'A kind woman begging for her life': Trial in grisly killing of UCLA student begins Opening statements began Thursday in the trial of Shawn Laval Smith, the man accused in the stabbing death a 24-year-old woman while she worked alone at a Hancock Park furniture store in Jan. 2022.
The grisly killing unfolded on Jan. 13 while Brianna Kupfer, a UCLA graduate student, was working at Croft House on North La Brea Avenue.
At 1:36 p.m. that day, Kupfer sent a text to a...