True-Life
The gruesome last moments of two women’s lives were played out on screen
EDITOR’S WARNING
It was a tiny device, no bigger than a postage stamp.
Yet the digital memory card handed to police in the city of Anchorage, Alaska, on 30 September 2019 contained unimaginable horrors.
Labelled Homicide at Midtown Marriott, the SD card stored 39 photos and 12 videos.
The gruesome footage showed Kathleen Henry, 30, being beaten and strangled to death in a hotel room.
As Kathleen fought for her life, her attacker wasn’t visible on the grainy footage.
But he could be heard loud and clear, sadistically, almost cheerfully, narrating his despicable actions to an imaginary audience.
Speaking in a distinctive South African accent, the man taunted Kathleen for being slow to die.
‘In my movies, everybody always dies,’ he said. ‘What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.’
Police also viewed photos of Kathleen lying on a floor next to a bed, completely naked and on her back.
The video showed the man stomping on her throat.
Another clip revealed Kathleen’s blanket-covered dead body being loaded onto a luggage cart and smuggled out of the hotel. How had this memory card and its grisly contents ended up with cops?
A woman called Valerie Casler had passed it to them.
By now, Kathleen Henry’s body had already been found, dumped on a rural road.
The footage provided vital evidence in her killing.
And cops recognised the man’s voice from previous investigations.
Shocking confession
Brian Smith, then 48, had moved to Alaska fairly recently from his native South Africa, to marry an American woman he’d met online.
Detectives caught up with him at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
He was arrested, and interrogated for eight hours. Finally, he confessed. Said he’d also previously killed another woman, Veronica Abouchuk, 52.
Like Kathleen, Veronica had Native Alaskan heritage.
She’d struggled with addiction and homelessness.
Been reported missing by her family in February 2019.
Smith told cops that he’d shot Veronica, and directed them to where he said he’d dumped her body.
A police search yielded a skull with a bullet wound. Smith was charged with both murders.
But in court, in February 2024, he pleaded not guilty to 14 charges, including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, sexual assault and tampering with evidence.
Graphic videos
The disturbing footage on the memory card became crucial evidence.
In court, only the jury was sho
