Octavia Spencer Narrates True Crime Series Exposing Systemic Failures.

Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer sits down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss her role in the ID series 'Lost Women of Alaska', a true crime docu-series that sheds light on the disproportionate number of missing persons in Alaska and the systemic failures that led to the murders of indigenous women.

Context: A Duty to Amplify

The three-part series, which Spencer narrated and executive produced, lays out the vulnerabilities that allowed serial killer Brian Steven Smith to prey upon Henry, Abouchuk and countless other native women he and other men are suspected of harming.

“Amplifying these stories is our duty,” said Spencer, who’s nominated for an Emmy for best narrator for her work on the series. “These women had lives, they have loved ones, and they are human. We are human.”

The Systemic Failures Behind the Murders

Right from the beginning, the series lays out the disproportionate number of missing persons in Alaska—roughly 1,300, with only 100 being actively worked on.

As a Black woman, Spencer knows that their stories are not prioritized. So it was not shocking, sadly, to her, that these indigenous women were going missing at alarming rates.

A New Approach to True Crime

We don’t see this as entertainment,” said Spencer. “I watch true crime for knowledge, and if I’ve seen something, I want to be responsible and report it. Lost Women, for us, is one about being restorative of lives and voices and bringing some resolution, hopefully, to families.

True crime, as a genre, has been critiqued as sensational. What sets Lost Women apart?

New Developments in the Investigation

The end of the third episode notes that Brian Steven Smith is still being investigated for possibly committing more crimes in Alaska and his native South Africa.

Without having concrete evidence, these aren’t his first victims. He was too good at it and had his modus operandi. He went to Alaska because it was a broader playing field, of that I am sure. But the same way that they weren’t vigorously investigating the indigenous women, I can almost assure you that his victims [in South Africa] were Black and aren’t being as rigorously investigated either.