A popular
college basketball star...
- He was a star athlete.
He was so big and good-looking.
But he just had a really charming personality.
- A high-level movie studio executive
at powerhouse 20th Century Fox...
- Powerful guy, absolutely you could say that.
- A beloved family man.
- He was probably the best father that I've ever known.
- He was a warm, loving, caring person,
who, when he focused on you,
you really felt like you were the only person in the world.
- Then, Gavin Smith mysteriously disappeared.
- All of a sudden, in the middle of the night,
he vanishes.
- This isn't just a guy that's gone and disappeared.
It's my dad.
And he has a family that really wants him back.
- The investigation uncovered some dark secrets.
- You start to get the sense
that there's something more going on here.
- Gavin made some bad choices.
- Detectives followed several leads.
- You have John Creech,
who's this drug-trafficking tough guy.
- Gavin had begun a relationship
with another woman.
- But Gavin Smith was nowhere to be found.
- It's like he dropped off the face of the Earth.
- The truth about Smith slowly emerged...
- There were things troubling him.
There were things that he couldn't get a grip on
in his own life.
- Like something out of a Hollywood thriller.
- I heard him say, "You're next."
- Leading a double life
can have dangerous consequences.
- The more you learn, the more you realize
that not everything is as it seems.
- I'm Soledad O'Brien.
This is "Mysteries and Scandals:
"The Last Power Play:
The Killing of Gavin Smith."
Gavin Smith was a Hollywood power player
who enjoyed all the benefits of success.
His high-profile job allowed him
to walk red carpets,
afforded him a lavish lifestyle,
and it all came with a loving family--
until Gavin disappeared without a trace.
Hollywood loves a mystery, but this was no movie script.
This story followed a trail of lies and deception
that confounded both law enforcement
and local crime reporters.
- This case seemed unusual almost from the beginning,
because here is this father of three,
successful, has ties to L.A.,
and all of a sudden, in the middle of the night,
he vanishes.
- The case of a missing movie studio executive,
Gavin Smith.
He was last seen in his Mercedes
at his California home Tuesday night.
Smith is an executive with 20th Century Fox.
- He didn't pick up his son in the morning.
That's a huge cause for concern.
He did not call his office.
He didn't show up to work.
He's never done any of those things
in 21 years.
- On the morning of May 2, 2012,
Gavin Smith's family reported his disappearance
to local law enforcement.
- As we do with every missing person that comes in,
we send out the bulletins and the fliers,
and then we actively seek the individual's whereabouts,
which is what we're doing here.
- We're looking for my brother.
Immediately, 20th Century Fox got me in contact
with many local media sources.
And did as many interviews as I possibly could,
and just actually begged reporters
to put the story on TV.
He's a loving father.
He would not leave his family.
He would not abandon his family.
I don't believe that.
- At the time that he disappeared,
Lisa and Gavin had been married over 20 years.
They had three sons
that he used to spend a lot of time with.
The eldest was Evan, who was 20,
and then there was Dylan, who was 18,
and Austin was the younger one,
who was 15,
and he's the one that Gavin was supposed to pick up
the morning that he disappeared.
- One month after Gavin was last seen,
his family made a plea to the public.
- The family showed up at a news conference
with the sheriff's department,
begging people for more information.
They posted a $20,000 reward.
- I don't understand it.
I don't know what happened.
- A guy like that that had had a family
and a good job wouldn't just vanish.
Police were just as baffled as everyone else.
- It wasn't just Hollywood
that was riveted by the mystery.
The high-profile case made headlines around the country.
- Gavin Smith... - Gavin Smith...
- Nobody knows here he is.
No one has heard from him.
No evidence leading one way or another
as to what happened.
- So who, really, was Gavin Smith?
- Gavin Smith was well-known
in Los Angeles basketball circles.
He was a high school star in the Valley.
He was a high-scoring combo guard-forward.
- Gavin was a great talent.
6'5 " or 6'6".
He could jump.
He was quick.
He could run.
He was gregarious, outgoing, enthusiastic,
big smile on his face.
And we thought he'd be a great player at UCLA.
We recruited him hard.
We wanted him.
- In the early '70s, it was a big deal
for a player to be pursued
by UCLA's legendary coach John Wooden.
- Gavin was known for flashy play,
but it wasn't clear
whether he was gonna be a big star
or a starter on the UCLA team.
But got a lot of notoriety when he was first recruited.
- Smith was a member of Coach Wooden's
last championship team in 1975.
- Gavin was a good student.
He was bright. He was smart.
He didn't play very much.
And the reason Gavin didn't play:
he was a showboat.
I would say he was like a stallion
who was undisciplined.
Had the ability,
but he wouldn't stay within the context
of the offense and things that Coach wanted him to do.
So he didn't play.
I think that was his personality his whole life.
He was just kind of all over the board,
enthusiastic.
- After college, Gavin very much wanted
to stay in the spotlight.
- Pro basketball didn't pan out for him.
He's kind of trying to figure out, you know,
"What am I gonna do?"
So he gravitates kind of toward Hollywood,
because he was good-looking, had a great personality.
- One of Gavin's friends called him a chick magnet,
but it wasn't really just women that were drawn to Gavin.
Gavin had this very large personality.
He was one of those people that just commanded
a lot of attention wherever he went,
and not just because he was so big and good-looking,
but he just had a really charming personality.
- If you knew Gavin,
he was very into looking good and feeling good.
You've seen pictures of what a beautiful man he was.
- Gavin wanted to be an actor
and, in fact, was in several movies.
Sometimes he worked as a stunt man.
Sometimes he had small parts as an actor.
- To pay the bills,
Gavin worked as a waiter in L.A.
That's where he met a beautiful young accountant
named Lisa Dobson.
A few months later, in November 1989,
Gavin and Lisa got married.
- They immediately start a family.
The kids all look alike.
They look like they just got off the beach.
- I think when Gavin realized
he wasn't gonna make a big career out of acting,
he sought to work in the industry
in some other way.
- Gavin landed a job in the distribution department
at 20th Century Fox Studios.
- He was able to get along
and form relationships with people,
so it was kind of a natural segue for him
to go from being in sports to being in Hollywood,
based upon his personality.
- Smith quickly worked his way up the ladder
and soon was earning a top salary.
He played a part in the distribution
of several blockbuster releases,
including the "Star Wars" prequels,
"Terminator," "Avatar," and "Titanic."
- My dad basically is the reason why theaters
play 20th Century Fox movies.
He's a powerful guy, absolutely you can say that.
- Gavin seemed to find a balance
between work and family.
- He was probably the best father that I've ever known.
If his kids wanted to be in the pool,
he was in the pool.
If they wanted to go surfing, he went surfing.
If they wanted to go skateboarding,
he learned how to skateboard.
Gavin was a hands-on parent.
He just would do anything for them.
- So it seemed like they had
this great Southern California family.
And Lisa was just totally devoted
to both Gavin and to her children.
- Gavin is just, you know, larger than life
and charming and funny and sweet,
and, you know, the love of my life.
- Days after Smith disappeared,
his family seemed to be keeping up a good front.
But the fact that Gavin's car was missing caused concern.
- We're focusing on the car.
The detectives would like us to focus on the car.
- When he went missing,
one of the biggest mysteries was, "Where is his car?"
Because that usually is one of the things
that the police find.
And they couldn't find it anywhere.
They did a lot of helicopter searches,
and they couldn't find it.
- We don't have anything
that indicates that there's foul play involved.
We're following up on leads
and all the information that we've gathered
about the people that he's come in contact with
and that he's known in the past.
- As time went on,
the fear was that he'd had some terrible accident,
that the car had gone off a cliff.
Some even had theories
that maybe he'd taken his own life,
and he and the car were in some ravine somewhere.
- My husband would never abandon his children or me.
- The latest with my dad is that he's still missing,
and it's almost coming up on a week he's been gone,
since last Tuesday now.
- He still hasn't used his phone.
He still hasn't withdrawn money.
No credit card use.
It's like he dropped off the face of the Earth.
- People go missing all the time.
But a man with a great job and devoted family?
Was there something in the picture-perfect life
of Gavin Smith that just didn't add up?
was it possible Smith was the victim of kidnapping,
even murder?
If so, what could be the motive?
- All of a sudden,
there's a search of a home in Chatsworth.
They don't say who is involved in that house,
why they're there.
All we know is that they do retrieve computers and laptops.
- Where was movie studio
executive Gavin Smith?
With no apparent motive or suspects in his disappearance,
law enforcement, along with Gavin's family and friends,
were baffled.
After all, he appeared to have the perfect life.
At least, it seemed to be from the outside.
- So, Gavin Smith, on the surface,
looks like he has everything going for him.
And then, the more you learn,
the more you realize
that not everything is as it seems.
- We learned from friends of the family
that they were under water on their house
and that they were having some financial difficulties
as a result of that.
And that had caused some stress in their relationship.
- As reporters dug into the story,
more surprising information about Gavin's personal life
began to bubble to the surface.
Smith spent time in a drug rehab center.
- We interviewed several good friends of Gavin's,
and they told us Gavin had had some issues
with prescription medicine in the past.
And he had an old back injury that would flare up,
and sometimes he would resort to taking pain medicine,
and it had gotten out of control.
And in 2008, he had gone to rehab for it.
- And that wasn't all.
- The element that captured people's attention
was the fact that Gavin wasn't staying
at his family home when he disappeared.
He was staying at the home of this friend
in Ventura County.
And when he initially disappeared,
his family wouldn't really say why.
- Lisa and Gavin had been having some problems
for a period of time.
Besides the financial problems that they were having,
it seemed like they had drifted apart considerably.
He had had several affairs, according to his friends.
- Right before Gavin's disappearance,
Gavin had begun a relationship
with another woman.
Lisa had discovered this relationship
and threw Gavin out of the house.
- The public image of Gavin as a dedicated family man
started to unravel.
- The family wasn't saying so publicly,
but we found tweets that his older son had posted
before he went missing,
basically criticizing his dad for leaving.
He said, "Real family sticks together."
- Gavin was very upset.
He was having a difficult time connecting to the boys.
And that was all he really cared about,
was just making sure that his boys knew
how much he loved them.
- It just gave a picture
that you don't really know people.
You don't really know what's going on
in everybody's lives.
And as happy as Gavin was,
and as friendly and as warm as he was,
Obviously there were things troubling him.
There were things that he couldn't get a grip on
in his own life.
- Several weeks after Gavin Smith disappeared,
details emerged in the press about Smith's private life
that raised a number of questions.
Was Gavin's disappearance linked
to the secrets he kept hidden?
What really happened on the night Gavin vanished?
- Gavin was staying at a friend's house
who worked with him at Fox.
And the sheriff's office said that was not
an extramarital relationship that he was having,
that it was just a pure work relationship,
and she had allowed him to stay in her guest room.
- Gavin Smith's coworker,
who was allowing him to stay at the house,
they have a conversation
where Gavin has indicated that he might go out.
The coworker urges him to stay at home,
that he needs some rest.
And Gavin says that he may or may not go out.
And that's essentially the last time
that the coworker ever sees Gavin.
- I was hoping that Gavin was so upset
over turmoil in the marriage,
that maybe he just wanted to leave for a few days.
- It's not like him to just go off the grid.
He's never done this.
He's a really responsible adult.
Got to find my dad.
- So, in those early days, you know,
it really just seemed like a bizarre missing persons case
or that perhaps he had left his family
for whatever reason.
But our sources at the sheriff's department
had told us that they knew
who his last contact was on the phone that night
before he left his friend's house.
- In the days following Gavin's disappearance,
reporters discovered Smith
called a woman named Chandrika Creech
on the night he vanished.
Was Chandrika part of Gavin's double life?
- The plot thickened when we learned
that there was a connection
between Gavin Smith and Chandrika.
They had met in some sort of therapy years before.
- Chandrika and Gavin first meet in 2008.
Chandrika was undergoing treatment for substance abuse
where Gavin Smith had done his drug rehab
for his addiction to prescription pain medication.
- They could relate to each other
in some of the struggles they were both dealing with:
having marriage difficulties, substance abuse difficulties.
From her perspective,
he was a warm, loving, caring person
who, when he focused on you, you really felt
like you were the only person in the world.
- Chandrika Creech was someone that Gavin met in rehab.
And for four years,
they'd had an on-and-off relationship.
And I think she and Gavin turned to each other
for comfort sometimes.
- Sheriff's detectives wanted to find out
if Chandrika was with Gavin on the night he disappeared.
- The police go directly to Chandrika.
She says, "Yes, I know Gavin Smith,
but I don't know where he is."
And her response is curt and short,
and leaving the police nowhere to go with respect to it.
- The police weren't really saying
if they knew anything else,
if they were following anything else.
For a while, there was just no information.
He was just gone.
- Then, in June 2012, the "L.A. Times" got a tip
that a home in the San Fernando Valley
might be connected to Gavin's disappearance.
By this point, Gavin Smith had been missing for five weeks.
- And all of a sudden, there's a search
of a home in Chatsworth.
They don't say who's involved in that house,
why they're there.
They don't explain anything.
All we know is that they do retrieve computers and laptops,
but we have no idea why.
Soon after that, though,
we cross-referenced property records
and figured out that the people who lived in this home
were named John and Chandrika Creech.
- Chandrika Creech, the same woman
Smith had an affair with after they met in rehab,
the same woman Gavin Smith called several times
on the night he went missing.
- That was the moment it became publicly obvious
that there might be something more to it,
that it might not just be a dad
who left to run an errand
and maybe his car drove off the road,
or a dad who, for whatever reason,
left on his own accord.
- There was more.
Investigators learned
that Chandrika's husband, John Creech,
had a long criminal past.
- Creech had a federal conviction
for drug trafficking across state lines.
He does time for that.
In 2012, he's picked up again
for possession and sale of narcotics
and ultimately goes into custody on those charges
in June of 2012.
- Although Creech was in prison when his home was searched,
he was free on bail that night in May,
five weeks earlier,
when Gavin was last seen.
- That's when the theories started floating,
because John Creech had a record in selling drugs,
that maybe what happened to Gavin that night
was that he was trying to buy drugs
and something went wrong.
- You need to understand the dynamic
of the three personalities involved
to understand this case.
On the one hand, you have John Creech,
who's this steroid-using, weight-lifting,
drug-trafficking tough guy.
You have Gavin Smith, who's a former athlete--
tall, very strong, lifts weights, in shape--
with substance abuse issues.
You then have Chandy,
who is struggling in her marriage
and struggling with alcohol.
And the three of them sort of merge.
- Coming up, a break in the case.
- They look in the Mercedes Benz,
and they see what they think might be blood
in the front passenger seat.
- Nearly a year after
Gavin Smith disappeared
in the middle of the night,
sheriff's detectives were still calling it
a missing person's case.
Behind the scenes, however, some began to suspect
there might be more to the story,
especially after local crime reporters dug up information
that Smith had several affairs and a stint in rehab.
Then, investigators got a tip that led them
to a storage facility in Simi Valley, California.
- I would say the next big development that happened
was when they searched the storage locker
and found Gavin Smith's missing car inside.
- On Thursday, February 21,
homicide detectives located
Gavin Smith's year 2000 black Mercedes Benz
in a storage locker at a storage facility
in Simi Valley.
- They look in the Mercedes Benz,
and they see what they think might be blood
in the front passenger seat.
They immediately suspect
that this is where Gavin Smith may have met his demise.
- DNA testing confirmed
the dry blood smeared across the front seat of the Mercedes
belonged to Gavin Smith.
- At that point, the sheriff's department
said the state of the car
and information that they had elsewhere
led them to think that this was not
just a missing person's case anymore.
- Based upon the condition of the vehicle
and based upon information that we have gathered
from witnesses who are cooperating,
we believe that this case is a homicide case.
We believe that Gavin Smith was murdered.
- In an interview with the "Los Angeles Times,"
Lisa Smith reacted to the news,
saying, "My sons and I are devastated,
"and this has been the hardest 10 1/2 months of our life,
being without him."
- I don't think anything really prepares you
for news when you learn that somebody
you care and love so much has been killed
at the hands of somebody else.
It's extremely upsetting.
- Detectives discovered paperwork
that showed the storage facility was rented
by a woman named Rayna Lin.
- Rayna Lin was the aunt of Chandrika,
and living at the home of John and Chandrika Creech.
Rayna Lin was the big domino in terms of the investigation.
- Rayna Lin loved Chandy,
and she did what she felt was right at the time.
And I think she was misled by John Creech.
And there was a renting of a storage facility
and a U-Haul and things like that.
- It was time for investigators
to press Gavin's secret lover Chandrika for answers.
- Chandrika initially is very resistant to the police
when they confront her about what they know.
But ultimately, I think she realizes
that she has criminal liability
with respect to being possible accessory after the fact.
And I think that Chandrika realized that, "Okay,
"I've got to tell the police
everything that I know about what occurred."
- But before Chandrika would cooperate,
she hired criminal defense attorney Glen Jonas.
- Chandy Creech is my client.
And there's some role here
in the disappearance
and subsequent killing of Gavin Smith.
Any time there's any kind of role,
there's a potential for criminal liability.
My job as her defense attorney is, if possible,
to secure immunity for her.
- Based on the discovery
of Gavin's blood-stained Mercedes in the storage locker
and the information provided by Chandrika,
detectives reveal the investigation
into the death of Gavin Smith took a turn.
- So that was another significant moment in the case.
Right around that time is when they publicly admitted
that John Creech was a person of interest.
- He remains a person of interest.
He's been a person of interest for several months.
- So why didn't authorities arrest John Creech for murder?
For one thing, Creech wasn't going anywhere.
He was serving time in federal prison
on an unrelated drug charge.
But there was another reason.
- It would have been a fool's errand
to try and charge him without the body.
At minimum, they needed the body.
So the detectives did what they could do
with what they had.
- No-body cases, where a person's remains
have not been discovered by the police,
are difficult cases for prosecutors
to bring a case against.
- As long as Creech remained in prison,
detectives could continue collecting evidence
and talking to potential witnesses.
For the next year,
they built what they hoped was an air-tight case
against Creech.
But they couldn't make a move without finding Gavin's body.
In November 2014,
two and a half years after Gavin Smith went missing,
a man hiking with his dog
in the hills north of Los Angeles
made a gruesome discovery.
- So I go over there to see what he was sniffing on,
and we'd seen it was a skull.
- There was a shallow grave that had been dug
that was not very far
from where the skull was found by the hiker.
- The body initially comes to our office
as a John Doe,
so we have various ways to try to identify it.
The most common way is through finger prints.
That just wasn't possible in this case.
Gavin Smith was identified
by our department's forensic odontologist.
That's essentially a dentist who specializes in forensics.
And they were able to say conclusively
that this decedent, this John Doe,
was Gavin Smith.
- Even after being buried for all that time,
the forensic evidence clearly showed
that Gavin's death was not an accident.
- The injuries that we saw on the skull
could not have happened just from a simple fall.
The pattern just was not consistent with that.
There were multiple injuries to the skull
and multiple locations of the injuries to the skull,
especially the facial area.
So many bones were absent in that facial area.
We knew that there was
significant injury to the face.
It would be definitely consistent
with being beaten,
either with hands or with some object repeatedly.
- For Gavin's family and friends,
the moment was a terrible confirmation
of what they had feared for so long.
For law enforcement and prosecutors,
the pieces had finally come together.
- Upon the discovery of the body of Gavin Smith,
the L.A. County District Attorney's Office
charged John Creech with the murder of Gavin Smith.
- Coming up...
- The sons literally begged him not to hurt their father.
- Said that as long as their father
stayed away from me
and had no communication whatsoever,
it would be fine.
- In June 2017,
John Creech finally went on trial in Los Angeles
for allegedly killing film executive Gavin Smith.
Creech admitted beating Gavin
but insisted it was self-defense.
Would testimony from the courtroom
reveal details about Gavin Smith's secret life
that could explain his violent death?
- Gavin Smith was executed in cold blood
by this defendant,
who hit him repeatedly.
He meant to kill Gavin Smith,
and he did it in the most personal,
most brutal way.
- The prosecution gets up
and starts arguing their case.
Their main argument was that this is just
an incredibly gruesome case,
a man beat to death with fists.
They put up pictures of Gavin Smith's skull,
you know, just really brutal things.
A lot of people in the audience were grimacing.
- In an act of almost stunning brutality,
this particular defendant
literally exploded Gavin Smith's face
with his fists.
- The prosecution's star witness
was Creech's wife, Chandrika,
who was granted immunity for her testimony.
The DA claimed Chandrika's affair with Gavin Smith
provided her husband with a motive for murder.
- Did the defendant, John Creech,
confront you about this particular relationship?
- Yes.
- What did he do?
- He hit me.
- According to Chandrika,
John Creech physically beat her up
upon his discovery of this affair.
And Gavin Smith and Chandrika had
broke off the relationship in 2008.
- But two years later, in December of 2010,
Gavin and Chandrika started communicating again
via email.
- John Creech found or discovered the emails
and threatened to expose Gavin to Lisa Smith.
Gavin, in a preemptive strike,
went to Lisa Smith and showed her the emails
and explained to her that the guy that was married
to the woman that he was having an affair with
was a drug dealer.
This alarmed Lisa Smith,
and she thought that this guy, John Creech,
posed a threat to her family.
The two sons, Evan and Austin,
actually drive to the Creech residence.
- The sons were understandably concerned about their father.
They didn't want to see their father hurt or killed.
So, they took it upon themselves
to basically have a sit-down with John Creech
and literally begged him not to hurt their father.
And John Creech's position was,
"Hey, just make sure he stays away."
- He said that as long as their father stayed away from me
and had no communication whatsoever,
that Gavin Smith, their father, would be fine.
- Did he say what would happen if he didn't?
- That he would kill Gavin Smith.
- The threat from Creech worked
to keep Gavin and Chandrika apart... for a while.
But in the spring of 2012,
the pair started communicating yet again
via emails and phone calls.
On the night of May 1st,
they made plans to meet in person.
- Gavin Smith decides to meet with Chandrika.
They settle on a lover's lane area
not far from the Creech residence.
Chandrika goes to Gavin Smith's car
and gets in on the front passenger side.
Gavin Smith is seated in the front passenger seat.
Chandrika Cade is seated in his lap,
where they become amorous.
- According to court testimony,
John Creech noticed Chandrika left the house.
Creech used his phone to locate her.
- I activated the AT&T app on my phone.
- Did it indicate where Chandy was?
- Yeah, it was a place I know well.
- And John Creech discovers
his wife seated in Gavin Smith's lap.
He immediately confronts Gavin Smith in the car.
- Just popped up and opened the door really quickly.
He went straight for Gavin.
- How many times did the defendant
strike Gavin Smith?
- Honestly, too many times to count.
More than a dozen.
- If you need to take a moment, just let me know.
- I'm okay.
- Chandrika says that, initially,
Gavin Smith tried to defend himself
but was at a disadvantage because he was seated.
John Creech was able to pin Gavin in the seat.
- He wasn't fighting back or anything.
He wasn't even pushing away.
He wasn't moving at all.
- As a result-- - But he was moaning.
- Chandrika was able to escape
out of the driver's side door of the Mercedes Benz.
- I said, "Stop, you're going to kill him."
- Chandrika was in fear for her life.
- I accelerated and start speeding off,
and heard him say, "You're next."
- His trade was drug trafficking.
And people that traffic in drugs
are no stranger to weapons.
So, she didn't feel like she had a lot of choices.
- If I called the police, he'd either lie
and implicate me and say I set Gavin up,
or he'd f---ing kill me.
- John Creech's account of what happened that night
was a very different story.
- The defense argued that this was a man
who showed up that night
because he was worried about his wife,
knew that she'd been, he said, drunk and high
earlier in the day.
So he goes out and checks on her.
- I got out and I walked up to the car,
and I see Chandy with her back to me
talking to some guy,
and I was like, "What the hell?"
- And when you knocked on the window,
what did they do?
- Chandy opened the door.
- And what did she say to you?
- "What the f--- are you doing here?"
- In the Creech version,
Chandrika Cade gets out of the vehicle,
and he and Chandrika have an argument
outside of the Mercedes Benz,
where Creech is berating Chandrika
for leaving in the middle of the night
to meet some guy.
- I walked around the door, and I came inside,
and I'm leaning--
I'm leaning inside the car.
And I'm leaning down to tell him
to mind his own business.
And as I'm leaning down to tell him that
is when he leaned up and punched me.
He punched me, pulled me in by my sweater,
put his hand up on my throat.
He's choking me on my throat.
He's got my head pinned against the ceiling.
Then he's got his thumb in my right eye.
So I'm hanging out the car with just my head inside
as he's choking me and gouging my eye.
- According to Creech's testimony,
he's able to extricate himself from Smith.
They ultimately are both outside of the vehicle.
- We fell on the ground,
and we went at it for about 10 or 15 seconds,
exchanging punches.
Chandy at that point had stopped
in the middle of the road,
and she's yelling at both of us again.
He got up on all fours,
and he had blood coming out his nose,
pouring out his nose.
I went to go help him up,
and he shrugs me off, "Get off."
- There's no independent evidence
that backs up Creech's testimony
as to how this occurred.
- I was scared for my life.
I'd never been in a situation like that.
- So why didn't you call the police
and tell them that you were scared for your life
and that's why you punched Gavin?
- I was an ex-con out on bail.
The last thing I'm gonna do is call the cops
before I speak to my attorney.
In my mind, they're just gonna come lock me up
and ask me questions later.
- John Creech testified
he got in his car and drove away,
that Smith was injured but alive.
However, the story didn't end there.
Why did Creech later return to the scene?
What really happened to Gavin Smith?
- I was very upset.
It smelled like...
like rotting flesh.
- The trial of John Creech
for the death of Gavin Smith
eerily reflected Gavin's double life.
Was Gavin the innocent victim of a premeditated act
or of a crime of passion by a jealous husband
whose emotions got the best of him?
Inside the courtroom, a picture began to emerge.
Creech revealed gruesome details
about what happened on the night of May 1, 2012.
Creech admitted attacking Smith
after finding Gavin parked in a car
with his wife, Chandrika.
Creech claimed he left Smith alive at the scene
but then returned an hour later
to take Gavin to a hospital.
- I saw him leaning back in the car
with his arms and mouth wide open.
He was just leaning back like this.
- And when you saw him, what did you then do?
- I just shook him, started yelling his name.
No response.
And then I grabbed his keys from the passenger seat
and just made a judgment call.
I mean, to me, he was dead.
There's no way around it, he was dead.
His eyes and mouth were still open.
- With Smith's body in the front seat,
Creech testified he drove Gavin's car
back to the home he shared with Chandrika.
- You said that you had some blood spots
on your sweatshirt.
- Mm-hmm.
- What did you do with the clothes at that point?
- We burned the clothes.
- And when you say "we," who was "we"?
- Chandy and I.
- According to Creech's testimony,
he took steps to get rid of Gavin's body
along with his car.
Creech's friend, Stan McQuay,
also received immunity for his testimony.
- I remember hearing the phone vaguely, off and on,
and I finally answered it.
And he just sounded frantic.
He asked if he can come over
and if he can park his car in my garage.
I said, "What time is it?"
He said, "Help me out here.
Can I please come right now?"
So I said, "All right, come over."
- Creech drives to McQuay's residence,
where McQuay has already opened up the garage door,
and Creech drives the Mercedes Benz
directly into the garage.
- Creech tells McQuay,
"Hey, I just need to hide this car.
Don't ask me any questions about it."
At some point, did you try to look into the car?
- I mean, of course.
If he said, "Don't look,"
my eyes immediately went to that direction.
- When you looked through the front window,
did you see anything?
- All I saw was something in the front seat
that was covered.
- With Gavin's body stashed in McQuay's garage,
Creech returned home.
- So you're home.
You know that Gavin is dead.
Did you make any phone calls now on the second
to 911 or to the police?
- No.
First thing I did was, when I got up,
I still hadn't talked to my attorney yet.
I drove there later, but..
Chandy was already in the process
of deleting stuff off her phone
and was suggesting that we get rid
of the security camera's DVR.
- This is somebody who was victimized by John Creech,
who was in an unhappy marriage,
who was subjected to violence,
who was threatened with death.
It's hard in the decision-making process,
and so she made some fear-based decisions.
- So, a few days pass,
and Stan McQuay is getting upset with John Creech,
because this body and this car is in his garage.
- I was very upset.
It smelled like rotting flesh.
- Creech says, "I'm gonna get it out.
I got a van."
Ultimately, Creech is able to get the body into the van
and takes the body, but not the car,
and leaves.
- Creech told the court
he drove to a desolate area north of Los Angeles.
- And then what did you do once you arrived there?
- It was a process of getting...
man.
Getting him out of there.
It was just fluid everywhere.
It was hard to get him out.
And then it was just an ordeal
trying to get up that hill, where it was.
I just--it was...
- Were you dragging his body?
- Yeah.
- John Creech testified he dug a shallow grave
near a hiking trail.
And that's where Gavin Smith's body remained
for two and a half years--
two and a half years
while investigators carefully collected evidence,
two and a half years before a man out walking his dog
stumbled upon a half-buried skeleton.
- The body remains were in a state
of advanced decomposition.
He was in a condition that was skeletonized,
including the skull.
- After two weeks of testimony
detailing the last minutes of Gavin Smith's life,
the jury heard closing arguments
in the trial of John Creech.
- It seems weird to say killing is lawful.
But in this situation, killing Gavin was lawful.
It may not be a situation we approve of,
but that's the law.
The law says you can defend yourself.
- You don't accidentally beat somebody to death.
You just don't.
You don't accidentally beat someone to death.
- A murder trial is never open-and-shut,
no matter how compelling the evidence.
John Creech acknowledged beating Gavin Smith
but insisted he was defending himself.
Would jurors believe a convicted felon,
or would they decide John Creech
planned Gavin's death long before May of 2012?
- Five years after Hollywood
executive Gavin Smith vanished,
family and friends gathered in a Los Angeles courtroom
to hear the verdict in the trial
of accused killer John Creech.
Would the jury sympathize with Creech,
whose wife was having an affair with Smith,
or would they decide Creech was guilty
of cold-blooded murder?
- My understand is the jury has reached a verdict
in this matter.
- We, the jury,
find the defendant, John Creech,
not guilty of the crime of first-degree murder
of Gavin Smith,
not guilty of the crime of second-degree murder
of Gavin Smith,
guilty of the crime of voluntary manslaughter
of Gavin Smith.
- The verdict shocked the courtroom.
After all, John Creech admitted on the stand
he beat Gavin Smith
and then hid the body in a remote grave.
- One juror did speak to me.
He felt that Creech just showed up that night
and just reacted,
but he didn't think that it was worthy
of first- or second-degree murder.
And he thought the fact that Gavin had rekindled
the relationship with Chandrika
after being caught,
the juror described it as "playing with fire."
- He wasn't convicted of the most severe charges,
but he was convicted of killing him.
This story really captivated a lot of people's attention
for so many years.
- At the sentencing hearing,
Gavin Smith's wife, Lisa,
asked that cameras be turned off.
Then she lashed out at the man convicted
in the death of her husband
and revealed the stunning fact
that she suspected John Creech from the very beginning.
- Your actions after beating Gavin Smith
were egregious, heartless, callous.
And I think it's because, frankly,
you're a cold and cruel person.
- The judge delivered the maximum sentence possible,
11 years in federal prison
for the crime of voluntary manslaughter.
- Gavin made some bad choices, and that's unfortunate,
but we all have.
And I want people to know
that there was a wonderful side to him
and an amazing personality.
And when you met Gavin, you loved Gavin.
- I just thought, how tragic, you know?
Here's a guy with lots of ability,
but it just didn't work out for him.
He took the wrong path.
- Having somebody taken from you in any manner
is awful, and it's tragic.
But when you know they didn't have to die...
It just gives this whole new dimension of feelings,
because you can't understand
why anybody would take someone else's life.
- The story of Gavin Smith is a tragedy for all concerned.
Whatever mistakes he made, whatever secrets he kept,
Smith was loved by his family and friends,
and his death is a sad reminder
of how precarious our lives can be,
even when we seem to have everything.
For more on "Mysteries and Scandals,"
go to oxygen.com.