Defense questions mental competency of suspect in fatal Metro train stabbing

Criminal proceedings were suspended Thursday for a man accused of fatally stabbing a woman on a Metro B (Red) Line train in the Studio City area, with the defense questioning his mental competency.

Elliott Tramel Nowden , 46, is charged with murder and first-degree robbery in connection with the attack that occurred around 5 a.m. April 22 on the train between North Hollywood and Universal City. 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.

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Nowden is scheduled to appear in a Hollywood courtroom on Aug. 1 for a mental competency proceeding. He remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail.

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 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 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."

According to Los Angeles Superior Court records, Nowden pleaded no contest in June 2019 to battering a passenger on a Metro train. He was ordered to spend five days in jail and three years on probation -- during which he was barred from boarding or riding any Metro trains.

In November 2019, he pleaded no contest to an assault with a deadly weapon charge and was sentenced to four years in prison, court records show.

Nowden also has a previous petty theft conviction from 2003 which landed him on two years probation.

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