SA man who filmed torture gets 226 years in prison for deaths of two Alaska Native women

An Alaskan court in the United States has sentenced a 53-year-old South African man to 226 years in prison for the murder of two women, one of which he recorded on video, according to the State of Alaska’s department of law.

Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby handed down sentencing in the case against Brian Steven Smith earlier this month.

Smith from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape murdered two Alaskan native women, 30-year-old Kathleen Henry and 52-year-old Veronica Abouchuk, in 2019.

Sentence

Family members and community members gathered in the courtroom for the sentencing. Abouchuk’s daughter delivered a statement expressing her wish that Smith would spend the rest of his life “without hope”.

In handing down the lengthy sentence, Judge Saxby said: “There is no hope. There is no restoration. There is only preventing Mr. Smith from killing again.”

The State of Alaska’s department of law said the South African national was convicted on 14 February of 14 counts, including two counts of murder in the first degree.

“A jury also found him guilty of sexual assault in the Second degree, tampering with physical evidence and misconduct involving a corpse.”

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‘Digging his own grave’

The State of Alaska’s Department of Law reported that homicide detectives with the Anchorage Police Department were alerted to the murder when a woman in possession of Smith’s phone shared videos from it with them.

“The video, along with photos found on the device, showed that Smith had tortured a then-unknown woman before killing her, disposing of her body, and attempting to hide the evidence.

“Further investigation resulted in the victim, murdered in 2019, being identified as 30-year-old Kathleen Jo Henry. While he was being questioned, Smith admitted to killing a second victim, a year prior in 2018. That woman was identified as 52-year-old Veronica Abouchuk,” the department said.

According to Court TV, the jury watched a five-and-a-half-hour interview that police did with Smith, during which he told officers: “That sounds like me. I’m convinced I have done this, I know I must have done this. That is me. That is my stomach, that is definitely me,” when shown clips of the murder.

While vehemently denying any memory of the murders, Smith told police during the interview: “This is my fault. I have dug my own grave, I cannot blame anyone else.”

Videos from the memory card were shown during the trial.

Smith’s face was never visible in the videos, but his distinctive South African accent was recognised by police from previous encounters.

On the tape, he repeatedly urged Henry to die as he beat and strangled her.

“In my movies, everybody always dies,” the voice says in one video. “What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.”

At the start of the trial, Smith pleaded not guilty to all 14 charges against him.

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