VAN NUYS (CNS) — A homeless parolee was charged with capital murder for allegedly stabbing boyfriend-girlfriend clerks, killing the man, after trying to steal a sandwich and beer from a Valley Village 7-Eleven store.
Hasaan Blunt, 42, was also charged with attempted murder on Tuesday, March 29. The murder charge against him includes a special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery, opening him to a possible death sentence.
Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek capital punishment. Blunt is scheduled to be arraigned April 28 in Van Nuys.
Blunt allegedly slashed the tires on three vehicles on Friday before going into the 7-Eleven store at Laurel Canyon and Chandler boulevards, grabbing the sandwich and beer and walking out without paying, prosecutors said. The clerks chased the man outside and confronted him, and Blunt allegedly stabbed them both, killing Washi Uddin Ahmed, 55, of North Hollywood.
The other clerk was critically injured. Ahmed’s son told reporters the female clerk was Paulina Lopez, and while she and his father lived together for several years, they had not married. The son said Lopez was recovering at a hospital.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Blunt was convicted in 1998 of assault with a deadly weapon, battery causing serious injury and assault with a deadly weapon by a state prison inmate.