🕯️ Notes from the casefile
SD Card Labeled Homicide Led to Arrest
- What: An SD card found on an Anchorage street led police to a homicide investigation and the arrest of Brian Steven Smith, who was charged in the killing of Kathleen Henry and later also linked by investigators to the death of Veronica Abouchuk.
- Where: Anchorage, Alaska.
- When: October 2019.
In Anchorage in late September 2019, a stranger found an SD card on a street. Written on it were the words: “Homicide at midtown Marriott.”
That discovery quickly led to a homicide investigation. According to police, the card contained videos showing a woman being killed. Investigators traced the material to Brian Steven Smith, a South African-born man living in Anchorage, and arrested him soon after.
The case drew immediate attention because of how it began: not with a tip line, not with a suspect interview, but with discarded digital evidence reportedly found by a passerby. Police said the videos on the card helped them identify the victim as 30-year-old Kathleen Henry, an Alaska Native woman whose death had not yet been publicly solved at the time of the arrest.
Authorities said the videos appeared to have been recorded in a hotel room. Court documents reported that investigators connected details from the footage to a hotel room and his vehicle. Prosecutors charged him with murder.
The investigation did not stop with one victim. As police dug deeper, they began examining whether Smith could be tied to another death. He was later also charged in the killing of Veronica Abouchuk, a 52-year-old woman whose remains had been found in 2019.
The case became a stark example of how modern homicide investigations can turn on a single digital clue. An SD card small enough to fit in a pocket carried enough evidence to shift a case from an unknown victim to a named suspect in days.
The hard fact is this: Anchorage police announced Smith’s arrest on October 8, 2019, after a passerby’s discovery of an SD card labeled “Homicide at midtown Marriott” led investigators to video evidence they said documented a killing.
Did You Know?
The SD card was reportedly labeled: “Homicide at midtown Marriott.”