A man has been charged in the fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old woman while she worked alone at a Hancock Park furniture store last week, officials said Friday.
Shawn Laval Smith, 31, faces one count of murder and a special allegation that he used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a knife, in the random attack, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
He was arrested in Pasadena Wednesday, nearly a week after the Jan. 13 killing of Brianna Kupfer at Croft House on North La Brea Avenue.
Los Angeles Police Department officials said Smith “was not known to the victim and was a random walk in to the store.” It remains unclear what motivated the fatal stabbing.
At 1:36 p.m. that day, Kupfer sent a text to a friend saying there was someone inside the store who was “giving her a bad vibe,” LAPD officials previously said.
About 14 minutes later, a customer walked in and found the victim dead on the floor, covered in blood.
Police said the assailant had stabbed the young woman to death before leaving through the back door. Authorities had released video of a man walking away in the alley behind the crime scene. Different video showed the suspect at a 7-Eleven store just 30 minutes after the fatal encounter.
Smith was eventually arrested after police received a call from a person reporting that someone matching his description was at the corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks in Pasadena Wednesday. He was detained and transferred to LAPD custody.
Smith has an extensive criminal history in L.A. County, and was also marked for extradition in North Carolina in connection with an assault with a deadly weapon incident.
He was expected to be arraigned in the Hancock Park incident on Friday.
Kupfer was a resident of Pacific Palisades and worked as a design consultant for Croft House.
“Those who show no compassion for human life will face serious consequences,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “The murder of Brianna Kupfer has left Los Angeles County devastated and my office is reaching out to her family to provide any services they may need.”