A new investigative documentary series on HBO highlights the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples in Alaska, particularly Alaska Native women, through the case of serial killer Brian Steven Smith. The series examines how the Anchorage Police Department handled the case and considers lingering questions of justice for victims and families.
The new three-part series “Lost Women of Alaska” focuses on the case dubbed the “memory card murders.” It gets its name because the killer was exposed when graphically violent images and videos were found on his phone and turned into the Anchorage Police Department in 2019. Smith, a South African national who married an Alaskan, was arrested and convicted of killing two Native women, Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk, in 2024 and is currently serving a 226 year sentence.
“No human being should be taken from the world in that manner,” said Heather Kalmakoff, an advocate for Alaska Native welfare, in the film.
Henry and Abouchuk were reported missing in Anchorage, and the film details how they endured complex challenges — clergy abuse, violence, addiction, and being displaced from rural communities — that resulted in them being unhoused and vulnerable to being victimized by Smith. In the film, family and friends share their grief and describe how the women were beloved family members…