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A forty five-year-old man who was banned from L.A. Metro trains for previous violent acts was convicted Monday within the 2024 stabbing demise of a lady on a B Line prepare who was on her means house from an in a single day shift.
Elliot Tramel Nowden provided no response because the jury in downtown L.A. discovered him responsible of homicide and theft within the killing of Mirna Soza Arauz, 67, on the Common Metropolis station in April 2024. For the reason that jury discovered Nowden killed Soza Arauz whereas committing a felony, he’ll face life in state jail with out the potential for parole when he’s sentenced subsequent month.
Soza Arauz was working nights as she saved up cash to purchase a house in her native Nicaragua. She was on her means house from a shift as a safety guard at an Unique Tommy’s hamburger restaurant in North Hills when Nowden approached her with two knives, stabbed her within the throat and stole her bag, authorities stated.
Video from the scene confirmed Nowden board the prepare on the Common Metropolis cease and experience it to the subsequent and final station, North Hollywood, the place Soza Arauz entered, in line with L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Alexander Bott, who tried the case. Because the prepare returned to the Common Metropolis cease, Nowden attacked with a pair of serrated kitchen knives, Bott stated.
“This complete case is de facto unhappy. It’s so mindless,” stated Bott, who stated Nowden lacked a “ethical compass.”
Bott stated Nowden stole a bag on the sufferer’s shoulder. Nowden’s lawyer declined to remark outdoors the courtroom. A spokeswoman for the L.A. County alternate public defender’s workplace, which represented Nowden, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In 2019, Nowden was arrested after stabbing a USC scholar within the chest on the Expo Line, in line with testimony given by the sufferer in that incident at trial. The sufferer stated Nowden approached him out of nowhere, cursed at him and referred to him by a racial slur earlier than plunging a blade into his chest. By some means, the sufferer was not significantly injured, Bott stated.
Nowden was banned from L.A. Metro trains underneath the phrases of a plea deal for assault in that case. Just a few weeks later, Nowden was once more in court docket on assault costs, taking a second plea deal that despatched him to state jail for 4 years, data present.
Nowden took the stand in his personal protection at trial final week, in line with Bott, who stated the defendant admitted he had been homeless for years and used methamphetamine on a close to day by day foundation.
Soza Arauz was perhaps a yr or two away from leaving the U.S. and transferring again to Nicaragua, to the house that was midway constructed by the point she died.
“She was very alone in [the U.S.]. Fairly alone, by herself till my brother received there,” her daughter, Mirna Roman Soza, beforehand advised The Occasions. “What stored her going was her plans. Her desires.”
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