The deranged homeless man who stabbed UCLA student Briana Kupfer to death while hunting a random victim has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — with the slain woman’s dad calling him “beyond evil.”
Shawn Laval Smith, 34, was sentenced Wednesday after being convicted last month of first-degree murder for stabbing the 24-year-old student 46 times at the furniture store where she was working, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The homeless man had a lengthy criminal record and was “hunting” for a victim when he ambushed Kupfer on Jan. 13, 2022 — taping it on a digital recorder that captured him ordering the terrified grad student to “get down on the floor.”
“It’s over, it’s over, bitch,” he was heard saying over the harrowing sound of screaming.
“Her guard was down,” Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian said of Kupfer. “He was lying in wait for his perfect target. She had no idea what he planned to do to her.”
Smith fled out the back door and disappeared down an alley before police arrived. As well as the tape recorder, he left behind the bloodied filet knife that was bent in the frenzied stabbing.
An earlier recording on the recorder caught Smith professing his hatred for woman and resolving to “destroy everything.”
He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which was rejected by the judge, NBC Los Angeles said.
In addition to being found guilty of murder, Smith was convicted of a special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait, as well as using a knife in the commission of a crime.
Kupfer’s family and friends spoke in court Wednesday ahead of the sentencing.
The grad student’s father, Todd, described Smith as “beyond evil.”
Kupfer’s mother, Lori, said her daughter was a “beautiful person inside and out.”
“Forty-six stab wounds took that away,” she said, adding that Smith did not show remorse during the trial.
Kupfer’s brother and sister also spoke, and described how their family is still heartbroken over the sister “taken from us far too soon.”