Brian Steven Smith: The Memory Card Murders

Brian Steven Smith emigrated from South Africa and settled in Anchorage, where he did maintenance work for Marriott and lived with his wife in the College Village neighborhood. In 2018 and 2019 he picked up women living on the city’s streets. Veronica Abouchuk, 52, came from Stebbins on Norton Sound. Kathleen Jo Henry, 30, came from Eek, a Yup’ik village near the Kuskokwim River. Both were Alaska Native mothers.

In early September 2019 Smith killed Kathleen in a midtown TownePlace Suites room, filmed it on his phone and dumped her body beside the Seward Highway. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen weeks later. At the end of the month a woman gave police an SD card with 39 photos and 12 videos taken from Smith’s phone, and a detective recognized his South African accent. Kathleen’s remains were found October 2, and Smith was arrested at the airport on October 8. Under questioning he admitted shooting Veronica in 2018, and a skull found near the Old Glenn Highway proved to be hers.

On February 22, 2024, an Anchorage jury found Smith guilty on all 14 counts, among them both first-degree murder charges. Judge Kevin Saxby sentenced him on July 12, 2024, to 226 years, and he appealed that October. A woman pictured on another of his phones has never been identified.