Man gets 26 years to life in prison for brutal murder of a woman at a Westminster hotel

Aryan Vito Smith, a 30-year-old man, was sentenced last Friday to 26 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing Treeanna Nichols, a 22-year-old Pasadena woman at a Westminster hotel six years ago.

Smith pleaded guilty on Friday, March 8, 2024, to murder with a sentencing enhancement for using a deadly weapon.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Hanson ruled that Smith had committed a first-degree murder after she reviewed more evidence. If she had found it was second-degree murder the punishment would have been lesser – 16 years to life.

Smith was captured by a surveillance video camera as he was walking up the stairs of the Quality Inn on Westminster Boulevard at about 3 p.m. on Feb. 5, 2018, while wearing a hooded sweatshirt and vaping. He left a short time later. Nichols was killed, according to police investigators, during that time period.

Police were called just before 11 p.m. that day to conduct a welfare check on Nichols and found her dead in a room at the Quality Inn.

The Westminster Police Commander, Cameron Knauerhaze, described the murder as brutal and violent at a news conference at department headquarters.

Nichols was alone at the motel at the time of the murder. She had only been there for a short time. Apparently she had quite a few friends and acquaintances in the area. They all thought she was going to have a short stay at the hotel.

Westminster police officers were asked by her family to do a welfare check when they could not get a hold of her. They found her body just before 11 p.m.

Smith was arrested in May of 2020 and he was being held on $1 million bail. He was finally tracked down by the use of DNA evidence.

“Treeanna Nichols should not be remembered as just a victim. She was a daughter, a friend and a human being,” Cmdr. Cameron Knauerhaze said in 2018. “No one deserves the violent death that she endured.”