A woman stole a cellphone from a man's truck. On it were horrifying images and video of a woman being killed. That footage led to a man being convicted Thursday of murdering two Native women in Alaska.
It took an Alaska jury less than two hours Thursday to convict a man of murdering two Native women. He had filmed and narrated one of killings on his cellphone.
Brian Steven Smith, 52, was convicted of all charges against him, including two counts of murder and multiple counts of sexual assault. His victims were Kathleen Henry, 30, who was killed in 2019, and Veronica Abouchuk, 52, who died in 2018 or 2019, authorities said.
He showed no emotion as the verdicts were read in an Anchorage court. In the gallery was his wife, who told journalists she will not divorce him and will visit him in jail.
It was a circuitous road to justice for the women's murders. It started with a woman stealing Smith's cellphone from the console of his truck. The woman, a sex worker, later found the horrific video and photos of a female being killed, and transferred them to a memory card, which she eventually gave police, authorities said.
The footage was horrifying. Friends, family and supporters of Indigenous women often wept during the trial, and some fled the courtroom, overcome by the disturbing footage.
The filmed murder was of Henry’s killing, which occurred at a Marriott hotel in Anchorage, police said.
In the video, Smith's voice was heard urging Henry to die as she was beaten and strangled. Though he is not seen in the footage, authorities said Smith's South African accent identified him as the killer.
“In my movies, everybody always dies,” he says. “What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.”
During questioning about Henry's filmed killing, Smith admitted to killing Abouchuk after picking her up while his wife was out of town, police said. Smith complained that the woman smelled and she refused to take a shower when he asked her.
Smith told police he became upset by her refusal and got his gun from his garage and shot her in the head. He dumped her body outside Anchorage and gave investigators the location, where officers later found a skull with a bullet hole, authorities said.
Jurors also found that Henry had sustained “substantial physical torture,” an aggravating factor that subjects Smith to a mandatory 99-year sentence.
He faces 30 to 99 years for Abouchuk's murder.
Smith's sentencing is scheduled for July.
