An Alaska man has been arrested in connection with the murder of a woman whose body was dumped along an Anchorage highway a week ago. The arrest came after someone reported finding a memory card containing graphic images of the alleged murder, local police said.
The Anchorage Police Department announced on Wednesday that Brian Steven Smith, 48, was apprehended at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and has been charged with first-degree murder for the killing of a woman identified by police as 30-year-old Kathleen J. Henry. Smith.
The police said they received a report on Sept. 30 from a woman who claimed that she found an SD card lying in the street in an Anchorage neighborhood. The SD card, reportedly labeled “homicide at midtown Marriott,” contained 39 graphic, time-stamped images and 12 video recordings of a man assaulting and killing a woman, according to court documents obtained by NPR News.
In one of the videos, the woman can be seen “attempting to scratch at the man’s wrist with her right hand to get him to stop. The man strangling the female would stop once in a while and the female would eventually gasp for air,” Assistant District Attorney Heather Nobrega wrote in the charging document.
The SD card also contained images showing the victim’s body being removed from a hotel room and transported in a black pickup truck. The perpetrator in the video has “some sort of English-sounding accent”, which led investigators to recall a prior case involving Smith, an immigrant from South Africa with that distinct accent. The pickup truck’s license plate was also partially visible in one of the images. The investigators were able to match those numbers on that license plate with the ones on a vehicle registered to Smith, reported the NPR News, citing court documents.
Two days later, a dead body of a woman was found along the Seward Highway south of the city. Police said on Thursday that they believed those human remains belonged to Kathleen J. Henry, the victim depicted in the images and videos on the SD card.
Investigators told KTVA that they do not believe Smith had anyone help film the alleged crimes and said he is currently the only suspect in the case.
During the arraignment in court on Wednesday, a judge set Smith’s bail at $750,0000 and appointed him a public defender.
Smith has not yet entered a plea.
