Man who stabbed woman in LA subway is guilty of murder

A 45-year-old man banned from L.A. Metro trains for past acts of violence was convicted Monday of stabbing to death a woman on the 2024 B Line train as she walked home from her night shift.

Elliott Trammel Noden did not offer any reaction as a jury in LA found him guilty of the April 2024 murder and robbery of 67-year-old Myrna Souza-Aruz at the Universal Studios station. After a jury found Noden killed Souza Arroz during the commission of the crime, he faces up to life in state prison without parole next month.

Souza Arroz worked at night as she saved money to buy a house in her native Nicaragua. She was walking home from her shift as a security guard at the original Tommy Hamburger restaurant in North Hills when Noden approached her with two knives, stabbed her in the arm and stole her bag.

Video from the scene showed Noden getting on the train at the Universal City stop and riding it to the next and final station, North Hollywood, where Souza Aruz got in, according to an L.A. County deputy. Attiy Alexander Boot, who tried the case. As the train returned to the Universal City stop, Noden attacked him with a pair of kitchen knives, Bott said.

“This whole case is really sad. It’s so senseless,” said Bott, who said Noden had no “moral compass.”

Boot said Noden stole a bag over the victim’s shoulder. Noden’s attorney declined to comment outside the courtroom. A spokeswoman for the La County Alternate Public Defender’s Office, which represents Noden, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2019, Noden was arrested after stabbing a USC student in the chest at Expo Line, according to testimony given by the victim during the trial. The victim said Noden approached him out of nowhere, cursed at him and referred to him with racial slurs before stabbing him in the chest. Somehow, the victim was not seriously injured, Boot said.

Noden was banned from La Metro Rail under the terms of a plea deal for assault in that case. A few weeks later, Noden was in court again on an assault charge, taking a second plea deal that sent him to state prison for four years, records show.

Noden took the stand in his own defense during the trial last week, according to Boot, who said the defendant admitted he had been homeless for years and used methamphetamine almost daily.

Souza Arroz probably left the United States a year or two later and went back to Nicaragua, to the house that was built around the time of her death.

“She was very lonely [the U.S.]. Her daughter, Myrna Roman-Souza, previously told The Times, “She was on her own until my brother got there.” Her dreams.”