Stolen memory card in evidence as man convicted in slayings of 2 Alaska women

Anchorage — A South African man who tortured an Alaska Native girl and narrated as he recorded a video of her dying was discovered responsible of first-degree homicide on Thursday of killing her and one other Native girl.

The Anchorage jury returned a unanimous verdict towards Brian Steven Smith after deliberating for lower than two hours.

Smith, a 52-year-old from South Africa, confirmed no response in courtroom and stared forward because the choose learn the jury’s verdict.

He was arrested after a lady stole his cellphone from his truck and found the grotesque footage from 2019. The lady, a intercourse employee who turned a key witness through the trial in Anchorage, then copied the footage to a reminiscence card she mentioned she had stolen and in the end turned it over to police, prosecutors mentioned.

Smith later confessed to killing one other Alaska Native girl whose physique had been discovered earlier however had been misidentified.

Smith was discovered responsible of all 14 fees, together with two counts of first-degree homicide within the deaths of Kathleen Henry in 2019 and Veronica Abouchuk, both in 2018 or 2019. He was additionally convicted of a number of counts of sexual assault.

Sentencing was set for July 12 and July 19. Alaska doesn’t have the dying penalty.

Kin remark   

Freda Dan, who’s a part of the Abouchuk household by marriage, sat by the trial practically day by day and gave excessive marks to regulation enforcement and the judicial system for his or her thorough work.

“We weren’t invisible, and we’re individuals,” mentioned Dan, who’s from the village of Stebbing, including they had been handled with respect. Different members of the family declined to remark.

Additionally attending the trial was Smith’s spouse, Stephanie Bissland of Anchorage.

“He was excellent for me, however he had one other life, I assume,” she mentioned, including his issues had been doubtless exacerbated by heavy consuming.

Bissland mentioned when he was first jailed, he was in a really darkish place. “He obtained higher,” she mentioned.

She plans to jot down him and go to him when he’s transferred to a jail. Divorce is just not within the playing cards. “I mentioned my vows,” she mentioned.

Particulars on the murders

Jurors stayed within the courtroom Thursday after delivering the decision to listen to extra proof about whether or not the first-degree homicide conviction concerned aggravating elements. They later discovered the homicide concerned “substantial bodily torture” after listening to extra arguments from attorneys. That may topic Smith to a compulsory 99-year sentence.

For Abouchuk’s homicide, he faces 30 to 99 years.

The graphic movies had been solely proven to the jury through the three-week trial, however audio might be heard within the gallery, the place some heard Henry gasping for breath earlier than dying. Prosecutors mentioned he drove round with Henry’s physique at the back of his pickup for 2 days earlier than dumping her corpse on a rural highway south of Anchorage.

The video by no means reveals the person’s face however his distinctive accent is heard on the tape. He narrates as if to an viewers and urges Henry to die as she’s repeatedly overwhelmed and strangled in an Anchorage resort room.

“In my films, everyone at all times dies,” the voice says on one video. “What are my followers going to consider me? Individuals have to know when they’re being serial-killed.”

“Homicide on the Midtown Marriott”   

Henry and Abouchuk had been from small villages in western Alaska, Henry from Eek and Abouchuk from Stebbins. Each ladies had skilled homelessness.

Authorities say Henry was the sufferer whose dying was recorded on the TownePlace Suites by Marriott, a resort in midtown Anchorage. Smith was registered to remain from Sept. 2 to Sept. 4, 2019; the primary photographs displaying her physique had been time-stamped at about 1 a.m. on Sept. 4, police mentioned.

The final photographs on the cardboard had been taken early on Sept. 6 and confirmed Henry’s physique at the back of a black pickup, in line with charging paperwork. Location knowledge confirmed that on the time the picture was taken, Smith’s telephone was close to Rainbow Valley Highway, alongside the Seward Freeway south of Anchorage, the identical space the place Henry’s physique was discovered a number of weeks later, police mentioned.

Valerie Casler, the lady who offered the pictures to police, has modified her story through the years about how she got here into possession of the SD reminiscence card.

She first claimed she discovered the cardboard, labeled “Homicide on the Midtown Marriott,” on the bottom.

Later, she claimed she stole the cardboard from the middle console of Smith’s pickup once they had been on what she described as a “date,” however then modified it to say she stole Smith’s telephone from the truck.

When she charged the telephone, she mentioned she discovered 46 photographs and one video on it, and later transferred these to an SD card she stole from a division retailer. She then labeled the cardboard. Authorities later mentioned the SD card contained 39 photographs and 12 movies.

Throughout an eight-hour police interrogation on the Anchorage airport, Smith confessed to police that he additionally killed Abouchuk. Smith had picked her up in Anchorage whereas his spouse was out of city. He mentioned she smelled, however Abouchuk refused to take a bathe when he requested.

He turned upset, retrieved a pistol from the storage and shot her within the head earlier than dumping her physique north of Anchorage. He advised police the place the physique was left, and authorities later discovered a cranium with a bullet wound there.