A man who killed two Alaska Native women and recorded the torture of one of them was sentenced to 226 years in prison on Friday.
The man, Brian Smith, 53, was found guilty in February on 14 charges that included two counts of first-degree murder, sexual assault, tampering with evidence and misconduct involving a corpse, according to court documents.
Mr. Smith beat and strangled Kathleen Jo Henry, 30, inside a hotel room in Anchorage in September 2019. He was arrested on Oct. 8 of that year after a woman in possession of Mr. Smith’s phone gave the police the images and a video of him torturing Ms. Henry.
During questioning by the police in Anchorage, Mr. Smith confessed to having killed another woman, Veronica Abouchuk, 52, who was experiencing homelessness at the time of her death. She was reported missing after her family had not seen her in several months, according to a news conference held by the Anchorage Police Department in 2019.
Judge Kevin Saxby of Superior Court in Anchorage said at the sentencing that Mr. Smith should remain in prison “with no possibility of ever being released” for the safety of the public. He added that the killings of the women were “the stuff of nightmares.”
“Both were treated about as horribly as a person can be treated,” Judge Saxby said.
A video found in Mr. Smith’s phone showed him laughing and telling Ms. Henry that she needed to die as he beat and strangled her with a wire or cord, according to court documents from 2019. Other images taken from the phone revealed that Mr. Smith had disposed of Ms. Henry’s body, which was found in October 2019 along Seward Highway in Anchorage, and tried to hide evidence, according to a statement from Attorney General Treg Taylor.
Ms. Abouchuk’s remains were found along Old Glenn Highway in Anchorage in April 2019, but they were not identified until after Mr. Smith was arrested that October, according to a news release from the Anchorage Police Department. Mr. Smith admitted to having killed Ms. Abouchuk about a year before he was arrested.
Mr. Smith, who was born in South Africa, applied for and obtained U.S. citizenship in 2019 but now faces possible revocation of his naturalization certificate. He was charged by the Justice Department on April 19 — about two months after his murder conviction — for making false statements on his application to become a citizen after answering “no” to questions on whether he had committed violent crimes.
The case drew attention from advocates for the rights of Native American communities. Some people who attended the sentencing, according to The Anchorage Daily News, had red handprints painted across their mouths, which was meant to raise awareness of cases of Indigenous women who were missing or had been killed, according to Native Hope, a nonprofit that supports the campaign.
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