Episode 320

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences.
<v Speaker 2>Listener discretion is advised.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, for fuck's sake, are you still alive?
<v Speaker 4>Yes, it's been like about twenty minutes, so I think
<v Speaker 4>it's I think it's time we finishes fucking drop bitch.
<v Speaker 1>All right, beach, get your popcorn ready, because we've got
<v Speaker 1>some old school Sword of Scale bullshit coming your way.
<v Speaker 1>This one's gonna give you a little nostalgia episode pretty
<v Speaker 1>twenty here we go. We sure do love to talk
<v Speaker 1>about Florida here. It's kind of my thing, probably because
<v Speaker 1>that's where all the nutbags go to do their nut baggery.
<v Speaker 1>But there's another state in this great Union that's a
<v Speaker 1>haven for psychos, weirdos, and straight up degenerates that are
<v Speaker 1>looking for a place to hide in plain sight. And no,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not talking about California. Anchorage is Alaska's largest city,
<v Speaker 1>but it isn't these sprawling metropolis the Lower forty eight
<v Speaker 1>might expect. It's a place of contradictions, a city of
<v Speaker 1>modern industry and glass towers, yet still haunted by the
<v Speaker 1>lawlessness of the frontier. Here the wilderness isn't just beyond
<v Speaker 1>the city limits. It lurks in the streets, in the shadows,
<v Speaker 1>in the hearts of those who hunt. Tourists pass through,
<v Speaker 1>snapping photos of moose and suburban neighborhoods, never seeing the
<v Speaker 1>harsher reality beneath the postcard perfect city scape. Anchorage has
<v Speaker 1>a problem, a problem that thrives on Spinnard's sidewalks, in
<v Speaker 1>the shadows of the Midtown mall, and in the encampments
<v Speaker 1>that spread beneath the Glenn Highway overpass. A problem that
<v Speaker 1>makes victims of the vulnerable, where survival isn't just about
<v Speaker 1>and enduring the cold, but also the violence that comes
<v Speaker 1>with being unseen. A problem we've talked about here many times.
<v Speaker 5>Homelessness, Alaska native disappearing, gone dead, and then next thing
<v Speaker 5>you know, if you hear mona.
<v Speaker 1>News, the crisis is impossible to ignore. In the winter,
<v Speaker 1>the cold kills. In the summer, the streets swell with
<v Speaker 1>the unhoused, people searching for shelter, safety, or simply the
<v Speaker 1>next moment of peace.
<v Speaker 6>And this population is preyed upon by people who want to,
<v Speaker 6>you know, harm them in some way, taking any resources
<v Speaker 6>they may have. They're very, very vulnerable population.
<v Speaker 1>Among them Alaskan Native people are disproportionately represented. Is that
<v Speaker 1>what they say represented? It's a nice Karen like way
<v Speaker 1>to say it when you aren't close to it. It
<v Speaker 1>severs them from the land their ancestors thrived on and
<v Speaker 1>leaves them to navigate a city that too often turns
<v Speaker 1>its back on them. The reasons are many, generational trauma, displacement,
<v Speaker 1>addiction is a big one, and poverty. But the result
<v Speaker 1>is the same, a population visible and invisible at the
<v Speaker 1>same time, ignored until something terrible happens. And in September
<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen, something terrible did indeed happen. It started with
<v Speaker 1>an SD card.
<v Speaker 7>Yes, it's brilliandad pictures.
<v Speaker 8>Okay, so it's got pictures of a homicide. Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 8>how do you know that?
<v Speaker 3>And where did you find it?
<v Speaker 9>I found it on the ground.
<v Speaker 2>I thought there was music on it, so I put
<v Speaker 2>it in my phone see if they had some music
<v Speaker 2>in it.
<v Speaker 7>There was no music on it. Now it was titled
<v Speaker 7>there's a title on it. It says homicide and it has
<v Speaker 7>all these pictures of this lady and it shows to
<v Speaker 7>Mary out hotel.
<v Speaker 1>The responding officer arrived at the medical clinic on Lake
<v Speaker 1>Otis Parkway, where he met Valerie Castler. The call came
<v Speaker 1>in as a suspicious circumstances report, prompting a quick response
<v Speaker 1>from law enforcement, but the officer remained objective, neither discounting
<v Speaker 1>her claim nor fully believing it. You see, the idea
<v Speaker 1>that someone would find a random SD card with photographic
<v Speaker 1>evidence of a homicide was far fetched, say the least,
<v Speaker 1>more far fetched than thinking it was real was the
<v Speaker 1>idea that whoever took these photos would be careless enough
<v Speaker 1>to lose them.
<v Speaker 9>There's videos on it, and on one of them. He
<v Speaker 9>even told her. He leaned us in this hotel alive.
<v Speaker 9>You couldn't end up making me murdering. I was like,
<v Speaker 9>holy shit.
<v Speaker 1>The officer had seen plenty of hoaxes before. He braced
<v Speaker 1>himself for another, But then the first image loaded. He
<v Speaker 1>scrolled through the pictures on the SD card. Each photo
<v Speaker 1>was more gruesome than the last. Very quickly, he started
<v Speaker 1>to believe every word. Valerie said, this is very disturbing.
<v Speaker 9>Yeah it is.
<v Speaker 1>The officer didn't let it show, but the videos and
<v Speaker 1>images on the SD card were some of the most
<v Speaker 1>disturbing he'd ever seen. He knew this warranted an investigation
<v Speaker 1>and that detectives would want to speak with Valerie. A
<v Speaker 1>short time later, she sat down in a small gray
<v Speaker 1>room at the Anchorage Police Department, where Detective Lee sat
<v Speaker 1>across from her. The tiny woman wrapped in layers of
<v Speaker 1>worn clothing into it at long nights in the cold.
<v Speaker 10>And how about what address I needed to come talk
<v Speaker 10>to you?
<v Speaker 11>I will I'm homeless. I lived in the rooms by
<v Speaker 11>shiloh Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Her face was lined with exhaustion. She'd spent years navigating
<v Speaker 1>a system designed to forget women like her, but today
<v Speaker 1>she was holding something no one could ignore. On the
<v Speaker 1>night of September twenty eight, twenty nineteen, Valerie Castler was
<v Speaker 1>walking through Anchorage near the Car's Grocery store on Thirteenth Avenue.
<v Speaker 1>She often searched the area for discarded items, such as
<v Speaker 1>broken cell phones, and picked up items she thought had
<v Speaker 1>a little bit of value. That night, she found a
<v Speaker 1>small SD card on the ground.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I saw a cool life on another sc card.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe there's more music going because I found him a
<v Speaker 2>couple of months ago and had like three.
<v Speaker 9>Hundred ty my songs on it.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, D card was not like the last one.
<v Speaker 11>There were no music on that card shows some voice
<v Speaker 11>shit on there, and it's been freaking me out, okay,
<v Speaker 11>because I can't seem to get the pictures out.
<v Speaker 9>Of my head.
<v Speaker 1>The imagees haunted Valerie ever since she saw them. She'd
<v Speaker 1>been having nightmares. Still detectively needed her to describe what
<v Speaker 1>she saw.
<v Speaker 9>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>It showed her in the hotel room on the floor
<v Speaker 2>and he's beating her up, he's slapping her seph and
<v Speaker 2>he's talking to.
<v Speaker 9>Her the whole time.
<v Speaker 2>And then on the videos, you can't see no face.
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't have no face, but he's his accents is
<v Speaker 2>like polish, it's foreign.
<v Speaker 10>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>What was he saying?
<v Speaker 2>Some of them would be like, well, this is chapter one,
<v Speaker 2>like chapter one, chick one.
<v Speaker 3>And then there was one where.
<v Speaker 2>He says some no, you must want to get murdered
<v Speaker 2>tonight because you're not leaving this hotel.
<v Speaker 9>Because I'm gonna murder you.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>He's like slapping her, fondling her, and.
<v Speaker 9>She's not really.
<v Speaker 2>Seeing anything. She's not making no noises or anything.
<v Speaker 1>Instead of music, Valerie was met with something holy unexpected.
<v Speaker 1>Actually scrolled through the contents of the card, she saw
<v Speaker 1>a series of images and videos depicting what can only
<v Speaker 1>be described as torture and murder.
<v Speaker 12>And then the one that I presume that where he
<v Speaker 12>killed her is he had to sing around her and
<v Speaker 12>act it looked like a wire or some.
<v Speaker 2>And then next year, you know he he it was
<v Speaker 2>like he crosses them and then you hear this, and
<v Speaker 2>then it's like she wasn't moving or any anymore or anything.
<v Speaker 1>She said she had the card for two days, but
<v Speaker 1>a couple of reasons kept her from coming to the police. First,
<v Speaker 1>she was distrustful of them because of her troubled past.
<v Speaker 1>She didn't want to get into trouble, just trying to
<v Speaker 1>do the right thing. Second, she wasn't even sure if
<v Speaker 1>the contents of the SD card were even real. People
<v Speaker 1>have been known to act out some crazy sexual fantasies.
<v Speaker 2>Because it looks like to chill the sound and he's
<v Speaker 2>got her body in the back.
<v Speaker 9>Of the trush.
<v Speaker 13>How come he did in college right away when you
<v Speaker 13>saw it.
<v Speaker 9>I don't know.
<v Speaker 10>I don't know, judge know anything.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not alumni.
<v Speaker 10>It's just a question week it's gonna come up.
<v Speaker 9>I didn't even know if it was real or or okay.
<v Speaker 2>Or if Sony was Jesus staging something because I've been
<v Speaker 2>listening to the news and watching the news, and I
<v Speaker 2>didn't hear anything on the news about a woman missing,
<v Speaker 2>or you know, or them finding a body or anything.
<v Speaker 9>So I wasn't I wasn't sure.
<v Speaker 2>But the more I thought about it, and I couldn't
<v Speaker 2>go to sleep at night, I was having nightmares. And
<v Speaker 2>then I started thinking, well, it should be real, you know,
<v Speaker 2>just because if they haven't found a body doesn't mean
<v Speaker 2>that it didn't really happen, because it should do.
<v Speaker 1>Some Sure, she watched the news and read the papers
<v Speaker 1>every chance she got, waiting to see the headline body found.
<v Speaker 1>She hoped she never would. Then she could believe it
<v Speaker 1>was all fake. But the longer she sat with those
<v Speaker 1>images in her mind, the more she thought they had
<v Speaker 1>to be real.
<v Speaker 13>And you said you could hear the male's voice, could
<v Speaker 13>you ever see any part of his body and anything?
<v Speaker 14>No?
<v Speaker 9>No, no face at all?
<v Speaker 3>She just feet. What does he look like?
<v Speaker 12>There's one on there where he's got his foot on
<v Speaker 12>her throat, and then there's another one.
<v Speaker 2>Where it's just it looks like it's going in the hotel,
<v Speaker 2>and the hotel floor is like hard word floor.
<v Speaker 9>And he's got like a pair of few.
<v Speaker 2>Shoes or slippers or something. Okay, but why you hear
<v Speaker 2>his his voice and he's talking to her, just rambling on,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and then there's parts in there where Oh, bitch,
<v Speaker 2>you get your ass feet because you can drink all
<v Speaker 2>my alcohol. Bitch, I gotta go find another bitch because
<v Speaker 2>you're a viet non cooperative that she never moved.
<v Speaker 1>In the videos, a man with an unfamiliar accent is
<v Speaker 1>seen beating, berating, and torturing a woman in a hotel room.
<v Speaker 1>The woman is completely naked and seemingly unconscious. Her face
<v Speaker 1>is swollen, her lips are bruised and purple. Her left
<v Speaker 1>eye is swollen shut with blood trickling from under the lid.
<v Speaker 1>The man calls her names and stands on her neck,
<v Speaker 1>all while filming it, seemingly for an audience.
<v Speaker 13>Can you describe the female play for race slush in
<v Speaker 13>the way?
<v Speaker 3>Okay? Do you think she was?
<v Speaker 10>I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>It looks like she has.
<v Speaker 1>Because she's Valerie didn't know the woman, not that she
<v Speaker 1>could have recognized her with all the swelling anyway. The
<v Speaker 1>only elites were a strange accent, an accidental photo of
<v Speaker 1>the man's shoes, and the photo of his truck.
<v Speaker 2>All I want to know is when you do guys
<v Speaker 2>find it out? Can you let me know?
<v Speaker 15>Yeah?
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, no, I can, Yeah, I can let you know
<v Speaker 9>kind of.
<v Speaker 2>I'd like to know her name if you find out
<v Speaker 2>who she is, because you know, she's finally related.
<v Speaker 9>She is somebody out there that I know.
<v Speaker 12>You know.
<v Speaker 1>Y SD card showed everything, the torture, the suffering, the
<v Speaker 1>final moments of a woman's life, but it didn't show
<v Speaker 1>her name. She wasn't in any of the missing persons reports.
<v Speaker 1>No one was looking for her. The investigation had hit
<v Speaker 1>a dead end until the US Marshal recognized her face, battered, swollen,
<v Speaker 1>but familiar. He reached out to a corrections officer at
<v Speaker 1>Highland Mountain Correctional Facility for confirmation she had been processed
<v Speaker 1>there before. Her name was Kathleen Henry. She was thirty
<v Speaker 1>years old, five foot three, with long black hair. Like Valerie,
<v Speaker 1>she had spent years trapped in a rotation of homeless shelters, streets,
<v Speaker 1>and survival. Her family last saw her in August at
<v Speaker 1>a shelter. After that, she was seen in Fairview, a
<v Speaker 1>rough part of town where Anchorage's homeless gathered. She was struggling,
<v Speaker 1>but she was alive. Then she wasn't. On October tewod,
<v Speaker 1>nearly a month after her murder, railroad workers made a
<v Speaker 1>grisly discovery. Kathleen's remains were found near mile one oh
<v Speaker 1>eight of the Seward Highway. Her body was already decomposed,
<v Speaker 1>partially taken by the wilderness. Animals had scattered her remains.
<v Speaker 1>Her fingers and toes were missing, her left foot was gone.
<v Speaker 1>A red bag sat nearby, tangled with strands of her
<v Speaker 1>long black hair and scalp. Kathleen Henry's life didn't end
<v Speaker 1>the day she was murdered. It ended long before that,
<v Speaker 1>when the world stopped seeing her. Her death was the
<v Speaker 1>inevitable result of broken system, one that cycles vulnerable women
<v Speaker 1>through jails and shelters but never offers them a way out,
<v Speaker 1>a system where the unhoused commit crimes of survival, shoplifting
<v Speaker 1>for food, sleeping in abandoned buildings, resorting to prostitution, yeah
<v Speaker 1>not sex work, prostitution well, predators hunt them in the shadows.
<v Speaker 1>She was one of the many lost, forgotten, and disposable
<v Speaker 1>in the eyes of society, and the terrifying truth is
<v Speaker 1>there are countless others like her. Look around, how many
<v Speaker 1>more Kathleen Henry's are out there right now waiting to
<v Speaker 1>be found. The Anchorage police found themselves in possession of
<v Speaker 1>an SD card with evidence of murder. The videos showed
<v Speaker 1>the final moments of Kathleen Henry's life, but they didn't
<v Speaker 1>show the man behind the camera, and without a suspect,
<v Speaker 1>all the evidence in the world meant nothing. Police knew
<v Speaker 1>Kathleen hadn't just disappeared, she had been erased. There is
<v Speaker 1>no missing persons report, no family is searching for. Only
<v Speaker 1>the system recognized her because it had seen too many
<v Speaker 1>women like her before, processed, incarcerated, relief forgotten. And that
<v Speaker 1>wasn't unusual. Indigenous women in Alaska are murdered at rates
<v Speaker 1>ten times higher than the national average. When homelessness is
<v Speaker 1>added to the equation, the risks multiply. Kathleen's body confirmed
<v Speaker 1>what they already knew. Now they needed to find the
<v Speaker 1>man who put her there, and the SD card was
<v Speaker 1>about to give them their first clue. When homicide detective
<v Speaker 1>David Cordy was assigned to the case, he didn't immediately
<v Speaker 1>know why the case seemed so familiar, but after reviewing
<v Speaker 1>the videos. He started to recognize the man's method of violence,
<v Speaker 1>the control, the torture, the strangling. Kathleen Henry's murder wasn't random.
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't a heat of the moment crime. It was planned, controlled, performed.
<v Speaker 1>The footage ested that the man behind the camera had
<v Speaker 1>done this before. A year earlier, Detective Cordy worked on
<v Speaker 1>another case where a woman reported that her boyfriend had
<v Speaker 1>dark and disturbing sexual fantasies. At first, she was into it.
<v Speaker 9>I like rough sets.
<v Speaker 14>If you put your hand on my neck, I like
<v Speaker 14>that you can press down a little bit. Dusk did
<v Speaker 14>try to kill me on and break your nose, your nosing, and.
<v Speaker 9>He did a little too far.
<v Speaker 1>A couple of days ago, Alicia Youngblood, an Alaskan native,
<v Speaker 1>met this married man at work and before long started
<v Speaker 1>seeing him. It was a sexually charged relationship from the start.
<v Speaker 1>They shared taboo fantasies and rough sex scenarios. Alicia thought
<v Speaker 1>it was innocent role play until he shared a video clip.
<v Speaker 9>He told me he killed her two or three days ago.
<v Speaker 14>He showed me the video until last night, and then
<v Speaker 14>the pictures. The pictures are her breast and she's grabbing
<v Speaker 14>them so hard. I mean, like really hard that they're
<v Speaker 14>coming up and they're they're what is that called fatiguing
<v Speaker 14>and veined, and he's got them so hard that the
<v Speaker 14>blood is pulling.
<v Speaker 1>This wasn't the SD card. This was a year before
<v Speaker 1>Valerie Castler would make her discovery.
<v Speaker 14>He said he was standing over her like this and
<v Speaker 14>he felt like a a hunter standing over his kill,
<v Speaker 14>like a lion over zebra. And he said he just
<v Speaker 14>sat there and puffed his chest out, and he just felt.
<v Speaker 9>So in power.
<v Speaker 14>I keep seeing him over and over doing that to
<v Speaker 14>that girl, and I could hear her bodily fluids as
<v Speaker 14>he's scamming, you know, and he's slapping down on her legs,
<v Speaker 14>and you know, she's just so lifeless. That could have
<v Speaker 14>been any of our little girls that he thought it
<v Speaker 14>was okay to fish.
<v Speaker 9>He's dead.
<v Speaker 3>Him showing you this video is that kind of his?
<v Speaker 3>Does he his rocks off that? Or did anyone to
<v Speaker 3>have sex with you?
<v Speaker 14>Is? Yeah? He would tell you with me okay, And
<v Speaker 14>I had to pretend like I liked it.
<v Speaker 3>Did he say why.
<v Speaker 9>He did it to us? To release anger, to vent
<v Speaker 9>to get it out of you?
<v Speaker 1>He showed her pictures and videos of a woman who
<v Speaker 1>looked dead. He wasn't just into rough sex. He claimed
<v Speaker 1>he killed her.
<v Speaker 9>And he just looked at me and.
<v Speaker 14>He's like, you know, I I kicked her real hard
<v Speaker 14>in her pussy, trying to break her bone so I
<v Speaker 14>could get that whole fist in there. But that bone
<v Speaker 14>is tough. He's like, you would not believe how how
<v Speaker 14>tough a pubic bone is. He said, I put my
<v Speaker 14>foot lay up in there, and I was like, oh yeah.
<v Speaker 9>He's like yeah.
<v Speaker 14>He said that when she died, everything released, she pooved
<v Speaker 14>or whatever, and her opened up, he said it, and
<v Speaker 14>he he's he made his mouth like this, and he
<v Speaker 14>grabbed my finger and he said I just would have
<v Speaker 14>felt like okay, So wouldn't y'all believe him if you
<v Speaker 14>were on the other side of this.
<v Speaker 8>Wine needs you to believe that he's inside her after
<v Speaker 8>she passed.
<v Speaker 3>That is that what you're saying is.
<v Speaker 9>That, yeah, he was fit with our hands.
<v Speaker 14>He said he didn't put his penis center, but a
<v Speaker 14>water bottle his hands.
<v Speaker 9>He said he we got butter out of the fridge
<v Speaker 9>and put.
<v Speaker 14>That helps my two fingerprints and helps him get his
<v Speaker 14>hand in there because he wants to put fist in there, so.
<v Speaker 3>He got butter out of the fridge.
<v Speaker 14>The water bottle I didn't see, but I did ask him, like,
<v Speaker 14>why are your hands so shiny?
<v Speaker 8>You know?
<v Speaker 9>He's like, that's butter. I got better.
<v Speaker 1>As soon as she saw the images, she tensed up.
<v Speaker 9>You have to understand just weave and goes in love
<v Speaker 9>with this smith.
<v Speaker 1>Suddenly all her love for this man was replaced with fear.
<v Speaker 1>But she couldn't let him know that, so she kept
<v Speaker 1>playing along, as I haven't do things to me.
<v Speaker 14>That proved my loyalty and trust. Does that make sense sexually?
<v Speaker 14>Like put myself in a position that made me vulnerable
<v Speaker 14>and he thinks that because I've done that that I
<v Speaker 14>trust him, and now he trusts me. And hey, you're
<v Speaker 14>about to see these text messages. I want you to
<v Speaker 14>remember that I am playing into this. I am not
<v Speaker 14>a sick person. I am not enjoying any of what
<v Speaker 14>I told him.
<v Speaker 1>She thought they were indulging in taboo fantasies, but as
<v Speaker 1>soon as he showed her how far he was willing
<v Speaker 1>to go, Alicia got scared, but she was on his
<v Speaker 1>good side, bonded through the kinky sex, so she kept
<v Speaker 1>playing along for her safety. She faked jealousy. She scolded
<v Speaker 1>him for being with another woman. Even if he did
<v Speaker 1>kill her, he now had to make it up to her.
<v Speaker 1>Alicia told him he wasn't allowed to do this again
<v Speaker 1>unless she was there too. So you are role playing
<v Speaker 1>into the park and you would like to be part
<v Speaker 1>of this next event?
<v Speaker 14>Yeah, and his ultimate fantasy at this point. Okay, then
<v Speaker 14>I'm telling.
<v Speaker 8>You when it comes to sexual drives, and tell you
<v Speaker 8>what this man has.
<v Speaker 14>I've never seen anyone and maybe a fourteen year old boy,
<v Speaker 14>but who cannot quit playing with his self. I mean
<v Speaker 14>he's his every waking moment is about says, and really,
<v Speaker 14>you know, I knew he had fetishes.
<v Speaker 3>Is he sadistic? Does he like pain and torture on people?
<v Speaker 3>Or does he just yes?
<v Speaker 1>Alicia believed what he showed her was real and it
<v Speaker 1>scared the shit out of her. She played along, but
<v Speaker 1>not just for her safety. She wanted proof so she
<v Speaker 1>could go straight to the cops. Unfortunately, she didn't have
<v Speaker 1>copies of the images or the video. All she had
<v Speaker 1>were some filthy text conversations that didn't prove anything.
<v Speaker 9>I know what I saw is reel.
<v Speaker 14>It had been better, but I saw his face, you know,
<v Speaker 14>but I know what I saw is reel and I
<v Speaker 14>know that him telling me about it Israel.
<v Speaker 9>Apparently there's other clips. I believe you almost one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 3>I never believe everybody one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 15>Never.
<v Speaker 8>I haven't met a person on a Platt's one hundred
<v Speaker 8>percent troot ball tea.
<v Speaker 16>But right now, as far as concrete, fracts and evidence.
<v Speaker 10>We have very little.
<v Speaker 3>We have your text message, accid.
<v Speaker 10>We need more.
<v Speaker 14>Yeah.
<v Speaker 9>So if he is lying to me and this is awful, sit,
<v Speaker 9>he's good. But I don't think he's lying.
<v Speaker 14>That's what he's South African, Okay, Yeah, but you all
<v Speaker 14>have a British accent, heavy heavy British accent.
<v Speaker 9>Remember I talked to you. Had it really?
<v Speaker 14>Me and him have great time together. I mean others didn't.
<v Speaker 14>In fact, that she's a serial killer.
<v Speaker 9>He's a funny guy. We cruck each other up all day.
<v Speaker 1>Her story was disturbing, but there was no proof of
<v Speaker 1>a crime being committed. The images he showed her could
<v Speaker 1>have come from anywhere. The Internet is, after all, a
<v Speaker 1>big scary place. The detective Cordy's surprise, she called him
<v Speaker 1>the very next day, claiming her boyfriend showed her where
<v Speaker 1>he dumped the body. The site was far from town,
<v Speaker 1>hidden in a small clearing in the woods off the
<v Speaker 1>main road. When they arrived, there wasn't a body there.
<v Speaker 1>Alicia said her boyfriend thought maybe a bear had taken it,
<v Speaker 1>since it had been there for a long time. Detective
<v Speaker 1>Cordy found this unlikely, but followed Alicia as she tried
<v Speaker 1>to find the landmarks from the pictures. They searched for
<v Speaker 1>a while, but didn't see anything or smell any decomposition.
<v Speaker 1>If there was a body, it was gone, or maybe
<v Speaker 1>the guy was just making the whole thing up for
<v Speaker 1>some disturbing story fun time. Alicia hoped the murder was
<v Speaker 1>just a fantasy, but she feared it was real. Detective
<v Speaker 1>Cordy needed more evidence, though, He returned to the site
<v Speaker 1>with cadaver dogs and checked her boyfriend's phone data. The
<v Speaker 1>cadaver dogs found nothing, and the phone record showed her
<v Speaker 1>boyfriend was not near the site on that day, the
<v Speaker 1>day she said he dumped the body. The conversations between
<v Speaker 1>Alicia and her boyfriend seemed to be role play fantasies,
<v Speaker 1>dark ones, but still just fantasies. No body, no crime.
<v Speaker 1>A year later, Detective Cordy doubted that assumption. Now he
<v Speaker 1>had an st card with photos and videos matching Alicia's account.
<v Speaker 1>Her boyfriend, Brian Stephen Smith, was South African immigrant, had
<v Speaker 1>a thick accent like Valerie described, and drove a black
<v Speaker 1>Ford Ranger just like the one in one of the videos.
<v Speaker 1>Detective Cordy looked up Brian Smith's DMV records. The video
<v Speaker 1>showed the partial plate number eight seven, which matched Brian's
<v Speaker 1>plate number FSL eight seven eight. But one thing was
<v Speaker 1>bugging him.
<v Speaker 10>If it's any other way you found it, I don't
<v Speaker 10>really care.
<v Speaker 13>I just we need to know the truth because this
<v Speaker 13>is a obviously you saw what.
<v Speaker 2>I found it on the ground. Honest to god, I
<v Speaker 2>found it on the ground.
<v Speaker 5>We're not worried about anything other than where the card game.
<v Speaker 9>Okay, that guy picked me up.
<v Speaker 17>That night, Okay, guy in the videos.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah he picked me up.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, can you tell me about that?
<v Speaker 9>You picked me up?
<v Speaker 17>I was on my way home.
<v Speaker 9>It was he picked me up. He wanted to do
<v Speaker 9>a date.
<v Speaker 7>He's went to the show ron on me to the
<v Speaker 7>Shill station and it was in his car on his
<v Speaker 7>dash and I just picked it up.
<v Speaker 2>That's how I got it.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie hadn't told the truth at first, not just because
<v Speaker 1>of the prostitution and theft, but because women like her,
<v Speaker 1>homeless and struggling with addiction, knew how easily they could
<v Speaker 1>be ignored or punished instead of helped. Kathleen had disappeared
<v Speaker 1>without notice, and Valerie was afraid that this might be
<v Speaker 1>her fate as well. But with a murderer on the loose,
<v Speaker 1>the cops didn't care about her past. They just needed
<v Speaker 1>to stop him.
<v Speaker 7>He's white on he's got short, short hair.
<v Speaker 2>And it's like a grayish white.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, okay, what kind of vehicle was he?
<v Speaker 2>It was a black truck. It was a black truck.
<v Speaker 7>And like the camper, like how I described the camper,
<v Speaker 7>and it was a white camper.
<v Speaker 1>Valerie's full truth confirmed the detective's suspicions. Brian Smith was
<v Speaker 1>their guy. Quickly, the police coordinated with the FBI and
<v Speaker 1>Homeland Security to track him down. They found him on
<v Speaker 1>vacation in Washington, d C. Of all places, with his
<v Speaker 1>wife in tow. His scheduled return to Anchorage was on
<v Speaker 1>October eighth. A multi agency operation was set up and
<v Speaker 1>plans were made to simultaneously serve search warrants on Brian's person, house, truck,
<v Speaker 1>and workplace. He was arrested as soon as he stepped
<v Speaker 1>up to the baggage claim. At the same time, detectives
<v Speaker 1>were in DC confronting his wife. As soon as poor
<v Speaker 1>Stephanie Bislin stepped out of a local restaurant, she was
<v Speaker 1>greeted by local detectives and detectives from Anchorage. She asked
<v Speaker 1>for their credentials, as everyone should, by the way, and
<v Speaker 1>then agreed to talk.
<v Speaker 18>So, so the things that we would like to talk
<v Speaker 18>to you about involved your husband.
<v Speaker 9>Perhaps he did just become a citizen, and.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think it was.
<v Speaker 9>Stephany should know it was. I think the friday before
<v Speaker 9>we came down here.
<v Speaker 2>It was so yeah, So he he's his.
<v Speaker 11>Truck was broken into, kind of took his.
<v Speaker 9>Bracefist that had all his South African documents. So that's
<v Speaker 9>where he's from. Yah, South Africa. Where did you guys
<v Speaker 9>meet in South Africa playing a game? Have you mest
<v Speaker 9>playing a game?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Stephanie met Brian Smith online. He was twenty three
<v Speaker 1>years younger than her. They played a game called Realm
<v Speaker 1>of Empires together and hit it off. He managed a
<v Speaker 1>small hotel in his home country, and his accent gave
<v Speaker 1>him somewhat of a die ant. Would mystique flash forward
<v Speaker 1>to the present. They had been married for five years
<v Speaker 1>and Brian had just gotten his US citizenship?
<v Speaker 9>Are we taving aria? Is that who you're wanting to
<v Speaker 9>talk about? Yes? So did you guys ever? Do you
<v Speaker 9>guys ever? Have your moments?
<v Speaker 18>I think every relationship, right, every marriage has your moments?
<v Speaker 19>Right?
<v Speaker 9>How are those? How would you describe them? Excuse me?
<v Speaker 11>He tends to slam.
<v Speaker 1>He'll get and he might leave, and then he'll go back,
<v Speaker 1>you know where he's calmed out.
<v Speaker 18>Has he Has he ever threatened you or been or
<v Speaker 18>made you feel unsafe in any way?
<v Speaker 9>I have a foidure a couple of times.
<v Speaker 11>The reason that he left was he was getting so
<v Speaker 11>mad that he might so he left and they're talking about.
<v Speaker 9>It, then he might hit me.
<v Speaker 1>She revealed that Brian had a bit of a temper,
<v Speaker 1>but was never violent with her. He would leave rather
<v Speaker 1>than argue. The only thing is sometimes he would leave
<v Speaker 1>for several days without a word.
<v Speaker 18>Do you know if he happened to go up to
<v Speaker 18>or go out of town or do something around the
<v Speaker 18>first part of September, Can you tell me more?
<v Speaker 14>So?
<v Speaker 18>There are some concerns that we have that he may
<v Speaker 18>or may not be involved with, and so I'm just
<v Speaker 18>trying to, okay, find out.
<v Speaker 9>You know, we had a fight. I don't remember exactly
<v Speaker 9>what it was. So he was on for four days.
<v Speaker 1>She answered their questions slowly, realizing the situation was way
<v Speaker 1>more serious than they were letting on. Questions became more personal,
<v Speaker 1>and Stephanie felt a sense of fear as she wondered
<v Speaker 1>what this was all about.
<v Speaker 9>Can I ask you something really personal?
<v Speaker 10>How's the sex?
<v Speaker 9>None for a long time? Okay? Like what's a long time? Movies?
<v Speaker 9>Two years?
<v Speaker 17>Okay?
<v Speaker 9>And there wasn't a lot anyway?
<v Speaker 3>Okay?
<v Speaker 15>Is and why is that?
<v Speaker 9>I think I think he thinks he was hurting me
<v Speaker 9>because he's heavy. I didn't think anybody told him.
<v Speaker 1>How to be with a girl, that's for damn sure.
<v Speaker 9>Did somebody say that he did something special? There are
<v Speaker 9>reports that he may have hurt some women. Really an
<v Speaker 9>Anchorage an angriage.
<v Speaker 18>Did you ever feel like he may have been cheating
<v Speaker 18>on you?
<v Speaker 3>No?
<v Speaker 10>Okay?
<v Speaker 18>So your husband right now is being interviewed in Anchorage
<v Speaker 18>by police detectives and he is being.
<v Speaker 9>Arrested for homicide. No, I'm a woman. I'm sorry that
<v Speaker 9>I had to be the one to tell you this.
<v Speaker 9>Was it in my house when I was out? Was
<v Speaker 9>it Alabar? Was it on a workforce? Was it on
<v Speaker 9>the side of the road?
<v Speaker 20>What I want to know?
<v Speaker 1>Stephanie seemed to be entirely in the dark about Brian's
<v Speaker 1>extramarital activities. She sat there stunned at the news the
<v Speaker 1>man she had fallen in love with, helped immigrate to
<v Speaker 1>the US, married, and had been on vacation with, had
<v Speaker 1>been accused of murdering a woman. She couldn't reconcile what
<v Speaker 1>they were saying against the man she knew. She was
<v Speaker 1>utterly dumbfounded. Well, the seriousness of the matter sank in
<v Speaker 1>for Stephanie. Brian was just then sitting down with detectives.
<v Speaker 1>Brian was an unassuming man, of average height, maybe a
<v Speaker 1>little shorter, and he had short, graying hair. He had
<v Speaker 1>a large nose and a mouth that seemed to be
<v Speaker 1>in a perpetual frown. His eyes were trusting, except when
<v Speaker 1>he furled his brow. Then there was a sense of
<v Speaker 1>the untamed behind his eyes.
<v Speaker 13>So like I said, we have some we have some
<v Speaker 13>matters we need to clear up with you, and I
<v Speaker 13>just wanted to ask you if you have any any idea,
<v Speaker 13>any thought in your head about what we might.
<v Speaker 10>Want to talk to you today about.
<v Speaker 3>No, my truck was broken into.
<v Speaker 13>The thing we need to talk about is recently some
<v Speaker 13>property was brought to APD, and we have to I
<v Speaker 13>was given that property as a little SD card. I
<v Speaker 13>viewed the images and the videos on that SD card. Yeah,
<v Speaker 13>and that's obviously it led. That's how I got to you.
<v Speaker 13>That's how I figured out who you are, Okay, and
<v Speaker 13>that's what that's what we need to We need to
<v Speaker 13>clear up that matter.
<v Speaker 10>What's on that SD card?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, what's on the called?
<v Speaker 1>The card showed a picture of his truck outside the
<v Speaker 1>Midtown Marriott. He admitted that it was his truck on
<v Speaker 1>the card. He might have used it for something, but
<v Speaker 1>he didn't know what they were getting at. So detectives
<v Speaker 1>asked how often he stayed at the Marriott.
<v Speaker 3>A few weeks ago, probably a month or two.
<v Speaker 16>I had a fact of my life and I went
<v Speaker 16>and stated it.
<v Speaker 21>And Marriott, Yeah, so what about what day do you
<v Speaker 21>think that was?
<v Speaker 9>Okay?
<v Speaker 10>And how many How many knights did you rent them?
<v Speaker 10>Do you have to as an employee? Do you have
<v Speaker 10>to rent the room or how does that work?
<v Speaker 3>The room?
<v Speaker 9>Yeah? Okay?
<v Speaker 10>How many NICs did you rent the room for?
<v Speaker 3>Probably about two nights?
<v Speaker 9>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>What was your eve name?
<v Speaker 9>Like?
<v Speaker 17>Well, I.
<v Speaker 3>Also falk with you off. You usually drink a hell
<v Speaker 3>of a lot, so it didn't involve quite a bit
<v Speaker 3>of alcohol. So okay, did you go anywhere?
<v Speaker 21>I probably would have driven around a bit, going in
<v Speaker 21>put some food and stuff.
<v Speaker 13>Okay, did you meet up with anybody, talk to anybody?
<v Speaker 3>I probably would have.
<v Speaker 16>Yeah, between us, I have been known to sometimes go
<v Speaker 16>out and find a.
<v Speaker 3>Companion, you know. Okay, did you do that anything that
<v Speaker 3>particular night? I probably did.
<v Speaker 13>And I told you I viewed everything on the SD
<v Speaker 13>card and I did see your truck on there. Anything
<v Speaker 13>else on that SD card that we need to talk about.
<v Speaker 3>No, you can show me the card and see. You
<v Speaker 3>can show me what's on me if you want to.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, he slid a photo across the table. It was
<v Speaker 1>a picture of Kathleen.
<v Speaker 13>I just wanted to show you picture c DA would
<v Speaker 13>help you kind of refresh the girl from that night.
<v Speaker 10>No, that's not it not just short for here, okay.
<v Speaker 1>Then he slid a photo of his truck in front
<v Speaker 1>of the hotel across the table.
<v Speaker 10>I mentioned I told you on there that how I
<v Speaker 10>found you as.
<v Speaker 3>I saw your drug is that that's that's my truck.
<v Speaker 3>That's your trug.
<v Speaker 16>Okay, I recognized the rooms and my gray kenopy.
<v Speaker 1>Then he slid a photo of a man's shoes across
<v Speaker 1>the table.
<v Speaker 13>This is one of the images on there. Part of
<v Speaker 13>it is kind of cut down a little bit. But
<v Speaker 13>can you tell me what's in that photo?
<v Speaker 21>There's somebody's feet, Okay, whose feet are those?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know?
<v Speaker 10>Okay, I'm gonna shoot. I mean it looks looks like
<v Speaker 10>the shoes you wear right now?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it does, so okay, it's it safe to say those.
<v Speaker 10>Are your feet in that picture?
<v Speaker 3>I don't okay, I'm not that he puts in his
<v Speaker 3>shoes like this.
<v Speaker 1>Detectives had seen all kinds of reactions before, anger, denial, fear,
<v Speaker 1>but Brian was different. When they showed him the picture,
<v Speaker 1>he only shrugged. The detective didn't dwell on his shoes,
<v Speaker 1>even though they were obviously the exact same pair he
<v Speaker 1>was wearing. Next He slid more photos of Kathleen over,
<v Speaker 1>but these were from the SD card.
<v Speaker 3>So what can you.
<v Speaker 10>Tell me about this?
<v Speaker 3>This looks like someone that's already been beaten up a bit.
<v Speaker 13>Okay, And these are these are images, these are these
<v Speaker 13>are images. But there's also videos of this person. Yeah,
<v Speaker 13>and another person in the room as well. And that's
<v Speaker 13>what I'm that's why we're here to talk to you about.
<v Speaker 3>You think I hit this goal?
<v Speaker 10>Well, I said, there's video. There's videos of it. There's
<v Speaker 10>a video of it, there's audio of it.
<v Speaker 13>There's a voice that's I've been talking to you now
<v Speaker 13>for almost thirty.
<v Speaker 10>Forty minutes, and I know it was your voice. I
<v Speaker 10>could hear in the video.
<v Speaker 1>Then he played the video.
<v Speaker 3>Camera bitch.
<v Speaker 4>Dying, fucking mind, seem tired, her fucking horrible.
<v Speaker 3>Just I'm being too long soon, Just king, is Jesus
<v Speaker 3>what's happening?
<v Speaker 13>When that's what's happening is on this video, on these images,
<v Speaker 13>the person that's recording it is holding the recorder and
<v Speaker 13>is standing basically above this girl and and strangling her.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I don't.
<v Speaker 13>I'm not.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not denying. I'm not.
<v Speaker 14>I'm not.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not saying you're lying, but I don't.
<v Speaker 13>Remember anything not this, So what you're saying is definitely
<v Speaker 13>you talking on the recording, on the idea.
<v Speaker 16>There, so that you don't recall that that that's about
<v Speaker 16>That sounds about voice.
<v Speaker 3>I've got a unique voice. It's English mixed with the Dutch.
<v Speaker 1>Check mate, Brian was polite and presentable. It was hard
<v Speaker 1>to believe you could do what he did, but they
<v Speaker 1>had video evidence. You seem to have no recollection of
<v Speaker 1>doing anything like that to anyone. Then he paused, swallowed hard,
<v Speaker 1>and acknowledged how serious this was.
<v Speaker 3>Look this, this sounds very serious. No matter what, I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna be in deep shipped. So okay, I'll tell you
<v Speaker 3>what I remember. The next day it worked.
<v Speaker 21>I saw something dropping out the back of my truck
<v Speaker 21>and I was I loved that hell. And I opened
<v Speaker 21>up and there was somebody there underneath.
<v Speaker 3>There was a blue like a top with the back
<v Speaker 3>of my mut truck. I was thinking for a long time,
<v Speaker 3>what the hell what m was I do?
<v Speaker 21>And being the one I've got to get rid of this.
<v Speaker 3>A colant and I drove out and I did, went
<v Speaker 3>him do.
<v Speaker 1>It detectively, thanked him for his honesty and chose not
<v Speaker 1>to press the whole I don't remember excuse. Instead, he
<v Speaker 1>asked about Alicia Youngblood.
<v Speaker 10>I want to ask you to kind of shift care
<v Speaker 10>a little bit. Alicia young Blood?
<v Speaker 3>Can we talk about her for a little bit? Okay, okay,
<v Speaker 3>why can you tell me about Alicia? Don't tell my
<v Speaker 3>wife about it? But he said, last year we had
<v Speaker 3>a small little off a.
<v Speaker 13>So I've seen the stuff you've chatted about, the stuff
<v Speaker 13>you and Alicia talked about, and that's what I want
<v Speaker 13>to talk to you about.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. Alisha and I did do some fantasy stuff.
<v Speaker 21>I'm usually quite conservative about six and then she lost
<v Speaker 21>me to slaper, you know, and we made we actually
<v Speaker 21>made up fantasies almost like this, you know, you kill somebody?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you know, and right and all that. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>we sweep.
<v Speaker 10>Did you guys would talk about that?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Yeah, fantasy. That's fantasy stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Then why are freaks like this never freaky with their
<v Speaker 1>own spouses? That's what they're for. I mean, why even
<v Speaker 1>get married if you're not gonna be open and honest
<v Speaker 1>about your kinks with the person you allegedly love. Listen
<v Speaker 1>to me trying to rationalize the psychic paths actions. It's
<v Speaker 1>no wonder if some of you think I'm a dumbass.
<v Speaker 1>You're sure detectively that all the talk with this show
<v Speaker 1>was pure fantasy, which was hard to say considering the
<v Speaker 1>images and videos on the SD card. Detectives couldn't look
<v Speaker 1>past the striking similarities between Brian's fantasies and what he
<v Speaker 1>actually did in those videos.
<v Speaker 13>Is it possible that, like on this evening you some
<v Speaker 13>of those fantasies were coming out, because I mean, that's
<v Speaker 13>exactly what she did on those videos. That's what she
<v Speaker 13>did to this girl, except she wasn't she wasn't enjoying it, and.
<v Speaker 10>You were talking to her.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, that's my books.
<v Speaker 13>But you were talking to her clearly as we're talking
<v Speaker 13>right now, and pointing out things and and laughing and
<v Speaker 13>saying things. And in my movies, sadly everybody dies. Bitch,
<v Speaker 13>what are my followers going to think of you? People
<v Speaker 13>need to know when they're being serial killed. These are
<v Speaker 13>things you're saying to.
<v Speaker 10>Her while you're doing that.
<v Speaker 3>I say, that's that's what.
<v Speaker 8>You don't remember this particular one because you've killed so
<v Speaker 8>many You've told.
<v Speaker 3>Me that she's being serial killed.
<v Speaker 8>No, we need to be investigating you for killing people here,
<v Speaker 8>killing people in South Africa.
<v Speaker 16>We need to I mean, no, this thing was a
<v Speaker 16>nish kidding people. That's just me and trying to outdo
<v Speaker 16>each other on Don't.
<v Speaker 3>You tell her the same thing?
<v Speaker 10>That's what you tell her in the video.
<v Speaker 13>You're telling her that as you're strangling her, as you're
<v Speaker 13>stepping your foot onto her throat, as you're punching her
<v Speaker 13>in the vagina as.
<v Speaker 3>Hard as you can and kicking her into the vagina.
<v Speaker 13>Poking her in the eye and laughing about it, talking
<v Speaker 13>about killing her and die bitch, and telling her to
<v Speaker 13>die and getting mad when she starts gasping, interfering with
<v Speaker 13>my drinking time.
<v Speaker 3>It sounds like something I would say.
<v Speaker 1>You did say it, Yeah, sounds like something I would say,
<v Speaker 1>What the fuck?
<v Speaker 21>I shouldn't have spoken just Alicia got stupid things like it,
<v Speaker 21>you know.
<v Speaker 10>But you didn't just speak to her about it.
<v Speaker 13>You showed her videos of you punching the women in
<v Speaker 13>the vagina, buttering up your fist and shoving it into
<v Speaker 13>the vagina, kicking them in the vagina. You showed she
<v Speaker 13>saw these things, and she was frankly, and you.
<v Speaker 10>Told her if I whether it was was.
<v Speaker 13>Oh no, man, And it's exactly the same thing to
<v Speaker 13>ever seen in these videos.
<v Speaker 16>If I was going to have a fantasy going further on,
<v Speaker 16>I could have carried on with Alisha.
<v Speaker 3>You know this is a year later, except Alicia.
<v Speaker 10>Yeah, you have a history with Alicia. She's You know
<v Speaker 10>how easy it would be to find out who killed Alicia.
<v Speaker 8>He would have had a several months relationship if Alicia
<v Speaker 8>was killed, But it wouldn't It wouldn't be difficult to
<v Speaker 8>pinpoint you for it.
<v Speaker 3>But if you pick up.
<v Speaker 8>Somebody in the in the darken of the night, who's
<v Speaker 8>an injured person, homeless person down by the homeless.
<v Speaker 10>Shelter, these are the type of people that are.
<v Speaker 3>Perfect for this.
<v Speaker 1>Throughout the conversation with Brian, detectives learned that he often
<v Speaker 1>cruised the streets near homeless shelters looking for companions, and
<v Speaker 1>by often, I mean a lot. For Brian Smith, ank
<v Speaker 1>Ridge's homeless shelters were hunting grounds. The same women society
<v Speaker 1>ignored he targeted. Alaskan Natives, making up a fraction of
<v Speaker 1>the city's population, were excessively among the unhoused, living in shelters,
<v Speaker 1>deserted buildings, or braving the brutal winters outside, and Brian
<v Speaker 1>knew that no one would come looking for them.
<v Speaker 8>So you really you said maybe three times in a
<v Speaker 8>couple of years, and now we've already have Now we
<v Speaker 8>already have three, three in about a month.
<v Speaker 10>So are we sure that you.
<v Speaker 3>Well before before this go from this not?
<v Speaker 22>There was probably about three times that I picked up
<v Speaker 22>a goal, so maybe six.
<v Speaker 21>Yeah, so sorry when you and I say three, it
<v Speaker 21>was three before.
<v Speaker 3>So we also three full five six?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, motherfucker can count, but not do basic math.
<v Speaker 8>Apparently anything about this these particular type of people as
<v Speaker 8>it is, Does he have something that against Native women?
<v Speaker 3>I've asked myself that question. Is it a racial thing?
<v Speaker 3>And it's no, it's incidence they have unto.
<v Speaker 10>The danges in the people.
<v Speaker 9>They had to be.
<v Speaker 22>Easy angry that they make a to the not an
<v Speaker 22>oobposent to the angless people.
<v Speaker 1>What an asshole? Anybody with a hair collect that you
<v Speaker 1>know as an asshole. According to the Anchorage Coalition to
<v Speaker 1>End Homelessness, in twenty twenty four, there were nine five
<v Speaker 1>and twenty four homeless people registered in their programs. Of those,
<v Speaker 1>ninety five hundred forty seven point three percent were Alaskan Natives.
<v Speaker 1>That's a very high number when you consider that Alaskan
<v Speaker 1>Natives only make up fifteen point six percent of the
<v Speaker 1>state's population. That means five percent of all Alaskan Natives
<v Speaker 1>are homeless, probably due to the white man's delicious alcoholic beverages.
<v Speaker 1>The longer they talked to Brian, the more he revealed
<v Speaker 1>he wasn't panicked, he wasn't even defensive. Admitted it was
<v Speaker 1>his truck in the pictures and his voice in the videos,
<v Speaker 1>but he still claimed he couldn't remember anything about that night.
<v Speaker 10>So she did she want to leave that night and
<v Speaker 10>you didn't want her to go.
<v Speaker 3>I'm serious, I don't remember this girl. I believe, I
<v Speaker 3>believe everything you're saying. I honestly don't remember anything up
<v Speaker 3>until the morning I woke up. I opened the back
<v Speaker 3>of my truck and yeah, it was a person line there.
<v Speaker 3>No one else could have put it there. I must have.
<v Speaker 3>You've got photograph of you could of being putting the there.
<v Speaker 3>But I do not remember it.
<v Speaker 10>You think everybody's gonna understand.
<v Speaker 3>That, no one's going to believe it. I don't believe
<v Speaker 3>it's going to make that happen because we're gonna go.
<v Speaker 10>We have more than we have evidence showed.
<v Speaker 1>It happened, and the evidence was a lot. They had
<v Speaker 1>Valerie's statement that she got the SD card from him.
<v Speaker 1>They had the timestamps on the images and videos that
<v Speaker 1>matched his stead at the hotel. They had the GPS
<v Speaker 1>data putting him at the dump site. They had the
<v Speaker 1>image of his truck with part of his license plate showing,
<v Speaker 1>and of course they had his voice on video.
<v Speaker 21>You've got of lends me outdone that you're putting stories
<v Speaker 21>in my head that maybe it's a fantasy gone all
<v Speaker 21>for it's something how I didn't remember.
<v Speaker 10>Well, I actually don't think it's any of those things.
<v Speaker 3>I think you remember.
<v Speaker 8>So knowing that this this person is this person, and
<v Speaker 8>this person's dead and that you only wants dumped her
<v Speaker 8>body out on the highway.
<v Speaker 3>Do you have remorse? You see? And yeah, I don't
<v Speaker 3>like to know that I've done it to someone. I
<v Speaker 3>don't like that.
<v Speaker 1>Science, and by science I mean chat GPT tells us
<v Speaker 1>that amnesia is a real phenomenon. I have my doubts.
<v Speaker 1>It's especially doubtful when the amnesia is selective, like remembering
<v Speaker 1>Kathleen but not remembering what you did to her. It's
<v Speaker 1>pretty convenient that nobody can actually verify this, Like we
<v Speaker 1>can't put on a headset like Christopher Walking and Brainstorm
<v Speaker 1>and step inside someone's mind to see what they actually
<v Speaker 1>remember or don't. Sorry for the eighties movie reference, Millennials,
<v Speaker 1>but Brian never admitted to killing Kathleen. He only admitted
<v Speaker 1>that it must have been him. To the detectives. It
<v Speaker 1>was way too convenient to have no memory of the murder,
<v Speaker 1>but they had plenty of evidence even if he didn't
<v Speaker 1>actually confess. The video told more than who did what.
<v Speaker 1>It showed a man with experience.
<v Speaker 8>Have you been involved in any missing persons or any
<v Speaker 8>other murders in the state of Alaska?
<v Speaker 14>No?
<v Speaker 15>I haven't.
<v Speaker 8>No, it's just this one.
<v Speaker 10>This is the only person you've ever killed. Yes.
<v Speaker 3>Are you gonna taking off to prison? Yes, that's that's
<v Speaker 3>the step at the end of this night. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>After speaking with Brian for over five hours, they were
<v Speaker 1>convinced he had more to tell, but they were satisfied
<v Speaker 1>they already had him dead to rights, so they left
<v Speaker 1>the room and let him stew for a while. When
<v Speaker 1>they returned, they had paperwork for him to sign, but
<v Speaker 1>he blurted something out.
<v Speaker 3>Oh you guys in a rush to go, and we
<v Speaker 3>had to rush. Yeah, you want to talk some more?
<v Speaker 23>Sometime, I thought, Emily, I big type of very drunk gool.
<v Speaker 3>All life was gone.
<v Speaker 23>She was away for the weekend, not to go home,
<v Speaker 23>and I I.
<v Speaker 1>Shot for all his denial, all his I can't remember.
<v Speaker 1>He openly admitted that Kathleen wasn't the first, she wasn't
<v Speaker 1>the only one. Ain't that weird? Ain't that something?
<v Speaker 9>Boy?
<v Speaker 1>Guess Mike was right again? Give me a second while
<v Speaker 1>I pat myself on the back. Ow I forgot how
<v Speaker 1>old I am. I shouldn't be stretching like that. I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna pull something anyway. Despite Brian's sudden re emergence of
<v Speaker 1>memory and his humble brag, y'all haven't seen anything yet.
<v Speaker 1>When the truth of what this South African scumbag did
<v Speaker 1>played out in court, even the most hardened jurors weren't
<v Speaker 1>prepared for what they were about to see. After detectives
<v Speaker 1>confirmed Brian Smith was the owner of the SD card
<v Speaker 1>and confronted him with the pictures and videos on it,
<v Speaker 1>he claimed to have no memory of it. He admitted
<v Speaker 1>to dumping Kathleen Henry's body after finding her in the
<v Speaker 1>back of his truck the next morning. But the conversation
<v Speaker 1>with Brian revealed that he often sought the companion of
<v Speaker 1>anchoragees homeless, begging the question are there more murdered Indigenous
<v Speaker 1>women out there waiting to be found? When they asked Brian,
<v Speaker 1>he said no, But moments later he suddenly remembered things
<v Speaker 1>and he confessed to a different murder he committed years earlier.
<v Speaker 3>She actually seemed like a last person.
<v Speaker 21>I picked up and I said, hey, you want some
<v Speaker 21>warm food in a warm place at sleep stunt And
<v Speaker 21>she was like, yeah, sure, she jumped you, but she
<v Speaker 21>was she was.
<v Speaker 3>She was really drunk. She was slurring it.
<v Speaker 21>And I took her home and she fell asleep on
<v Speaker 21>the on the couch in front of the TV. And
<v Speaker 21>she was smelling, and I knew she was homeless thing,
<v Speaker 21>you know, she was she was thinking and I was
<v Speaker 21>getting up, said and I said to her, go to
<v Speaker 21>take a shower, you know, because now there's smelling in
<v Speaker 21>the house.
<v Speaker 3>You know. She wouldn't do it, she says.
<v Speaker 21>She'd kept saying no, no, and I was worried she's
<v Speaker 21>gonna bomber now, because then I realized that she really
<v Speaker 21>had been drinking a lot, no excuse, but I had
<v Speaker 21>also been drinking.
<v Speaker 3>I clearly remember this, and again I'm not lying to you.
<v Speaker 3>I don't remember. I can't visualize this, this this girl.
<v Speaker 3>But I went through to the garage and I got
<v Speaker 3>my little pistol there.
<v Speaker 21>I said to go to the shower, and she wouldn't.
<v Speaker 21>She wouldn't, you wouldn't, And I just did it, and
<v Speaker 21>I got.
<v Speaker 3>Well, she was on the couch. Yeah, I just did.
<v Speaker 3>I just chopped it. They missed that thing. I can
<v Speaker 3>tell you honestly, being there was no emotion. Now, I
<v Speaker 3>just just you're not listening to me. Shower.
<v Speaker 1>He shot her in his own home because she was
<v Speaker 1>smelly and wouldn't take a shower. This chilling confession came
<v Speaker 1>out of Brian almost nonchalantly.
<v Speaker 3>So do you remember if she was white?
<v Speaker 17>Black?
<v Speaker 3>All those people they are native the murname? No?
<v Speaker 8>No, do you remember reading anything about any remains being found?
<v Speaker 16>And I actually did look Okay, yeah, so.
<v Speaker 3>Actually I did. Last you guys, those pictures I showed Lesia,
<v Speaker 3>they were the real ones of what of her. I
<v Speaker 3>did have a photo of me trying to stick monthingus into.
<v Speaker 8>The giant, So that was a real photo of you
<v Speaker 8>doing that to the person you shot, was up before
<v Speaker 8>or after you shot her.
<v Speaker 1>Often the photos and videos he shared with Alicia were real.
<v Speaker 1>She had been right all long. Detective Lee laid out
<v Speaker 1>some photos of missing women, and Brian immediately picked out
<v Speaker 1>his first victim. Her name was Veronica Abauchuk. She was
<v Speaker 1>fifty two and, like Valerie and Kathleen, battled addiction and homelessness.
<v Speaker 1>She was last seen in July of twenty eighteen by
<v Speaker 1>her family at a local shelter. Shortly after that, she
<v Speaker 1>stopped communicating with them, but, unlike Kathleen, Veronica's family reported
<v Speaker 1>her missing in early twenty nineteen. Her remains were discovered
<v Speaker 1>in April, but never identified. Brian later led police to
<v Speaker 1>the site where he dumped her, the same site where
<v Speaker 1>he took Alicia to. Brian Smith was arrested for the
<v Speaker 1>murder of Kathleen Henry, charged with multiple counts of first
<v Speaker 1>degree murder, second degree murder, second degree sexual assault, tampering
<v Speaker 1>with evidence, and misconduct involving a corpse, But after he
<v Speaker 1>confessed to the murder of another homeless Alaskan native, Veronica Abauchuk.
<v Speaker 1>A grand jury indicted him for her murder as well.
<v Speaker 1>They added more counts for first degree murder, second degree murder,
<v Speaker 1>tampering with evidence, and misconduct involving a corpse. It all
<v Speaker 1>added up to fourteen individual charges against Brian. During his arraignment,
<v Speaker 1>he pleaded not guilty to all charges, wasting the court's
<v Speaker 1>time and the taxpayers money. In the trial, the defense
<v Speaker 1>would argue that the most substantial evidence came from an
<v Speaker 1>unreliable source. They decided that Valerie stole the card and
<v Speaker 1>that she had more than enough time for the images
<v Speaker 1>and videos to be doctored. Now, I don't know about you,
<v Speaker 1>but I'm not willing to believe that a homeless Indigenous
<v Speaker 1>person in Alaska is an expert at photoshop. It was
<v Speaker 1>a pretty weak argument, to say the least. When the
<v Speaker 1>prosecution played the videos for the jury, warning and I
<v Speaker 1>would take this one seriously. What you're about to hear
<v Speaker 1>is Kathleen Henry taking her last breaths at the hands
<v Speaker 1>of Brian Smith. She's already very beaten and seemingly unconscious.
<v Speaker 1>But the following audio is rough, to say the least.
<v Speaker 19>And you're live, you die, you're lie, you die, you live,
<v Speaker 19>you die, you live, you die, you die.
<v Speaker 3>Sadly.
<v Speaker 24>In my movies, everyone dies.
<v Speaker 3>I get the Oscar bitch.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, Nina, I get the Oscar bitch. So that's what
<v Speaker 1>it takes. He toys with her, laughing, hysterically, taught her
<v Speaker 1>with a brief release, only to strangle her harder. All
<v Speaker 1>the while, he talks to the camera as if someone
<v Speaker 1>is watching him, as if this shit is going up
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube or something.
<v Speaker 25>Take seven, Part five, subsection C. The bitch would not
<v Speaker 25>fucking go away. It's called like, we don't like you anymore,
<v Speaker 25>so just fuck off. You're resisting me, okay, fucking So,
<v Speaker 25>here's the throat.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the heir. Yes, the string of God a stringer.
<v Speaker 4>If I'm gonna pull the string, yeah, it's pull tartanized
<v Speaker 4>your face, fucking Ford, You fucking strap posing bitch.
<v Speaker 9>Jesus.
<v Speaker 24>Fuck do people have to be taught out dark these days?
<v Speaker 24>After fucking fucking twenty thousand fucking years of evolution, you
<v Speaker 24>haven't learned to die yet?
<v Speaker 15>Eh?
<v Speaker 9>Fuck bitch, Jesus.
<v Speaker 3>Fuck.
<v Speaker 24>I don't fucking calm for your ship.
<v Speaker 9>You're fucking up my.
<v Speaker 26>Drinking, fucking fucking half bottle of whiskey still to go
<v Speaker 26>through and it's really like fucking leaving fucking out, fucking bitch.
<v Speaker 1>It's important to notice that there is no evidence that
<v Speaker 1>Brian uploaded any pictures or videos to the Internet, yet
<v Speaker 1>he still addresses the camera as the audience. He feels
<v Speaker 1>that he is performing, but he is getting tired.
<v Speaker 4>We're going on for no fucking lives. He's like fucking
<v Speaker 4>half an hour and we're going on half an hour
<v Speaker 4>and now, fuck, bitch, you are taking so the longest ever.
<v Speaker 4>He secure you fucking sort of lost down to my
<v Speaker 4>fucking car and can dump you fucking somewhere.
<v Speaker 3>You just fucked up mind time fucking.
<v Speaker 26>An evenion, bitch. I'm gonna fuck you up sbtly You're
<v Speaker 26>gonna need to change your lids and oh Jesus, now
<v Speaker 26>you want to fucking people need to corporate people need
<v Speaker 26>to know when they're fucking mean, serial killed fucked the
<v Speaker 26>shirt bitch, and you're like a god be on my
<v Speaker 26>fucking hand.
<v Speaker 9>What the fuck.
<v Speaker 1>Do you want to give me?
<v Speaker 24>A fucking NIPDDA is fucking d e if in g
<v Speaker 24>and Kenya wasn't fucking just fucking die.
<v Speaker 1>He was the producer, director, and star of the film.
<v Speaker 1>He called her names, knelt on her chest, and slapped her.
<v Speaker 1>He strangled her over and over. He showcased her injuries
<v Speaker 1>to the camera, but when he got tired, he stood
<v Speaker 1>on her neck until she died. And when it was over, the.
<v Speaker 3>Hate the log button.
<v Speaker 17>Please.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like the death penalty. I don't like the
<v Speaker 1>idea of giving the state the power to kill its
<v Speaker 1>own citizens. But after watching this performance, it's hard to
<v Speaker 1>argue against it, really hard. Inside the courtroom, the jury
<v Speaker 1>watched the twelve videos without blinking. The families of Kathleen
<v Speaker 1>Henry and Veronica Abautchuk couldn't see the videos, but they
<v Speaker 1>could hear them. They sat there silently, watching the jury's
<v Speaker 1>horrified reactions. For somebody who couldn't stop narrating a murder,
<v Speaker 1>Brian was silent throughout the entire trial. Outside the courthouse,
<v Speaker 1>a group of people seemed to reflect the inner turmoil
<v Speaker 1>of the jury's ghastly expressions. A protest had gathered. A
<v Speaker 1>deleted photo was recovered from Brian's phone. It showed a
<v Speaker 1>third Native woman. She appeared passed out on the grass.
<v Speaker 1>Either that or she was already dead.
<v Speaker 5>He asked me if I could look at another photograph
<v Speaker 5>that was actually in Brian Steven Smith's phone and his
<v Speaker 5>deleted files, and I says, sure. So I looked through
<v Speaker 5>FaceTime and I could see through faith time that yes,
<v Speaker 5>it was Cassandra.
<v Speaker 3>It took a.
<v Speaker 5>Double book, but yeah, And I instantly just started crying.
<v Speaker 1>The family of Cassandra Boskovsky was convinced it was her,
<v Speaker 1>and the fact that her picture was found on Brian's
<v Speaker 1>phone made them fear the worst. Unfortunately, Brian was done confessing,
<v Speaker 1>and once again there was no body. Even if it
<v Speaker 1>was Cassandra on Brian's phone, they couldn't prove a crime
<v Speaker 1>had been committed. Kexander was just another missing, homeless Alaskan native. Later,
<v Speaker 1>her family would have her declared legally dead without ever
<v Speaker 1>knowing what happened to her. Back inside the courtroom, the
<v Speaker 1>family of Kathleen Henry had to learn that although Brian
<v Speaker 1>didn't upload his heinous crime to the internet, he did
<v Speaker 1>share what he had done to someone.
<v Speaker 3>This is from Smith's filone.
<v Speaker 20>I have something to show you, period, something I can't
<v Speaker 20>keep for too long. Need to find a secluded spot
<v Speaker 20>to meet and he responds, I was not upcomma sounds
<v Speaker 20>like you were.
<v Speaker 10>Having a lot of fun. I did have fun, wanted
<v Speaker 10>to share.
<v Speaker 1>The man Brian was texting met him after the murder
<v Speaker 1>of Kathleen so he could see the body too. What
<v Speaker 1>a couple of sick fucks, he pleaded the fifth didn't
<v Speaker 1>have to testify and get this was never charged. What horseship.
<v Speaker 1>I can't for a meme, But this assholes walk around
<v Speaker 1>society doing just fine.
<v Speaker 17>Okay, ass Henry was slowly beaten to death and strangled
<v Speaker 17>to death and tortured to death. As about chick, didn't
<v Speaker 17>it actually suffer as much? But she was treated like
<v Speaker 17>a thing to be used and cast aside. Both were
<v Speaker 17>treated about as horribly as a person can be treated.
<v Speaker 17>Killings like this that are publicized affect all of society,
<v Speaker 17>and especially women in our society. It's the stuff of nightmares.
<v Speaker 17>They strip women of any feelings of safety in their
<v Speaker 17>own neighborhoods. That damage continues long after the crimes are solved.
<v Speaker 1>As no surprise, Brian was unanimously found guilty of all
<v Speaker 1>fourteen charges. He was sentenced to ninety nine years for
<v Speaker 1>each and two counts of first degree premeditated merd her.
<v Speaker 1>All the other charges, including the aggravating factor that he
<v Speaker 1>tortured Kathleen, which eliminated any chance of parole, added up
<v Speaker 1>to another twenty eight years. All in all, Brian Stephen
<v Speaker 1>Smith was sentenced to two hundred and twenty six years
<v Speaker 1>in prison to run consecutively. They left the families of
<v Speaker 1>Kathleen and Veronica feeling just a little bit better.
<v Speaker 10>They're at peace now.
<v Speaker 15>That's the most important. And for me, her sister, Veronica,
<v Speaker 15>Ronica's sister, and Kathleen's family, it's been too long and
<v Speaker 15>today is life celebration and spiritual celebration.
<v Speaker 1>But Brian's wife, Stephanie, was left completely dumbfounded and questioning
<v Speaker 1>her own intelligence. Can you blame her?
<v Speaker 9>I've never seen anything that dark in him. When I
<v Speaker 9>think about that, I think, how could I have missed?
<v Speaker 9>How can you missed something like that?
<v Speaker 14>You know?
<v Speaker 1>To add insult to injury. Two months after his conviction
<v Speaker 1>of federal grand jury charged him with one count of
<v Speaker 1>unlawful procurement of naturalization and one count of unlawful procurement
<v Speaker 1>of naturalization by an ineligible person. You see, one of
<v Speaker 1>the questions they ask you when applying for naturalization is
<v Speaker 1>have you ever been involved in a killing, sexual assault,
<v Speaker 1>or have you ever committed or assisted in committing or
<v Speaker 1>attempted to commit a crime you were not arrested for
<v Speaker 1>Brian answered no. If convicted, which is likely, his citizenship
<v Speaker 1>will be revoked and he will be deported, and then
<v Speaker 1>some dumb bitch with a septum ring and clown hair
<v Speaker 1>will protest about it on the streets of Portland and
<v Speaker 1>uploaded to TikTok, because that's the fucked up country of morons.
<v Speaker 1>We live in America, Land of the woke, home of
<v Speaker 1>the dump. Brian Smith is behind bars, but the crisis
<v Speaker 1>is far from over. Justice first victims doesn't fix the
<v Speaker 1>real problem. Kathleen Henry and Veronica Aboutchuk weren't just murdered.
<v Speaker 1>They were failed. Failed by a system that allows Indigenous
<v Speaker 1>women to disappear without a trace, failed by a society
<v Speaker 1>that barely notices when the most vulnerable go missing. And
<v Speaker 1>if Valerie Castler had never stolen that SD card, would
<v Speaker 1>Brian Smith have ever been caught? Probably not.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I can tell you that day roll was me.
<v Speaker 21>I mean, it's obviously it's a second top, so's would
<v Speaker 21>be that's to I didn't There's no way to come
<v Speaker 21>back from that.
<v Speaker 3>There's no way, well, not personally.
<v Speaker 21>Even it's yeah, I'm not I'm not timpering in saying
<v Speaker 21>I'm not not anything like it.
<v Speaker 22>I am saying I know exactly what i've but yeah,
<v Speaker 22>I've gone too far. I don't want to go on.
<v Speaker 22>Are you glad of that? I'm glad.
<v Speaker 3>You're glad You're not gonna be able to hurt anybody else.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, somewhere in Anchorage, on the streets and the shelters
<v Speaker 1>and the shadows, another woman is disappearing right now and
<v Speaker 1>no one is paying attention. Bryan Smith knew what kind
<v Speaker 1>of women wouldn't be missed. He counted on it, he
<v Speaker 1>thrived on it, and the system proved him right again
<v Speaker 1>and again. Kathleen, Henry Veronica about Check weren't the first
<v Speaker 1>to be forgotten, and unless things change, they won't be
<v Speaker 1>the last. Right now is a great time to go
<v Speaker 1>check out Sword and Scale Television. If you've been curious
<v Speaker 1>about it. For just twenty bucks, you can binge through
<v Speaker 1>all twenty episodes. That's a steal. You can find it
<v Speaker 1>at swordscale dot com.