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Lost Women of Alaska - Season 1 - Episode 02: Manhunt
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00:10Sometimes the truth can be worse than the nightmare, for deep in the frozen heart of Alaska,
00:18Native women were vanishing. My friend Cassandra went missing and also Kathleen Henry and Veronica
00:28about Chuck. I went to the camera roll. I never imagined I'd see something like that.
00:37The things he was doing through her were absolutely tortured. I was like,
00:40that's Kathleen and Joe Henry. I think I know this person.
00:46I'm too nervous right now. I just turned my boyfriend in for murder.
01:05In 2018, a year before Kathleen's death, another woman had come forward.
01:13Alicia Youngblood had seen who the killer truly was,
01:18and he wasn't what she or police could ever have imagined.
01:23When my mother first met Brian Steven Smith, he was just a friend, and over time that kind of
01:30developed into more. My first reaction was that this was all really normal. He had a decent job.
01:40The way he dressed was respectable. I honestly thought that my sister might really like this guy.
01:49They were always joking, always laughing with each other, fantasizing about getting married.
01:55And that's how much they loved each other.
01:59He was fun.
02:04Brian loved making his videos.
02:21Alicia believed she had found the right partner in Brian Steven Smith,
02:26a man she could spend the rest of her life with.
02:29But back in 2018, he'd exposed the ugliness of his heart.
02:36It was a painful truth that Alicia refused to ignore.
02:53When Alicia Youngblood first came to APD, she told us that her boyfriend showed her a video of him killing
02:59someone.
03:01He said he was standing over her like a hunter standing over his kill, like a lion over a zebra.
03:09Brian Smith would show Alicia Youngblood videos, but every time she would see a video,
03:15he would either delete it himself, or he would make Miss Youngblood delete it.
03:22So we didn't have the video.
03:25Right now, as far as concrete facts and evidence, we have very little.
03:29We have your text messages.
03:30Yeah.
03:30That's it.
03:30We need more.
03:32They know that him telling me about it is real.
03:37Miss Youngblood was instructed several times not to make contact with Brian Smith.
03:42Because at any time that Mr. Smith finds out that Alicia Youngblood was working with the police,
03:47it's extremely dangerous.
03:51But she said that she had to do what she had to do, and she was going to do it
03:55no matter what I said.
03:57I'm really, really, I really want her bound.
04:05She said that she had to do it no matter what she had to do, and that's when things got
04:16to be fairly intense and dramatic and scary.
04:20It was multiple days, multiple coercing of Brian and trying to get him to open up via messenger
04:37to relay the information to APD.
04:48She was doing things with Mr. Smith that she would normally never do.
04:54I'm doing all kinds of crazy sexual acts with him to get this information out.
05:01And having to pretend to like it.
05:05The relationship between her and Brian was very tumultuous in the fact that
05:09in order for them to hang out, they were always drinking.
05:12I can't think of anything that you and I do together that's normal.
05:18There's nothing wrong with us, baby.
05:22She massaged the relationship around trying to get this information out of him.
05:52Miss Youngblood told us she had met with Mr. Smith and that they ended up at Thunderbird Falls on a
05:58hike.
06:02And then he says, well, I put the body out here to the north.
06:13This is Thunderbird Falls here.
06:19Detective Estes brought Miss Youngblood down here.
06:23Is this the road?
06:25Yes.
06:27Absolutely.
06:27See our tire tracks?
06:34She's in Berries.
06:35And then she's on top of the wood.
06:38It's like there's a mattress.
06:40Right.
06:41I think she's down here.
06:47Or he could have just been out here before and he's feeling me fully sick.
06:51Yeah, you never know.
06:54There's no signs that there's a body there right this second.
06:58But it doesn't mean that it's not a little bit farther deeper around in the brush.
07:11One of the search and rescue teams did a grid search.
07:15And they also did a search with the cadaver dogs.
07:18And both those came up negative.
07:26She truly believed what she saw was real.
07:29But there was not credible information that something had occurred.
07:33We just didn't have enough to go forward with making contact with Mr. Smith at that time.
07:38We need details to move things forward.
07:40We need details to write search warrants.
07:44The question is whether or not this is reality or fantasy.
07:48Is he playing to you?
07:49I do think I would feel pretty stupid if this was all a game and it was not real.
07:52I mean, because I've wasted everyone's time.
07:59Shortly after that, Miss Youngblood told me she was leaving state.
08:03I think she'd finally hit a wall and just said, I'm done with this.
08:08So Alicia fled, her warning powerless to change the future.
08:15And now it was clear.
08:17Another woman had been silenced by Bryan Steven Smith.
08:32As soon as I heard the distinct South African accent on the video.
08:44I knew that accent.
08:46I'd heard that before.
08:49And I felt it was the same person.
08:52Now, what Miss Alicia Youngblood told us the year prior was all coming back into play again.
08:59And it hit me like a ton of bricks.
09:02I couldn't think of anything that you and I do together at this moment.
09:07There's nothing special about me.
09:10I know what I saw was real.
09:14Absolutely, I felt some responsibility in what took place.
09:18It's easy to second guess.
09:20We didn't have a crystal ball to know what was going to take place.
09:25But this case has affected me.
09:28I'd be lying if it said it didn't.
09:30This is one I won't forget.
09:31There's no doubt.
09:41There's no doubt.
09:43From the time that Detective Cordy heard Bryan Smith's voice,
09:48that's when things started coming together.
09:51But we don't have a body at this point.
09:53And without a body, we can't charge him.
09:57We need more evidence.
10:02When we initially talked to Valerie,
10:04she told us that she found this small SD card in an area of Fairview in Anchorage.
10:09It seemed suspicious.
10:11It's a very tiny SD card.
10:12It's odd to be able to find that lying on the ground.
10:16So I called to Valerie again.
10:20I broke down.
10:21And I started crying.
10:23And I just let it out.
10:27And I told them how I stole the phone.
10:30And they was like, well, why did you lie and say you found it on the ground?
10:34I said, wouldn't you?
10:36Wouldn't you?
10:41That guy picked me up that night.
10:44The guy in the videos?
10:45Yeah, he picked me up.
10:47Okay.
10:48What kind of vehicle was he in?
10:50It was a black truck.
10:52In one of the images on the SD card, you can see the black pickup truck.
10:55And you can actually see two of the numbers 87 on the license plate.
11:01Once we found Bryan Smith's actual vehicle and his registration,
11:07we saw that he had an 87 on his plate.
11:11So we knew for a fact that that was his truck in the picture.
11:16And then I received a call from patrol.
11:25This morning, human remains were found along the Seward Highway.
11:30They don't know who she is yet.
11:32To police, she is Jane Doe.
11:50A few days after speaking to Valerie Kasler, APD Patrol received a call from two railroad workers that they had
11:56found human remains off the Seward Highway.
12:05At this point, the FBI had begun assisting us with Bryan Smith's phone records.
12:11And then I received a call from the FBI.
12:14His phone was hitting in the area of the Seward Highway on September 6th.
12:20And it didn't take very long for us to start putting the dots together.
12:27That area is almost exactly where the human remains were currently being investigated by the crime scene team.
12:38So that was an aha moment.
12:40Like, there's our connection.
12:41Bryan Smith was in this location on September 6th at about one in the morning,
12:46which was the timestamp on the image of her in the back of the truck.
12:55The remains were skeletal at this point.
12:58She was identified through dental records as Kathleen Jo Henry.
13:10They found Kathleen's body curled in a fetal position.
13:17There were pieces of her hair in the shrub and the trees at the top of the hill where he
13:22had tossed her body.
13:26There are people who care about her.
13:31No human being should have to be taken from the world in that manner.
13:41Kathleen didn't bother anybody.
13:44Sorry.
13:50She really didn't.
13:52Kathleen was just trying to survive in this world.
14:00Somebody that was houseless doing what she had to survive.
14:08She was just...
14:11She was so sweet.
14:12She was.
14:1630-year-old Kathleen Henry last posted on Facebook just days before police say she was strangled and killed in
14:24a hotel room.
14:25And now we feel comfortable saying Bryan Smith is responsible.
14:36He's the person in the video.
14:37This is a person we believe is a murderer.
14:41He's at least killed one female.
14:44We knew that he was a danger to the public.
14:50We need to find him to make this not happen to anybody else.
14:55We obtained a live ping of his cell phone to show us every 15 minutes his location.
15:08And that's when we realized he was not in Alaska.
15:10He's the person in the video.
15:30He's the person in the video.
15:36again the local agencies were concerned because the motel he was staying at was close to a
15:43a district that had a high rate of prostitution and they might be an easy target for mr smith
15:55so we did 24 hours surveillance on it make sure that something didn't take place in the d.c area
16:05and then mr smith came back to alaska
16:13we got a very short timeline to get the arrest team to the airport
16:18we came up with a plan that we'd have myself and detective bell at the airport along with
16:23the airport interdiction team state troopers and we would make contact with him as soon as
16:29he came out of the secured area and we'd attempt an interview with them at the airport
16:42today is tuesday october of the 8th it's 1504. we are at the anchorage international airport and
16:49we are waiting to contact mr brian smith
16:56okay yeah yep
17:03let's check out with you for a second why what have i done wrong um so if you don't mind
17:09we
17:09got a couple questions that we'd like to address with you yeah yeah sure okay
17:18i guess hey
17:27mr smith i'm detective lee the angus police department i just want to show you my badge
17:40yeah you have any idea about what we might want to talk to you today about no my truck was
17:46broken into
17:49what kind of items were taken out of the truck and there was a briefcase
17:59i just couldn't believe that does seem shocking that he could have a wife
18:07these things were happening while he was living another life with his wife who's your wife
18:38my name's stephanie
18:42That means that you don't take the words correctly.
18:47I met Ryan in 2013.
18:52We were playing a computer game.
18:56It was online.
19:02He lived in South Africa.
19:06We talked to each other usually every day.
19:12It's raining now.
19:15I just want to show you how pretty it looks with the rain,
19:18and obviously with me in it as well.
19:21I thought he was really cute.
19:23I liked him very much.
19:25He's very young.
19:29Stephanie told me that she began to realize after a while
19:33that he was pursuing her.
19:35She was a retired woman who was well off,
19:38and he maybe saw a way to get a foothold in this country.
19:44There was one day, he called me,
19:49and he said, I'd like to marry you.
19:53And I said, yes.
19:59I went to South Africa to meet Brian.
20:03It's the first time that we got together.
20:08Leave my wifey.
20:11We got married at my church.
20:20He was a very ephemous person.
20:23He'd pick me up, and he said, my wifey.
20:28It was good.
20:30It was for three years.
20:33We had fun.
20:38All of a sudden, everything was changed.
20:42And they, it was very bad.
20:51If you just ran into him on the street,
20:53you would just think he's a normal everyday.
20:56Brian Smith, guide goes to work, comes home,
20:59and he would fool you.
21:01Recently, some property was brought to APD.
21:05I was given that property as a little SD card.
21:08Uh-huh.
21:09And I, I watched that SD card, and I looked at it,
21:11and that's what I want to talk to you about.
21:13Okay, what's on the card?
21:15He genuinely didn't seem to know what we were talking about.
21:18I don't think he realized we had what we had at that point.
21:24I started with his pickup truck.
21:26That's, that's my truck.
21:27That's your truck?
21:29We showed him pictures of Kathleen Joe Henry.
21:32So what can you tell me about this?
21:34This looks like someone that's really been beaten up a bit.
21:38Okay.
21:39I then provided him with some sounds from the videos.
21:44We can dump your **** on me, huh?
21:48So we need to address this.
21:49We need to, we need to clear this up.
21:52Okay.
21:57You think I hit this goal?
21:59I've been talking to you now for almost 30, 40 minutes,
22:01and I know it was your voice I could hear in the video.
22:04Okay.
22:05What's happening is on this video, on these images,
22:08the person that's recording it is holding the recorder
22:10and is standing basically above this girl
22:12and, and strangling her.
22:16Okay.
22:19And so we need to talk about this.
22:21We need to get ahead of this, Mr. Smith.
22:22I don't want to act stupid, but I don't dream of anything.
22:25I don't dream of anything.
22:28You are taking this ceremony.
22:30You're the longest ever.
22:34And we see you choking her.
22:36Yeah.
22:36Standing on her neck.
22:37You're saying you've got video of me doing, yeah.
22:40Talking about killing her to die, bitch,
22:42and telling her to die,
22:43and getting mad when she starts gasping for air.
22:45She's interfering with my drinking time.
22:49It sounds like something I would say.
22:51You did say it.
22:52Yeah.
22:53She's not dying fast enough.
22:55She's interfering with your drinking time.
22:56You could say 20 hours later.
22:58I'm going on now, 20 hours later.
23:00You just need to learn how to be serial killed.
23:07You got the, you know, the classic lump in your throat.
23:09He had the heavy swallows.
23:10He was having a reaction now, like,
23:12okay, now I realize what they know,
23:14and, you know, I'm going to have to come up with something here.
23:19The next day at work,
23:24I saw something dripping out the back of my truck.
23:26I was like, what the hell?
23:29And I opened up,
23:31and there was somebody there underneath.
23:35I thought, well,
23:37I've got to get rid of this.
23:38I can't.
23:39And I drove out, and I did.
23:42I went and dumped it.
23:46If I go to the police,
23:48my wife would have found out.
23:50Your biggest worry about having a dead girl
23:53in the back of your truck
23:54was your old wife finding out
23:56that you were sleeping with prostitutes
23:57and girls that were walking around with.
23:58That's your biggest fear?
24:00Yeah.
24:02At that point, he's admitting to dumping the body,
24:05but not killing her.
24:07So we're talking to your wife right now.
24:09Was your wife involved in any of it?
24:11Does she know about anything?
24:12I know you probably don't believe this from what I've just said,
24:15but I love my wife and whatever.
24:17I don't want to jeopardize anything.
24:26He didn't tell me anything,
24:29but I knew something is wrong.
24:36He knew I was getting sick,
24:38and I don't think he could take it.
24:47And I knew he was going out with the guys.
24:51They would go out and shoot.
24:55Go to the villages.
25:00I don't know how many women he knew,
25:03but sometimes he didn't come home.
25:16The video that we watch, frankly,
25:19it doesn't look like an amateur.
25:24It doesn't look like it's the first time they've killed somebody.
25:28You're enjoying yourself.
25:32I don't know.
25:33You don't know?
25:34Have you ever killed anybody else?
25:43As Anchorage police questioned Bryan Steven Smith,
25:47they inched closer to what Alicia Youngblood
25:50and Valerie Kassler had known all along.
25:56I do not remember taking photos of it.
25:58Could anybody else take photos?
26:00Look, I was the only person there.
26:02It has to be me.
26:03But I don't remember it.
26:07During the interview of Bryan Smith,
26:09he never took responsibility for killing Kathleen Joe Henry.
26:14So, really, we were going around in circles.
26:17We got to the point where we were going to take a break.
26:21He made a comment.
26:24Are you guys in a rush to go home?
26:26You're in a rush?
26:27Yeah.
26:27You want to talk some more?
26:30We're not in any rush.
26:31We got...
26:32We got all night.
26:33I have two days.
26:34When he said that, my first thought was,
26:36okay, here we go.
26:38I'm thinking that he's going to tell us about the hotel
26:40and everything he had done.
26:44I had just gone to the Safeway to go get something.
26:48My wife was gone and away for the weekend.
26:53I picked up a very drunk girl.
26:59I said, hey, do you want some warm food
27:02and a warm place to sleep tonight?
27:04And she was like, yes, sure.
27:06She jumped in.
27:06But she was really drunk.
27:10She actually seemed like a nice person.
27:12And...
27:15I took her home and she fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV.
27:22And...
27:24She...
27:28She was smelling.
27:29And I was getting upset.
27:30And I said to her, go take a shower.
27:33You know, because now there's smell in the house, you know.
27:35My wife would smell that there was a homeless person in the house.
27:41And...
27:42She wouldn't do it.
27:43She kept saying, no, no.
27:45I went to the garage and I got my little pistol there.
27:48And I...
27:49I said to her, go...
27:50Go shower.
27:52And she wouldn't.
27:53She wouldn't.
27:53She wouldn't.
27:54And, uh...
27:55I just did that.
27:57And I...
27:58I...
27:59While she was on the couch?
28:00Yeah.
28:01I just...
28:01I just shot her.
28:04He told us that he's involved in a murder that we didn't even know about.
28:09This was the first time I've ever encountered somebody that could just talk about taking the
28:13life of someone else so calmly, describing, telling us he shot this woman in the head.
28:23That is why I thought I must tell you that, so you can understand, like you were saying,
28:29it's...
28:29It's not your first time.
28:31It...
28:31It wasn't the first time.
28:35You know, I...
28:36I was used to...
28:37It came pretty easy to you, that's what we...
28:39Yeah.
28:40Well, once you've...
28:41Once you've...
28:42Seen a dead person, you...
28:46You...
28:47After that, honestly, I...
28:53My...
28:54Um...
28:55I've always been a little bit shy and a little bit insecure.
28:59Um...
29:00Because I'm short as well, you know.
29:01Short guys always get bumped around the most.
29:04But after that, um...
29:08I started not being scared of people.
29:13I would almost describe it as almost sociopathic, you know, borderline psychopathic.
29:18I mean, he was unlike anybody I'd ever met.
29:20So do you remember she was white, black, native?
29:23No, she was a native.
29:24She was a native.
29:24We began looking through missing native females to help us identify this person.
29:30Do you think you're gonna recognize her if you see her?
29:37There is...
29:38I think that's her.
29:40We showed him three or four photos, and the one he indicated on was a picture of Veronica Boucher.
29:49When I found out about Veronica, I was like, she's dead?
29:55Like, what the heck?
30:02Like, she didn't do anything.
30:04Like, literally, all she did was say yes when he said, you wanna come?
30:09Like, and it's just, it's so wrong.
30:14I would see Veronica at the shelter.
30:18She was very protective, a lot of the younger girls.
30:21But I know that she was lonely, and that she missed her family.
30:27Because Veronica asked to see pictures of my children.
30:32And then one day, she just disappeared.
30:38I went and dumped her out on that little side road going towards Butte.
30:44By the Clutner power plant?
30:45Yeah, around about that area, yeah.
30:47If you'd be open to it, we'd like to see if you'd be willing to take us out to Clutner.
30:53Are you willing to do that?
30:55Yeah, you wanna go now?
30:56Yeah.
30:56Yeah, sure.
31:01Brian Smith led us north on the Glen Highway towards the Clutner power plant.
31:08And then he pointed down into the woods where we could see kind of a pathway.
31:22He described that he had dumped Veronica's remains out.
31:31And then we realized this was the same location that a skull was found in early 2019.
31:39Two males were out picking mushrooms.
31:44And they located a human skull with a gunshot wound in it.
31:58They called the Alaska State Troopers.
32:02Troopers investigated it.
32:04Not Anchorage police.
32:07But at the time, they weren't able to find the identity of the person that the skull belonged to.
32:15After Brian Smith pointed out Veronica about Chuck during the interview,
32:20we obtained her dental records from family and were able to positively compare them to the skull and it matched.
32:33Veronica's skull was found only half a mile from where Brian Smith told his girlfriend, Alicia Youngblood, that he dumped
32:40a body.
32:42The same wilderness Alicia had led the police to a year earlier.
32:50She did some berries. She's in berries.
32:53And then she's on top of some wood hikes.
32:59I really want her found.
33:09She came to APD. She gave them the phone. She showed them the messages.
33:16It's flabbergasting to think that you could receive information like that and still not think maybe we should check this
33:23out.
33:25She did what she could to stop it, and it didn't stop.
33:45She did what she could to stop it, and it didn't stop.
33:47A skull found with a gunshot wound along the Glen Highway belonged to 53-year-old Veronica Abachuk.
33:58Veronica Abachuk had a very loving and supporting family here in Anchorage.
34:03And back home where she spent her childhood, she had loving family as well.
34:13Veronica's daughter told us she had been a victim of clergy abuse growing up.
34:21That changed her whole life.
34:26I think historical trauma affected Veronica, specifically in her inability to...
34:38to protect herself.
34:41She was houseless, and she was isolated.
34:46She was an easy prey.
34:56MMIP stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons.
35:01I am an advocate for MMIP, perhaps because I'm Alaska Native, because I have 27 years of police experience in
35:09Alaska.
35:11In terms of missing persons in Alaska, it is a real problem.
35:15There's over 1,300 people that are missing in Alaska at this point in time.
35:21Not many Alaska Natives.
35:25That's a large number.
35:26Out of those 1,300, there's only about a hundred that are being actively worked on.
35:331,200 out of those 1,300, nobody's even actively pursuing them.
35:43I think one of the biggest contributors to MMIP Alaska is racism.
35:49Basic, ugly racism.
35:52That says that Alaska Native people, particularly Alaska Native women, are inferior.
35:58Inferior.
36:14Accused killer Brian Smith lived here with his wife, Stephanie Bislin.
36:21Police surrounded his home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Midtown Tuesday, broke down the door, and collected evidence
36:27well into the night.
36:31Among the items they collected, electronics and handfuls of SD cards.
36:37So I guess that's what they are.
36:40On one of the USBs, the tech found some video and some images of Veronica Bauchuk lying on his couch.
36:53We weren't able to tell when the video was recorded, but in the video you can see the television.
37:00And there appears to be a news story going, and that news was airing sometime between August 13th and 16th
37:07of 2018.
37:09Once we got that date, it helped us realize that Veronica had been killed a year or more before Kathleen
37:16Jo Henry.
37:21All of it bewildering for Bislin, whose husband, a standout hotel employee and new citizen, seemed to have so much
37:29going for him.
37:32And I think about that, I think, um, how could I have missed, how can you have missed something like
37:39that, you know?
37:43I didn't believe it. I did not believe it. That's not how he is, you know?
37:51But how did it make you feel, knowing that your husband was being accused of murdering two people?
37:58I think he was depressed. That's why it went down, um, not having the money, um, and me not being
38:11able to speak well.
38:14But I came for him, you know, and I still do.
38:23Here's my dinner that was barn, but it's still mine. I have to eat it.
38:34But yes, he was mine.
38:39I wish I could have done something.
38:44They said, well, you don't know much about your husband.
38:48And, well, no, that's not true.
38:52And yes, and he did that, and he killed them.
39:05Back in Brian Stephen Smith's interrogation, his lies were starting to catch up with him.
39:14I want to ask you to kind of shift gears a little bit.
39:17Alicia Youngblood, can we talk about her for a little bit?
39:21Oh, shit.
39:23Don't tell my wife about it, please.
39:25Last year, we had a small little affair here.
39:31We actually made up fantasies almost like this, you know?
39:35You know, kill somebody here, you know?
39:37Rape and all that stuff.
39:39And I can't believe she snips from me.
39:43Because she knows we were joking about things.
39:46Well, were you, though?
39:47Yeah. I'm white.
39:49You killed her a real person.
39:50Yeah, you killed her somebody really killed.
39:51You killed with your hand.
39:58I called Miss Youngblood.
40:00I informed her that he had been arrested.
40:05I remember Miss Youngblood being very emotional, was crying.
40:09She right away started blaming herself.
40:15After the interview with Brian Smith, he gets arrested that night.
40:18He goes to jail.
40:20And then he gives a plea of not guilty.
40:24It shocked me and it really angered me when I found out this is going to trial.
40:29He's going to take a chance to put it in front of 12 jurors and hope that maybe one person
40:34doesn't agree with the evidence.
40:36It just is very frustrating.
40:44Alicia was really worried about having to appear in court.
40:49She was feeling the pressure and the stress.
40:55Evidence presented in this trial is expected to be disturbing.
40:59We want answers! We want answers!
41:07I want to ask Brian Stephen Smith some difficult questions.
41:12I know that there are other victims.
41:16I know how dangerous he is.
41:25We need to find out more about the harm that he's done to the women here.
41:31He's a monster.
41:32He's a monster.
41:42With the
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