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In
each case, the victims' remains were found dumped in wooded
outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. The suspect,
Brian Steven Smith, 48, has confessed to both slayings to
police, according to a bail memorandum filed by prosecutors on
Thursday.
At a news conference in Anchorage, officials declined to link
Smith to a larger wave of homicides, sexual assaults, domestic
violence and disappearances among indigenous women in Alaska and
Canada. But they said additional charges were possible as the
investigation continues.
Smith was arrested on Oct. 8 at the Ted Stevens International
Airport in Anchorage and was arraigned the following day on
murder and other charges in the Sept. 4 torture and slaying of
30-year-old Kathleen Jo Henry.
Her body was found on Oct. 2 in a secluded area just south of
the city.
Smith was indicted on an additional murder charge on Thursday in
the fatal shooting more than a year ago of Veronica Abouchuk,
52, who was last seen by family in July 2018 and was described
in a missing-persons report as being homeless.
Authorities said the location Smith gave police for disposing of
her remains matched the wooded site north of Anchorage where
Alaska state troopers recovered her skull with a gunshot wound
in April.
Investigators were led to Smith after someone found and turned
over to police a digital camera card containing video of a naked
woman being beaten and strangled, and a man laughing and yelling
at her to die in "an English sounding accent," the bail
memorandum said.
The video card, containing 39 still images and 12 videos in all,
was labeled "Homicide at midtown Marriott," according to the
document.
The memorandum said Smith was linked to the videos by a
detective who recognized him from another case, and that Smith
admitted under questioning that he was the man in the footage
and had disposed of the victim's body.
Smith, a white immigrant from South Africa who has lived in
Alaska for five years, is married to a U.S. citizen and became a
naturalized American citizen last month.
Deputy District Attorney Brittany Dunlop declined to offer a
possible motive for the two killings, or to characterize Smith
as a suspected serial predator.
“We take every case and every victim as they come,” Dunlop told
reporters. “These were two Alaska Native women, and I know that
hits home here in Alaska, and we’re cognizant of that.”
In June, a Canadian government inquiry into widespread violence
against aboriginal women and girls concluded that the more than
1,000 such homicides documented between 1980 and 2012 amounted
to a national genocide.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has declared a public-safety
emergency in rural Alaska, pledging tens of millions of dollars
in federal grants to combat sexual assault, child abuse and
other violent crime.
Asked whether Smith might be tied to other crimes, Anchorage
Police Chief Justin Doll said, “That’s something that we’ll
certainly look at as our investigation continues.” He added that
several law enforcement agencies were involved in the
investigation, including the FBI.
Smith has been ordered held on $750,000 bail, though prosecutors
were seeking to raise his bond to $2 million. He faces an
arraignment on the second indictment on Monday.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Steve
Gorman, Robert Birsel)
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