This Is How We Rise

Anchorage Police knew about a man who preyed on the most marginalized.

Who am I talking about? What year am I talking about?

There have been several predators, so who do I mean?

1980’s – Robert Hansen.

2000’s – Joshua Wade.

2019 – Brian Steven Smith.

What do the three of them have in common, besides being convicted murders?

All three men could easily have their names under the headline.

POLICE WERE TOLD OF MURDER AND DID NOT INVESTIGATE

All three men had been reported to the police. All three men were allowed to go on killing, even after those reports.

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He pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon in the former offense; the rape charge involving the prostitute was dropped as part of a plea bargain. Hansen was sentenced to five years in prison; after serving six months of his sentence, he was placed on a work release program and released to a halfway house.^[12]

Cindy Paulson, 17, met Hansen on June 13, 1983 in Anchorage, not her real name, she reported him after he kidnapped and raped her. He wasn’t arrested, and continued his killing. Even before Cindy was another woman who does not want to be identified that was raped and tortured and escaped, when she went to the police, she was not believed and Hansen was not questioned.

Left undeterred, Hansen kept killing, something he is believed to have begun around 1972.

Robin Pelkey‘s partial skeletal remains were found on April 25, 1984, in Palmer, Alaska, close to Horseshoe Lake. It was determined that she had been stabbed and shot. She remained known as “Horseshoe Harriet” until she was identified in October 2021 through forensic genealogy. She had vanished on July 19, 1983, in Anchorage, Alaska. Had Hansen been arrested when Cindy had reported him, Robin would not have been killed by Hansen.

Hansen was sentenced to 461 years in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in 2014 at age 75, at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska.

Hansen didn’t understand what the big deal was, telling a friend of mine who did time with him in Springcreek Correctional Center, in Seward, Alaska.

“I don’t know what the deal was, they were just a bunch of whores”, said Hansen of the women he killed.

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Wade murdered Della Brown in September 2000 and he boasted to his friends, even bringing them to see her body. One of the friends reported to Anchorage PD, and Wade was arrested. Physical evidence of the crime was scarce, and his attorneys presented him as a “big talker” who would exaggerate to impress his criminal friends. ^[2] He was acquitted of Della’s murder, with the exception of evidence tampering, for which he was given a prison sentence of six and a half years. Still, he was released on probation the following year. He was always known to law enforcement and suspected of being responsible but no evidence at the time was available.

In 2007, Wade was the neighbor of 52-year-old Mindy Schloss, a nurse practitioner who worked in Fairbanks. He went to rob Schloss, who was at home at the time, restrained her with zip ties and forced her to give up her ATM card before stuffing her in the back seat of her car. He then murdered her and burned her body in an isolated area near Wasilla. They investigated her disappearance, seeing surveillance showing her ATM card being used by an unidentified white male, the similar-looking man seen abandoning her car at the Anchorage airport, as well as a search the located her body. Only later, after he kidnapped and murdered a woman who was 1) white and 2) a nurse, was Wade held accountable. respectability matters in police investigations.

Read this article by the University of Minnesota Law School to NHI to learn more about that.

On June 14, 2024, Wade was found unresponsive in his cell at the Indiana State Prison and pronounced dead.

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We continue on, remember the headline?

POLICE WERE TOLD OF MURDER AND DID NOT INVESTIGATE

There were two heroic women that defied the odds and reported him, one a full year before he tortured and murdered Kathleen Jo Henry.

Brian Steven Smith was reported to Anchorage PD a full year before Valerie Casler contacted the police about an SD card.

Smith had shown her video and images of a woman he had shot and sexually assaulted. Alicia was horrified and shocked. She was smart, and wanted to get the information to the police. After her initial call to Crime Stoppers she spent the next month trying to get Smith to send her the video or images he had shown her. She showed texts to Anchorage PD where she brought it up to Smith, trying to get him to talk more about what he had shown her.

For over a month, she was in near daily contact with Anchorage PD. The police tried to shrug off her texts and summed it up to sexual fantasy. Alicia did everything she could, even bringing them to the Eklutna Power Plant, a place that Smith had brought her and boasted he had “dumped a body”. He pointed out an old mattress and a black bag he said he used. The black bag was taken into evidence after a search dog picked up a scent. That black bag was later thrown away by mistake.

Reading the messages below between Alicia and Smith, keep in mind she was in daily contact with police, as you can see from the Anchorage PD Narratives above. Alicia is texting Smith and trying to get him to send her the video and talk about what he had shown her. She in no way was complicit or condoned his actions, rather she contacted the police and tried to get them to listen to her. They did not.

They never once went to question him. Other women went missing during this time. By the end of September 2018 Alicia moved back down near her family, she wanted out of Alaska before they questioned Smith.

The police never did contact Smith. Left to continue without consequence, Smith murdered Kathleen Jo Henry on September 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska.

A few weeks later Smith picks up a gutsy Valerie Casler who he drives around with for awhile. He tries to pull money out of the ATM, with no luck. Valerie ends up taking his burner phone from the dash of his truck, and after he drops her off and she looks through the phone, she sees the images and the videos. At first she didn’t know what to do. Seeing what she saw, she was afraid.

She told other women she knew to stay away from him, and she went to see a counselor, who supported her decision to give the video and images to the police. Still, she was afraid of getting arrested for theft, and for prostitution. Two misdemeanor crimes. Talking to the police, confiding in the police, is what many people in her shoes do not want to do. There is no trust. She was afraid.

Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP) had gained immunity for sex workers to report crimes like murder on the state level, with the statute modified in 2016 as part of SB91. In 2017 immunity for sex workers on the Anchorage municipal level was granted, but not without opposition from critics.

Not many knew about immunity sex workers had. Media didn’t cover that win. No one really got the memo. Even as I write this I am looking for links to insert to show that immunity was granted. One article, commenting on the municipal immunity and a sentence about the statute change was shared by Alaska Public Media, PBS. I have it all in here, unless you want to read the long SB91. Maybe you do, so here you go.

If Valerie had known she had no fear of being arrested, the phone with all the hidden files, deleted data – information that could possibly show other women Smith had harmed – might have been in the hands of police.

In Alaska, immunity can catch killers

A 2016 state law allows sex workers to report heinous crimes without prosecution. The author urges extending this to their clients.

But she didn’t know.

She transferred them over to an SD card, labeled it so police would know what they are looking at, and called it in on September 30, 2018. She told them she had found the SD card on the ground near 13th Ave. and Fairbanks Street. Anchorage PD took note when they saw what was written on the SD card “Homicide at Midtown Marriot”.

What would have happened if Valerie hadn’t called?

The video initiated an investigation, and through that investigation, finally an interrogation. He was out of state at the time, and shortly after Valerie gave the police the SD card, Kathleen Jo Henry was found by railroad workers.

Read the texts.

During his interrogation on October 8, 2019 Smith confessed to another murder, and from pictures he identified Veronica Abouchuk.

When the Alaska State Troopers found human remains near mile 4.5 of the Old Glenn Highway of a woman in April 2019, the remains were sent to the Medical Examiner. Veronica’s missing person report was closed at the time.

Veronica wasn’t listed as a missing person at that time. She had been listed, but then her family had been told she had passed on August 6, 2018, and that had closed out the missing person report.

Yet, the woman who the police had claimed was Veronica was not Veronica, it was a different woman who just happened to have her ID.

Veronica Abouchuk was last seen July 2018.

Her daughter had to do another missing person report, and that wasn’t taken until February 2019.

On October 11th, 2019, the human remains were identified as Veronica.

Police found deleted images and video’s of Veronica’s murder. Video’s and images of what Alicia had described over a year before. Finally, Veronica Abouchuk’s family would have answers.

That still leaves the question about Alicia telling Anchorage PD about a woman that Smith had stated he murdered and left in the very area Veronica was found. No one put those clues together.

Anchorage PD stated they recognized the man’s voice from a previous investigation. That was the investigation Alicia had tried to initiate, that they closed without questioning Smith.

After Smith’s arrest, Alicia read and watched everything. It is only speculated by her family, but the sadness, guilt and frustration of not being heard by the Anchorage PD when she had contacted them in August 2018 caused her emotional distress, and sadly on July 4th, 2021 at the tender age of 41, Alicia left this world. She became a victim of Smith’s as well, the horror of what she felt she could have prevented, had tried to prevent by countless calls and conversations with Anchorage PD had done nothing.

When the FBI and Anchorage PD had contacted her and had her testify to the Grand Jury after his arrest, it all became too much. I can only assume that she was not offered any victim services, because I know Valerie, who had watched the video and saw the images of Kathleen Jo Henry on Smith’s phone, never was.

Three years to the day from Alicia’s funeral I sat down to interview Smith. There is a longer story to how I arrived at a place where I, a sex worker, was able to walk into the very facility where Smith has sat since his arrest in 2019.

Ten years to the day, July 9, 2014, I myself was sitting behind those walls on charges stemming from being a sex worker and working with other sex workers for our safety. 2014. The very year that Smith arrived in Alaska, his new hunting grounds.

Listen as Smith states, in this recording on July 9, 2024, that if he “was an international killer and had been questioned, if they had, I would immediately say the police are watching me, I have gotten away with it, because they don’t have a body, then that would have stopped me from doing anything”.

AB: If the police had questioned you, what did you tell me about that?

BS: Okay, so, so, if I actually was this international killer, um,

AB: International killer?

BS: Yeah. Because remember, I told her that I killed people all over the world. It wasn’t just the South Africa people. I told her I traveled around. Everytime I told her something it was always exotic, the more exotic it was. So they had a lot of reason, probable cause, to speak to me, to come and speak to me, but they didn’t.

BS: If they had, if I was actually the fellow, and they had come to speak to me, I would immediately say, oh, the police are watching me, I’ve gotten away with this because they didn’t find the body, so I’m not going to do anything wrong ever again while I’m here, I’m going to wait until I move to another town, you know?

BS: So, if the police had contacted me and I am guilty that contact would have stopped me doing anything and therefore any this that happens after that 23rd or even after the crime stopper thing already because I mean she initially right in the beginning she gave them all the recordings so any deaths after that could have been prevented.

BS: If I am guilty then those deaths could have been well would have been prevented because I would not have done, it’s called preventative crime.

What BS says highlights the crucial role of proactive police work. BS admits that had the police questioned him, their intervention would have stopped him from committing further crimes. This is a powerful example of “preventative crime”—the idea that diligent investigation can stop criminals in their tracks and prevent future harm.

In Alaska, sex workers and Alaska Native women are particularly vulnerable. We are often easy prey due to systemic neglect and marginalization. When the police fail to investigate crimes, they allow further violence.

The Smith case is just one example of the consequences of not investigating. By failing to even question Smith, law enforcement allowed Smith to continue to be a predator to our community. He was able to murder Kathleen Jo Henry.

The third victim, the one that the Amended Hybrid Witness filing listed, as well as other paperwork from Smith, detailed the Anchorage PD had those images since he was arrested in October 2019.

Only after the prosecution filed court records on July 3, 2024, that showed insensitive and harmful crime scene photos – as well as a lack luster forensic sketch that has yet to be shared with the public from Anchorage PD – do we see that there was another woman that was likely murdered by Smith.

Police have done little investigation into who she is. The photos they had for 5 years that could have very easily resulted in an identification did not seem important enough. The information we did have from the filings and paperwork from Smith was not specific, except for dates – Sept. 16 thru 19, 2019. When the July 3, 2024 filing was pulled, it was painfully clear how much information Anchorage PD had. The three images, previously deleted and recovered from his phone during his arrest, were damning.

Anchorage Police knew about a man who preyed on the most marginalized.

The most recent case being Smith, who focused on marginalized women thinking he would not have consequences. He thought this because of the history we have of allowing this to happen in Alaska.

The women society looks down on are easy for the predators to focus on. Police “clean the streets” ushering sex workers away to the dark corners, tearing down homeless encampments that often times become communities. This enables marginalized women to become invisible.

Respectability policing, who is worthy of a search, who is worthy of an investigation, who is worthy of a missing person listing, has created a systemic circle of harm.

We must demand that police fulfill their duty to protect all members of our community, ensuring justice and safety for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable. There is more to the Smith trial and conviction than meets the eye. It is one instance where this magnifying glass shows more, a magnifying glass held up by a few that were relentless at times, mere seekers asking questions about women who police had deemed invisible.