Man found guilty in Alaska Native woman’s killing that was recorded on video
A South African man who tortured an Alaska Native woman and narrated as he recorded a video of her dying was found guilty of first-degree murder on Thursday for killing her and another Native woman.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A South African man who tortured an Alaska Native woman and narrated as he recorded a video of her dying was found guilty of first-degree murder on Thursday for killing her and another Native woman.
The Anchorage jury returned a unanimous verdict against Brian Steven Smith after deliberating for less than two hours.
Smith, a 52-year-old from South Africa, showed no reaction in court and stared ahead as the judge read the jury’s verdict. He was arrested after a woman stole his cellphone from his truck and discovered the gruesome footage from 2019. The woman, a sex worker who became a key witness during the trial in Anchorage, then copied the footage to a memory card and ultimately turned it over to police, prosecutors said.
Smith later confessed to killing another Alaska Native woman whose body had been found earlier but had been misidentified.
Smith was found guilty of all 14 charges, including two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kathleen Henry in 2019 and Veronica Abouchuk, either in 2018 or 2019. He was also convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault.
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