"I've Dug My Own Grave": Brian Steven Smith Faces Court TV's David Scott, 2024

Name: "I've Dug My Own Grave": Brian Steven Smith Faces Court TV's David Scott, 2024
Uploaded: 2024-11-15
Duration: 44 min 3 s
Description: After his conviction, Brian Steven Smith told Court TV's David Scott that his 2019 confession was invented under duress. The episode sets his denials beside his own words to Anchorage detectives.

After his conviction, Brian Steven Smith told Court TV's David Scott that his 2019 confession was invented under duress. The episode sets his denials beside his own words to Anchorage detectives.

Subject: Brian Steven Smith
Recorded: February 22, 2024
Runtime: 44:03

Content warning: Describes and plays audio from a video of the torture, sexual assault and killing of an Alaska Native woman; describes the shooting of a second woman and the abuse of her body; mentions suicide.

The Interview

In 2024, after an Anchorage jury convicted him of two murders, Brian Steven Smith agreed to be interviewed in custody by David Scott for Court TV's series *Interview With A Killer*. The first episode, "A Double Life", premiered on October 20, 2024. In it Smith tells Scott that he did not kill either woman and that what he told detectives in 2019 was invented. The episode sets his account beside excerpts of his recorded police interrogation, in which he admitted dumping a body and then volunteered that he had shot a second woman.

Historical Context

Smith was born in South Africa in 1971 and, by his own account, moved to Alaska after meeting his future wife online; he became a US citizen in September 2019. In the autumn of 2019 a woman living on the streets of Anchorage took a phone from his truck and found on it photographs and videos of a woman being strangled and killed in a hotel room. The woman was Kathleen Jo Henry, 30, an Alaska Native woman born in Bethel and from the village of Eek; her remains were found near the Seward Highway on October 2, 2019. Police arrested Smith at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on October 8, 2019. During questioning he also described shooting a woman at his home. She was identified as Veronica Abouchuk, 52, an Alaska Native woman who had disappeared from Anchorage in 2018.

Circumstances of the Interview

Smith's trial opened in Anchorage Superior Court in February 2024 before Judge Kevin Saxby. On February 22, 2024, the jury found him guilty on 14 counts, including two counts of first-degree murder, sexual assault, tampering with evidence and misconduct involving a corpse. Court TV first reported Scott's jailhouse interview on July 12, 2024, the day Smith was sentenced to 226 years, describing it as an interview "ahead of sentencing". The episode also includes interviews with Detective Brendan Lee of the Anchorage Police Department and with the woman who took Smith's phone, trial footage, and audio from the hotel-room video.

What the Interview Covers

Smith describes coming to Alaska, his marriage, and an affair with a co-worker, Alicia Youngblood, with whom he says he invented violent "role-play" stories. He says he went driving at night to unwind, not for sex. He denies that the man in the hotel-room video is him and tells Scott that what he saw in his truck was not a body. He says his confession to the Abouchuk killing was one of the invented stories, made "under duress" and in "a weakened state of mind". Asked to describe the killer on the video, he calls him "a nasty person" who was "documenting something". In the interrogation excerpts he tells detectives about his "alter ego" Facebook account, "Bradley Phillips", says "Yes, I did it. I know I did it", and then describes picking up "a very drunk girl" and shooting her. At the end of the interview he says, "I've dug my own grave."

What Makes the Recording Significant

Court TV billed this as an exclusive jailhouse interview, and no other media interview with Smith is known. It records the account he gave after the verdict, which contradicts what he told detectives in 2019. Because the episode includes the interrogation excerpts, viewers can compare the two accounts in his own words. The case is known for the evidence that led to his arrest: a video the killer recorded himself.

Archival Importance

The killings of Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk drew attention to violence against Alaska Native women. The recording preserves Smith's post-conviction denials alongside his own confession, and shows how investigators connected a stolen phone, a hotel guest list and mobile-phone records to a suspect.

Important Caveats

Smith's denials and his claims about Alicia Youngblood and the "role-play" stories are his own; the jury rejected his defence. The narration's description of Smith as a "serial killer", its statement that he spoke "for the first time", and its summary of the verdict ("guilty for the murder and sexual assault of Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk") are Court TV's wording; the reported counts included sexual assault of Kathleen Henry. Remarks in the episode about possible victims in South Africa are unproven; Smith denied them. The woman who took the phone is named on the programme. Alicia Youngblood died before the trial; the episode says it was most likely suicide.

Brian Steven Smith: I actually feel uncomfortable around too many white people. I find I'm bonding closer with the natives, the Alaska natives.

David Scott: Really?

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah.

David Scott: So do you have a penchant for native women who are homeless, in crisis?

David Scott: It's been called the memory card murder: a brutal homicide found on a stolen cell phone, the victim dying on a hotel room floor, the killer mocking her in a distinctive accent.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: Face camera, [bleeped].

David Scott: There's at one point blood coming from both sides of her mouth while the killer is sexually molesting her.

Brian Steven Smith: He wasn't sexually molesting. He was poking his fingers on a boob.

David Scott: Okay. Is that not sexual molestation in your mind?

Brian Steven Smith: It depends on the woman.

David Scott: I've always suspected that some people aren't at all who they appear to be. To his wife, Brian Steven Smith was a loving husband. To the Marriott Hotel staff, he was a good colleague. To his mistress, he was a spinner of dark sexual fantasies. But to Kathleen Henry, an Alaska Native living on the streets of Anchorage, Brian Steven Smith was a stranger who offered a warm bed and then did something monstrous.

News Anchor: Good evening. We're learning more tonight about the [unclear: "weeks" / "wakes"] surrounding the hotel killing of 30-year-old Kathleen Henry. 39 photos and 12 videos show in graphic detail the final hours of a dark-haired woman. The SD card where the files were stored was labeled "Homicide at Midtown Marriott."

Valerie Casler: She was like all beat up. I mean, her face was not even recognizable.

David Scott: Hello.

David Scott: Brian Steven Smith was found guilty in February 2024 of murder, sexual assault, and misconduct involving a corpse.

David Scott: How are we doing, guys?

Crew Member: We're set.

David Scott: We're good? Okay.

David Scott: And now, for the first time, he has agreed to tell me his story and to answer for these crimes.

David Scott: Well, Brian, we're here because we really want to understand the mindset and motivations behind your actions in this case, okay? Tell me, why are you here today talking to us?

Brian Steven Smith: Um, because you asked me to.

David Scott: Um, you could have said no, but you agreed. Why?

Brian Steven Smith: Yes. Well, I have my side of the story as well that I'd like to get out.

David Scott: You want to be heard?

Brian Steven Smith: Um, yes. I have to get something out on my side at least.

David Scott: Smith's side starts when he met a woman who lived very far away from his native South Africa.

David Scott: You had found love late in life with an older woman, right? Stephanie. Tell me about her.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah. So we actually met playing a game on the internet, and we became friends, and we started talking outside of the game.

David Scott: The folk singer from Anchorage fell hard and fast for Smith, just as his life hit rock bottom.

Brian Steven Smith: In South Africa, things actually got to a bit of a bad point. Um, I'd gone into a business deal that just went sour, and I lost a lot of money, and it's almost like everything just made sense, you know: just pack up and leave, you've got nothing to lose here anymore.

David Scott: Take me back to the first time you set foot in this rather stunning land. What did you feel? What did you think?

Brian Steven Smith: Well, it was amazing. Um, it's the first time I've been out of South Africa.

Voice On Smith'S Home Video: He's eating your plants. My roses.

David Scott: With camera in hand, Smith took to the Alaskan wilds and began shooting videos.

Brian Steven Smith: This is the beaver dam. I don't know if this GoPro can pick it up, but there's a little beaver house over there.

Brian Steven Smith: It's very similar to Africa. You've got the civilized, and then you've got the whole ethnic, rural, indigenous side of things. People that are living in an absolutely totally different world to what we live in.

David Scott: Are there many South Africans in the Anchorage area?

Brian Steven Smith: I think there's two or three or four. There might be more, but maybe a, maybe a handful.

David Scott: Yeah. It also seems like a good place for a secret life, if that's what you're looking for. Nobody knows you, um, there's lots of space. One could lose themselves in, kind of withdraw from the world here, if one wanted to.

Brian Steven Smith: Yes, you could. Um, you're correct. You can go get yourself a little cabin and you never have to deal with humans again.

David Scott: Right, right.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah, because I think...

David Scott: Whether Smith was looking for a second life or a secret one in Alaska, he struggled to fit into Stephanie's world.

David Scott: Are you still married?

Brian Steven Smith: I signed the divorce papers about two months ago. Stephanie's a very social person, and she's got groups of friends that are in theater and music. At first I thought, yes, I could do it, but then it was just too much for me. They were all trying to be nice.

David Scott: Right, right.

Brian Steven Smith: But that did cause a bit of problem with us.

David Scott: Yeah. Well, but let's be frank, right? She was an older woman, you were still quite young, and you had a roving eye. And soon, an affair, right? With someone who shared a certain lust for sexual adventure. Is that fair?

Brian Steven Smith: Alicia.

David Scott: Enter Alicia Youngblood, a young woman Smith met at work. Smith told police they started off as drinking buddies. Then things progressed.

Brian Steven Smith: This crazy sex thing, um, uh, it was just something that was happening, and I delved into it. It was interesting for me, um, that I had someone that I could do something and they would respond to it.

David Scott: Right.

Brian Steven Smith: Um, actually, I think that's what the main thing is. She was responsive to it.

David Scott: You say there was a bit of rough stuff, right? She liked to be slapped around a little, choked, suffocated.

Brian Steven Smith: Yes, but it wasn't every time. She liked to see and hear stories about violence. That turned her on. That's what got the engine going.

David Scott: And this is all illicit, which probably made it even more exciting, right? 'Cause you were married.

Brian Steven Smith: Well, yes. Um, the secrecy side of it, yes.

David Scott: Yeah. Soon it sounds like the two of you were trying to outdo each other and coming up with mock sexual and violent role-play scenarios, right?

Brian Steven Smith: Yes. She would tell me about her criminal history. I knew they were not true stories. She was telling me that she'd been chased across America by the FBI, and she was part of a gang that used to rob banks. That's not, it's not real, though. Um, but that's where the whole murder thing started coming in.

David Scott: And you played along.

Brian Steven Smith: So, uh, one day I said to her, well, I've also killed somebody, you know? So I've also got a story, you know? And it turned her on massively at work. She loved me telling, making up stories like it. If any woman goes to any man and says, say this or do this and I'll get horny, that guy's going to do it.

David Scott: By day, Smith says, he and his wife kept up a loving if passionless marriage.

David Scott: It sounds like you did sort of slip into a kind of a double life. You know, the Brian who's the dutiful husband on the straight and narrow, uh, and then on the other hand a reckless kind of alter ego, right? The one who would drive into the night looking for cheap sex.

David Scott: By night, Smith would troll the streets of Anchorage in his black pickup truck.

Brian Steven Smith: I did go out, but, uh, it wasn't for going out for sex. Um, basically I was having a very stressful life, and I would drink a glass of whiskey just before bedtime. That would be midnight. And if that didn't knock me out, sometimes it would give me that, you get your [unclear: "second race now" / "second" (rest not captioned)], get a little energy. And then I'd say, oh, now I need to go driving.

Valerie Casler: It was probably about 9:30 at night.

David Scott: Okay.

Valerie Casler: And he pulls up, and I was homeless, [unclear: "lived in a tent" / "living in a tent"], and it was raining that night. And he goes, well, it's raining, [unclear: "do you want to" / "he's going to"] ride around with me, you know? And I was like, sure.

David Scott: Valerie Castler was on the street one night when Smith drove by. He told her he was looking for a certain young working girl and asked her to help.

David Scott: You know the streets.

Valerie Casler: Yeah.

David Scott: And I'm sure you're a pretty good judge of character. What was your first impression?

Valerie Casler: He was nice. We went everywhere. We hung out at, like, out at the airport and watched the planes and stuff. I was with him till, like, about 5, 6 in the morning.

David Scott: All night long?

Valerie Casler: Yeah.

David Scott: When Smith stopped at a gas station to use the ATM, Castler found herself alone in his car.

Valerie Casler: That's when I dropped my phone.

David Scott: In the car?

Valerie Casler: In his truck, yeah.

David Scott: You were in the front passenger seat?

Valerie Casler: Yeah. And when I reached down, I grabbed two phones, and you get, like, that chill feeling, you know?

David Scott: You just got a vibe from it?

Valerie Casler: Yeah.

David Scott: A feeling?

Valerie Casler: Yeah, yeah. That something was not right.

David Scott: With Smith still inside, Castler pocketed his cell phone, a decision on which the entire case would hinge.

Valerie Casler: I went back to my tent and I turned it on, [unclear: "looking to see" / "let me see"] if I recognize any phone numbers, or if I recognize anybody on the pictures, and that's when I found it.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: You need [unclear: "your garbage" / "yourage"].

Valerie Casler: That's a sick [unclear: "motherfucker" (Whisper) / "mother" followed by silence, probably a bleep (captions)].

David Scott: In the fall of 2019, in a tent in the woods around Anchorage, Alaska, Valerie Castler took out a phone she had stolen from Brian Steven Smith's car and pressed play.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: You need your garbage.

David Scott: What did you see at first?

Valerie Casler: Him talking, and his voice, and her body laying on the floor of the hotel.

David Scott: She was alive, though, at that point?

Valerie Casler: Yeah. And he stepped on her throat, and he said, you're not leaving here alive. I'm killing you.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: [unclear: "Oh, for fuck's sake" / "take"]. Are you still alive?

Valerie Casler: I watched all of it, and he pulled out a wire, put it around her neck, and she was dead. And he was still doing things to her.

David Scott: For days, Castler refused to leave her tent.

David Scott: You stayed in the woods because you were...

Valerie Casler: I was paranoid as hell.

David Scott: You were scared?

Valerie Casler: Yeah.

David Scott: But she worked up the courage to turn the videos over to the police.

Detective Brendan Lee: It was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch in my life, not just being as a police officer. This was the worst thing I've ever seen happen to a human being.

David Scott: Detective Brendan Lee had a colleague who overheard the videos and the distinctive voice.

Detective Brendan Lee: He recalled a case that he had worked, uh, that involved a male with an accent, and, um, he gave me the name Brian Steven Smith.

David Scott: Lee checked the Marriott guest list from the night of the videos, and sure enough...

Detective Brendan Lee: To see his name on there, it was kind of like a, yeah, like a big "aha" moment. Like, okay, now we know who we're looking at.

David Scott: Then, just days after police got the video...

News Anchor: Human remains found at Mile 108 of the Seward Highway a week ago belonged to a woman who had long dark hair.

David Scott: With a prime suspect and a body to match, the race was on to gather evidence.

Detective Brendan Lee: The FBI told us, hey, his phone is hitting off a tower near Mile 108 of the Seward Highway. And also there was a time stamp on one of the images with Kathleen Jo 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.

David Scott: Detective Lee intercepted Smith at the Anchorage airport, returning from a trip with his wife.

Detective Brendan Lee: Mr. Smith, I'm Detective Lee, [unclear: "Anchorage" / "B"] Police Department. I just want to show you my badge, my ID, so you know who you're talking to. This is Detective Bell, my 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, so you have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?

Brian Steven Smith: Yes.

Detective Brendan Lee: You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you're being questioned. Do you understand that?

Brian Steven Smith: Yes.

David Scott: Smith tells me that afternoon the police caught him off guard.

Brian Steven Smith: I just flown all the way from D.C.

David Scott: Right.

Brian Steven Smith: You've obviously flown from the Lower 48. You know what it feels like. Now, I flew four time zones across a 10-hour flight.

David Scott: Right.

Brian Steven Smith: 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.

David Scott: When you're under investigation for serious crimes, you don't get to pick your period of rest before an interrogation.

Detective: I just wanted to show you these pictures, see if it would help you kind of refresh, um, that night.

David Scott: The detectives start small, without letting on how much they already know about the killer sitting in front of them.

Detective: Can you tell me what's in that photo?

Brian Steven Smith: It's somebody's feet.

Detective: Okay. Yeah, I'm looking at your [unclear: "feet" / "you see"]. I mean, it looks like the shoes you're wearing right now.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah, it does. Yeah, but what's happening [unclear: "when that's" / "with this"]?

Detective: What's happening is, on this video, on these images, uh, the person that's recording it is holding the recorder and is standing basically above this girl and strangling her. Okay? And so we need to talk about this. We need to get ahead of this, Mr. Smith.

Brian Steven Smith: I don't want to act stupid, but I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything.

Detective: Okay.

Brian Steven Smith: 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. [unclear: "In Adenosium" / "in adium"] I said that.

David Scott: You're not saying that. You're saying, you're saying that you can't remember.

Brian Steven Smith: I do not remember anything like this. Honestly.

Detective: That looks like a [unclear: "Marriott cart" / "Marriott car" / "married cart"]. That looks like [unclear: "your truck" / "one truck"] parked over there.

Brian Steven Smith: It is.

David Scott: Piece by piece, detectives disclose photo evidence: Smith's hands, his stomach, Smith's truck and license plate.

Detective: There's cameras out on the highway at the weigh station. So there's no doubt about it that [unclear: "you were bound out there" / "there"], no doubt about it that you were out there.

Brian Steven Smith: [unclear: "Look, I don't remember anything on this video" / "I don't anything else really"], I'm sorry.

David Scott: Then, about two hours in, Smith starts to crack.

Brian Steven Smith: Look, this, this sounds very serious. No matter what, um, [I'm] going to be in deep. So, um, okay, I'll, I'll tell you what I remember. Um, the next day at work, um, I saw something [unclear: "dripping"] out the back of my truck, and I was like, what the hell? And I opened up, and there was somebody there underneath. There was a blue, like a [unclear: "top" / "tarp"] at the back of my truck. And, um, 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 the hell, what must I do, what must I do? And, uh, [unclear: "then the one night I thought" / "being the one out, I thought"], I've got to get rid of this. I can't. And I, I drove out and I did. I went and [unclear: "dumped it" / "down to it"]. So, yeah, I did, I did that, but I, uh, yeah.

Brian Steven Smith: What was in the back of my truck was not, uh, Kathleen Henry.

David Scott: You're saying that you didn't keep the body in your truck for two days and then dump her on the side of the road, as you recounted to police?

Brian Steven Smith: Well, 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. There was something...

David Scott: You told them that you looked under the sheet and could tell it was a body. You told them that.

Brian Steven Smith: Um, it, it was not a body. It was, 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, or like a [unclear: "sex doll or something" / "$6, I mean, it smelled"].

David Scott: Are you somebody who's incapable of telling the truth, Brian?

Brian Steven Smith: Um, the problem is, when I speak the truth, people don't believe me.

Detective Brendan Lee: I think, uh, Brian Steven Smith is a person that, I'd say he's a sociopath. You know, if you looked at his life, he would just look like you're normal every day. 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. You know, I wouldn't say split personality, but he was definitely somebody that knowingly was trying to, you know, live two different types of lifestyles.

David Scott: For police, the double life of Brian Steven Smith now comes into sharp focus.

Detective: Do you have any other Facebook accounts that aren't just Brian Smith?

Brian Steven Smith: Oh, yeah, sure. Um, I've [got one] called Bradley Phillips. Bradley's a, a real, he's like my alter ego. He's racist. He, you know, he can make racist jokes and stuff like that.

David Scott: Smith's alter ego offers police a new strategy.

Detective: You think good Brian wanted bad Brian to get caught? That's why somebody made it so easy for us.

David Scott: They urge good Brian to confess to what bad Brian has done.

Detective: Right now, the good Brian, I'm assuming, is who we have here. What do you feel right now about this woman?

Brian Steven Smith: Well, she's a pretty girl. And if she ended up like that, that's, that's such a waste.

Detective: So knowing that...

David Scott: Several hours in, Smith seems to sense the net tightening around him.

Brian Steven Smith: Well, I'm, I'm sure in the back of my mind I knew that I was involved [unclear: "there somewhere" / "in some way"]. It's, it's, it's stupid to believe that someone else killed someone and put them in the back of my truck.

Detective: You knew in the back of your head, the side of your head, front of your head, you knew you'd killed somebody.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah. I can tell you for a straight fact, I did not plan to do this.

Detective: Okay.

Brian Steven Smith: I've done it. That's, I've, I, I, I've done that. I'll sign a piece of paper. Yes, I did it. I know I did it.

Detective: Yeah. [unclear: "Before we do that" / "do"]...

David Scott: With Smith's full-throated confession in hand, the detectives think they're done.

Detective: [unclear: "Down there first. They're with you. No, just have a seat." / "Just have a get somebody"]

David Scott: And then Smith drops the biggest bomb of the case.

Brian Steven Smith: Are you guys in a rush?

Detective: [unclear: "We're going." / "G"] Are we in a rush?

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah.

Detective: Do you want to talk some more? We're not in a rush. We got, we got all night.

Brian Steven Smith: I picked up a very drunk girl. Um, my wife was gone. She was away for the weekend, [unclear: "out to go home" / "I to go home"]. And, um, I, I shot [unclear: "her" / "it"].

Brian Steven Smith: Hey, are you guys in a rush?

Detective: [unclear: "We're going." / "To go"] Are we in a rush?

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah.

Detective: Do you want to talk some more? We're not in a rush. We got all night.

David Scott: Five hours into a police interrogation, Brian Steven Smith had already confessed to the murder of Kathleen Henry.

Brian Steven Smith: If I'm going to burn on the electric chair for one, might as well do it for two.

David Scott: Then Smith volunteered details of a second murder, and police realized they'd caught a serial killer.

Brian Steven Smith: I shot this girl, and then I [unclear: "went and dumped her" / "wented DP her" / "printed them to her heart"] out on that little side road going towards [unclear: "Butte" / "be"], when you turn off the [unclear: "power" / "eyes"].

David Scott: This is how you recounted it to the police. Your wife was away. You were drinking. You hit the streets, as, in your words, you were known to do. You went to get some liquor, and you spotted her.

Brian Steven Smith: She, she wanted booze, I knew that. She was drunk. She had a [unclear: "half a bottle" / "awful bottle" / "off a bottle"] of, of R&R on her there. And, uh, she was, she was really drunk. She was slurring. And, uh, I, I picked [her] up, and I said, hey, you, you want some warm food and a warm place to sleep [unclear: "start" (both sources)]?

David Scott: You bring her home. You were afraid, you told the police, that she was going to leave her odor in the home, and your wife would, would detect it. So you told her to take a shower.

Brian Steven Smith: She was smelling. I knew she was homeless then, you know. She was, she, she was [unclear: "stinking" / "thinking"]. And I was getting upset, and I said to her, go, go take a shower, you know, 'cause now there's smell in the house, you know. And, uh, she wouldn't do it. She, she, she kept saying no, no. [unclear: "He said" / "Yeah,"] I clearly remember this. And again, I'm not lying to you. I, I don't remember, I can't visualize the girl, but [unclear: "when I went" / "and I went"] to the garage, and I got my pistol, and I said to her, go to the shower, and she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't. And, uh, I just did that, and I'm [unclear: "done" / "I"].

Detective: Well, she was on the couch?

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah. I just shot [unclear: "it" / "you"].

David Scott: The evidence lined up perfectly with Smith's account. A human skull had been found six months earlier at the site Smith named, pierced by a bullet. Police would later find an SD card at Smith's home with a video of a woman lying naked on the floor. Forensics identified the victim as Veronica Abouchuk, another Alaska Native woman who disappeared from the streets of Anchorage.

Valerie Casler: Veronica was my best friend, and I loved the hell out of her. I knew her daughters, you know. They wasn't working girls. They were just women that had drinking problems, you know.

David Scott: For Valerie Castler, who uncovered evidence of Smith's hotel room murder, this second case hit even closer to home.

Valerie Casler: I remember the last time I talked to her. She said she was going to the liquor store, she's going to get a bottle, and she had to go meet up with somebody. That must have been him, because that was the last time I ever saw her.

David Scott: [unclear: "This photo evidence" / "Smith's pH evidence"] and confession left virtually no doubt about his guilt. But today, Smith is trying to sell me a story that sounds nothing like the one he admitted to police.

David Scott: Tell me what happened that night that you brought Veronica Abouchuk to your house.

Brian Steven Smith: 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 the vehicle and they drove away.

David Scott: Well, then, then that wasn't Veronica, because the, the person that you murdered in your home, whose forensics lines up with Veronica Abouchuk, right, um, she didn't walk out of your home.

Brian Steven Smith: That was Alicia Youngblood. That wasn't Veronica.

David Scott: Smith now recants his detailed confession to the Abouchuk murder, and he's trying to persuade me that his confession was all based on fictional role play with his former mistress, Alicia Youngblood.

Brian Steven Smith: 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. I told Alicia before.

David Scott: You're saying that was a made-up story?

Brian Steven Smith: Yes.

David Scott: Did you, did you make up the part about defiling her, her corpse after you killed her?

Brian Steven Smith: Oh, no, that was a, that was [unclear: "Alicia and myself's" / "Alicia and Marcel's"] story.

David Scott: You told the police that after murdering her, you sexually defiled her body by sticking your fingers, your hand, inside of her. Um, it sounds very much like paraphilia. Do you know that term? Paraphilia: characterized by abnormal sexual desires, typically involving extreme or dangerous activities; sometimes intense and persistent interest in inflicting sexual violence or torture on a living person or corpse.

Brian Steven Smith: I don't like hurting people.

David Scott: You don't?

Brian Steven Smith: No.

David Scott: And, and, and you're telling me now that what you told the police is false, that you did not murder Veronica Abouchuk?

Brian Steven Smith: No, no. You must remember that, that that interrogation was done under duress.

David Scott: Well, all interrogations are, are arguably done under duress, but there was nothing unfair about it. In fact, you could have stopped talking at any point. And instead you volunteer a completely different story about an earlier crime.

Brian Steven Smith: 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 [if] I don't tell them, then they think I'm lying.

David Scott: In fact, Alicia Youngblood had told police a story in secret on a tip line one year earlier.

Investigator: The first time that I talked to Miss Youngblood, she, she was nervous. You could tell, talking to her on the phone. She said Smith had showed her a video of a dead woman.

Alicia Youngblood: [unclear: "It's going" / "He's going"] in her, and then he draws his hand out, and he's holding the GoPro, and then he wipes his hands on her legs.

Investigator: She loved this Brian Smith, but now she did not love him anymore after seeing this video. She was very adamant that she thought this video was real.

Alicia Youngblood: The pictures are her breast, and he's grabbing them so hard that the blood is [unclear: "pooling" / "pulling"].

David Scott: Youngblood tried to goad Smith into sharing evidence so police could arrest him.

Alicia Youngblood: [unclear: "Y'all" / "So I"] don't know what I'm doing to get this information. I'm doing all kinds of crazy sexual acts with him [unclear: "to get this information out of him" / "because it's information that has them"] and having to pretend I like it.

Brian Steven Smith: She took these, this, this fantasy stories, these make-believe stories of ours, and she took it, and she started bringing in real people's names. And I said to her, no.

David Scott: Smith was cautious not to give Youngblood any proof, and police soon dropped the case.

Alicia Youngblood: I can't do this anymore. He's getting more wild.

David Scott: Alicia Youngblood left Alaska. She never got the chance to testify against Smith.

Investigator: We were informed that she had, uh, passed away in Oklahoma. It was most likely she, um, took her own life.

Court Tv Anchor: The next phase of the case is the opening statements.

David Scott: It wasn't until three years later, in February 2024, Smith would take center stage in a horror show of his own design.

Prosecutor: After this trial, you will all carry the burden of knowing, the burden of knowing that Brian Smith lived, worked, walked among us, mingling and targeting the most vulnerable among us.

David Scott: Smith's hour in the limelight was just beginning.

Judge: Let's bring the jury in. [unclear: "Ms. ..." / "This is J" / "This is a statement"] may call your first witness.

Kristie Grimaldi: My name is Kristie Grimaldi.

Prosecutor: How are you related to this case? Why are you here today?

Kristie Grimaldi: Veronica Abouchuk is my mother. Um, I'm her oldest daughter.

David Scott: In February 2024, the trial for the murders of Veronica Abouchuk and Kathleen Henry began.

Kristie Grimaldi: In October 2019, I was contacted by family, um, to meet with a detective. And, um, looking back at that, I was in complete denial, or holding on to any hope. I remember thinking, wow, they found her, you know. Maybe she's somewhere. Um, and just, I'm in awe that I believe that, you know.

David Scott: Smith appeared calm as witness after witness laid out evidence against him. But the smoking gun was the evidence Smith produced himself.

Prosecutor: Those videos depict a woman that we now know to be Kathleen Henry being strangled, tortured, and killed. When we show those videos, they're going to be broadcast on that TV facing this way so that members of the general public don't see them.

David Scott: Police say you're the man in the video. What do you say?

Brian Steven Smith: No, it's not me.

David Scott: I needed a way to push past Smith's denial. If he wouldn't admit to the crimes, could I get him to describe the killer?

David Scott: Let me describe to you what the man in the video, the killer, um, did, and ask you to profile him for me.

Brian Steven Smith: Well, I didn't want to watch [them] ever at all, but they forced me to at the trial.

Detective Brendan Lee: My name is Brendan Lee. Last name L-E-E. Um, so in this video, you're, it's going to start out, and you're going to see, uh, Kathleen Henry on the floor.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: Are you alive? Are you?

David Scott: There's at one point blood coming from both sides of her mouth while the killer is sexually molesting her. What did you think when you saw that?

Brian Steven Smith: He wasn't sexually molesting. He was poking his fingers on a boob, okay?

David Scott: Is, is that not sexual molestation, um, in your mind?

Brian Steven Smith: It depends on the woman. It depends on the situation.

David Scott: Well, obviously the situation was non-consensual. She's laying there dying. He's telling her he's killing her.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah.

David Scott: He stands on top of her stomach at one point. He laughs maniacally. What did you make of that?

Brian Steven Smith: I don't remember him laughing.

David Scott: Even as he downplays the cruelty captured on video, Smith offers clues about the man behind the camera.

David Scott: Did it seem to you that the killer was enjoying himself?

Brian Steven Smith: No. The guy sounded frustrated.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: [unclear: "Oh, for fuck's" / "...sake"] sake. Are you still alive? [unclear: "I'm so tired" / "I'm look so tired"; speaker uncertain]

Brian Steven Smith: The guy said that, like, like, she must hurry up, you know, she must die, she must hurry up. People need to cooperate. People need to know when they [unclear: "mean" / "'re, I mean"], [unclear: "serial killers" / "serial"].

Brian Steven Smith: The person sounded like he had lost control.

David Scott: Like he had lost control. Interesting. So that it was unplanned, maybe? Spontaneous?

Brian Steven Smith: No. From the wording the guy used, it sounds like he was documenting something.

David Scott: So it was planned.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: [unclear: "As you can notice, the tongue is like [swollen]" / "I thought you could notice the tongue. It's not swollen."] [unclear: "That eye is swollen" / "That arm is swelling as well"].

David Scott: Why was he documenting? Why, why would somebody do that?

Brian Steven Smith: Well, they're obviously making money out of it, as far as [I know].

David Scott: Yeah. Could he have been doing that to, to watch it back and get thrills from it?

Brian Steven Smith: I don't know. Probably could have. If you find him, you can ask him that.

David Scott: The killer is giggling and laughing. Do you remember that?

Brian Steven Smith: Probably the, the, the, the ugliest part was where he had his foot on her throat.

David Scott: What kind of man could do that?

Brian Steven Smith: A nasty person.

David Scott: She's making horrific sounds with her dying breaths. Do you remember those sounds?

Brian Steven Smith: Well, that, there was the first noises that came out, when the first video played. They showed the, the girl trying to breathe. And that's, I do not like that.

David Scott: Can you describe them for me, and how they made you feel?

Brian Steven Smith: I didn't like hearing it. It's, it's, I don't like to hear that stuff.

David Scott: [unclear: "So he has the throat, he has a string" / "So, yes, that's right. He has a string of what?"]

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: [unclear: "I've got... I'm going to pull the string quick" / "A double string"].

David Scott: He's strangling her with a green string, straddling over her, right? Remember that? Berating her, fondling her.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: I'm trying to make a movie, you stupid [unclear: "blood sucking" / "blood-sucking"] [bleeped].

David Scott: And it sounds like he's, he's doing that for an audience.

Brian Steven Smith: He's like, he's making a movie. He's definitely making a movie.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: I'm trying to make a movie, you stupid [bleeped].

David Scott: Weeks after I met Smith, I finally got access to the murder video itself. I can now see what Smith meant by the killer making a movie.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: [unclear: "All my fans are there" / "For more fans are there"]. Hit the like button, please. Just take it, [unclear: "swallow it" / "SW it is"]. Do a nipple shot while we're at [it]. Do like an angle, like an action shot.

David Scott: In Smith's twisted mind, he's a film director, and this atrocity is his blockbuster movie.

Man'S Voice On The Hotel-Room Video: You live, you die. [You] live, you die. Sadly, in my movies, everyone dies. I get the Oscar, [bleeped].

[courtroom Sound; Speaker Not Identified]: Right. Please.

David Scott: In the end, Smith's movie did meet its audience...

Judge: Let's bring the jury in.

David Scott: ...12 men and women, and they quickly delivered a verdict.

Judge: Mr. Smith, would you please rise? I will read the forms of the verdict.

Judge Or Court Clerk: We, the jury, find the defendant, Brian Steven Smith, guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in Count One.

David Scott: Guilty for the murder and sexual assault of Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk. His sentence? 226 years in prison.

David Scott: I, I can tell you as a professional journalist, the evidence against you is insurmountable. You're not, you're not getting over it. Um, isn't there a part of you, you're still a young man, isn't there a part of you that just wants to unload, unburden this whole thing, and, and, and talk truthfully about what actually happened?

Detective: You're glad you're not going to be able to hurt anybody else?

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah. But I was also, I was hoping that it would have just been that one. I was hoping that, that anger in my system would have been out, you know. I don't like to, to know that I've done that to someone. It's, I don't, I don't like that.

David Scott: It's been 10 years since Brian Steven Smith first left South Africa for a new adventure on the Alaskan frontier.

David Scott: At one point you told the police that Alaska is the perfect place to murder someone.

Brian Steven Smith: Yes. But people come here because they, they're antisocial. And, um, if you look at the distances between places, yeah, you could just go dump a body just five minutes out of town.

David Scott: Murder is the third leading cause of death among Native American women. Smith killed two of these vulnerable women, at least two that we know of.

David Scott: Did you engage in any sexual violence with Native South African women?

Brian Steven Smith: No.

Detective Brendan Lee: [unclear: "You told me" / "He told me"] one of his victims was as young as [unclear: "15" (captions) / "16" (Whisper)], where he's from. I think [unclear: "15" / "16"] was the youngest. But, um, on the other hand, we don't know. We do not know, really.

David Scott: The South African police say they're looking into you now. Any idea what that might be about?

Brian Steven Smith: Okay. Again, right in the beginning, Alicia and myself were telling stories, and the first stories I told her were about South Africa.

David Scott: More stories.

Brian Steven Smith: Yeah.

David Scott: If I can find any poetic justice in this tragic story, it's this.

[off Camera; Speaker Not Identified]: Can you hold?

David Scott: Smith landed behind bars thanks to a woman who lived on the streets with his victims.

David Scott: What do you think would have happened without that video, had you not found it and brought it forward?

Valerie Casler: They'd probably still be investigating, and he still probably would be a free man, hunting and, and, and killing women. And there'd probably be more bodies than what there was.

David Scott: When you heard, heard the verdict, what did you think?

Valerie Casler: That was on my birthday. What a birthday present.

David Scott: Yeah.

Valerie Casler: Yeah.

David Scott: [unclear: "Castler" / "Cassie"] remained on the front lines from the moment she turned over the smoking gun SD card.

David Scott: Those images that [you] saw, timing and all of that aside, have those stayed with you?

Detective Brendan Lee: In my head?

David Scott: Yeah.

Detective Brendan Lee: Yeah. I just wanted them to go home.

David Scott: And what do you mean by that, when you, you say you wanted them to go home?

Detective Brendan Lee: I wanted their parents, their family, to be able to mourn, and, you know, properly, instead of burying an empty box.

David Scott: Smith tells me he now plans to file an appeal, and I end the interview with one of my own.

David Scott: You're going to live with this story, this defense that you've concocted in your, in your mind, that no one believes, Brian? You, you must know that no one believes the alibi, no one believes that you're not the man in the video. I mean, again, there's a mountain of forensic evidence against you. [There's no...] Are you going to just live with this?

Brian Steven Smith: There is no DNA evidence. There's no evidence proving that any, anyone was in my truck. Um, the only evidence in my truck is the evidence of my alibi.

David Scott: I have, I have five pages of quotes from your own lips, Brian...

Brian Steven Smith: Mm-hmm.

David Scott: ...full of admissions and confessions and, and acknowledgments and appreciation for the police, and, and, and self-awareness that you've gone too far and now you're in deep.

Brian Steven Smith: Yes. That is non-confrontational de-escalation.

David Scott: I, I don't think anybody would consider that de-escalation. That, that sounds like a guilty man who's coming clean.

David Scott: In the end, Brian Smith's double life culminated in a single fate: a life sentence in an Alaskan prison.

Brian Steven Smith: I've got no one to talk to now.

David Scott: What's that?

Brian Steven Smith: I've got no one to talk to now, [unclear: "so" / "sir"]. None of my friends will ever... Well, it's, it's, this is my fault. I've dug my own grave. Um, I did this to myself. I can't blame anybody else, you know. ---