A homeless man has been convicted of stabbing a college student 46 times and recording the brutal attack in US’ Los Angeles, reports said. In the audio recording, the man can be heard promising not to hurt her.
According to prosecutors, 34-year-old Shawn Laval Smith was “hunting for a woman alone” in 2022 when he found 24-year-old Brianna Kupfer at the furniture store where she worked.
When he entered the store, Ms Kupfer sent a text message to her friend saying she felt uncomfortable about a man who was inside the shop, they said.
Around 20 minutes after that text, she was found dead on the floor covered in blood.
The audio recorded by Smith was key in convicting him of the horrific murder. In the clip, a man can be heard saying he was “not gonna hurt” a woman and ordered her to “just get down on the floor.”
A woman can be heard screaming as the man says, “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over.”
After the stabbing, he fled the furniture store through the back door and left Ms Kupfer bleeding to death.
Prosecutors say Smith had planned to attack a woman who alone and left his house prepared to kill. Ms Kupfer’s lawyer called him a Hannibal Lecter-style sicko who liked the idea of slaughtering women, the New York Post said.
“This man hated women. 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,” he said.
At the crime scene, the police found an audio recorded and a filet knife (used to slice and prepare fish). The knife had bent after the frenzied attack.
Both the items were covered in his DNA which was key in proving his guilt.
Smith, who had a long criminal history including assaulting police officer and vandalism, was out on bail after he was accused of firing a flare gun from a vehicle.
“Brianna Kupfer was a promising young woman whose life was tragically taken far too soon. I thank the jury for their thoughtful deliberation and dedication in finding the defendant guilty,” Ms Kupfer’s lawyer said in a statement after the verdict.
