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Police were only able to solve a horrific murder because they got a tip from one of the local hookers. Sex work isn’t all those girls are professionals at. While she was on the job one night she managed to snag a “memory card.” It came from the console of a customer’s truck and it isn’t clear if it happened to be attached to a phone, camera or other electronic device, or just sitting there loose. The label caught her attention. “Homicide at Midtown Marriott.” When she got a look at the movie, she realized it was a serial killer’s own production and she had narrowly escaped the same fate.
Murder at the Marriott
Police aren’t naming the “convicted prostitute” who’s their star witness in a murder trial. They started with one homicide and now they’re up to two. So far.
Their informant wandered in off the street and handed one of those “SD” memory cards to detectives, in Anchorage, Alaska, admitting that she stole it. She wasn’t real happy to explain what she was doing when she stole it but they already knew her background. She’s not in trouble for anything.
A video file on the card seemingly depicts “a woman being beaten and strangled.” A week before dropping by the police station, she “stole the SD card from the center console of a date’s truck during a date in Alaska.”
A woman found an SD card labeled “homicide at midtown Marriott” containing graphic images and videos of violent crimes against a woman. After turning it into police, Brian Steven Smith was arrested in connection with the murder.https://t.co/rqcvGm5qyO
— Court Junkie Podcast (@CourtJunkiePod) October 11, 2019
She knew exactly what she had to do as soon as she saw “the horrors it contained” but it took her a few days to get the courage to confess her own crimes. They’re nothing close to the seriousness of the murder she reported, so authorities are turning a blind eye to her career choices.
It didn’t take long for them to get 52-year-old Brian Steven Smith into custody. Police note he’s a “new” U.S. citizen but his actual immigration status is unclear. The murder of Kathleen Henry was fully detailed on the chip with “nearly 40 photos and a dozen videos.”
When Smith’s hands got tired from strangling the 30-year-old, he stretched her out on the floor and stomped on her throat, yelling “You need to bleeping die, bleepch. In my movies, everybody always dies.” He adds. Police followed that up. Along with his next line, “what are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial killed.”
Almost serial killed
When the hooker saw that, she suddenly realized just how dangerous her line of work really is. Beginning Monday, February 5, Smith goes on trial for two cases of murder. He’s also implicated in the death of Veronica Abouchuk, age 52.
As soon as police heard the killer’s voice they recognized Smith instantly. They were already well familiar with the former South African “from a prior investigation.”
Evidence for the murder trial appears to have been “taken at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Anchorage.” They know from hotel records that “Smith was registered to stay there from September 2 to September 4, 2019.” That matches up perfectly with the time stamps on the videos. “The first images showing Henry’s body were timestamped at around 1 a.m. on September 4 — when he was still at the hotel.”
Kathleen Henry the 30-year-old indigenous woman who authorities believe was killed on September 4 as Brian Steven Smith, 48, allegedly filmed himself as he attacked her.https://t.co/cyzjvwGjck pic.twitter.com/3wRFVIpvH6
— Wikitrusted (@Wikitrusted1) October 12, 2019
The last files on the card “were from early on September 6, showing Henry’s body in the back of a black Ford Ranger pickup truck like the one Smith owned.” He used a hotel luggage cart to move the blanket wrapped body.
Police also had no problem verifying that Smith’s phone was in the right places at the appropriate times and match up with “where Henry’s body was later found.” Sometime during the interrogation session with police, Smith asked to take a bathroom break. “With no prompting, he tells the troopers in the bathroom, ‘I’m going to make you famous,‘” District Attorney Brittany Dunlop relates in court.
“He comes back in and says, ‘You guys got some more time? You want to keep talking?‘ And then he discloses this other murder.” He filled them in on all the gruesome details of killing Veronica Abouchuk. He’s looking at 99 years in prison, when convicted.
