A man suspected of fatally stabbing a woman on a Metro B (Red) Line train in the Studio City area — and who has a prior conviction for attacking someone on a Metro train — was charged Wednesday with murder.
Elliott Tramel Nowden, 45, was also charged with first-degree robbery in connection with the attack that occurred around 5 a.m. Monday on the train between North Hollywood and Universal City. District Attorney George Gascón said the murder charge includes a special circumstance allegation of murder during a robbery, opening Nowden to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted as charged.
Nowden was being held in lieu of $2 million bail, but Gascón said prosecutors were asking him to be held without bail. He was expected to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom for arraignment Wednesday, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
PREVIOUSLY: Woman fatally stabbed at Metro station in Studio City; suspect arrested
Police said the victim — 66-year-old Mirna Soza Arauz — had boarded the downtown-bound train at the nearby North Hollywood station and was stabbed in an apparently unprovoked attack. She managed to exit the train when it arrived at the Universal City Station on 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 later died.
According to a GoFundMe page created by her nephew, Arauz was a mother of three and grandmother of four. Family members said she worked as a night security guard at a Tommy’s hamburger restaurant in North Hills.
Nowden was arrested about 30 minutes after the stabbing near Ventura Boulevard and Vineland Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
According to the GoFundMe page, Arauz died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after she was “viciously attacked on the commute home after work on the Metro train at Universal City station.”
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