ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) 鈥 A man who killed two Alaska Native women and was heard while videotaping the torture death of one say that in his movies 鈥渆verybody always dies鈥 was sentenced Friday to 226 years in prison.
Brian Steven Smith received 99-year sentences each for the deaths of Kathleen Henry, 30, and Veronica Abouchuk, who was 52 when her family reported her missing in February 2019, seven months after they last saw her.
鈥淏oth were treated about as horribly as a person can be treated,鈥 Alaska Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby said when imposing the sentence.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the stuff of nightmares,鈥 Saxby said.
The remaining 28 years were for other charges, like sexual assault and tampering with evidence. Alaska does not have the death penalty.
Smith, a native of South Africa who became a naturalized U.S. citizen shortly before torturing and killing Henry at an Anchorage hotel in September 2019, showed no emotion during sentencing.
He also displayed no emotion when and found him guilty after a three-week trial in February.
During the trial, the victims were not identified by name, only initials. Saxby said during sentencing that their names would be used in order to restore their personhood.
when a sex worker stole his cellphone from his truck and found the gruesome footage of Henry鈥檚 torture and murder. The images were eventually copied onto a memory card, and she turned it over to police.
Smith eventually confessed to killing Henry and Abouchuk, whose body had been found earlier but was misidentified.
Both Alaska Native women were from small villages in western Alaska and experienced homelessness when living in Anchorage.
Authorities identified Henry as the victim whose death was recorded at TownePlace Suites by Marriott in midtown Anchorage. Smith, who worked at the hotel, was registered to stay there from Sept. 2-4, 2019. The first images from the card showed Henry鈥檚 body and were time-stamped about 1 a.m. Sept. 4, police said.
The last image, dated early Sept. 6, showed Henry鈥檚 body in the back of black pickup. Charging documents said location data showed Smith鈥檚 phone in the same rural area south of Anchorage where Henry鈥檚 body was found a few weeks later.
Videos from the memory card were shown during the trial to the jury but hidden from the gallery. Smith鈥檚 face was never seen in the videos, but his distinctive South African accent 鈥 which police eventually recognized from previous encounters 鈥 was heard narrating as if there were an audience. On the tape, he repeatedly urged Henry to die as he beat and strangled her.
鈥淚n my movies, everybody always dies,鈥 the voice says on one video. 鈥淲hat are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.鈥
During the eight-hour videotaped police interrogation, Smith confessed to killing Abouchuk after picking her up in Anchorage when his wife was out of town. He took her to his home, and she refused when he asked her to shower because of an odor.
Smith said he became upset, retrieved a pistol from the garage and shot her in the head, dumping her body north of Anchorage. He told police the location, where authorities later found a skull with a bullet wound in it.
