Octavia Spencer has discussed her role as narrator and executive producer of Investigation Discovery’s three-part series Lost Women of Alaska, which examines the murders of Alaskan Native women Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk by serial killer Brian Steven Smith. She said the programme aims to give visibility to missing Indigenous women and their families, rather than treating true crime as entertainment, and argued that racism, geographic isolation and prejudice against sex workers can leave victims insufficiently protected.

Smith is serving a 226-year sentence for the killings, while authorities are still investigating whether he may have committed further crimes in Alaska and South Africa. The series highlights roughly 1,300 missing people in Alaska, with about 100 cases actively being worked on, and Spencer has received an Emmy nomination for best narrator for her work on the programme.