A South African man who confessed to killing an Alaska Native woman and was captured on cellphone video torturing and killing another was found guilty Thursday in both killings.
The Anchorage jury deliberated less than two hours before returning the unanimous guilty verdicts for Brian Steven Smith, 52, in the deaths of Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk, The Associated Press reported.
Smith was found guilty on 14 counts, including two counts of first degree murder and multiple counts of sexual assault. After the verdicts, the jury heard further testimony to determine whether the murder charges involved aggravating circumstances. They determined that the murders involved “substantial physical torture.”
Friends and family of the two women were in the courtroom, many wearing red to represent Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, Alaska’s News Source reported. Family members sobbed as the verdicts were read.
Smith was arrested after a sex worker stole his cell phone from his truck and discovered the gruesome videos of Henry’s death in 2019, the AP said. She copied the footage to a memory card and handed it over to police, eventually become the prosecution’s start witness.
Only the jury saw the videos during the three-week trial, although the audio could be heard in the courtroom. Smith’s face was not seen, but his distinctive accent was clear. He narrates the video, urging Henry to die as he beats and strangles her in an Anchorage hotel room.
“In my movies, everybody always dies,” he says in one video. “What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.”
After killing her, Smith reportedly drove around with her in his truck — images from his phone show this — before dumping her body along the Seward Highway. Prosecutors said cell phone data showed Smith in the area.
During a police interrogation, Smith confessed to killing Abouchuk. He said he picked her up while his wife was out of town, and he killed her because she smelled and refused to take a shower. He told police where he’d dumped the body, and they later found it there.
His defense tried to have that confession quashed, saying he was pressured into to giving it, according to Alaska’s News Source.
Smith will serve a life sentence for the murders.
