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The trial of Brian Smith, a man accused in the murders of two Alaska Native women, resumed Tuesday in Anchorage.
Last week, jurors saw cell phone videos of the murder of 30-year-old Kathleen Jo Henry – and heard Smith admit to police that he killed another woman, 52-year-old Veronica Abouchuk.
As the trial got underway two weeks ago, the prosecutor apologized to the jury for the horrific images they would see, that might live on in their heads, long after the trial.
And for those who are not in the courtroom, Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA looks at why this trial could, for some, awaken old traumas.
Trigger warning: The details of this story are graphic and disturbing, and include an offensive term.
“I hope that we ultimately, as a state, and we as a community, do a better job of respecting all human lives.”
Michael Livingston (Unangax), like many Alaska Natives, has been following the Brian Smith’s trial, which is being covered in the newspapers, local TV, and streamed live on Court TV.
The courtroom was rearranged, so that the TV monitors faced away from the gallery and only the jury, Brian Smith, and those involved in the trial could watch the last moments of Kathleen Jo Henry’s life, which Smith is accused of recording on his cell phone.
Everyone else in the courtroom could hear the sounds of Henry being tormented and taunted in a midtown hotel room as she lay dying.
The jury also saw an interview police recorded with Smith, in which they confront him about the videos.
“The title of my presentation is serial killers in Alaska and MMIP.”
It’s a presentation that Michael Livingston gave on Zoom last week about the connection to modern serial killings and Alaska’s long history of dehumanizing Indigenous people. He traces it back to the late 1700’s when the Russians, in their hot pursuit of the fur trade, enslaved or killed the Unangax people in the Aleutian chain.
“Places such as Murder Point. Massacre Bay. Massacre Beach, and Krasni Point. Krasni is the Russian word for red. The ocean water was so red from the blood of the Unangax people that the Russians named it Krasni Point.”
Livingston says Russians called Native peoples savages, as did the colonists who followed them.
“And savages is a code word for a non-human being, and you cannot murder a non-human being.”
Livingston, who is a former police officer and historian, says this word helped to normalize the historical lack of attention given to Native murder cases.
“That’s wrong thinking. Just because someone happens to drink. Or someone has a drug challenge, or someone chooses a lifestyle that we don’t think we is safe, does not give anybody the right to think that they’re less human that we are.”
Livingston says the Brian Smith murder trial is a chance for all of us to do some soul searching, not just about the women in this case, but their many sisters who have also suffered at the hands of other perpetrators.
A way of thinking, he says, that’s long been an undercurrent in the violence Native women have experienced at a one of the highest rates in the nation.
“Meditate and do something that helps rest your mind.”
If you have been affected by this story, you can call 988, a 24-hour-crisis line that offers listening and support for those in distress
Courtesy Human Rights Watch
Chuck Hoskin Jr., Principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, says he’s heartbroken over the death of Nex Benedict, a student who died earlier this month.
The 16-year-old’s mother told the Independent Nex was being bullied over their gender identity and died a day after a fight at school.
In a statement Tuesday, Hoskin said the death is a tragedy and he has asked Cherokee Marshals to support in the investigation into the death.
Hoskin stated the Cherokee Nation database has no indication Nex was a citizen of the tribe, but said Nex was a child living within the reservation – and deserved love, support, and to be kept safe.
The investigation is ongoing.
The Catawba Nation has reacquired 32 acres of land in Lancaster, S.C.
According to the tribe, the land was given back to the Catawba Nation by the state.
The tribe plans to seek land into trust by the federal government.
The land, which is located near the reservation, is sacred and home to a historic village site.
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