A California homeless man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the brutal stabbing death of a UCLA graduate student inside a boutique furniture shop. Shawn Laval Smith, 34, was found guilty of the murder of 24-year-old architectural graduate student Brianna Kupfer on January 13, 2022.
The sentencing came after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo reviewed reports from doctors and determined that Smith was sane at the time of the murder. Kupfer was working alone at Croft House in Los Angeles' Hancock Park neighborhood when Smith, a homeless man with a lengthy criminal history, entered the store and stabbed her 26 times in an unprovoked attack.
