Authorities have identified the victim of the fatal stabbing that occurred at a Metro station in Universal City on Monday morning.
At around 5 a.m., a man viciously attacked 67-year-old Mirna Soza Arauz as she was getting off the Metro B Line train.
She was stabbed in the throat during the unprovoked attack and unfortunately succumbed to her injuries after being rushed to a nearby hospital.
Arauz was on her way home from her overnight shift at Tommy’s Burgers in North Hills when the incident occurred. The suspect, Elliot Tramel Nowden, a 45-year-old homeless man, has been arrested and is believed to have been armed with two knives during the attack.
Nowden has a troubling criminal history, including previous assaults, and was released from prison in 2022 after serving half of a four-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon.
This incident adds to a series of violent acts that have taken place on the Metro transit system in recent weeks.
Just last week, a Metro bus driver was involved in an altercation with an individual who had kicked in the bus’s glass door.
Prior to that, a male passenger was stabbed during an argument on a Metro bus in the Silver Lake area, resulting in an arrest. On the same day, a Metro bus driver was brutally attacked near South Los Angeles, and the suspect is still at large.
LAPD Interim Chief Dominic Choi expressed his deep sadness and concern about the incident, emphasizing the importance of ensuring the safety of passengers on the Metro transit system.
He acknowledged that this tragic event goes beyond mere statistics and highlights the need for a sense of security.
Colleagues of Arauz remember her as a kind-hearted individual who was saving money to reunite with her children in Nicaragua. Her untimely death has left a void in their lives
