A Los Angeles jury Tuesday handed a guilty verdict to a man accused of fatally stabbing a UCLA graduate student who was working inside a Hancock Park furniture store in January 2022.
The verdict came down in less than 24 hours after jury deliberations began in the trial against Shawn Laval Smith, who was charged with murdering Brianna Kupfer after he allegedly stabbed her 46 times at the Croft House furniture store on La Brea Avenue near Beverly Boulevard.
During closing arguments Monday, the prosecution reiterated Smith’s hatred of women drove him to murder while the defense attorney claimed there was no premeditation while Smith’s defense attorney argued there was no premeditation in the killing, adding the case attracted a lot of attention because of the race.
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“This man hates women,” prosecutor Habib Balian said Monday, describing how Smith visited women in several stores in Hancock Park before targeting Kupfer because she was alone. “It's easier probably to sleep at night to think something is wrong with him rather than face the truth that this man was on a crusade to hunt, to destroy and to kill for the mere fact that she was female.”
Meanwhile, the defense attorney for Smith implied race was a factor in this case by putting up Kupfer and Smith’s photos side by side, attempting to explain the media attention for the case.
“The thing we can’t talk about, the thing we consciously notice, is why it's attracted so many people,” Robert Haberer, Smith’s attorney, said.
While Smith had recorded himself saying he wanted to kill women a month before Kupfer’s death, his statements about women should not be considered motive, Haberer argued.
Smith faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This is a developing story.
