLA, was the only employee in the store at the time, CBS News reported.
He pretended to be a customer looking for a couch, The CW affiliate KTLA reported. He then attacked Kupfer and fled through the back door of the store.
A customer eventually discovered Kupfer after the attack and called 911.
Citing the autopsy, KTTV reported Kupfer suffered 46 sharp-force injuries. Eleven were 5-inch deep stab wounds to the chest, the abdomen, pelvis, right and left arm, and right and left leg, the station reported.
Smith was arrested days later in Pasadena, about 15 miles from the murder scene, authorities said.
At trial, jurors heard the victim’s last words recorded on Smith’s digital audio recorder that he left behind along with the knife — bent from the force used — with his DNA.
“She’s just telling him, ‘I can help you, I can help you, I can help you,’ and he’s telling her, ‘It’s over [expletive],”” KTLA reported prosecutors saying.
Through tears, Jessica Rogers, who did not know the victim’s family but attended in support of them, told KTLA’s Kimberly Cheng how devastating that audio was.
“We heard a recording of him making these statements about how he hated women,” Rogers said. “An innocent, kind woman begging for her life. She tried to get help. She did nothing wrong.”
Smith has a criminal history spanning the coasts. At the time of the killing, Smith had been free on $50,000 bond, facing charges for firing a flare gun at a vehicle with a child inside in South Carolina in November 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Smith faces a nonjury sanity phase of his trial in the Kupfer case, set for Oct. 2, prosecutors said. He faces life in prison without parole. He’s being held at the LA County Jail without bail.
Aaron Keller contributed to this report.
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