‘Do people need to learn how to die?’: Jury watches woman’s death in Brian Smith murder trial

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Monday afternoon, in an Anchorage courtroom, a jury saw what prosecutors said were the last 35 minutes of a woman’s life.

“They [the videos] show her being strangled to death. She’s obviously already been severely beaten by the point the videos are taken and she’s being tortured and played with while she’s dying,” Judge Kevin Saxby said before the jury entered the courtroom. Saxby said that just the jurors would see the video. “In addition to being robbed of her life, she’s being robbed of her dignity.”

There are 39 images and 12 videos on an SD card showing what Anchorage police say is the murder of 30-year-old Kathleen Jo Henry, one of two Alaska Native women Brian Smith is accused of murdering between 2017 and 2019. Smith was arrested on homicide charges over four years ago and faces 14 counts, including first- and second-degree murder, assault and tampering with evidence.

Smith’s murder trial began last week and is expected to last three to four weeks.

After his arrest for Henry’s murder, police say Smith confessed to shooting 53-year-old Veronica Abouchuk sometime in 2017 or 2018. Abouchuk’s remains were found along the Old Glenn Highway when law enforcement recovered a skull with a gunshot wound from an area east of the old Eklutna Power Plant.

The homicides gained national attention after a good Samaritan said she found a memory card on the ground labeled “Homicide at midtown Marriott” near the Anchorage Carrs store at Gambell Street and East 13th Avenue. The good Samaritan, Valerie Casler, later admitted to stealing Smith’s phone from his car and transferring media from the phone to the SD card.

Even though the large monitor faced away from the gallery, everyone in court — including Smith’s wife and the families of Henry and Abouchuk — could hear the videos’ audio.

On the stand, Detective Brendan Lee with the Anchorage Police Department described the content of the videos before the jurors were allowed to watch them.

“[Smith] asked, ‘Do people need to learn how to die these days?’” Lee said.

Smith watched while the videos played, his hands clasped in his lap. One juror took notes while the rest remained fixated on the monitor, seldom turning away from the unsettling images. Meanwhile, Smith’s wife, Stephanie Bissland, watched the prosecution and the family of the victims looked down.

“At this time, you’ll see some blood dripping out of Henry’s mouth,” Lee testified.

Lee testified that Smith would touch Henry’s genitals and breasts, at points strangling her, Henry’s breath audibly heavy and labored. At one point the man identified as Smith sang “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC while he strangled Henry, and in another video, a man makes Henry hit herself with her hand.

Lee told the jury: “As a man kicks Henry’s stomach and vagina he says, ‘You live, you die, you live, you die,’ over and over again and finishes it with ‘sadly, in my movies, everyone dies.’”

Just after one o’clock, Lee was dismissed. The defense reported Smith would be cross-examined at a later time.

A second witness, Capt. Bianca Cross with APD’s homicide unit, told the jury how Smith confessed to killing Abouchuk.

“I believe he said she was a Native female, she was a nice person,” Cross told the jury, “and I believe he made a comment about her hairstyle.”

Cross said the hairstyle sounded familiar and when she presented photos of three possible victims to Smith — all missing Alaska Native women — he selected Abouchuk.

Go to Alaska’s News Source’s website to catch a livestream of the trial, which is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday-Thursday.