‘You’ll be dead by the end of the day’: Duo arrested in killing of Woodland Hills doctor had troubled pasts
Two people have been arrested in the execution-style slaying of popular Woodland Hills doctor Hamid Mirshojae, who was gunned down in the parking lot of his practice as he left work this summer.
Ashley Rose Sweeting, 40, and Evan Hardman, 41, were taken into custody Tuesday in connection with the killing in August, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Sweeting is from Reseda and Hardman is from Texas.
Mirshojae was shot in the back of the head as he walked to his car after work on Aug. 23. The shooting occurred a few months after the doctor had been jumped by a trio of men with baseball bats, an attack that left him fearing for his life.
Police did not offer any details about what exactly the two suspects are accused of doing. Nor did they shed any light on how investigators connected the pair to the killing or what their motive might have been.
It was not immediately clear whether Sweeting or Hardman is accused of being the person who shot Mirshojae. The LAPD announced the arrests Tuesday, saying they had worked with the FBI to locate and arrest the two.
The revelation of earlier violence against Dr. Hamid Mirshojae raised new questions about the fatal shooting, which has left the Woodland Hills community reeling.
Both Sweeting and Hardman have long criminal histories in Los Angeles. Sweeting had more than a dozen criminal cases filed against her before the killing, while Hardman has had three criminal cases filed against him since 2021.
Sweeting’s cases dated back to her high school days in 2002, when she was convicted of petty theft.
Her problems grew more serious over time.
During the next 22 years, she was involved in a cavalcade of mostly low-level criminal cases, including a trio of burglary convictions, a grand theft conviction and a shoplifting conviction. As the years passed, court records indicate that her actions became more violent; she was convicted twice of battery, first in 2014 and then again in 2016.
The criminal record haunted her, and she wrote about her frustrations online.
“I WANT A FREAKING JOB,” she wrote on Facebook in November 2018. “Having a record gets me judged. ... That’s not who I am anymore, and I’ve learned the hard way when it came to the decisions I’d made. So do me a favor, and judge me based on my abilities, my work ethic, and my resume.”
In 2022, a woman filed for a restraining order against Sweeting, accusing her of punching her repeatedly in the head and kicking her in the chest. The woman said Sweeting had tried to run her over.
The violence seemed to culminate in February 2023, when Sweeting was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. She was accused of commandeering a car owned by a neighbor and former friend and then driving it into the woman, according to court papers.
“Ashley stole my keys from my purse and took my car after I expressly told her the night before she couldn’t use my car,” the woman wrote in a request for a restraining order. “I also kicked her out of my house that same evening. She backed into me and I fell and she drove off.”
Shanice Dyer, 22, was charged with playing a role in a Pomona murder last month. L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascón previously declined to try her as an adult for two killings committed as a juvenile.
The woman said Sweeting had another message for her.
“She also threatened my life by saying I don’t know what is coming to me,” she wrote.
Sweeting was arrested that day, but her case was diverted June 14, 2023. She was released from jail on the condition that she be taken to Via Avanta, a recovery center for acute psychiatric care, according to court records.
She was supposed to complete half a year of a residential treatment program, followed by an additional 12 to 14 months of outpatient treatment.
After failing to appear for an early court hearing, she appeared to resume the diversion process, returning to court most recently for a diversion hearing on Sept. 12 — a little more than two weeks after Mirshojae was killed.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hardman has two open cases in Los Angeles. In 2023, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. This year, he was charged with threatening to commit a crime with intent to terrorize.
Additionally, in a request for a restraining order, Hardman was accused of threatening someone’s life.
A woman who shares a child with Hardman wrote in a legal filing that after her daughter went missing in 2023, she discovered that the girl was with Hardman. It was not clear if the girl was Hardman’s daughter.
The woman said she reported Hardman to the police, and he called her with a disturbing message.
“You’ll be dead by the end of the day,” Hardman told her, according to the request for the restraining order.
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