Speaker 1: I actually feel uncomfortable around too many white people. I
Speaker 1: find out I'm bonding closer with the natives, the Lesker natives.
Speaker 2: Really, so, do you have a pension for Native women
Speaker 2: who are homeless in crisis? It's been called the memory
Speaker 2: Card murder. A brutal homicide found on a stolen cell phone,
Speaker 2: the victim dying on a hotel room floor, the killer
Speaker 2: mocking her in a distinctive.
Speaker 3: Accent camera pitch.
Speaker 2: There's at one point blood coming from both sides of
Speaker 2: her mouth while the killer is sexually molesting her.
Speaker 1: He wasn't sexually molestic her. He was poking his fingers
Speaker 1: on her boob.
Speaker 2: Okay, is that not sexual molestation in your mind?
Speaker 3: It depends on the woman.
Speaker 2: I've always suspected that some people aren't at all who
Speaker 2: they appear to be. To his wife, Brian Stephen Smith
Speaker 2: was a loving husband to the Marriotte hotel staff. He
Speaker 2: was a good colleague to his mistress. He was a
Speaker 2: spinner of dark sexual fantasies. But to Kathleen Henry, an
Speaker 2: Alaska Native living on the streets of Anchorage, Brian Stephen
Speaker 2: Smith was a stranger who offered a warm bed and
Speaker 2: then did something monstrous.
Speaker 4: Good evening.
Speaker 5: We're learning more tonight about the weeks surrounding the hotel
Speaker 5: killing of thirty year old Kathleen Henry.
Speaker 6: Thirty nine photos and twelve videos show in graphic detail
Speaker 6: the final hours of a dark haired woman. Y SD
Speaker 6: card where the files were stored was labeled at Midtown Marrion.
Speaker 3: She was like, I'll beat up. I mean, her face
Speaker 3: was not even recognizable.
Speaker 4: Hello, Brian.
Speaker 2: Stephen Smith was found guilty in February twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: of murder, sexual assault, and misconduct involving a corpse.
Speaker 4: How are we doing that?
Speaker 2: We're good, okay, And now, for the first time, he
Speaker 2: has agreed to tell me his story and to answer
Speaker 2: for these crimes.
Speaker 4: Well, Brian, we're.
Speaker 2: Here because we really want to understand the mindset and
Speaker 2: motivations behind your actions in this case. Okay, tell me
Speaker 2: why are you here today talking to.
Speaker 3: Us because you asked me to.
Speaker 4: You could have said no, but you agreed. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well I've I have my side of the story as
Speaker 3: well that I'd like to get out.
Speaker 1: You want to be heard, Yes, I have to get
Speaker 1: something out on my side.
Speaker 3: At least.
Speaker 2: Smith's side starts when he met a woman who lived
Speaker 2: very far away from his native South Africa. You had
Speaker 2: found love late in life with an older woman, right it, Stephanie?
Speaker 4: Tell me about her.
Speaker 1: So we actually met playing a game on Internet and
Speaker 1: we became friends and we started talking outside of the game.
Speaker 2: The folk singer from Anchorage fell hard and fast for
Speaker 2: Smith just as his life hit rock bottom.
Speaker 1: In South Africa. Things actually got to a bit of
Speaker 1: a bad point. I got into a business dealer that
Speaker 1: just been so and I lost a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like everything just made sense, you know,
Speaker 1: just back up and leave.
Speaker 3: You've got nothing to lose you anymore.
Speaker 2: Take me back to the first time you step foot
Speaker 2: in this rather stunning land.
Speaker 4: What did you feel? What did you think?
Speaker 3: Well, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: It's the first time I've been out of South Africa.
Speaker 4: He's eating your plants.
Speaker 2: With camera in hand. Smith took to the Alaskan wilds
Speaker 2: and began shooting videos.
Speaker 3: This is the beaver dam.
Speaker 7: I don't know if this go broke and pick it up,
Speaker 7: but there's a little beaver house over there.
Speaker 3: It's very similar to Africa.
Speaker 1: You've got the civilized and then you've got the whole
Speaker 1: ethnic rule indigenous side. Of things that are living in
Speaker 1: an absolute, totally different world to what we live in.
Speaker 4: Are there many South Africans in the Anchorage area.
Speaker 3: I think there's two or three or four.
Speaker 4: There might be more, but maybe a handful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It also seems like a good place for a secret life,
Speaker 2: if that's what you're looking for. Nobody knows you. There's
Speaker 2: lots of space. One could lose themselves in kind of
Speaker 2: withdrawal from the world here if one wanted to.
Speaker 3: Yes, you could. You're correct.
Speaker 1: You can go get yourself little cabin and you never
Speaker 1: have to deal with humans again, right right.
Speaker 2: Whether Smith was looking for a second life or a
Speaker 2: secret one in Alaska, he struggled to fit into Stephanie's world.
Speaker 4: Are you still married?
Speaker 1: I signed the divorce papers about two months ago. Stephanie's
Speaker 1: a very social person and she's got groups of friends
Speaker 1: that are in theater and music. I thought, yes, I
Speaker 1: could do it, but then it was just too much
Speaker 1: for me. They're all trying to be nice, right, But
Speaker 1: that did cause a bit of a problem with us.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well but let let's let's be let's be frank. Right,
Speaker 2: she was she was an older woman. You were still
Speaker 2: quite young, and you had a rolling eye and soon
Speaker 2: an affair right with someone who shared a certain lust
Speaker 2: for sexual adventure?
Speaker 4: Was that fair?
Speaker 2: Alicia Enter Alicia Youngblood, a young woman Smith met at work.
Speaker 2: Smith told police they started off as drinking buddies. Then
Speaker 2: things progressed, this crazy sixth thing.
Speaker 1: It was just something that was happening, and I delved
Speaker 1: into it. It was interesting for me that I had
Speaker 1: someone that I could do something and they would respond
Speaker 1: to it. Actually, that's I think that's what the main
Speaker 1: thing is. She was responsive to it.
Speaker 4: You say there was a bit of rough stuff, right.
Speaker 2: She liked to be slapped around, a little choked, suffocated, Yes, but.
Speaker 3: It wasn't every time.
Speaker 1: She liked to see and yeah, stories about violence.
Speaker 3: That turned her on. That's what got the engine going.
Speaker 2: And this is all illicit, which probably made it even
Speaker 2: more exciting, right because you were.
Speaker 3: Married, Well, yes, the secrecy thought of geese.
Speaker 2: Soon It sounds like the two of you were trying
Speaker 2: to outdo each other and coming up with mock sexual
Speaker 2: and violent role play scenarios.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, she would tell me about her criminal history. I
Speaker 1: knew they were not true stories. She was told me
Speaker 1: that she's been chased across America about the FBI, and
Speaker 1: she was part of a gang that used to rob banks.
Speaker 1: That's not real, but but that's where the whole murder
Speaker 1: things started coming in.
Speaker 4: So and you played along.
Speaker 1: So one day I said to her, well, well I've
Speaker 1: also killed somebody, you know, so I've also got a story,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And it turned on massively.
Speaker 4: It worked.
Speaker 3: She loved pretend and making up stories like it.
Speaker 1: If any woman goes to any man and says say
Speaker 1: this or do this, and I'll get warn that guy's
Speaker 1: going to do.
Speaker 4: It by day.
Speaker 2: Smith says he and his wife kept up a loving,
Speaker 2: if passionless marriage. It sounds like you did sort of
Speaker 2: slip into a kind of a double life. You know,
Speaker 2: the Brian who's the dutiful husband on the street and narrow,
Speaker 2: and then on the other hand, a reckless kind of
Speaker 2: alter ego, right, the one who would drive into the
Speaker 2: night looking for cheap sex. By night, Smith would troll
Speaker 2: the streets of Anchorage in his black pickup truck.
Speaker 1: I did go out, but it wasn't for going out
Speaker 1: for sex. Basically, I was having a very stressful life,
Speaker 1: and I would drink a glass of whiskey just before bedtime.
Speaker 1: Then that would be midnight, and if that didn't knock
Speaker 1: me out sometimes it would give me that you get
Speaker 1: your second race, now, give a little energy from being
Speaker 1: I said, oh, now I need to go driving.
Speaker 4: It was probably.
Speaker 8: About nine thirty at night, okay. And he pulls up
Speaker 8: and I was homeless, lout intent and it was raining
Speaker 8: that night, and then he goes, well, it's raining.
Speaker 4: Do you want to ride around with me?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 4: And I was like sure.
Speaker 2: Valerie Castler was on the street one night when Smith
Speaker 2: drove by. He told her he was looking for a
Speaker 2: certain young working girl and asked her to help. You
Speaker 2: know the streets. Yeah, and I'm sure you're a pretty
Speaker 2: good judge of character.
Speaker 4: What was your first impression?
Speaker 3: He was nice.
Speaker 8: We went everywhere. We hung out at like out of
Speaker 8: the airport and watched the planes and stuff. I was
Speaker 8: with him til like about five six in the morning,
Speaker 8: all night long.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When Smith stopped at a gas station to use the ATM,
Speaker 2: Castler found herself alone in his car.
Speaker 8: That's when I dropped my phone in the car in
Speaker 8: his truck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you were in the past of the front passenger.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And when I reached down, I grabbed cheophones and
Speaker 8: you hit like that ooh, chill feeling.
Speaker 4: You know, you just got a vibe from it, Yeah,
Speaker 4: a feeling.
Speaker 8: Yeah, was not right.
Speaker 2: With Smith still inside, Castler pocketed his cell phone, a
Speaker 2: decision on which the entire case would hinge.
Speaker 8: I went back to my chant and I turned it on,
Speaker 8: looking to see if I recognize any phone numbers, or
Speaker 8: if I recognize anybody on the pictures. And that's when
Speaker 8: I found it.
Speaker 3: In Govich, that's.
Speaker 4: The Sick Mother.
Speaker 2: In the fall of twenty nineteen, in a tent in
Speaker 2: the woods around Anchorage, Alaska, Valerie Castler took out a
Speaker 2: phone she had stolen from Brian Stephen Smith's carr and
Speaker 2: press play in each of Govich, What did you say?
Speaker 4: It first?
Speaker 8: Him talking and on his voice. In her body laying
Speaker 8: on the on the floor of the hotel.
Speaker 4: She was alive though of them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And he stepped on her throat and he said,
Speaker 8: you're not leaving here alive.
Speaker 4: I'm killing you, sake.
Speaker 3: Are you still alive?
Speaker 8: I watched all of it and pulled out a wire,
Speaker 8: put it around her neck, and she was dead and
Speaker 8: he was still doing things to her for days.
Speaker 4: Castila refused to leave her tent.
Speaker 2: You stayed in the woods because.
Speaker 8: You were paranoid as hell.
Speaker 4: You scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But she worked up the courage to turn the
Speaker 2: videos over to the police.
Speaker 10: It was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch
Speaker 10: in my life, not just.
Speaker 4: Being as a police officer.
Speaker 10: This was the worst thing I've ever seen happened to
Speaker 10: a human being.
Speaker 2: Detective Brendan Lee had a colleague who overheard the videos
Speaker 2: and the distinctive voice.
Speaker 10: He recalled a case that he had worked that involved
Speaker 10: a mail with an accent, and he gave me the
Speaker 10: name Brian Stephen Smith.
Speaker 2: Lee checked the Marriotte guest list from the night of
Speaker 2: the videos and sure enough.
Speaker 10: To see his name on there. It was kind of
Speaker 10: like a yeah, like you said, like a big ah moment,
Speaker 10: like Okay, now I know who we're looking at.
Speaker 2: Then, just days after police got the video.
Speaker 5: Human remains found at mile one away to the Stewart
Speaker 5: Highway a week ago belonged to a woman who had long,
Speaker 5: dark hair, with a.
Speaker 2: Prime suspect and a body to match. The race was
Speaker 2: on to gather evidence.
Speaker 10: The FBI told us ay his phone is hitting off
Speaker 10: a tower year a mile one away.
Speaker 3: The Steward Highway.
Speaker 10: And also there was a time stamp on one of
Speaker 10: the images with Kathleen Joe Henry in the back of
Speaker 10: the pickup truck, and that was also like an AHA
Speaker 10: moment because his phone's hitting here at this time. This
Speaker 10: image is at this time, and it's at the location
Speaker 10: where the remains were found.
Speaker 2: Detectively intercepted Smith at the Anchorage Airport, turning from a
Speaker 2: trip with his wife.
Speaker 10: Mister Smith, I'm detectively Banglish Police Department.
Speaker 3: I want saying my badge. Yeah, IDs, you know you're
Speaker 3: ted list to detective partners.
Speaker 10: We have some some matters we wanted to clear up
Speaker 10: with you and talk to you today. So I appreciate
Speaker 10: you coming up here with these guys and talking to me.
Speaker 10: So you have the right to remain silent. Do you
Speaker 10: understand that you have the right to talk to a
Speaker 10: lawyer and have him present with you while you're being questioned.
Speaker 4: Do you understand that.
Speaker 2: Smith tells me that afternoon the police caught him off guard.
Speaker 3: I just found all the way from DC. Yeah, you've
Speaker 3: obviously from Lower Fodage.
Speaker 4: You know what it feels like now.
Speaker 1: I threw four time zones across a ten hour flight
Speaker 1: when I landed, when they stopped me, I was already
Speaker 1: in the legal terms of the words I use.
Speaker 3: It is in a weakened state of mind.
Speaker 2: When you're under investigation for serious crimes, you don't get
Speaker 2: to pick you know, I know.
Speaker 4: Before an interrogation.
Speaker 10: I just wanted to show you pictures TJ would help
Speaker 10: you kind of refresh that night.
Speaker 2: The detectives start small, without letting on how much they
Speaker 2: already know about the killer sitting in front of them.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me what's in that photo?
Speaker 3: There's somebody's feet.
Speaker 10: Okay, I'm not gonna issue it. I mean, it looks
Speaker 10: looks like the shoes you were in right.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, it does. But what's happening when that's.
Speaker 10: What's happening is on this video, on these images the
Speaker 10: person that's recording it is holding the recorder and is
Speaker 10: standing basically above this girl and strength her.
Speaker 4: Okay, and so we need to talk about this.
Speaker 10: We need to get ahead of this.
Speaker 7: Mister Smith, I do I don't want to ask stupid,
Speaker 7: but I don't trum off anything.
Speaker 4: I don't anything.
Speaker 3: Okay, boy, an hour and a half I said I
Speaker 3: didn't do that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that.
Speaker 3: Over and over and over, in and nauseam.
Speaker 2: I said that you're not saying that, you're saying you're
Speaker 2: you're saying that you can't remember.
Speaker 4: I should not remember anything like this.
Speaker 3: Honestly, that looks like a Marriott court. That looks up
Speaker 3: my truck talked over there.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: Piece by piece detectives disclose photo evidence, Smith's hands, his stomach,
Speaker 2: Smith's truck, and license plate.
Speaker 10: There's cameras out on the highway at the way station.
Speaker 10: So there's no doubt about it. There no doubt about
Speaker 10: it that you were out there.
Speaker 7: Okay, but I don't remember anything else.
Speaker 4: Radio. Sorry. Then about two hours in Smith starts to crack.
Speaker 7: Look this this sounds very serious. No matter what, I'm
Speaker 7: gonna be in deep. So okay, I'll tell you what
Speaker 7: I remember. The next day it worked. I saw something
Speaker 7: dropping out the back of my truck and I was like,
Speaker 7: what the hell? And I opened up and there was
Speaker 7: somebody there underneath that.
Speaker 4: There was a blue like a talk with the back
Speaker 4: of my of my truck, and.
Speaker 7: The back flip doesn't really look I've actually put a
Speaker 7: pedal up on now since then. And I saw somebody
Speaker 7: and I was like, what.
Speaker 4: The hell, what must I do? What wants to do?
Speaker 11: And being the one art, I thought, but I've got
Speaker 11: to get a cant and I drove out and I
Speaker 11: did within doubt it, So yeah I did. I did,
Speaker 11: dun but I.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was in the back of my truck was not.
Speaker 3: Kathleen Henry.
Speaker 2: You're saying that you didn't keep the body in your
Speaker 2: truck for two days and then dump around the side
Speaker 2: of the road as you were counted the police.
Speaker 1: Well, when I said to the police the body, it's
Speaker 1: because the police had told.
Speaker 3: Me that there was a body in the back of
Speaker 3: my truck. I did not know what was in the
Speaker 3: back of my truck. There was something I.
Speaker 4: Told them that you looked under the sheet could tell
Speaker 4: the body. You told them that.
Speaker 1: It was not a body it was I've seen a
Speaker 1: YouTube once of a baker that was skinned and it
Speaker 1: looked in my mind xtra vision through that that's what
Speaker 1: that could have been.
Speaker 3: Or it was a mannequin or like a sex dollar
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: It's somebody who's incapable of telling the truth.
Speaker 4: Brian.
Speaker 1: The problem is when I speak the truth, people don't
Speaker 1: believe me.
Speaker 10: I think Brian Steve Smith is a person that I'd
Speaker 10: say he's a sociopath. You know, if you looked at
Speaker 10: his life, he would just look like.
Speaker 4: You're normal every day.
Speaker 10: You know, I go to work, I come home, this
Speaker 10: is my wife, We go on vacations and I you know,
Speaker 10: I play with drones and like to shoot guns for
Speaker 10: my hobbies. You know, I wouldn't say split personality, but
Speaker 10: he was definitely somebody that knowingly was trying to, you know,
Speaker 10: live two different types of lifestyles.
Speaker 2: For police, the double life of Brian Stephen Smith now
Speaker 2: comes into sharp focus.
Speaker 12: If any other Facebook accounts the cart just Brian Smith.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I've the one called Brandie Phillips.
Speaker 3: He's a real He's like my alter ego.
Speaker 4: He's racist. You know, you can make racist jokes and
Speaker 4: stuff on this.
Speaker 2: Smith's alter ego offers police a new strategy.
Speaker 12: Do you think Good Brian wanted Bad Brian to get caught?
Speaker 12: That's why somebody made it so easy for us.
Speaker 2: They urge good Brian to confess to what bad Brian
Speaker 2: has done.
Speaker 12: Right now, Good Brian, I'm assuming, is who we have here.
Speaker 12: What do you feel right now about this moment?
Speaker 7: Well, she's a pretty girl and she ended up like that.
Speaker 7: That's that's such a.
Speaker 4: Waste, so annoying.
Speaker 2: Several hours in, Smith seems to sense the net tightening
Speaker 2: around him.
Speaker 3: But I'm showing the back of my mind.
Speaker 7: I knew that I was involved in some ways.
Speaker 3: It's stupid to believe that.
Speaker 4: Someone else kills someone and put them in the badge truck.
Speaker 12: You knew in the back of the head, the side
Speaker 12: of your head, front of your head, you knew you
Speaker 12: would kill somebody.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I can tell you for a straight fact, I
Speaker 7: did not plan to do this.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've done it.
Speaker 4: That's that's I've done. I've I've done that.
Speaker 3: I'll sign up the paper years I did it.
Speaker 4: I know I did it. Before we do that.
Speaker 2: With Smith's full throated confession in hand, the detectives think
Speaker 2: they're done.
Speaker 10: You just have to get somebody.
Speaker 2: And then Smith drops the biggest bomb of the case.
Speaker 3: Are you guys in the rush?
Speaker 4: Were gone? Are we in a rush? Yeah? Do you
Speaker 4: want to talk some more? We're not in a rush.
Speaker 1: We got you got all my I picked up a
Speaker 1: very drunk girl.
Speaker 7: My wife was gone, she was away for the weekend,
Speaker 7: not to go home, and I I tried to.
Speaker 3: M Are you guys in a rush to go?
Speaker 4: Are we in a rush? Yeah? Do you want to
Speaker 4: talk some more? We're not in a rush. We got
Speaker 4: we got all night.
Speaker 2: Five hours into a police interrogation, Brian Stephen Smith had
Speaker 2: already confessed to the murder of Kathleen Henry.
Speaker 7: If I'm going to burn on the electric chair for
Speaker 7: why not as well do for two?
Speaker 2: Then Smith volunteered details of a second murder. And police
Speaker 2: realize they've caught a serial killer.
Speaker 3: Shucked this girl and then I pointed them to that
Speaker 3: on that little sadra going towards But when you turn.
Speaker 2: Off the this is how you recounted it to the police.
Speaker 2: Your wife was away, you were drinking. You hit the streets,
Speaker 2: as in your words you were known to do. You
Speaker 2: went to get some liquor and you spotted her. She
Speaker 2: she wanted abuse.
Speaker 4: I knew that she was drunk. She had a off
Speaker 4: a bottle of of Ara and r on any and
Speaker 4: uh she was. She was really drunk. She was saluting
Speaker 4: it and uh I I picked up her.
Speaker 7: I said, hey, you you want some warm food in
Speaker 7: a warm place at sleep start.
Speaker 4: You bring her home. You were afraid.
Speaker 2: You tell the police that she was gonna leave her
Speaker 2: odor in the home and.
Speaker 4: Your wife would would would detect it. So you told
Speaker 4: her to take a shower.
Speaker 3: She she was smelling.
Speaker 4: I know, I knew she was homeless then, you know
Speaker 4: she was. She was she was thinking and.
Speaker 7: I was getting up sitting and I sit to her,
Speaker 7: go to could take a shower, you know, cause now
Speaker 7: there's smelling the house, you know. And uh, she wouldn't
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 4: She she could, said, She kept.
Speaker 2: Saying no, no, she said, I clearly remember this. And
Speaker 2: again I'm not lying to you. I d I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I can't visualize the girl. When I went to the
Speaker 2: garage and I got my pistol and I said to
Speaker 2: her go to the shower, and she wouldn't.
Speaker 4: She wouldn't. She wouldn't, she wouldn't.
Speaker 7: And uh I just did that.
Speaker 4: While she was on the couch. Yeah, I just shut it.
Speaker 2: The evidence lined up perfectly with Smith's account. A human
Speaker 2: skull had been found six months earlier at the site
Speaker 2: Smith named pierced by a bullet. Police would later find
Speaker 2: an SD card at Smith's home with a video of
Speaker 2: a woman lying naked on the floor. Forensics identified the
Speaker 2: victim as Veronica about Chuck another Alaska Native woman who
Speaker 2: disappeared from the streets of Anchorage.
Speaker 8: Veronica is my best friend and I loved the hell
Speaker 8: at her.
Speaker 3: I knew her daughters.
Speaker 8: You know, DA wasn't working girls. They were just women.
Speaker 8: They had drinking problems, you know.
Speaker 2: For Valerie Castler, who uncovered evidence of Smith's hotel room murder,
Speaker 2: this second case hit even closer to home.
Speaker 8: I remember the last time I talked her, she should.
Speaker 4: Go on to lichrystore.
Speaker 8: She's gonna get a bottle, and she had to go
Speaker 8: meet up with somebody that must have been him, because
Speaker 8: that was the last time I ever saw Smith's photo.
Speaker 2: Evidence and confession left virtually no doubt about his guilt.
Speaker 2: But today Smith is trying to sell me a story
Speaker 2: that sounds nothing like the one he admitted to police.
Speaker 4: Tell me what.
Speaker 2: Happened that night that you brought Veronica Abuchek to your house.
Speaker 1: The person that I shocked was a fictitious It was
Speaker 1: a fictitious event. It was not Veronica. If that lady
Speaker 1: was Veronica, that woman walked out of my house, Alicia
Speaker 1: and who got in a vehicle and they drove away,
Speaker 1: well then then then.
Speaker 4: That wasn't Veronica.
Speaker 2: Because the the the person that you murdered in your home,
Speaker 2: whose whose forensics lines up with Veronica Abuchak, Right, she
Speaker 2: didn't walk out of your home.
Speaker 3: That was Alisia Youngblood. That wasn't Veronica.
Speaker 2: Smith now recants his detailed confession to the about Chuck murder,
Speaker 2: and he's trying to persuade me that his confession was
Speaker 2: all based on fictional role play with his former mistress,
Speaker 2: Alicia Youngblood.
Speaker 1: The story I told them was a story that Alisha
Speaker 1: and I had made up about driving around. You meet
Speaker 1: someone and take them home, that make you angry, and
Speaker 1: you shoot them.
Speaker 4: I told Alisha, saying that was a made up story. Yes,
Speaker 4: did you?
Speaker 2: Did you make up the part about defiling her her
Speaker 2: corpse after you killed her?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 3: That was That was Alisha and Marcel's story.
Speaker 2: You told the police that after murdering her, you sexually
Speaker 2: defiled her body by sticking your fingers, your hand inside
Speaker 2: of her. It sounds very much like paraphilia. Do you
Speaker 2: know that term? Paraphilia characterized by abnormal sexual desires, typically
Speaker 2: involving extreme or dangerous activities, sometimes intense and persistent interests
Speaker 2: in inflicting sexual violence or torture on a living person
Speaker 2: or corpse.
Speaker 3: I don't like hurting people you don't know.
Speaker 2: And you're telling me now that what you told the
Speaker 2: police is false, that you did not murder Veronic Grabchek.
Speaker 3: No, you must remember that that interrogation was done underd race.
Speaker 2: Well, all interrogations are arguably done under duress, but there
Speaker 2: was nothing unfair about it.
Speaker 4: And in fact, you could to.
Speaker 2: Stop talking at any point, and instead you volunteer a
Speaker 2: completely different story about in earlier crime.
Speaker 1: I was in a weakened state of mind. Made seems
Speaker 1: to me that I need to cover my oh my picks.
Speaker 1: Alisha might have told them that story, and now I
Speaker 1: didn't tell them any think I'm lying.
Speaker 2: In fact, Alicia Youngblood had told Lisa's story in secret
Speaker 2: on a tip line one year earlier.
Speaker 13: The first time that I talked to Miss Youngblood, she
Speaker 13: was nervous. You could tell that talking to her on
Speaker 13: the phone.
Speaker 2: She said Smith had showed her a video of a
Speaker 2: dead woman.
Speaker 9: It's going in her and then he'd draw his hand
Speaker 9: out and he told him the GoPro and then he
Speaker 9: bites his hands.
Speaker 4: On her legs.
Speaker 13: She loved this Brian Smith, but now she did not
Speaker 13: love him.
Speaker 4: Anymore.
Speaker 13: After seeing this video, she was very adamant that she
Speaker 13: thought this video was real.
Speaker 9: The pictures are her breast and she's grabbing them so
Speaker 9: hard that the blood is pulling.
Speaker 2: Young Blood tried to go Smith into sharing evidence so
Speaker 2: police could arrest him.
Speaker 9: I don't know what I'm hearing to get picture information.
Speaker 9: I'm doing all kinds of crazy sexual acts.
Speaker 14: And having the routine to write it.
Speaker 1: She took these this fantasy stories, these make belief stories abouts,
Speaker 1: and she took it. Then she started bringing in real
Speaker 1: people's names, and I said to a no.
Speaker 2: Smith was cautious not to give young Blood any proof,
Speaker 2: and police soon dropped the case.
Speaker 9: I can't do this anymore. He's more wild.
Speaker 2: Alicia Youngblood left Alaska. She never got the chance to
Speaker 2: testify against Smith.
Speaker 13: We were informed that she had passed away in Oklahoma.
Speaker 13: It was most likely she took her own life.
Speaker 4: The next phase of the case is the opening story, as.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until three years later, in February twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: Smith would take center stage in a horror show of
Speaker 2: his own design.
Speaker 14: After this trial, you will all carry the burden of knowing.
Speaker 3: The burden of knowing that Brian Smith.
Speaker 14: Lived, worked, walked among us, mingling and targeting the most
Speaker 14: vulnerable among us.
Speaker 4: Smith's hour in the limelight was just beginning. Let's bring
Speaker 4: the jury in. This is can McCall your first witness.
Speaker 3: My name is Christy Grimaldi. How are you related to
Speaker 3: this case?
Speaker 9: Why are you here today?
Speaker 3: Veronica about check as my mother. I'm her oldest daughter.
Speaker 2: In February twenty twenty four, the trial for the murders
Speaker 2: of Veronica, about Chuck and Kathleen Henry began.
Speaker 15: In October twenty nineteen, I was contacted by family.
Speaker 3: To meet with a detective, and.
Speaker 15: Looking back at that I was in complete denial or
Speaker 15: holding on to any hope. I remember thinking, Wow, they
Speaker 15: found her. You know, maybe she's somewhere, and it's just
Speaker 15: in awe that.
Speaker 3: I believe that.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: Smith appeared calm as witness after witness laid out evidence
Speaker 2: against him. But the smoking gun was the evidence Smith
Speaker 2: produced himself.
Speaker 14: Those videos depict a woman that we now know to
Speaker 14: be Kathleen Henry being strangled, tortured, and killed. When we
Speaker 14: show those videos, they're going to be broadcast on nat
Speaker 14: TV facing this way so that members of the general
Speaker 14: Republic don't see them.
Speaker 4: Police say you're the man in the video? What do
Speaker 4: you say?
Speaker 3: No, it's not me.
Speaker 2: I needed a way to push past Smith's denial. If
Speaker 2: you wouldn't admit to the crimes, could I get him
Speaker 2: to describe the killer? Let me describe to you what
Speaker 2: the man in the video the killer did, and ask
Speaker 2: you to profile him for me.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't want to watch him ever at all,
Speaker 1: but they forced me to hit the trial.
Speaker 10: My name is Brendan Lee, last name l E. So
Speaker 10: in this video, it's going to start out and you're
Speaker 10: going to see Catherine Henry on the floor.
Speaker 2: There's a at one point blood coming from both sides
Speaker 2: of her mouth while the killer is sexual molesting her.
Speaker 4: What did you think when you saw that?
Speaker 1: He wasn't sexually molestic her. He was poking his fingers
Speaker 1: on her boob?
Speaker 4: Okay? Is that not sexual molestation in your mind?
Speaker 3: It depends on the woman, It depends on the situation.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously the situation was non consensual. She's laying there dying,
Speaker 2: he's telling her he's killing her. He stands on top
Speaker 2: of her stomach. At one point he laughs maniacally.
Speaker 4: What did you make of that?
Speaker 2: I don't remember him laughing, even as he downplays the
Speaker 2: cruelty captured on video. Smith offers clues about the man
Speaker 2: behind the camera. Did it seem to you that the
Speaker 2: killer was enjoying himself?
Speaker 1: No, the guy sounded frustrated. The guy said that, like
Speaker 1: like she must hurry up. You know, she must, she
Speaker 1: must hurry up.
Speaker 4: People need to corporate, people need to know when that
Speaker 4: means serial.
Speaker 3: The person sounded like he had lost control.
Speaker 2: He had lost control, interesting so that it was unplanned
Speaker 2: maybe spontaneous.
Speaker 1: No, from the wording the guy used, it sounds like
Speaker 1: he was documenting something.
Speaker 3: So it was planned. As you can notice the tongue
Speaker 3: it's not swollen.
Speaker 4: That Why was he documented?
Speaker 12: Why?
Speaker 4: Why would somebody do that?
Speaker 3: Well, they're obviously making money out of it.
Speaker 2: As far as I yeah, could have been doing that
Speaker 2: for to watch it back and get thrills from it,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: He probably could have. If you find him, you can
Speaker 3: ask him that.
Speaker 4: The killer is giggling and laughing. Do you remember that.
Speaker 3: Probably the ugliest part was where he had he's foot
Speaker 3: on her throat.
Speaker 4: What kind of man could do that?
Speaker 3: A nasty person.
Speaker 2: She's making horrific sounds with her dying breaths. Do you
Speaker 2: remember those sounds?
Speaker 1: Well that that was the first noises that came out
Speaker 1: when the first video played that showed that were the
Speaker 1: girl trying.
Speaker 4: To breathe and that I do not like that. Can
Speaker 4: you describe them for me and how they made you feel?
Speaker 3: I didn't like hearing it. It's it's I don't like
Speaker 3: to hear that stuff. Oh, yes, that's right, Yes, a
Speaker 3: string of God.
Speaker 2: He's strangling her with a green string, straddling over her, right,
Speaker 2: remember that, berating her, fondling her. I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: a movie, you stupid blood sucking.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like he's doing that for an audience.
Speaker 1: He's like he's making a movie. He's definitely making a movie.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make a movie, a stupid old bitch.
Speaker 2: Weeks after I met Smith, I finally got access to
Speaker 2: the murder video itself. I can now see what Smith
Speaker 2: meant by the killer making a movie out there.
Speaker 4: Hate the light button, please.
Speaker 3: Just take it, swallowing it. Just do a nimble shot
Speaker 3: while at angle, like the action shot.
Speaker 2: In Smith's twisted mind. He's a film director and this
Speaker 2: atrocity is his blockbuster movie.
Speaker 4: You look, you die.
Speaker 2: You die.
Speaker 3: Sadly.
Speaker 4: In my movies, everyone dies. I get the Oscar bitch.
Speaker 2: In the end, Smith's movie did meet its audience, spring
Speaker 2: the jury and twelve men and women, and they quickly
Speaker 2: delivered a verdict.
Speaker 4: Mister Smith, would you please rise? I will read The
Speaker 4: forms of the verdicts.
Speaker 13: Were the jury of Brand Independent Brand Stephen Smith guilty
Speaker 13: of murder in the first degree, is charged.
Speaker 2: To count one guilty for the murder and sexual assault
Speaker 2: of Kathleen Henry and Veronica about Chuck. His sentence two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty six years in prison. All right, I
Speaker 2: can tell you, as a professional journalist, the evidence against
Speaker 2: you is insurmountable. You're not getting over it. Isn't there
Speaker 2: a part of you just still a young man? Isn't
Speaker 2: there a part of you that just wants to unload,
Speaker 2: unburden this whole thing and and talk truthfully about what
Speaker 2: actually happened.
Speaker 12: You're glad you're not going to be able to hurt
Speaker 12: anybody else.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but I was also I was hoping that it
Speaker 7: would have just been that one. I was hoping that
Speaker 7: that anger and my sister would have been out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't like to know that I've done that to someone.
Speaker 4: I don't like that.
Speaker 2: It's been ten years since Brian Stephen Smith first left
Speaker 2: South Africa for a new adventure on the Alaskan frontier.
Speaker 2: At one point, you told the police that Alaska is
Speaker 2: the perfect place to murder someone.
Speaker 1: Yes, people come yet because they are anti social and
Speaker 1: if you look at the distances between places, yeah, you
Speaker 1: could just go dump a body just five minutes out
Speaker 1: of town.
Speaker 2: Murder is the third leading cause of death among Native
Speaker 2: American women. Smith killed two of these vulnerable women, at
Speaker 2: least two that we know of.
Speaker 4: Did you engage in.
Speaker 2: Any sexual violence with Native South African women?
Speaker 9: No, they tell me. One of the comforts as young
Speaker 9: at sixteen, where.
Speaker 4: I think with the youngest.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm another we.
Speaker 9: Don't know, not know really.
Speaker 2: The South African police say they're looking into you. Now,
Speaker 2: any idea what that might be about?
Speaker 1: Okay again, Right at the beginning, Alisha and myself were
Speaker 1: telling stories, and the first stories I told her were
Speaker 1: about South Africa.
Speaker 4: More stories. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If I can find any poetic justice in this tragic story,
Speaker 2: it's this. Smith landed behind bars thanks to a woman
Speaker 2: who lived on the streets with his victims. What do
Speaker 2: you think would have happened without that video had you
Speaker 2: not found it and brought.
Speaker 8: It, did he probably still be investigating in Hayes Tail,
Speaker 8: probably would be a free man hunting and killing women,
Speaker 8: and there probably be more bodies than what.
Speaker 4: There was when you heard the verdict?
Speaker 8: What did you think that was on my birthday?
Speaker 4: What a birthday present?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Castla remained on the front lines from the moment
Speaker 2: she turned over the smoking gun SD card.
Speaker 14: Those images that you saw, timing and all.
Speaker 15: Of that aside, have those stayed with you in my head?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I just wanted them to go home.
Speaker 4: And what do you mean by that when you say
Speaker 4: you wanted them to go home?
Speaker 8: I wanted their parents, their family to be able to
Speaker 8: mourn and you know, properly instead of bearing an empty box.
Speaker 2: Smith tells me he now plans to file an appeal,
Speaker 2: and I end the interview with one of my own.
Speaker 2: You're going to live with this story, this defense that
Speaker 2: you've concocted in your in your mind that no one believes, Brian.
Speaker 2: You must know that no one believes the alibi, no
Speaker 2: one believes that you're not the man in the video.
Speaker 2: I mean again, there's a mountain of forensic evidence against you.
Speaker 4: You're going to just live with us.
Speaker 1: There is no DNA evidence, there's no evidence proving that
Speaker 1: anyone who's in my truck.
Speaker 3: The only evidence in my truck is the evidence of
Speaker 3: my other bi So.
Speaker 2: I have five pages of quotes from your own lips, Brian,
Speaker 2: full of admissions and confessions and acknowledgments and appreciation for
Speaker 2: the police, and and and self awareness that you've gone
Speaker 2: too far and now you're in deep.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is non confrontational de escalation.
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody would consider that de escalation. That's
Speaker 2: that sounds like a guilty man who's coming clean. In
Speaker 2: the end, Brian Smith's double life culminated in a single fate,
Speaker 2: a life sentence in an Alaskan prison.
Speaker 7: I want to talk to now was that I've got
Speaker 7: no one to talk to now. None of my friends
Speaker 7: will ever Well, this is my fault. I've done my
Speaker 7: own gravy. I did this to myself. I can't blame
Speaker 7: anybody else, you know,