Third woman connected to convicted murderer Brian Smith’s case declared dead by jury

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - In photographs, Cassandra Boskofsky smiles widely at the camera. She’s young, beautiful, happy.

That’s how her family remembers the woman who was last heard from in the summer of 2019.

Monday afternoon, a jury unanimously declared her dead at a presumptive death hearing in Anchorage.

In the courtroom, Boskofsky’s family wore red shirts with her picture printed across their chests and told an Anchorage jury about the last time they heard from the missing mother of seven.

The image stands in stark contrast to the brutal, bloody pictures of a woman laying on the ground either unconscious or dead that her family says is Boskofsky, which they presented to an Anchorage jury.

They are the same images included in a memorandum prosecutors filed with the court prior to the sentencing of Brian Smith in July, saying detectives extracted them from Smith’s phone in October 2019.

The South African-born Smith was convicted in February this year of killing two Alaska Native women; Veronica Abouchuk in August 2018, and Kathleen Jo Henry in September 2019.

Even though Boskofsky’s family believes she is Smith‘s third victim, police never identified the woman, and it was not clear from the photos whether she was dead, prosecutors wrote.

To this day, Anchorage police have never positively identified her as a murder victim. Smith has said he had sex with the woman in the pictures, but left her alive.

His trial drew national and international attention because of the brutality of the killings and because Smith targeted vulnerable women.

Additionally, prosecutors presented horrific video and photos to the jury, they say, that Smith took of his victims while he tortured and then eventually killed them.

He was sentenced to 226 years in prison.

A presumptive death hearing is needed when someone has disappeared and there’s been a lengthy search for them, but a body can’t be found, and there is “reasonable grounds or the belief that the person has suffered death from accidental or other violent means,” District Court Judge Brian Clark told the jury.

A death certificate can’t be issued without a body or a legal declaration of death.

The judge told the jury of six that the trial is considered “non-confrontational,” meaning lawyers are not arguing over facts or asking for someone to be judged guilty or innocent.

Instead, witnesses are called to give statements and are questioned by the jury and judge about why a person should be considered dead, as well as when they were last seen or heard from.

The lead investigator for the Brian Smith case, Anchorage Police Department Detective Brendan Lee, was the first witness to take the stand.

“To this day, at the Anchorage Police Department, we have not been able to 100% identify the female in the photos as Cassandra,” Lee told the jury.

Her family disagrees.

A cousin, Marcella Boskofsky-Grounds, asked Lee during the hearing if he had an opinion about whether the person in the three pictures was alive or dead.

“The reason is it’s a photograph and I’ve been at APD — I’ve been an officer for 20 years — I’ve looked at many photos, many videos, of people and I’ve seen people that are deceased that you would look at a photo and you wouldn’t be able to tell, and I’ve seen people that were alive in a photo that look like they should be dead and they’re not,” Lee said. “So I can’t give an opinion — I can’t give an opinion on whether or not the female in the photo is deceased.”

The 38-year-old stayed in constant contact with her large, extended group of family and friends through Facebook and texting.

Then, one day, all the messages stopped.

In court, family member after family member — as well as Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons’ advocates and friends — detailed their final times talking with Boskofsky and laid out their evidence.

In September 2019, Boskofsky was officially reported missing.

To prove their case to the court, loved ones pointed to a small blue, butterfly tattoo and the size of the feet depicted in the photos found on Smith’s phone, saying they show clear evidence the woman is Boskofsky.

“I’m feeling good about the verdict, but really sad, and heartache, and really sad,” Boskofsky-Grounds said after the jury reached a decision.

The family wanted Boskofsky to be officially declared a victim of Smith and they demand justice in her name.

“Her photos were taken off his phone,” Boskofsky-Grounds said.

They are also upset about Anchorage police not showing them photos of the woman in the pictures to identify her despite several people telling them it was Boskofsky.

Monday’s death declaration was met with weeping, relief, sadness and despair.

“The jury had a tough decision to make, and they basically decided that, sadly, Cassandra Lee Boskofsky is no longer with us,” " She died a violent death on Sept. 19, 2019.”

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