SD Card Murder Victim Identified

UPDATE:  Smith is facing a new series of charges related to the death of a second Alaskan native woman, Veronica R. Abouchuk whose remains were found in April of this year, but only identified earlier this month.

According to reports, Smith told authorities that he had shot a woman between 2017 and 2018.

He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Henry and on Monday during a court appearance, entered a plea of not guilty on the new charges against him including homicide, desecration of a corpse, and evidence tampering.

Smith's bail was increased to $1 million at the hearing.  He is being held in solitary confinement at the Cook Inlet Pre-Trial Facility.

His next court date is scheduled for December 2nd and is noted as a discovery hearing.

Note: Some of the linked articles contain rather graphic details about the images and videos on contained on the SD card.  That information has been left out of the below where possible. 

On September 30th, Anchorage police were notified that a woman wished to turn an SD card over to them which she reported having found in the street while on a walk.

The SD card was named "homicide at midtown Marriott," and contained 12 video clips and 39 images created between September 4th and 6th.  Police initially asked themselves if the images were staged, but soon opened an investigation as pieces to the puzzle began to fall into place.

In one of the videos, a male voice can be heard saying, "just... die!" to the naked and battered woman.  Police stated that they were able to recognize the voice as that of South African born Brian Steven Smith.  They stated that they knew him from another matter, but did not give further details as to what that matter was.

One of the images contained a partial license plate as it was seen on a black pick-up truck where the woman was then seen lying face down.  Police were able to run the partial plate and come up with a match to a plate and vehicle belonging to Smith.

Two days after the SD card was handed to police, another call came into the department.  This time it was a report of human remains found.

By tracing Smith's cell phone location, they were able to determine that he had been in the area where the remains were found minutes after the last image on the SD card was taken.

On Tuesday, October 8th, Smith was arrested by authorities at  Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport after he returned on a flight.  He has been charged with first degree murder.  In court on Wednesday the 9th, his bond was set at $750,000 and he was assigned a public defense attorney.  He has not yet entered a plea.

On Thursday, October 10th, authorities announced that the woman in the images, whose remains they had found on October 2nd, was 30 year old Kathleen J. Henry.  A medical examiner is still working to determine cause and manner of death.