Man gets life in prison without parole for killing UCLA student inside Hancock Park furniture store

LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- A transient man convicted of murdering a UCLA graduate student -- who was stabbed 46 times inside a Hancock Park furniture store in an attack captured in a chilling audio recording -- was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a judge found that he was sane at the time of the crime.

Shawn Laval Smith, 34, was convicted Sept. 10 of first-degree murder for the Jan. 13, 2022, killing of Brianna Kupfer, 24.

After a brief hearing Wednesday morning that included a review of reports from a pair of doctors, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo said there was "absolutely no evidence whatsoever" to show that Smith was insane at the time of the crime.

Citing the "brutality that was demonstrated," the judge said she would not consider any sentence less than life in prison without the possibility of parole for Smith.

The judge said the defendant knew what right and wrong were. She cited jailhouse calls including one in which Smith said, "All I got to do is play crazy. And then they'll drop and dismiss the case that way."

He had pleaded both not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, necessitating the sanity phase of the case, for which the defendant waived a jury trial.

In addition to convicting Smith of murder, jurors found true a special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait, along with an allegation that the defendant used a knife during the commission of the crime.

Kupfer was attacked while working alone inside the boutique Croft House in the 300 block of North La Brea Avenue, near Beverly Boulevard.

The judge heard emotional victim impact statements from a dozen of the victim's family members and friends who urged the maximum sentence for Smith.

The victim's father, Todd, described his daughter's assailant as beyond evil'' and said he killed her senselessly and brutally.

He said there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't think about her.

The victim's mother, Lori Kupfer, described her daughter as a "beautiful person inside and out" who was trying to make the world a better place.

She said the family will never hear her daughter's laughter or have her on hand for more holiday gatherings.

"Forty-six stab wounds took that away!" the victim's mother said, while adding that her daughter's killer "ruthlessly ended my daughter's life" and "sat there with no remorse" throughout his trial.

One of the victim's brothers, Brandon, spoke on behalf of himself and his brother, Tucker, saying that "she was taken from us far too soon" and that they are heartbroken.

The victim's sister, Mikaela, called her sister her best friend and said she lost her biggest support system the day of the killing.

In his closing argument during the trial, Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian told jurors that Smith is a man who "hates women" and went from business to business while "hunting for a woman alone" and then posed as a customer when he found Kupfer working on her own inside.

"Her guard was down," the prosecutor said of the victim. "He was lying in wait for his perfect target ... She had no idea what he plans to do to her."

On a digital audio recorder that was left behind at the scene and was still running when police arrived, the woman's assailant can be heard saying that he was "not gonna hurt her" and ordering her to "just get down on the floor," then the woman can be heard screaming, and her assailant subsequently tells her, "It's over, it's over, it's over, it's over, bitch."

Smith left the young woman bleeding on the ground, left through a back door of the business and calmly walked down an alley before disappearing between two apartment buildings, Balian told jurors.

In his haste to leave the bloody crime scene, the defendant left behind a knife with a blade that was bent, as well as a knife sheath and the audio recorder -- all of which contained his DNA, the prosecutor said.

In a recording that was made about 2 1/2 weeks earlier and was subsequently found on the recorder, Smith allegedly can be heard saying, "I do not like bitches," and vowing to "destroy everything."

Defense attorney Robert Haberer countered that the recording from December 2021 did not prove there was a motive to commit murder by the man he described as a "homeless drifter" roaming at commercial businesses to talk with people behind the counter.

Smith's lawyer called the recording a "mildly incoherent rant laced with profanities" and "not exactly some sort of manifesto" or "smoking gun" for a "ghastly murder 2 1/2 weeks later."

"The fact that he was upset about women is not a red flag," Haberer told jurors about the older recording, describing it as a "tantrum to himself" in which he was "blowing off steam."

Smith's attorney argued that it would take a "Grand Canyon leap of logic" to conclude from the recording that the man he repeatedly referred to as "the suspect" intended then to kill someone.

"The decision to attack Brianna Kupfer happened in an instant ... This was not planned in any way," the defense lawyer said.

The woman's body was found on the floor by a woman who came into the store with her boyfriend and then rushed outside to call 911.

Kupfer was pronounced dead in the store.

Smith -- who gave police a fake name -- was taken into custody six days later after a Pasadena resident called police to report a sighting of the suspect following an offer of a reward, according to the prosecutor.

The defendant has remained behind bars since his arrest.

The judge had revoked Smith's right to act as his own attorney during the trial following a contentious hearing in June 2023 in which he directed profanities at Escobedo during his first appearance before her and abruptly rose from his seat in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Copyright 2024, City News Service, Inc.