Transcription
It's September 6th, 2019. Surveillance cameras capture 48-year-old Brian Smith and his date, Valerie Casler, arriving at a local shop in Anchorage, Alaska. From the outside, everything looks normal.
But what Valerie doesn't realize, Brian is a serial killer. And in the back of his truck lies the body of his latest victim, murdered just a day earlier.
Once Brian goes inside to buy drinks, Valerie is left alone in the truck. In that moment, she reaches down and accidentally picks up Brian's phone. She doesn't know it yet, but the footage she'll find on that phone will reveal multiple murder recordings and lead cops to one of the most disturbing serial killers the state of Alaska has ever seen.
"If you live, you'll die. Sadly, in my movies, everyone dies."
6 hours earlier, 48-year-old Brian Smith is relaxing at home after a long day at work. After having a glass of whiskey, he decides to go for a late-night drive through Anchorage. Behind the car's grocery store at Gamble Street and East 13th Avenue, he spots a woman standing near the road, 52-year-old Valerie Castler. Brian pulls over and asks if she'd like to join him for a ride.
"And he pulls up and I was homeless living in a tent and it was raining that night. Then he goes, 'Well, it's raining. Do you want to ride around with me?' And you know, and I was like, 'Sure.'"
For the next few hours, they enjoy each other's company, even stopping by an airport to watch planes take off into the night sky. Around 2:00 a.m., Brian pulls into a local gas station to use the ATM. He heads inside, leaving Valerie alone in the car. While waiting, she accidentally drops her phone onto the floor.
"And when I reach down, I grab two phones and you get like that chill feeling. You know something was not right."
She takes his phone and slips it into her pocket, unaware that it isn't hers. Meanwhile, Brian can be seen inside the store buying snacks and drinks. For the next few hours, the two spend more time together.
Later, when Valerie returns to her tent, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the phone. At first, she notices unfamiliar contacts and numbers, and then it hits her. This isn't her phone. As she scrolls through it, she finds a folder called "Homicide Marriott Hotel Midtown Anchorage." What she sees next can only be described as utterly horrifying.
"Just put your face as people down and die these days after 12,000 years of evolution. You haven't learned to die and dump your me."
Valerie can't believe what she's seeing. She scrolls further through the folder, finding dozens of photos and videos, each disturbingly similar to the one she just watched.
"His voice and her body laying on the on the floor of the hotel. And he stepped on her throat and he said, 'You're not leaving here alive. I'm killing you.'"
After watching everything, she begins to realize that she may have just hung out with a serial killer. For the next few days, she retreats into the woods and refuses to leave her tent. Paranoia takes over. At any moment, Brian could discover that she knows his secret, and the next video might be about her.
Ultimately, after days of hiding, she decides to hand the footage from the SD card over to the police.
"It was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch in my life, not just being as a as a police officer. This was the worst thing I've ever seen happen to a human being."
In the following days, detectives review the footage over and over again. One of them recognizes something familiar, the distinctive tone and accent of the man's voice. It reminds them of a suspect from a previous case he once worked on. That man's name was Brian Steven Smith.
Using the footage as their lead, investigators soon uncover a horrifying truth. Human remains found at mile 108 of the Seward Highway a week ago belonged to a woman who had long dark hair.
"The body is identified as 30-year-old Kathleen Joe Henry."
With a prime suspect now in sight, it's only a matter of time before police can link Brian to the murders. The FBI soon joins the investigation, and what they uncover directly connects Brian to the woman found dead.
"The FBI told us, 'Hey, his phone is hitting off a tower near mile 108, the Seward Highway, and also there was a time stamp on one of the images with Kathleen Joe Henry in the back of uh the pickup truck and that was also like an aha moment because his phone's hitting here at this time. This image is at this time and it's at the location where the remains were found.'"
Now detectives finally have probable cause to charge Brian. But there's one problem. He isn't even in the state at the time. He's on vacation with his wife in Washington D.C.
To ensure he doesn't flee, officers are stationed at the airport. The moment his plane lands back in Alaska, Brian is taken into custody and brought straight to the police station.
"Mr. Smith, I'm Detective Lee, the Anchorage Police Department. I just want to show you my badge, my ID so you know who you're talking to. This is Detective Bell, partner. Um, we have some uh some matters we wanted to clear up with you and talk to you today. So, I appreciate you coming up here with these guys and talking to me."
"Um, obviously we're here at the airport. Um, they brought you up here to talk to me, so we have some kind of a formality to get by. I have to read you what's called a Miranda warning. Um, do you know what that is?"
"Yes."
The detectives catch him off guard. He has no idea what this is about, but assumes it might be related to when his truck was broken into a few months earlier and his documents were stolen.
"I don't know when exactly they broke the window, but they um I got a phone call from from one of the guys at work that said, 'My window's broken.' So, as I'm down there looking at this, what the messages start coming through on my phone, you know, your transaction at Lowe's for $500 and something dollars has been accepted. And I'm like, 'What?'"
"Yeah. The the little GoPro you said that was taken. Um, what's what stands out about? How does it? How does I? Because I'm not familiar with GoPros. How do they? Do they record memory into the camera or do they record on something else or how does that work?"
"Oh, yeah. It's got a little SD card on."
"Okay."
"Yeah. Okay. Like I said, we have some matters we need to clear up. And uh the thing we need to talk about is recently some property was brought to APD. Um, and we have I was given that property. It's a little SD card. Um, and I I I watched that SD card and I looked at it and that's what I want to talk to you about."
"Okay."
"So, what can you tell me? Because you mentioned the SD card and the GoPro camera."
"So, what can you tell me about that?"
"Well, um, usually everything I record is stuff from my trips when I go out camping. That's why I got a GoPro. It's got a very high frame rate."
"So, I'm trying to capture. If you have a look on on YouTube, you'll see the guy shooting through um like latex or through bottles or something and you can see the bullet going through."
"Shooting like shooting a bullet?"
"Yeah. Oh, okay."
Brian often records his outdoor adventures, whether he's hiking, fishing, or camping. Filming is one of his favorite hobbies, and he even owns a drone to capture the scenery from above. But this time, the detectives aren't interested in his videos. And soon Brian will understand why he was brought to the station.
"So like I said, it's about that SD card when I wanted to kind of just see if this will refresh a memory here for you. That there. And that's it right there on top of that."
"I've seen those. I've got one or two of those. You get those at Walmart."
"Okay. Is And now is that one like the one you're missing? Cuz you said you're missing one out of the GoPro."
"Well, the whole GoPro is gone."
"Oh, the whole GoPro is gone."
"But was that the type of card that might have been in that in that GoPro when it was gone?"
"No."
"Okay."
"I've [snorts] got one of these I've been using for my um my um 3D printer."
"Okay."
"Yeah. So, that's why I've got these green ones. The other one's all black."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"Well, and so like I said, this was this was brought to to APD and given to me. Um, and like I said, I viewed I viewed the images and the videos on that SD card."
"Yeah."
"And that's obviously it led that's how I got to you. That's how I figured out who you are."
"Okay."
"And that's what I'm that's what we need to we need to clear up that that matter of what's on that SD card."
"Okay. What's on the card?"
Right off the bat, detectives don't reveal what they already know. Instead, they show Brian photos of a car that matches his. They also ask about a hotel room he rented for two nights. Brian admits he had picked up a woman from the street and taken her there. That's when detectives bring out the photos of the deceased woman, the same one seen on the SD card footage from the hotel room.
"I just wanted to show you these pictures. See if they would help you kind of refresh um the girl from that night."
"Mhm."
"No, that's not her."
"Not her."
"Just short short hair."
"Short hair. Okay."
"Short short short hair. No."
"Okay. All right."
"She looks like a drug drug addict."
"Okay. Yeah. Have you Have you seen this this woman before?"
"No. No."
"Have you ever had any contact with her at all?"
"No. I have, but in the last 5 years that I've been here, um, probably starting about 2 years ago, I've probably gone out and picked up a girl or two. So, I might have seen her before, but not fresh in my mind."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"All right. I mentioned I told you on there that that how I found you is we saw your truck. Is that"
"That's That's my truck."
"That's your truck. Okay. Is there anything else and I'm going to step out here a minute? Let you take a break, drink some water. Is there anything else about that evening that we haven't talked about that you that you want me to know about or you think we should talk about?"
"No."
At this point, the detectives step out of the room for a few minutes. They need to discuss their strategy and perhaps observe how he reacts when left alone. When they return, they confront him with the footage from the SD card.
"Well, you seemed curious about the what was on you. You were asking me to show you what's on the SD card, and I don't have it here to show you exactly what's on there, but I wanted to talk about it. And like I said to you a minute ago, it the images led me to you. There's images on there that led me to you and for multiple reasons. The truck, um, like I said, I knew that was your truck. You're saying that's your truck in the photographs. Um, the there's pictures of the Marriott. There's pictures of the Marriott, the the hotel room on that on the GoPro or excuse me, on that SD card that and that's how I knew it was that Marriott. It was the Midtown Marriott. Okay."
"Um and um and the pictures um I don't know, you probably know about this. You I think you're into technology and stuff."
"Photographs, they have a a time and date stamp. So the photographs are time and date stamp. So they basically the photographs time and date stamp match at the time that you were at that at that hotel room. So that's how this SD card has led me to you. Okay."
"Um, and like I said, there's a number of images on there and there's a number of videos on there and I brought some of the pictures to kind of go over with you about um the about that. So, um, this is [clears throat] one of the images on there, part of it. It's kind of cut down a little bit, but um, can you tell me what's in that photo?"
"There's somebody's feet."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"Whose feet are those?"
"I don't know."
"Okay. I'm I'm looking at your shoes. I mean, it looks looks like the shoes you're wearing right now."
"Yeah, it does. Yeah."
"Okay. Is it safe to say those are your feet in that picture?"
"I don't know."
"Okay."
"I'm not the only person that's got shoes like this."
"Okay."
"I did recently buy these. I can't tell you when."
"Okay. You can't tell me when. How long have you had them?"
"I I don't know."
"You don't know. I don't know."
"Where'd you buy them from?"
"These I would have got at um Fred Meyer."
"Okay."
"Okay. All right. Um, I just want to show you some of their images here that and and like I said, I've I've watched the videos and the images on there and I've watched them multiple times and and that's why we're here. That's how I knew to talk to you. So, um, these are just some of the other images on there. Um, okay. These are on the on the SD card. Okay. So, what can you tell me about these photos?"
"This looks like someone that's already been beaten up a bit."
"Okay."
"And these are these are images. These are these are images, but there's also videos of this person."
"Yeah."
"And another [clears throat] person in the room as well. And that's what I'm that's why we're here to talk to you about."
"How many people in the room?"
"At least two."
"Yeah."
"So, we need to address this. We need to we need to clear this up. Cheers, man."
At this moment, the atmosphere in the room shifts. Brian realizes he's been caught. Still, he tries to deny it, insisting that the person in the footage couldn't possibly be him.
"You think I hit this girl?"
"Well, like I said, there's video there's videos of it. 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."
"Okay. And if you'd like to hear some of that, I can refresh your memory with it."
"The same pictures are on the SD card with your truck that you said was your truck."
"Yeah, these are all on the same on the same as your truck here. It sounds just do this."
"What What's happening when that's [snorts] what's happening is on this video on these images u the person that's recording it is holding the recorder and is standing basically above this girl and and strangling her."
"[sighs]"
"Okay. And so we need to talk about this. We need to get ahead of this. Mr. Smith,"
"I I don't want to act stupid, but I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything."
"Okay."
"When I landed, when they stopped me, I was already in the legal terms of the words I use is in a weakened state of mind. For an hour and a half, I said, 'I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that.' Over and over and over in Adonium, I said that."
Brian is shown photographs of a brutally beaten Kathleen. The images and videos are timestamped to September 4th, the same day the Marriott Hotel's records show him renting room 323. Just a day later, he went out for a late-night drive around Anchorage, where he picked up Valerie. She had no idea she was spending time with a serial killer who had murdered someone less than 24 hours earlier.
In a matter of minutes, detectives have laid out a mountain of evidence connecting Brian to the footage recovered from the SD card. Yet he continues to insist that he doesn't remember any of it.
"So what you're saying is that's definitely you talking on the recording on the audio there that you don't recall that."
"That that's my that sounds my voice. I've got a unique voice. Absolutely. It's English mixed with the the Dutch."
"Mhm."
"And you talking in the and like I said, there's about 12 of these videos and I've watched every single one of them multiple times unfortunately. And you talking you know what you're doing in those videos. I mean, you're talking about you're describing what's going on in those videos. And so, Mr. Smith, I don't believe that you don't remember this happening. And like I said, we need we need to talk. We need to get ahead of this because this is pretty big here."
"Yeah. But this is not the girl I picked up."
"Okay. That's definitely your voice on those audios. And I have no doubt about it. Like I said, I mean, your shoes are in the picture, your truck's in the picture, a Marriott Cart, as you pointed out, is in the picture."
"And then I can also point to this to you. This is the the SD card file. And look at the fourth one down what the name of that file is. Homicide Marriott Hotel Midtown Anchorage. And this was modified on September 24th, 20 days later. I did not do that. Why would I make a file again?"
Detectives also obtain his phone records which clearly outline his movements over the past few months. 2 days after the murder, the data places his phone along the Seward Highway near Indian Valley, about 30 minutes from Anchorage. It's the exact area where the remains of Kathleen Joe Henry were later discovered. Surveillance cameras at the nearby way station also capture his truck traveling in that direction.
"Look, I I don't remember anything else really. I'm sorry."
"I think you do remember it, Mr. Smith and we need and like I said, we need to talk about it cuz right now this this right here is a small portion of this investigation, but this is just a small part of a very large investigation and we're talking to people. We're talking to your wife. Okay."
"When have you spoken to her?"
"We're talking to her right now."
"Right now."
"And like I said, this is this I mean this is going to hit the news and this might be your one chance to talk to to give your side of it, to give your story. And that's why I'm here to talk to you today. I didn't have to come here and talk to I could have just had him take you, but I wanted to give you that opportunity to explain this cuz it's we got the evidence. We know you were out there. Your phone shows you were out there."
"It was showing it. Yeah. I don't I'm not"
"So, we need to talk about it. We need to address it."
Realizing there's no easy way out, he offers to tell the detectives the truth.
"Yeah. Well, look, this this sounds very serious. No matter what, I'm going to be in deep. So, um, okay, I'll I'll tell you what I remember. Um, okay."
"The next day at work, um, I saw something dripping out the back of my truck and I was like, 'What?' And I opened up and there was somebody there underneath stuff. There was a blue like a top at the back of my my truck and um the the back flap doesn't really lock. I've actually put a padlock on now since then and I saw somebody and I was like what what must I do? What must I do? And uh because I've been out before, I thought, you know, who's going to believe me, you know, it's like the guy that gets stopped and he's got drugs in his pocket and it's like it's not mine, you know? It was that's the way I was feeling, you know? No one's going to believe me. So, I was thinking for a long time, what what must I do? And u then the one night I thought, well, I've got to get rid of this. I can't. And I I drove out and I did. I went and dumped it."
"What was in the back of my truck was not uh Kathleen Henry. When I said to the police the body, it's because the police had told me that there was a body in the back of my truck. I did not know what was in the back of my truck. It It was not a body. It was I I I've seen a YouTube once of a bear cub that was skinned and it looked in my mind x-ray vision through that. That's what that could have been. Or it was a mannequin."
This could explain why the phone tower placed him there. But it doesn't account for all the other evidence stacked against him. The footage, the voice captured in it, and the fact that he rented a hotel room with the victim. His story simply doesn't add up and the detectives call him out on it.
"Why didn't you when you saw that you saw it dripping out of the back of your truck? And"
"I was scared. If you didn't remember what happened, why didn't you call somebody and say, 'Hey, there's somebody in the back of my truck.'"
"Well, that's the thing. Who would believe me? It's It's like I said, it's it's like the guy walking around, police found drugs in his pocket, you know, like and he says, 'No, it's not mine.' And everybody says, 'Oh, yes, we believe you.' You know, it's the same thing. Who would have believed me that I found something in in the back of my truck? I don't remember. So, you're admitting that that you were at the hotel. That's your That's your voice. And you admit that you took the body out there and dumped the body, right? So why would there be photographs of her in the back of your truck at the dump site, which you admit to doing?"
"Oh, on the same SD card. Listen to me."
"Okay."
"On the same SD card that has all these photos on it and videos of you killing her. So, tell me how a body can be found in the back of your truck randomly while you're at work because you want us to believe somebody else put that body in there and and then you just happen to drive it out there and there's photographs on the same SD card on the same [snorts] SD card of this woman in the back of your truck with the sheets that are on that card."
What the footage captures is deeply disturbing. Due to its violent nature, we will only play the audio. Viewer discretion is advised.
"You live, you die. You live, you die. You live, you die. Sadly, in my movies, everyone dies. I get the Oscar. Gossp once for years. Gossip twice for now. Oh jeez, that was like there was two gasps, but he resisting me. Okay. So, here's the throat. Here's the A. Here's the string. I've got a little string here. I'm going to put string again. Do people die these days? 2,000 years of evolution to die. Come on, just take the team. I know this is not swallowed car and dump your me. You just my entire [clears throat] just finish. Please die. I need to go on straight from there."
These audio recordings are deeply disturbing to say the least. Throughout the entire interview, Brian repeatedly insists he can't remember committing these acts. Interestingly, he recalls taking photos of the women who survived, but when it comes to the one who was murdered, his memory conveniently fails him. Another point investigators raised during the interview is his internet search history during the trip.
"While you were on your trip, another thing that you were looking up is basically making a confession to the police on your deathbed. Something you Googled, something you were searching. Can you tell me about that?"
"I did not do that."
"Well, it was in your search history on your Google."
"I did not search making a confession on my deathbed. I did not do that."
"Anybody else have your phone while you were gone?"
"No. My wife and myself were together. She's doesn't know how to use a phone at all. No, I did not Google it. Whoever told you that is telling you a lie. Or um if you search something, there's sometimes a result of stuff and you don't know what the result is. But I would never search about anything like that. And if I log into your computer now with my Gmail account and I type anything in there, it'll show me everything I've ever Googled. Um, so I I can prove it to you right now. Yeah."
With each answer he gives, the web of lies grows thicker. Gradually, he begins to concede that he might have done it, but he just can't remember. Then the detectives bring out a USB stick containing the footage. They play it in front of him, watching closely for his reaction.
"I just cannot understand why I would do something like this."
"And and that that's that's what your question is. Why would I do that?"
"I mean, we know you did it. You know, you did it. We're just looking for And there And there may not be a there may not be a why that that you think is reasonable, right?"
"Yeah."
"But there is a why as to what happened. We don't We might not know why it happened, but you know what happened. We can We're gonna You're gonna see what happened. You're going to see what you did."
"I just don't know why. Why would I Why would I get angry like that?"
"So, you're not angry."
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you said"
"No, you're very calculated. You're You're narrating it."
"Why would I say I've got an audience?"
"I'm not saying that you have an audience, but you're clearly talking to You're not just talking to her. You're talking, you're narrating this, and it's because of whatever fantasy it is that you have in your mind. Whether you're going to share this with other people or you intended on it, I don't know. But you certainly intended on viewing it yourself. And you're clearly exerting power over this person."
"[snorts]"
"Jesus God."
"[panting and sighs]"
"She stopped there."
"What do you think up until that point?"
"That girl's dying. It's my hand. Oh."
"Mhm."
"That was not going to be very hard to figure. Like I said, this is a when this gets on a 55 in TV."
"There's no voice in this one."
"That's TV."
"Hotel room TV."
"Yeah,"
"she's alive."
"Yeah, there camera. That's my voice now. My tired"
"just"
"I don't talk."
"Just"
"Bradley Phillips does or whoever that is then."
"No, Bradley's a naughty person. Bradley's a naughty a naughty person."
Brad appears genuinely shocked by what he's seeing. Earlier in the interview, detectives asked whether he had multiple Facebook accounts. He admitted to having one under the name Bradley, which he described as his alter ego. According to Brad, this persona would post racist jokes and act cruel online. He seems to suggest that this alter ego might be responsible for the murder, but detectives aren't buying it. To them, Brad isn't suffering from a split personality. He's simply a disturbed man who knew exactly what he was doing.
"I think uh Brian Seth Smith is a person that I' I'd say he's a sociopath. You know, if you looked at his life, he would just look like your normal everyday. You know, I go to work, I come home, this is my wife, we go on vacations and I, you know, I play with drones and like to shoot guns for my hobbies."
So far, detectives have succeeded in making Brian grasp the gravity of his situation. They have a mountain of evidence stacked against him. Although the footage he left behind on the SD card appears amateur-ish. It reveals someone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on others. The body was also dumped just 30 minutes from his home. Another careless amateur mistake.
Once the interview concludes, detectives plan to examine his truck, searching for any trace of the victim's DNA.
"You know, because the the video that we watch, frankly, it doesn't look like an amateur. everything else does, but it doesn't look like the person in that video, it doesn't look like it's the first time they've killed somebody. You're enjoying yourself um killing your"
"So, if there's something else we need to talk about, now would be the time to do it. The one thing I wanted to ask you is your truck. Did you ever wash it out, spray it out, anything like that?"
"After this, after you body,"
"are we going to find biological evidence in your truck?"
"Did you bleach it? Did you wash it?"
"Um the at the back I had a piece of carpeting at the back and there was a bit of blood on it. So I cut that piece of carpet out and I tossed it in dumpster stuff and uh I did spray bleach on there to try and kill the germs and whatever. Um that was a wise thing to do unlike everything else."
"Mhm. So, so you you'll see the back of my truck that it's it's cut. You know,"
With that, the detectives conclude the interview. They gather their notes, present the charges to Brian, and prepare to take him to jail. But just then, Brian drops what might be the biggest bombshell of the entire interrogation.
"Are you guys in a rush to go home?"
"Are we in a rush?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want to talk some more?"
"We're not in a rush. We got We got all night."
"I have two days. I saw your ears do that."
"You know what I mean? That's that's what we do. We love to talk."
"Um"
"Some time ago, I can't remember when I picked up a very drunk girl. Um my wife was gone. She was away for the weekend. I had to go home and um I I tried to and um I I know you guys are doing the good cop bad cop. I know I'm going to burn already. So, and uh I don't want you have to waste your time."
"We appreciate Um but yeah, so I shot this girl and then I I went and dumped her out on that little side road going towards but when you turn off the house by the including the power plant."
"Yeah, around about that area. Yeah, you must have found her."
"You may have."
"How long ago was that about?"
"Oh my god. Two three maybe 3 years ago."
From denying the murder to suddenly confessing to shooting a woman in an unrelated case, Brian's story takes a disturbing turn. He tells detectives that a few years earlier, he had picked up a woman from the street, offering her a warm meal and a place to sleep for the night. According to Brian, she was already heavily intoxicated. With his wife out of town, he brought her home where she soon fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. But then something about her, he says, set him off.
"She she was smelling. I knew she was homeless then. You know, she was she she was stinking. And I was getting upset and I said to her, 'Go take a shower, you know, cuz now there's smell in the house.' You know, Stephanie would smell that there was a homeless person in the house."
"And uh she wouldn't do it. She she kept saying, 'No, no.' And I was worried that she's going to vomit now cuz then I realized that she really had been drinking a lot. Um, no excuse, but I I'd also been drinking a hell of a lot. Like I said, it definitely goes that that's Brian time. I can or as you call it, brand time. I went through to the garage and I got my little pistol there and I I said to her, 'Go to the go shower.' And she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't. And uh I just did that. And I I I"
"Well, she was on the couch."
"Yeah. I just did that. I just shot it like there was no there the messed up thing I can tell you honestly there there was no emotion there was just you're not listening to me go shower you're not listening to me you know I I knew that the longer she stays there the worse trouble I'm going to get in with Stephanie she's going to stink up the place if she vomits on the carpet it's going to be you know"
Police would later confirm the woman's identity as 52-year-old Veronica Abuak, an Alaska native who had disappeared several years earlier. On Brian's phone, investigators also discovered an SD card containing a video of a woman lying naked on the floor inside his home.
Back in the interrogation room, detectives asked Brian to use a map on a laptop to pinpoint the exact location where he dumped her body.
"Okay. So, it was here about so you go into this view. Let's go around a bit more. It wasn't so far in, but it was that side of the road. There was just a little entrance going in. And if you're coming from this side, the little entrance is here. And then within a few feet, the the Armco barrier starts. Uh the those metal barriers."
"Okay."
"I'm going to be on freaking America's dumbest criminals."
"There's some relief. It's got to be some relief."
"I feel better. I feel a lot better. I'm That's why I wanted to tell you about this. Um, I did I actually took Alicia then cuz I was boasting took her to I was boasting to her and um but I I knew but this is like a year after or two years."
Alicia Youngblood, as we've come to learn, was Brian Smith's secret girlfriend. About a year earlier, she had secretly contacted authorities by phone claiming that Brian had shown her a disturbing video of a dead woman. At first, Alicia had genuine feelings for him. But after seeing that footage, everything changed. She became convinced the video was real and wanted Brian to be held accountable for what he had done.
"It's going in her and then he draw his hand out and he's holding the GoPro and then he'd bite his hands on her leg. The pictures are her breast and he's grabbing them so hard that the blood is pulling. Y'all don't know what I'm doing to get this information. I'm doing all kinds of crazy sexual acts with him to get this information out of him and having to pretend to like it."
Trying to get information out of him, she did everything she could to keep him satisfied. But after a while, she couldn't take it anymore.
"I can't do this anymore. He's getting more wild."
Back in the interview room, Brian seems to have finally accepted his fate.
"All I can tell you is that there is something wrong with me. I mean, it's obviously it's a second time. So, it's there's something wrong with me and that's that's why I did it. Okay."
"You know that."
"So, you don't you you're struggling with that internally. You you believe that there's something wrong with you that that that you could do this and so you're struggling with"
"Yeah. Well, I mean, this is not normal behavior. This, you know,"
The interview ends shortly after. Following it, detectives compare Smith's account with an earlier discovery. Back in April 2019, two men foraging for Chaga mushrooms had stumbled upon a human skull off the Old Glenn Highway near the Eclipse tail race. The skull bore a gunshot wound, and dental records later confirmed the remains belonged to Veronica R. Abachuk. Search warrants also produce additional corroboration. Photos and evidence from Smith's home and truck, including nylon cord, latex gloves, and two homemade suppressors, are stacked to a mountain of already gathered evidence.
Although he already confessed to shooting Veronica during a TV interview from jail, he changes his statement.
"The person that I shot was a fictitious. It was a fictitious event. It was not Veronica. Veronica. If that lady was Veronica, that woman walked out of my house. Alicia and her got in a vehicle and they drove away. The the story I told them was a story that Alicia and I had made up about driving around. You meet someone and take them home. They make you angry and you shoot them."
Brian also tells the interviewer that the interrogation wasn't fair, claiming he was in a weak state of mind due to the traveling.
"No, no. You you must remember that that interrogation was done under duress. I was in a weakened state of mind. It made sense to me there that I need to cover my all my my my tracks. Alicia might have told them that story and I don't tell them and they think I'm lying."
5 years after the murder of Kathleen Joe Henry and Brian's confession to the murder of Veronica Abachuk, the case finally goes to trial. Alicia Youngblood, Brian's former mistress and the woman who secretly alerted Anchorage police after he showed her the disturbing video, had already left Alaska before the proceedings began. Sadly, she never got the chance to testify against him.
After about 2 hours of deliberations on February 22nd, 2024, an Anchorage jury finds Smith guilty on all 14 counts, including two counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, second-degree sexual assault, tampering with evidence, and misconduct involving a corpse. On July 12th, 2024, a judge sentences him to 226 years in prison.
With the trial now over, one question still remains. Did Brian have more victims in Anchorage? He had also moved to Alaska in 2014 after previously living in South Africa where Alicia claimed he may have had other victims.
"He told me one of his victims was as young as 15 where he was from. I think Christine was the youngest. Okay. But um on the other hand, we don't know. We do not know really."