LOS ANGELES – A man was convicted Monday of first-degree murder and robbery for using two knives to fatally stab a 67-year-old woman on a Metro train in the Studio City area last year.
Jurors deliberated about an hour before finding Elliott Nowden, now 47, guilty of the April 22, 2024, attack on Mirna Soza Arauz.
The downtown Los Angeles jury also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery, along with allegations that he personally used a knife and that the victim was robbed while she was a passenger aboard the train.
Nowden is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, with sentencing set Dec. 12 before Superior Court Judge Karla D. Kerlin.
Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott told jurors in his closing argument that the victim was simply trying to get home after work when “the defendant butchered her” by attacking her with two knives — one in each of his hands — in a crime caught on surveillance video.
“He stabbed her over and over again,” the prosecutor said, noting that Nowden took a bag from the woman that only contained chili cheese fries that she was bringing home to her family from the Tommy’s hamburger restaurant where she worked and that he then pulled the train’s emergency brake so he could escape. “It took her several agonizing minutes to die.”
The prosecutor told jurors that Nowden had stabbed a male USC student without provocation in 2019 while they were aboard the Expo line, saying that attack also involved “precise timing.”
Defense attorney K.C. Ma called what happened “sad” and “horrific.” But he disputed that Nowden — who testified in his own defense — had acted with goal-oriented behavior as the prosecution alleged.
He questioned why police did not get a sample of Nowden’s blood after the killing, noting that investigators kept asking the defendant whether he was high on something.
Nowden’s attorney told jurors his client used methamphetamine every day because that was the only way he felt normal.
The victim had boarded a downtown-bound Metro B (Red) Line train just before 4:45 a.m. that day at the nearby North Hollywood station and was stabbed in an unprovoked attack, authorities said.
She managed to exit the train when it arrived at the Universal City Station in the 3900 block of Lankershim Boulevard in Studio City, where she was found mortally wounded on the platform. She was taken to a hospital, where she died that day.
Nowden was arrested a half-mile away about 20 minutes after the attack.
He has remained behind bars since then.
Criminal proceedings in his case were temporarily halted in July 2024 when the defense questioned his mental competency. He was found mentally competent last September to stand trial.