Episode 320

Speaker 1 Stagecoach California's Country Music Festival returns to Indio, California this April 24th through 26th.

Speaker 1 Enjoy three full throttle days and nights with today's biggest country music stars, featuring Cody Johnson,

Speaker 3 Lainey Wilson,

Speaker 3 and Post Malone,

Speaker 3 Bailey Zimmerman, Riley Green, Brooks and Dunn, Ella Langley, Little Big Town, Warren Ziders, Nate Smith, and more. Your best weekend of the year awaits.

Speaker 3 Passes are on sale now at Stagecoachfestival.com.

Speaker 1 This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Speaker 6 Leaves are falling, and so are our prices.

Speaker 7 Welcome to the Floor Stores Fall Sale.

Speaker 2 Now through October 14th, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Speaker 9 Plus two years' interest-free financing.

Speaker 4 And we pay your sales tax.

Speaker 7 The floor stores fall sale.

Speaker 10 Cooler days, hotter deals, and better floors.

Speaker 4 Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

Speaker 12 The Floor Store, your Bay Area flooring authority.

Speaker 13 Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 For fuck's sake, are you still alive?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 15 It's been like what 20 minutes, so

Speaker 15 I think it's time we finish this fucking drop, bitch.

Speaker 14 All right, bitch,

Speaker 14 Get your popcorn ready because we've got some old school sword scale bullshit coming your way.

Speaker 14 This one's gonna

Speaker 14 give you a little nostalgia. Episode 320, here we go.

Speaker 1 This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Speaker 6 Leaves are falling, and so are our prices.

Speaker 7 Welcome to the Floor Store's fall sale.

Speaker 2 Now through October 14th, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Speaker 9 Plus, two years interest-free financing.

Speaker 4 And we pay your sales tax.

Speaker 7 The Floor Stores Fall Sale.

Speaker 10 Cooler days, hotter deals, and better floors.

Speaker 4 Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

Speaker 12 The Floor Store, your Bay Area Flooring Authority.

Speaker 14 We sure do love to talk about Florida here.

Speaker 14 It's kind of my thing.

Speaker 14 Probably because that's where all the nutbags go to do their nutbaggery.

Speaker 14 But there's another state in this great union that's a haven for psychos, weirdos, and straight-up degenerates that are looking for a place to hide in plain sight.

Speaker 14 And no, I'm not talking about California.

Speaker 14 Anchorage is Alaska's largest city, but it isn't the sprawling metropolis the lower 48 might expect.

Speaker 14 It's a place of contradictions, a city of modern industry and glass towers, yet still haunted by the lawlessness of the frontier.

Speaker 14 Here, The wilderness isn't just beyond the city limits. It lurks in the streets, in the shadows, in the hearts of those who hunt.

Speaker 14 Tourists pass through, snapping photos of moose and suburban neighborhoods, never seeing the harsher reality beneath the postcard-perfect cityscape. Anchorage has a problem.

Speaker 14 A problem that thrives on Spinard's sidewalks, in the shadows of the Midtown Mall, and in the encampments that spread beneath the Glen Highway overpass.

Speaker 14 A problem that makes victims of the vulnerable, where survival isn't just about enduring the cold,

Speaker 14 but also the violence that comes with being unseen.

Speaker 14 A problem we've talked about here many times.

Speaker 14 Homelessness.

Speaker 16 Alaska native women

Speaker 16 disappearing.

Speaker 16 Gone, dead.

Speaker 16 And then next thing you know,

Speaker 16 you hear him on the news.

Speaker 14 The crisis is impossible to ignore. In the winter, the cold kills.
In the summer, the streets swell with the unhoused. People searching for shelter, safety, or simply the next moment of peace.

Speaker 16 This population is preyed upon by people who want to

Speaker 16 harm them in some way, take any resources they may have. They're a very, very vulnerable population.

Speaker 14 Among them, Alaskan native people are disproportionately represented. Is that what they say? Represented? It's a nice, Karen-like way to say it when you aren't close to it.

Speaker 14 It severs them from the land their ancestors thrived on and leaves them to navigate a city that too often turns its back on them. The reasons are many.

Speaker 14 Generational trauma, displacement, addiction is a big one, and poverty. But the result is the same.
A population visible and invisible at the same time. Ignored until something terrible happens.

Speaker 14 And in September 2019,

Speaker 14 something terrible did indeed happen.

Speaker 14 It started with an SD card.

Speaker 16 It said some really bad pictures. Okay, so it's got pictures of a homicide?

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Okay, how do you know that?

Speaker 16 Because I looked at it. And where did you find it? I found it on the ground.
I thought there was music on it, so I put it in my phone to see if it had some music in it. Okay.
There was no music on it.

Speaker 16 And then it was titled. There's a title on it.
It says homicide. And it has all these pictures of this lady.
And it shows the Marriott Hotel.

Speaker 14 The responding officer arrived at the medical clinic on Lake Otis Parkway, where he met Valerie Cassler.

Speaker 14 The call came in as a suspicious circumstances report, prompting a quick response from law enforcement. But the officer remained objective, neither discounting her claim nor fully believing it.

Speaker 14 You see, the idea that someone would find a random SD card with photographic evidence of a homicide was

Speaker 14 far-fetched. To say the least.
More far-fetched than thinking it was real was the idea that whoever took these photos would be careless enough to lose them.

Speaker 14 The officer had seen plenty of hoaxes before. He braced himself for another.

Speaker 14 But then the first image loaded. He scrolled through the pictures on the SD card.
Each photo was more gruesome than the last.

Speaker 14 Very quickly, he started to believe every word Valerie said.

Speaker 16 This is very disturbing. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 14 The officer didn't let it show, but the videos and images on the SD card were some of the most disturbing he'd ever seen.

Speaker 14 He knew this warranted an investigation and that detectives would want to speak with Valerie.

Speaker 14 A short time later, she sat down in a small gray room at the Anchorage Police Department, where Detective Lee sat across from her.

Speaker 14 The tiny woman, wrapped in layers of worn clothing, hinted at long nights in the cold.

Speaker 14 Her face was lined with exhaustion. She had spent years navigating a system designed to forget women like her.

Speaker 14 But today, she was holding something no one could ignore. On the night of September 28, 2019, Valerie Castler was walking through Anchorage near the Cars grocery store on 13th Avenue.

Speaker 14 She often searched the area for discarded items, such as broken cell phones, and picked up items she thought had a little bit of value. That night, she found a small SD card on the ground.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I thought cool. I found another SD card.
Maybe there's more music on it because I found one a couple months ago. It had like 325 songs on it.

Speaker 14 The SD card was not like the last one.

Speaker 16 There ain't no music on that card. It shows some really sick shit on there.

Speaker 16 And it's been freaking me out

Speaker 16 because I can't seem to get the pictures out of my head.

Speaker 14 The images haunted Valerie. Ever since she saw them, she'd been having nightmares.
Still, Detective Lee needed her to describe what she saw.

Speaker 16 Okay, it showed her in the hotel room on the floor, and he's beating her up, he's slapping her, Stephanie, he's talking to her the whole time. And then on the videos,

Speaker 16 you don't see no face, he doesn't have any face, but it is

Speaker 16 um, his accent is like Polish, it's it's foreign. Okay,

Speaker 16 what's he saying?

Speaker 16 Some of them would be like, Oh, this is is chapter one,

Speaker 16 like

Speaker 16 chapter one, take one.

Speaker 16 And then there was one where he says something, no, you must want to get murdered tonight because you're not leaving this hotel because I'm going to murder you. Okay.

Speaker 16 He's like slapping her and fondling her,

Speaker 16 but she's not really

Speaker 16 seeing anything. She's not making no noises or anything.

Speaker 14 Instead of music, Valerie was met with something wholly unexpected.

Speaker 14 As she scrolled through the contents of the card, she saw a series of images and videos depicting what can only be described as torture and murder.

Speaker 16 And then the one that

Speaker 16 I presume that where he killed her is he had this thing around her neck. It looked like a wire or something.

Speaker 16 And then next thing you know, he he goes like he crosses them and then you hear this

Speaker 16 and then it's like she wasn't moving or anymore or anything

Speaker 14 she said she had the card for two days but a couple of reasons kept her from coming to the police first she was distrustful of them because of her troubled past She didn't want to get into trouble just trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 14 Second, she wasn't even sure if the contents of the SD card were even real.

Speaker 14 People have been known to act out some crazy sexual fantasies.

Speaker 16 Because it looks like the tail gates down and he's got her body in the back of the truck.

Speaker 16 How come you didn't call us right away when you saw it?

Speaker 16 I don't know.

Speaker 16 I'm not judging you or anything. I'm not

Speaker 16 just a question that's going to come up.

Speaker 16 I didn't know if it was real or

Speaker 16 if Sony was

Speaker 16 staging something because I've been listening to the news and watching the news and

Speaker 16 I didn't hear anything on the news about a woman missing or, you know, or them finding a body or anything. So I wasn't sure.

Speaker 16 But the more I thought about it, and I couldn't go to sleep at night, I was having nightmares.

Speaker 16 And then I started thinking, well, it could be real.

Speaker 16 You know, just because if they haven't found a body, doesn't mean that it didn't really happen.

Speaker 16 Because they were too gruesome. Sure.

Speaker 14 She watched the news and read the papers every chance she got, waiting to see the headline, body found.

Speaker 14 She hoped she never would.

Speaker 14 Then she could believe it was all fake.

Speaker 14 But the longer she sat with those images in her mind, the more she thought they had to be real.

Speaker 16 And you said you could hear the male's voice. Could you ever see any part of his body in his anything? No, no, no face at all just his feet

Speaker 16 what does he look like there's one on there where he's got his foot on her throat and then there there's another one where it just it looks like they he's going in the hotel

Speaker 16 and the hotel floor is like hardwood floor and he's got like a pair of new shoes or slippers or something on okay

Speaker 16 but that's all you hear is his voice okay and he's talking to her. Okay.

Speaker 16 Just rambling on, you know, and then there's parts in there where, oh, bitch, you get your ass beat because you drank all my alcohol, bitch, I gotta go find another bitch because you're gonna be a non-cooperative.

Speaker 16 But she never moved.

Speaker 14 In the videos, a man with an unfamiliar accent is seen beating, berating, and torturing a woman. in a hotel room.
The woman is completely naked and seemingly unconscious. Her face is swollen.

Speaker 14 Her lips are bruised and purple. Her left eye is swollen shut, with blood trickling from under the lid.
The man calls her names and stands on her neck, all while filming it, seemingly for an audience.

Speaker 16 Can you describe the female, like her race, what she looks like? She looks native. Okay, how old do you think she was?

Speaker 16 I don't know, looks like she has kids. Why is that? Because she's got the pooch.

Speaker 14 Valerie didn't know the woman. Not that she could have recognized her with all the swelling anyway.

Speaker 14 The only leads were a strange accent, an accidental photo of the man's shoes, and a photo of his truck.

Speaker 16 All I want to know is when you do guys find out, can you let me know?

Speaker 16 Yeah, oh yeah, no, I can, yeah, I can let you know. Kind of,

Speaker 16 I'd like to know her name and can find out who she is, because, you know, she's probably related to somebody out there that I know, you know.

Speaker 14 The SD card showed everything. The torture, the suffering, the final moments of a woman's life.

Speaker 14 But it didn't show her name. She wasn't in any of the missing persons reports.
No one was looking for her. The investigation had hit a dead end.

Speaker 14 Until a U.S. Marshal recognized her face.

Speaker 14 Battered, swollen, but familiar. He reached out to a corrections officer at Highland Mountain Correctional Facility for confirmation.
She had been processed there before.

Speaker 14 Her name was Kathleen Henry.

Speaker 14 She was 30 years old, 5'3, with long black hair. Like Valerie, She had spent years trapped in a rotation of homeless shelters, streets, and survival.
Her family last saw her in August at a shelter.

Speaker 14 After that, she was seen in Fairview, a rough part of town where Anchorage's homeless gathered. She was struggling, but she was alive.

Speaker 14 Then

Speaker 14 she wasn't. On October 2nd, nearly a month after her murder, railroad workers made a grisly discovery.
Kathleen's remains were found near mile 108 of the Seward Highway.

Speaker 14 Her body was already decomposed, partially taken by the wilderness. Animals had scattered her remains.
Her fingers and toes were missing. Her left foot was gone.

Speaker 14 A red bag sat nearby, tangled with strands of her long black hair and scalp.

Speaker 14 Kathleen Henry's life didn't end the day she was murdered. It ended Long before that, when the world stopped seeing her.

Speaker 14 Her death was the inevitable result of a broken system. One that cycles vulnerable women through jails and shelters, but never offers them a way out.

Speaker 14 A system where the unhoused commit crimes of survival. Shoplifting for food, sleeping in abandoned buildings, resorting to prostitution.

Speaker 14 Yeah, not sex work. Prostitution.

Speaker 14 Well, predators hunt them in the shadows. She was one of the many lost, forgotten, and disposable in the eyes of society.
And the terrifying truth is there are countless others like her.

Speaker 14 Look around.

Speaker 14 How many more Kathleen Henrys are out there right now,

Speaker 14 waiting to be found?

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Speaker 1 This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Speaker 6 Leaves are falling, and so are our prices.

Speaker 7 Welcome to the Floor Stores Fall Sale.

Speaker 2 Now through October 14th, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Speaker 9 Plus two years interest-free financing.

Speaker 4 And we pay your sales tax.

Speaker 7 The Floor Stores Fall Sale.

Speaker 10 Cooler days, hotter deals, and better floors.

Speaker 4 Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

Speaker 12 The Floor Store, your Bay Area flooring authority.

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Speaker 14 The Anchorage police found themselves in possession of an SD card with evidence of murder. The videos showed the final moments of Kathleen Henry's life, but they didn't show the man behind the camera.

Speaker 14 And without a suspect, all the evidence in the world meant nothing. Police knew Kathleen hadn't just disappeared.
She had been erased. There is no missing persons report.

Speaker 14 No family is searching for her. Only the system recognized her because it had seen too many women like her before.

Speaker 14 Processed, incarcerated, released, and forgotten. And that wasn't unusual.
Indigenous women in Alaska are murdered at rates 10 times higher than the national average.

Speaker 14 When homelessness is added to the equation, the risks multiply. Kathleen's body confirmed what they already knew.

Speaker 14 Now they needed to find the man who put her there, and the SD card was about to give them their first clue.

Speaker 14 When homicide detective David Cordy was assigned to the case, he didn't immediately know why the case seemed so familiar.

Speaker 14 But after reviewing the videos, he started to recognize the man's method of violence. The control, the torture, the strangling.
Kathleen Henry's murder wasn't random.

Speaker 14 It wasn't a heat-of-the-moment crime. It was planned, controlled, performed.

Speaker 14 The footage suggested that the man behind the camera had done this before.

Speaker 14 A year earlier, Detective Cordy worked on another case where a woman reported that her boyfriend had dark and disturbing sexual fantasies. At first, she was into it.

Speaker 16 I like rough sets.

Speaker 16 If you put your hand on my neck, I like that. If you can press down a little bit, that's good.
If you try to kill me, I'm going to break your nose. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 16 he took a little too far a couple days ago.

Speaker 14 Alicia Youngblood, an Alaskan native, met this married man at work and before long started seeing him. It was a sexually charged relationship from the start.

Speaker 14 They shared taboo fantasies and rough sex scenarios. Alicia thought it was innocent roleplay until he shared a video clip.

Speaker 16 He told me he killed her two or three days ago. He didn't show me the video until last night.
And then the pictures, the pictures

Speaker 16 are

Speaker 16 her breasts. And he's grabbing them so hard.

Speaker 16 I mean, like really hard. They're coming up and they're, what is that called? Fatiguing and veined.
And he's got them so hard that the blood is pulling.

Speaker 14 This wasn't the SD card. This was a year before Valerie Cassler would make her discovery.

Speaker 16 He said he was standing over her like this and he felt like

Speaker 16 a hunter standing over his kill like a lion

Speaker 16 over a zebra. And he said he just sat there and puffed his chest out and he just felt so

Speaker 16 empowered.

Speaker 16 I keep seeing him over and over doing that to that girl. And I could hear her bodily fluids as he's jamming, you know, and he's slapping down on her legs and, you know,

Speaker 16 she's just so lifeless. That could have been any of our little girls

Speaker 16 That he thought it was okay to fist while she's dead. Him showing you this video, is that kind of his...

Speaker 16 Does he get his rocks off that where then he wants to have sex with you?

Speaker 16 Yeah, he was funny with me. Okay.
And I had to pretend like I liked it. Did he say why he did it?

Speaker 16 To release anger, to vent, to get it out of him.

Speaker 14 He showed her pictures and videos of a woman who looked dead. He wasn't just into rough sex.

Speaker 14 He claimed he killed her.

Speaker 16 And he just looked at me and he's like, you know,

Speaker 16 I kicked her real hard in her pussy, trying to break her bone so I could get that whole fist in there, but that bone is tough.

Speaker 16 He's like, you would not believe how tough a pubic bone is. He said, I put my foot way up in there, and I was like, oh, yeah?

Speaker 16 He's like, yeah.

Speaker 16 He said that when she died,

Speaker 16 everything released.

Speaker 16 she pooped or whatever and her vagina opened up he said it and he

Speaker 16 he's

Speaker 16 he made his mouth like this and he grabbed my finger and he said

Speaker 16 that's what it felt like

Speaker 16 okay

Speaker 16 So wouldn't y'all believe him if you were on the other side of this? Would that lead you to believe that he's inside of her after she passed That is that what you're saying? Is that

Speaker 16 yeah, he was with our hands. He said he didn't put his penis in her, okay, but a water bottle in his hands.

Speaker 16 He said he got butter out of the fridge and put them that helps mudge the fingerprints and helps him get his hand in there because he wants to put a fist in there. So, he got butter out of the fridge,

Speaker 16 the water bottle I didn't see, but I did ask him why, why are your hands so shiny? You know, he's like, That's butter. I got butter.

Speaker 14 As soon as she saw the images, she tensed up.

Speaker 16 You have to understand just a week ago I was in love with this man.

Speaker 14 Suddenly, all her love for this man was replaced with fear. But she couldn't let him know that.

Speaker 14 So she kept playing along.

Speaker 16 I let him do things to me that prove my loyalty and trust. Does that make sense? Sexually? Like, put myself in a position that, you know, made me vulnerable.

Speaker 16 And he thinks that because I've done that, that I trust him and now he trusts me. And okay, you are about to send his text messages.
I want you to remember that I am playing into this.

Speaker 16 I am not a sick person. I am not enjoying any of what I told him.

Speaker 14 She thought they were indulging in taboo fantasies, but as soon as he showed her how far he was willing to go, Alicia got scared. But she was on his good side.
bonded through the kinky sex.

Speaker 14 So she kept playing along for her safety. She faked jealousy.
She scolded him for being with another woman, even if he did kill her.

Speaker 14 He now had to make it up to her. Alicia told him he wasn't allowed to do this again unless she was there too.

Speaker 16 So you are role-playing into the park, and you would like to be part of this next event. Yeah, I'm his ultimate fantasy at this point.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 16 Men, I'm telling you.

Speaker 16 When it comes to sexual drives, I tell you what, This man has, I've never seen anyone,

Speaker 16 maybe

Speaker 16 a 14-year-old boy, but who cannot quit playing with his self. I mean, he's every his every waking moment is about sex.
And,

Speaker 16 you know, I knew he had fetishes. Is he sadistic? Does he like pain and torture on people, or does he just...
Yes.

Speaker 14 Alicia believed. What he showed her was real, and it scared the shit out of her.
She played along, but not just for her safety. She wanted proof, so she could go straight to the cops.

Speaker 14 Unfortunately, she didn't have copies of the images or the video. All she had were some filthy text conversations that didn't prove anything.

Speaker 16 I know what I saw was real.

Speaker 16 It'd be better if I saw his face, you know, but I know what I saw is real.

Speaker 16 And I know that him telling me about it is real. Apparently, there's other clips.
I believe you almost 100%.

Speaker 16 I never believe everybody 100%. Never.
I haven't met a person on the planet that's 100% truthful all the time.

Speaker 16 But right now, as far as concrete facts and evidence, we have very little. We have your text messages.
That's it. We need more.
Yeah.

Speaker 16 So if he is lying to me, and this is all bullshit, he's good. But

Speaker 16 I don't think he's lying.

Speaker 16 What next sound is he? He's South African. Okay.
Yeah, but he'll have a British accent,

Speaker 16 heavy British accent. Remember, I told you he he had a really

Speaker 16 time together. I mean, other than the fact that he's a serial killer, he's a funny guy.
We crack each other up all day.

Speaker 14 Her story was disturbing, but there was no proof of a crime being committed. The images he showed her could have come from anywhere.
The internet is, after all, a... big scary place.

Speaker 14 To Detective Cordy's surprise, she called him the very next day, claiming her boyfriend showed her where he dumped the body.

Speaker 14 The site was far from town, hidden in a small clearing in the woods off the main road. When they arrived, there wasn't a body there.

Speaker 14 Alicia said her boyfriend thought maybe a bear had taken it, since it had been there for a long time.

Speaker 14 Detective Cordy found this unlikely but followed Alicia as she tried to find the landmarks from the pictures. They searched for a while, but didn't see anything or smell any decomposition.

Speaker 14 If there was a body, it was gone. Or maybe the guy was just making the whole thing up for some disturbing story fun time.

Speaker 14 Alicia hoped the murder was just a fantasy, but she feared it was real. Detective Cordy needed more evidence, though.
He returned to the site with cadaver dogs and checked her boyfriend's phone data.

Speaker 14 The cadaver dogs found nothing, and the phone records showed her boyfriend was not near the site on that day, the day she said he dumped the body.

Speaker 14 The conversations between Alicia and her boyfriend seemed to be role-play fantasies. Dark ones, but still just fantasies.
No body, no crime.

Speaker 14 A year later, Detective Cordy doubted that assumption. Now he had an SD card with photos and videos matching Alicia's account.

Speaker 14 Her boyfriend, Brian Stephen Smith, a South African immigrant, had a thick accent like Valerie described and drove a black Ford Ranger, just like the one in one of the videos.

Speaker 14 Detective Cordy looked up Brian Smith's DMV records. The video showed the partial plate number

Speaker 14 87,

Speaker 14 which matched Brian's plate number, FSL878.

Speaker 14 But one thing was bugging him.

Speaker 16 If it's any other way you found it, I don't really care. I just, we need to know the truth because this is a, obviously you saw what was on that SDG.
I found it on the ground.

Speaker 16 Honest to God, I found it on the ground. We're not worried about anything other than where that card came from.

Speaker 16 Okay?

Speaker 16 That guy picked me up that night.

Speaker 16 Okay. The guy in the videos?

Speaker 16 Yeah, he picked me up. Okay, can you tell me about that? Um, he picked me up.
I was on my way home. It was raining.
He picked me up. He wanted to do a date.

Speaker 16 He went to the chevron, I mean, to the shell station,

Speaker 16 and it was in his car on his dash. And I just picked it up.
That's how I got it.

Speaker 14 Valerie hadn't told the truth at first.

Speaker 14 Not just because of the prostitution and theft, but because women like her, homeless and struggling with addiction, knew how easily they could be ignored or punished instead of helped.

Speaker 14 Kathleen had disappeared without notice, and Valerie was afraid that this might be her fate as well.

Speaker 14 But with a murderer on the loose, the cops didn't care about her past. They just needed to stop him.

Speaker 16 He's white.

Speaker 16 Okay, okay.

Speaker 16 What kind of vehicle was he in? It was a truck. It was a black truck.

Speaker 16 It was a black truck, and like the camper, like how I described the camper. It was a white camper.

Speaker 14 Valerie's full truth confirmed the detective's suspicions. Brian Smith was their guy.
Quickly, the police coordinated with the FBI and Homeland Security to track him down.

Speaker 14 They found him on vacation in Washington, D.C., of all places, with his wife in tow.

Speaker 14 His scheduled return to Anchorage was on October 8th. A multi-agency operation was set up and plans were made to simultaneously serve search warrants on Brian's person, house, truck, and workplace.

Speaker 14 He was arrested as soon as he stepped up to the baggage claim. At the same time, detectives were in D.C.
confronting his wife.

Speaker 14 As soon as poor Stephanie Bislin stepped out of a local restaurant, she was greeted by local detectives and detectives from Anchorage.

Speaker 14 She asked for their credentials, as everyone should, by the way,

Speaker 14 and then agreed to talk.

Speaker 16 So, the things that we

Speaker 16 would like to talk to you about involve your husband, perhaps. He did just become a citizen.
And

Speaker 16 I think it was, oh, there's Stephanie, I should know.

Speaker 16 It was,

Speaker 16 I think, the Friday before we came down here. Okay.
It was.

Speaker 16 So, yeah. So

Speaker 16 his truck was broken into. And it took his brace fist that had all his

Speaker 16 South African documents. So that's where he's from.
Yes. South Africa.

Speaker 16 Did you guys meet in South Africa? No! Playing a game.

Speaker 16 He met playing a game? Yes.

Speaker 14 Stephanie met Brian Smith online. He was 23 years younger than her.
They played a game called Realm of Empires together and hit it off.

Speaker 14 He managed a small hotel in his home country, and his accent gave him somewhat of a die-antwood mystique.

Speaker 14 Flash forward to the present, they had been married for five years, and Brian had just gotten his U.S. citizenship.

Speaker 16 Are we talking, Aboria? Is that who you're wanting to talk about? Yes. So, did you guys ever, do you guys ever have your moments?

Speaker 16 I think every relationship, right, every marriage has your moments, right?

Speaker 16 How are those? How would you describe that?

Speaker 16 Excuse me.

Speaker 16 He tends to

Speaker 16 slam up.

Speaker 16 He'll get time and he might leave. And then he'll come back in a way.

Speaker 16 Calmed out.

Speaker 16 Has he ever threatened you or been or made made you feel unsafe

Speaker 16 in any way? I have a figured a couple of times the reason that he left was he was getting so bad that he might so he left. And then you're talking about

Speaker 16 that he might hit me.

Speaker 14 She revealed that Brian had a bit of a temper, but was never violent with her. He would leave rather than argue.
The only thing is, sometimes he would leave for several days without a word.

Speaker 16 Do you know if he happened to go up to

Speaker 16 or go out of town or do something around the first part of September?

Speaker 16 Can you tell me more?

Speaker 16 So there are some concerns that we have that he may or may not be involved with.

Speaker 16 And so I'm just trying to

Speaker 16 find out.

Speaker 16 We had a fight. I don't remember exactly what it was.
So he was saying

Speaker 16 he was done for four days.

Speaker 14 She answered their questions, slowly realizing the situation was way more serious than they were letting on.

Speaker 14 The questions became more personal, and Stephanie felt a sense of fear as she wondered what this was all about.

Speaker 16 Can I ask you something really personal? Yes.

Speaker 16 How's the sex?

Speaker 16 None for a long time. Okay.
My cat looks a long time. Maybe two years.
Okay.

Speaker 16 And there wasn't a lot anyway. Okay.

Speaker 16 Is and why is that?

Speaker 16 I think

Speaker 16 he thinks he was hurting me because he's heavy.

Speaker 16 I don't think anybody told him how to be with a girl.

Speaker 14 That's for damn sure.

Speaker 16 Was somebody saying that

Speaker 16 he did something sexual?

Speaker 16 There are reports that he may have hurt some women. Really? In Anchorage.
In Anchorage?

Speaker 16 Did you ever feel like he may have been cheating on you? No, actually.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 16 So your husband right now is being interviewed in Anchorage by police detectives

Speaker 16 and he is being arrested for a homicide?

Speaker 16 No.

Speaker 16 Of a woman?

Speaker 16 I'm sorry. I had to be the one to tell you this.

Speaker 16 Was it in my house when I was out? Was it on the bar? Was it on a work website?

Speaker 16 Was it on the side of the road? What

Speaker 16 I want to know.

Speaker 14 Stephanie seemed to be entirely in the dark about Brian's extramarital activities. She sat there stunned at the news.

Speaker 14 The man she had fallen in love with, helped immigrate to the U.S., married, and had been on vacation with, had been accused of murdering a woman.

Speaker 14 She couldn't reconcile what they were saying against the man she knew. She was utterly dumbfounded.

Speaker 14 While the seriousness of the matter sank in for Stephanie, Brian was just then sitting down with detectives.

Speaker 14 Brian was an unassuming man of average height, maybe a little shorter, and he had short graying hair. He had a large nose and a mouth that seemed to be in a perpetual frown.

Speaker 14 His eyes were trusting except when he furled his brow.

Speaker 14 Then there was a sense of the untamed behind his eyes.

Speaker 16 So like I said, we have some matters we need to clear up with you. And I just wanted to ask you, do you have any idea, any thought in your head about what we might want to talk to you today about?

Speaker 16 No, my truck was broken into.

Speaker 16 The thing we need to talk about is recently some property was brought to APD.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I was given that property. It's a little SD card.

Speaker 16 I viewed the images and the videos on that SD card. Yeah.

Speaker 16 And that's obviously it led. That's how I got to you.
That's how I figured out who you are. Okay.

Speaker 16 And that's what I'm, that's what we need to, we need to clear up that matter of what's on that SD card. Okay, what's on the card?

Speaker 14 The card showed a picture of his truck outside the Midtown Marriott.

Speaker 14 He admitted that it was his truck on the card.

Speaker 14 He might have used it for something, but he didn't know what they were getting at.

Speaker 14 So, detectives asked how often he stayed at the Marriott.

Speaker 16 A few weeks ago,

Speaker 16 probably a month or two, I

Speaker 16 had a fight with my wife and I went and stayed at

Speaker 16 a Marriott.

Speaker 16 So, about what date do you think that was? I can't remember. Okay.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 how many nights did you rent it? Do you have to, as an employee, do you have to rent the room or how does that work? Oh, yeah, I just rent the room, yeah.

Speaker 16 Okay, how many nights did you rent the room for?

Speaker 16 Probably about two nights. Yeah.

Speaker 16 What was your evening like?

Speaker 16 Well I

Speaker 16 after a fight with your wife you usually drink a hell of a lot so

Speaker 16 it did involve quite a bit of alcohol.

Speaker 16 Okay. Did you go anywhere?

Speaker 16 I probably would have driven around a bit, gone and put some food and stuff. Okay.
Did you meet up with anybody, talk to anybody?

Speaker 16 I probably would have.

Speaker 16 Between us, I have been known to sometimes go out and find

Speaker 16 a companion, you know. Okay.
Did you do that, you think, that particular night? I probably did. And like I told you, I viewed everything on the SD card, and I did see your truck on there.

Speaker 16 Is there anything else on that SD card that we need to talk about? No, no, no. You can show me the card and see.
You can show me what's on there if you want to. Okay.

Speaker 14 He slid a photo across the table.

Speaker 14 It was a picture of Kathleen.

Speaker 16 I just wanted to show you this picture to see if they would help you kind of refresh the girl from that night.

Speaker 16 No, that's not it. Not her.
Just short, short, short, short, behave right here. Okay.

Speaker 14 Then he slid a photo of his truck in front of the hotel across the table.

Speaker 16 I mentioned, I told you on there that how I found you is like, we saw you trucked. Is that

Speaker 16 my truck? That's your truck. Okay.
Okay. I recognize the rooms and my

Speaker 16 gray

Speaker 16 canopy.

Speaker 14 Then he slid a photo of a man's shoes across the table.

Speaker 16 Okay. Is it safe to say those are your feet in that picture?

Speaker 16 I don't. Okay.

Speaker 16 I'm not the only person that's got shoes like this.

Speaker 14 Detectives had seen all kinds of reactions before: anger, denial, fear, but Brian was different. When they showed him the picture, he only shrugged.

Speaker 14 The detective didn't dwell on his shoes, even though they were obviously the exact same pair he was wearing. Next, he slid more photos of Kathleen over, but these were from the SD card.

Speaker 16 So what can you tell me about these photos?

Speaker 16 This looks like someone that's really been beaten up, but okay.

Speaker 16 and these are these are images. These are these are images, but there's also videos of this person

Speaker 16 and another person in the room as well.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 that's why we're here to talk to you about.

Speaker 16 You think I hit this girl?

Speaker 16 Well, like I said, there's video, there's videos of it.

Speaker 16 There's video of it, there's audio of it, there's a voice that's I've been talking to you now for almost 30, 40 minutes, and I know it was your voice I could hear in the video.

Speaker 14 Then he played the video.

Speaker 19 Face the fucking camera bitch

Speaker 15 dying

Speaker 15 my hands in tired you fucker

Speaker 15 fucking hole

Speaker 16 just

Speaker 15 I'm being too nice

Speaker 15 Just fking

Speaker 15 this

Speaker 16 What's happening when that's

Speaker 16 what's happening is on this video on these images

Speaker 16 The person that's recording it is holding the recorder and is standing basically above this girl and and strangling her

Speaker 16 I don't I'm not I'm not denying I'm not I'm not I'm not saying you're lying, but I

Speaker 16 I don't remember anything like this

Speaker 16 So what you're saying is that definitely you talking on the recording on the audio there so that you don't recall that?

Speaker 16 That sounds well voice. I've got a unique voice.
Absolutely. it's english mixed with the the the dutch

Speaker 16 check

Speaker 14 mate

Speaker 14 brian was polite and presentable it was hard to believe he could do what he did but they had video evidence he seemed to have no recollection of doing anything like that to anyone

Speaker 14 then he paused swallowed hard and acknowledged how serious this was.

Speaker 16 Look, this sounds very serious. No matter what, I'm gonna be in deep shit.
So

Speaker 16 okay I'll tell you what I remember.

Speaker 16 The next day at work

Speaker 16 I saw something dripping out the back of my truck and I was like what the hell?

Speaker 16 And I opened up and there was somebody there underneath stuff there was a blue like a top at the back of my truck. I was thinking for a long time, what the hell, what must I do?

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 then the one night I thought, well,

Speaker 16 I've got to get rid of this. I can't.
And I drove out and I did. I went and dumped it.

Speaker 14 Detective Lee thanked him for his honesty and chose not to press the whole, I don't remember, excuse.

Speaker 14 Instead, he asked about Alicia Youngblood.

Speaker 16 I want to ask you to kind of shift gears a little bit. Alicia Youngblood, can we talk about her for a little bit?

Speaker 16 Okay. So why can't you tell me about Alicia?

Speaker 16 Shit. Don't tell my wife about it, please.

Speaker 16 Last year,

Speaker 16 we had a small little affair.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 16 I've seen the stuff you've chatted about,

Speaker 16 the stuff you and Alicia talked about, and that's what I want to talk to you about.

Speaker 16 Okay, Alicia,

Speaker 16 and I did do some fantasy stuff.

Speaker 16 I'm usually quite conservative about sex.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 then she'd asked me to to slap her you know

Speaker 16 and

Speaker 16 we'd make up we actually made up fantasies almost like this you know

Speaker 16 you know kill somebody yeah you know and rape and all that stuff we've we

Speaker 16 you guys would talk about that on the

Speaker 16 yeah yeah we fantasize you know but that's fantasy stuff that

Speaker 14 why are freaks like this never freaky with their own spouses That's what they're for.

Speaker 14 I mean, why even get married if you're not going to be open and honest about your kinks with the person you allegedly love?

Speaker 14 Listen to me, trying to rationalize a psychopath's actions. It's no wonder if some of you think I'm a dumbass.

Speaker 14 He assured Detective Lee that all the talk with Alicia was pure fantasy, which was hard to say considering the images and videos on the SD card.

Speaker 14 Detectives couldn't look past the striking similarities between Brian's fantasies and what he actually did in those videos.

Speaker 16 Is it possible that, like, on this evening,

Speaker 16 some of those fantasies were coming out? Because, I mean, that's exactly what you did on those videos. That's what you did to this girl, except that she wasn't enjoying it.

Speaker 16 And you were talking to her. I mean,

Speaker 16 that's my voice.

Speaker 16 You were talking to her clearly as we're talking right now.

Speaker 16 And pointing out things and

Speaker 16 laughing and saying things. And

Speaker 16 in my movies, sadly, everybody dies.

Speaker 16 Bitch, what are my followers gonna think of you?

Speaker 16 People need to know when they're being serial killed. These are things you're saying to her while you're doing that.
Well, I would have said that. That's why we're going to say things like it.

Speaker 16 You don't remember this particular one because you've killed so many, you've tell her that she's being serial killed. No.

Speaker 16 Do we need to be investigating you for killing people here, killing people in South Africa? Do we need to, I mean.

Speaker 16 No.

Speaker 16 that's the thing with Alicia about killing people. That's just me and her trying to outdo each other on it.
But you tell her the same thing.

Speaker 16 That's what you tell her. Yeah, in the video, you're telling her that as you're strangling her.

Speaker 16 As you're stepping your foot onto her throat. As you're punching her in the vagina as hard as you can.
And kicking her in the vagina as hard as you can. Poking her in the eye and laughing about it.

Speaker 16 Talking about killing her and die, bitch, and telling her to die and getting mad when she starts gasping. You're interfering with my drinking time.

Speaker 16 That sounds like something I would say. You did say it.
Yeah.

Speaker 14 Sounds like something I would say.

Speaker 14 What the fuck?

Speaker 16 I shouldn't have spoken to Alicia about stupid things like it, you know? But you didn't just speak to her about it.

Speaker 16 You showed her videos of you punching women in the vagina, buttering up your fist and shoving it into the vagina, kicking them in the vagina. She saw these things and she was frankly

Speaker 16 terrified. That wasn't.

Speaker 16 Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, man. And it's exactly the same thing that we're seeing in these videos.

Speaker 16 If I was going to have a fantasy going further on, I could have carried on with Alicia, you know? But this is, except a year later. Except Alicia,

Speaker 16 you have a history with Alicia.

Speaker 16 You know how easy it would be to find out who killed Alicia? You would have a several months relationship if Alicia was killed.

Speaker 16 It wouldn't be difficult to pinpoint you for it.

Speaker 16 But if you pick up somebody in the dark of the night who's an injured person, homeless person, down by the homeless shelter, these are the type of people that are perfect for

Speaker 16 this.

Speaker 14 Throughout the conversation with Brian, detectives learned that he often cruised the streets near homeless shelters looking for companions.

Speaker 14 And by often, I mean a lot.

Speaker 14 For Brian Smith, Anchorage's homeless shelters were hunting grounds. The same women society ignored, he targeted.

Speaker 14 Alaskan natives, making up a fraction of the city's population, were excessively among the unhoused, living in shelters, deserted buildings, or braving the brutal winters outside.

Speaker 14 And Brian knew that no one would come looking for them.

Speaker 16 So earlier, you said maybe three times in a couple years, and now we've already

Speaker 16 have three

Speaker 16 in about a month. So are we sure that you...

Speaker 16 Well, before

Speaker 16 this girl from this knot,

Speaker 16 there was probably about three three times that I've picked up a girl. So maybe six.

Speaker 16 Sorry, when you, when I said three, it was three before. So

Speaker 16 three,

Speaker 16 four, five, yeah,

Speaker 16 six.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Motherfucker can count,

Speaker 14 but not do basic math, apparently.

Speaker 16 Anything about these particular type of people?

Speaker 16 Does it have something against native women? I've asked myself that question.

Speaker 16 Is it a racial thing? And it's no.

Speaker 16 It's a coincidence.

Speaker 16 The indigenous people happen to be easy

Speaker 16 and they make up 90% of the 99% of the homeless people.

Speaker 14 What an asshole. Anybody with a hair collector you know is an asshole.
According to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, in 2024, there were 9,524 homeless people registered in their programs.

Speaker 14 Of those 9,500, 47.3%

Speaker 14 were Alaskan natives. That's a very high number when you consider that Alaskan natives only make up 15.6% of the state's population.

Speaker 14 That means 5% of all Alaskan natives are homeless, probably due to the white man's delicious alcoholic beverages. The longer they talked to Brian, the more he revealed.
He wasn't panicked.

Speaker 14 He wasn't even defensive. He admitted it was his truck in the pictures and his voice in the videos.

Speaker 14 But he still claimed he couldn't remember anything about that night.

Speaker 16 So did she want to leave that night and you didn't want her to go?

Speaker 16 I'm serious. I don't remember this girl.

Speaker 16 I believe everything you're saying. I honestly don't remember anything up until the morning I woke up.
I mean, I opened the back of my truck and there was this this person lying there.

Speaker 16 No one else could have put it there. I must have.
You've got photograph

Speaker 16 of me putting there.

Speaker 16 But I do not remember it. You think everybody's going to understand that?

Speaker 16 No one's going to believe it. I don't believe it.

Speaker 16 Nobody's going to believe that happened because we're going to go, we have more than we have evidence to show that it happened.

Speaker 14 And the evidence was a lot.

Speaker 14 They had Valerie's statement that she got the SD card from him. They had the time stamps on the images and videos that matched his stay at the hotel.

Speaker 14 They had the GPS data putting him at the dump site. They had the image of his truck with part of his license plate showing.
And, of course, they had his voice on video.

Speaker 16 You've convinced me I've done that.

Speaker 16 You're putting stories in my head that

Speaker 16 maybe it's a fantasy gone off or it's something I didn't remember.

Speaker 16 Well, I actually don't think it's any of those things.

Speaker 16 I think you remember so knowing that this this person is this person and this person's dead and that the other one dumped her body out in the on the highway do you have remorse you're not seeing yeah i i i don't like to to know that i've done that to someone it's i don't i don't like that

Speaker 14 science and by science i mean chat gpt

Speaker 14 tells us that amnesia is a real phenomenon I have my doubts. It's especially doubtful when the amnesia is selective.
Like remembering Kathleen, but not remembering what you did to her.

Speaker 14 It's pretty convenient that nobody can actually verify this.

Speaker 14 Like, we can't put on a headset like Christopher Walken and brainstorm and step inside someone's mind to see what they actually remember or don't. Sorry for the 80s movie reference millennials.

Speaker 14 But Brian never admitted to killing Kathleen. He only admitted that it must have been him.

Speaker 14 To the detectives, it was way too convenient to have no memory of the murder. But they had plenty of evidence, even if he didn't actually confess.
The video told more than who did what.

Speaker 14 It showed a man with experience.

Speaker 16 Have you been involved in any missing persons or any other murders in the state of Alaska? No, I have not. No, it's just this one.
This is the only person you've ever killed.

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 16 Are you going to take me off to prison? Yes, that's the step at the end of this night. Okay.

Speaker 14 After speaking with Brian for over five hours, they were convinced he had more to tell, but they were satisfied they already had him dead to rights.

Speaker 14 So they left the room and let him stew for a while. When they returned, they had paperwork for him to sign, but he blurted something out.

Speaker 16 Are you guys in a rush to go?

Speaker 16 Are we in a rush? Yeah. Do you want to talk some more?

Speaker 16 Some time ago, I can't remember when

Speaker 16 I

Speaker 16 picked up a very drunk girl.

Speaker 16 My wife was gone.

Speaker 16 She was away for the weekend to go home.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 I shot her.

Speaker 14 For all his denial, all his I can't remember, he openly admitted that Kathleen wasn't the first.

Speaker 14 She wasn't the only one.

Speaker 14 Ain't that weird? Ain't that something? Boy, guess Mike was right again.

Speaker 14 Give me a second while I pat myself on the back. Ow!

Speaker 14 Forgot how old I am. I shouldn't be stretching like that.
I'm gonna pull something.

Speaker 14 Anyway, despite Brian's sudden re-emergence of memory and his humble brag, y'all haven't seen anything yet.

Speaker 14 When the truth of what this South African scumbag did played out in court, even the most hardened jurors weren't prepared for what they were about to see.

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Speaker 14 After detectives confirmed Brian Smith was the owner of the SD card and confronted him with the pictures and videos on it, he claimed to have no memory of it.

Speaker 14 He admitted to dumping Kathleen Henry's body after finding her in the back of his truck the next morning, but the conversation with Brian revealed that he often sought the companion of Anchorage's homeless, begging the question: Are there more murdered Indigenous women out there waiting to be found?

Speaker 14 When they asked Brian, he said no, but moments later, he suddenly remembered things, and he confessed to a different murder he committed years earlier.

Speaker 16 She was smelling. I knew she was homeless thing.

Speaker 16 She was thinking. And I I was getting upset, and I said to her, go

Speaker 16 take a shower,

Speaker 16 because now there's smell in the house.

Speaker 16 She wouldn't do it.

Speaker 16 She kept saying, no, no. And I was worried that she's going to vomit now.
Because then I realized that she really had been drinking a lot.

Speaker 16 No excuse, but I'd also been drinking.

Speaker 16 I clearly remember this.

Speaker 16 And again, I'm not lying to you.

Speaker 16 I don't remember. I can't visualize

Speaker 16 this girl. But

Speaker 16 I I went through to the garage and I got my little pistol there and

Speaker 16 I said to her,

Speaker 16 go shower. And she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't.
And

Speaker 16 I just did it. And I.

Speaker 16 Well, she was on the couch? Yeah. I just did it.
I just shot her.

Speaker 16 The either messed up thing, I can tell you honestly, there was no emotion there. I just...

Speaker 16 You're not listening to me, go shower, you're not listening to me.

Speaker 14 He shot her in his own home because she was smelly and wouldn't take a shower.

Speaker 14 This chilling confession came out of Brian almost nonchalantly.

Speaker 16 So do you remember if she was white, black, native? She was a native. She was a native.

Speaker 16 All those people, they are natives. Remember her name?

Speaker 16 No, no.

Speaker 16 And I actually did look. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 16 actually, I did laugh to you guys. Those pictures I showed, Alicia, they were the real ones.

Speaker 16 Of what? Of her.

Speaker 16 I did have a photo of me trying to stick my fingers into her vagina. Yeah.
So that was a real photo of you doing that to the person you shot. Was that before or after you shot her? Often.

Speaker 14 The photos and videos he shared with Alicia were real.

Speaker 14 She had been right. all along.
Detective Lee laid out some photos of missing women, and Brian immediately picked out his first victim. Her name was Veronica Abauchuk.

Speaker 14 She was fifty-two, and like Valerie and Kathleen, battled addiction and homelessness. She was last seen in July of 2018 by her family at a local shelter.

Speaker 14 Shortly after that, she stopped communicating with them. But unlike Kathleen, Veronica's family reported her missing in early 2019.

Speaker 14 Her remains were discovered in April, but never identified. Brian later led police to the site where he dumped her, the same site where he took Alicia to.

Speaker 14 Brian Smith was arrested for the murder of Kathleen Henry, charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, second-degree sexual assault, tampering with evidence, and misconduct involving a corpse.

Speaker 14 But after he confessed to the murder of another homeless Alaskan native, Veronica Abauchuk, a grand jury indicted him for her murder as well.

Speaker 14 They added more counts for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and misconduct involving a corpse. It all added up to 14 individual charges against Brian.

Speaker 14 During his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty to all charges, wasting the court's time and the taxpayers' money.

Speaker 14 In the trial, the defense would argue that the most substantial evidence came from an unreliable source.

Speaker 14 They cited that Valerie stole the card and that she had more than enough time for the images and videos to be doctored.

Speaker 14 Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to believe that a homeless Indigenous person in Alaska is an expert at Photoshop.

Speaker 14 It was a pretty weak argument, to say the least, when the prosecution played the videos for the jury.

Speaker 14 Warning, and I would take this one seriously. What you're about to hear is Kathleen Henry taking her last breaths at the hands of Brian Smith.

Speaker 14 She's already very beaten and seemingly unconscious, but the following audio is rough, to say the least.

Speaker 14 And you're alive, and you die.

Speaker 14 And you're alive, and you die.

Speaker 14 Not just generally by life, I don't know.

Speaker 14 You live, you die,

Speaker 14 you live,

Speaker 14 you die,

Speaker 14 you live, you die.

Speaker 15 Sadly,

Speaker 15 in my movies,

Speaker 19 everyone dies.

Speaker 15 I get the Oscar bitch.

Speaker 14 Only me.

Speaker 14 I get the Oscar bitch.

Speaker 14 So that's what it takes. He toys with her, laughing hysterically.
He taught her with a brief release only to strangle her harder. All the while he talks to the camera as if someone is watching him.

Speaker 14 As if this shit is going up on YouTube or something.

Speaker 15 Take 7,

Speaker 15 part 5, subsection C.

Speaker 15 The bitch. He was not

Speaker 15 fucking

Speaker 15 fucking away.

Speaker 3 It's called...

Speaker 15 Like, we don't like you anymore. So just fuck off.

Speaker 19 You're resisting me. Okay, fuck it.

Speaker 15 So he has the throat, he has the hair, he has the string I've got.

Speaker 15 I've got a string now. Okay, I'm gonna pull the string quick here, John.

Speaker 19 Yeah, it's pulled tight and raised.

Speaker 3 Just look your face fucking forward. You fucking stupid cocksucking bitch.
Jesus fuck.

Speaker 19 Do people have to be taught how to die these days?

Speaker 15 After fucking

Speaker 15 120,000 fucking years of evolution, you haven't learned to die yet, huh?

Speaker 15 Fuck, bitch. Jesus, fuck.

Speaker 19 I don't have fucking time for your shit.

Speaker 19 You're fucking up my drinking time. I'm fucking...

Speaker 15 I've got like fucking half bottle of whiskey still to go through. And it's already like fucking 11 o'clock at night.
Fuck, bitch. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Speaker 14 It's important to notice that there is no evidence that Brian uploaded any pictures or videos to the internet.

Speaker 14 Yet, he still addresses the camera as the audience. He feels that he is performing, but he is getting tired.

Speaker 15 We're going on for no fucking lies. This is like fucking half an hour at least now.

Speaker 15 We're going on half an hour now.

Speaker 15 Fuck, bitch. You are taking so long.

Speaker 3 You're the longest ever.

Speaker 15 You fucking real arsenal to carry your fucking sorry ass down to my fucking car

Speaker 15 and go dump dump you fucking somewhere, huh?

Speaker 15 You just fucked up my entire fucking evening, bitch.

Speaker 15 Huh?

Speaker 15 If you survive this, I'm gonna fuck you up so badly. You're gonna need to change the religion.
Oh, Jesus, no, you wanna fucking... People need to cooperate.

Speaker 15 People need to know when they're fucking being serial killed.

Speaker 3 Fuck this shit.

Speaker 15 Bitch. And you're like about a bleed on my fucking hand? What the fuck?

Speaker 3 Huh? Huh?

Speaker 15 You

Speaker 14 He was the producer, director, and star of the film. He called her names, knelt on her chest, and slapped her.
He strangled her over and over.

Speaker 14 He showcased her injuries to the camera, but when he got tired, he stood on her neck until she died. And when it was over...

Speaker 14 I don't like the death penalty. I don't like the idea of giving the state the power to kill its own citizens.
But after watching this performance, it's hard to argue against it. Really hard.

Speaker 14 Inside the courtroom, the jury watched the 12 videos without blinking. The families of Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abauchuk couldn't see the videos, but they could hear them.

Speaker 14 They sat there, silently, watching the jury's horrified reactions.

Speaker 14 For somebody who couldn't stop narrating a murder, Brian was silent throughout the entire trial.

Speaker 14 Outside the courthouse, a group of people seemed to reflect the inner turmoil of the jury's ghastly expressions. A protest had gathered.
Justin Farm Cassandra!

Speaker 14 We want answers! We want answers!

Speaker 14 A deleted photo was recovered from Brian's phone. It showed a third native woman.
She appeared passed out on the grass. Either that or she was already dead.

Speaker 22 He asked me if I could look at another photograph that was actually in Brian Stephen Smith's phone and his deleted files. And I said sure

Speaker 14 so I looked through FaceTime and I could see through FaceTime that yes it was Cassandra I took a double look but yeah and I instantly just started crying the family of Cassandra Boskovsky was convinced it was her and the fact that her picture was found on Brian's phone made them fear the worst unfortunately Brian was done confessing and once again there was no body.

Speaker 14 Even if it was Cassandra on Brian's phone, they couldn't prove a crime had been committed. Cassandra was just another missing, homeless, Alaskan native.

Speaker 14 Later, her family would have her declared legally dead without ever knowing what happened to her.

Speaker 14 Back inside the courtroom, the family of Kathleen Henry had to learn that although Brian didn't upload his heinous crime to the internet, he did share what he had done to someone.

Speaker 23 This is from Smith's phone. I have something to show you, period.
Something I can't keep for too long. Need to find a secluded spot to meet.
And he responds, I was not up, comma.

Speaker 23 Sounds like you were having a lot of fun. I did have fun, wanted to share.

Speaker 14 The man Brian was texting met him after the murder of Kathleen so he could see the body, too.

Speaker 14 What a couple of sick fucks. He pleaded the fifth, didn't have to testify, and get this, was never charged.

Speaker 14 What horseshit? I get canceled for a meme, but this asshole's walk around society doing just fine?

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 14 Ms.

Speaker 18 Henry was slowly beaten to death and strangled to death and tortured to death. Ms.
Bouchuk didn't actually suffer as much, but she was treated like a thing to be used and cast aside.

Speaker 18 Both were treated about as horribly as a person can be treated. Killings

Speaker 18 like this that are publicized affect all of society, and especially women in our society. It's the stuff of nightmares.
They strip women of any feelings of safety in their own neighborhoods.

Speaker 18 That damage continues long after the crimes are solved.

Speaker 14 As no surprise, Brian was unanimously found guilty of all 14 charges. He was sentenced to 99 years for each and two counts of first-degree premeditated murder.

Speaker 14 All the other charges, including the aggravating factor that he tortured Kathleen, which eliminated any chance of parole, added up to another 28 years.

Speaker 14 All in all, Brian Stephen Smith was sentenced to 226 years

Speaker 14 in prison to run consecutively. It left the families of Kathleen and Veronica feeling just a little bit better.

Speaker 16 They're at peace now.

Speaker 16 That's the most important end for me, her sister Veronica, Veronica's sister, and Kathleen's family.

Speaker 16 It's been too long and today is

Speaker 16 life celebration and spiritual celebration.

Speaker 14 But Brian's wife, Stephanie, was left completely dumbfounded and questioning her own intelligence. Can you blame her?

Speaker 24 I've never seen anything that dark in him.

Speaker 24 When I think about that, I think,

Speaker 24 how could I have missed it? How can you missed something like that? You know?

Speaker 14 To add insult to injury, two months after his conviction, a federal grand jury charged him with one count of unlawful procurement.

Speaker 14 of naturalization and one count of unlawful procurement of naturalization naturalization by an ineligible person.

Speaker 14 You see, one of the questions they ask you when applying for naturalization is, have you ever been involved in a killing, sexual assault, or have you ever committed or assisted in committing or attempted to commit a crime you were not arrested for?

Speaker 14 Brian answered, no.

Speaker 14 If convicted, which is likely, His citizenship will be revoked and he will be deported.

Speaker 14 And then, some dumb bitch with a septum ring and clown hair will protest about it on the streets of Portland and upload it to TikTok.

Speaker 14 Because that's the fucked-up country of morons we live in. America.
Land of the woke, home of the dumb.

Speaker 14 Brian Smith is behind bars, but the crisis is far from over.

Speaker 14 Justice First Victims doesn't fix the real problem.

Speaker 14 Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abauchuk weren't just murdered, they were

Speaker 14 failed.

Speaker 14 Failed by a system that allows Indigenous women to disappear without a trace.

Speaker 14 Failed by a society that barely notices when the most vulnerable go missing. And if Valerie Cassler had never stolen that SD card,

Speaker 14 would Brian Smith have ever been caught?

Speaker 14 Probably not.

Speaker 16 What I can tell you is that

Speaker 16 there's something wrong with me.

Speaker 16 I mean,

Speaker 16 obviously, it's a second second time, so

Speaker 16 there's something wrong with me, and that's that's why I did it.

Speaker 16 There's no way to come back from that. There's no way

Speaker 16 personally, even.

Speaker 16 I'm not temporarily insane. I'm not anything like it.

Speaker 16 I am sane. I know exactly what I'm doing.
But

Speaker 16 yeah,

Speaker 16 I've gone too far.

Speaker 16 And I don't want to go on.

Speaker 16 Are you glad that

Speaker 16 I'm not glad I've

Speaker 16 You're glad you're not going to be able to hurt anybody else? Yeah.

Speaker 14 Somewhere in Anchorage, on the streets, in the shelters, in the shadows, another woman is disappearing. Right now.

Speaker 14 And no one is paying attention. Brian Smith knew what kind of women wouldn't be missed.
He counted on it. He

Speaker 14 thrived on it. And the system proved him right again

Speaker 14 and again.

Speaker 14 Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk weren't the first to be forgotten. And unless things change,

Speaker 14 they won't be

Speaker 14 the last.

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