02x04 - A Hollywood Affair

[bunniefuu]

[helicopter blades whirring faintly]

[mysterious music playing]

[ambient traffic sounds]

[car accelerating]

The first I heard that Gavin
could be missing was on a Wednesday.

His wife, Lisa, had called me

and asked if I had heard
from my brother Gavin,

and I said, "No."

And I said, "Why?"

And she explained that he didn't pick up
one of the boys from school.

[reporter 1] Smith is well known
around the Calabasas community,

big on golf and the beach,
his persona bigger than life.

He was last seen Tuesday night
leaving a friend's

in the Oak Park neighborhood
near Agoura Hills.

[cryptic music playing]

Gavin Smith was a Fox executive,
and he was larger than life.

What we need to do is figure out,
"Is there reason why this person is gone?"

I mean, it's a mystery.

I was trying to reach out to him.

I would leave messages just asking him

to please call, text,
say everything's okay.

[reporter 2] The 20th Century Fox
executive disappeared

after driving off in his black Mercedes.

Nobody had heard from him.

No phone calls, no texts, nothing.

[Labbe] This is a suspicious circumstances
missing adult.

You have to look at all the possibilities.

[woman 1] Never ever would
I have ever been able to dream

that something like this
could ever happen.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tomlin] The LA County
Sheriff's Department

is the best of the best.

[Jackson] Some of the highest-profile
cases are tried in Los Angeles.

[woman 2] You have to be dedicated 110%.

[Lillienfeld] This is m*rder.
There's no more serious crime.

[man] It boils down to a passion
and a sense of duty.

Justice comes from finding the truth.

[suspenseful music trailing off]

[tense, quizzical music playing]

[Labbe] In May of 2012,
I had just left a special assignment

from a task force that I was on,

and I was reassigned back to the floor.

In this particular case of Gavin Smith,

he had been missing for about a week,

and it had started out
with the Missing Persons Unit.

When it was looked at a little bit closer,

the investigators brought it
to our supervisor's attention.

And that's when I got the call

to look at it as a "suspicious
circumstances" missing person case.

[tense, cryptic music playing]

[Hernandez] All missing person cases
come through the Missing Persons unit.

When you have a case like that,

you're always hoping
that you find the person alive.

You're an adult,
you can go anywhere you want to go,

and you're not really required
to report in to anyone

unless you're on parole
or probation, right?

If you're missing, the big question is,
"Why? Why is this person missing?"

And what pushes one over
to a homicide team

is the suspicion of foul play.

[suspenseful music pulsing]

We truly need assistance from the public

in verifiable information
leading to the whereabouts

of their father, my husband, Gavin Smith.

My partner John O'Brien and I,
we got the case.

We brief with the missing persons
detective on the case,

and then we drove out
and met Gavin Smith's wife.

We met her in a private gated community
of San Fernando Valley.

[Lillienfeld] The San Fernando Valley
is at least 200 square miles,

which is a northern part
of the city of Los Angeles.

The west San Fernando Valley
is primarily residential,

upper-middle-class, bedroom communities
that America's familiar with

only because the g*dd*mn Kardashians
live in Calabasas.

[Labbe] When we talked to Lisa
that first time, she was obviously upset,

as anyone would be.

We tried to set her at ease,

let her know that we're there to help her
and to find her husband.

They were a family in crisis.
Her son was there.

Gavin's sister, Tara, was there.

But all extremely helpful,
gave us oodles of information.

We learned that he was
a phenomenal athlete.

Basketball became his life.

He was an All-American
and he played for UCLA.

He was pretty much larger than life,

but it wasn't just his height.

He was an incredibly handsome man.

He had a smile that just went on for days.

We were living in San Pedro.

We lived about five, ten minutes
from Ports O' Call restaurant.

That's where Gavin was working
at the time, and Lisa came on in.

She saddled up to the bar.

Gavin was the bartender.

And they hit it off,

and, uh, it was wonderful.

They had their first son
within the first couple years.

They were very much in love.

He was in a couple movies.

He was in the movie Glitz.

Give me a reason!

He was also doing some stunt work
and he broke his back.

Um, really quite devastating.

But that was a real turning point for him,

because he was laid up for a long time.

I think that he realized, well,
it just wasn't gonna be for him.

And so he ended up
getting a job at 20th Century Fox.

He was in charge of film distribution
for the west coast.

He just loved being in the movie industry.

[restrained, thoughtful music playing]

[Labbe] Lisa had told us
that Gavin didn't show up for work

and didn't talk to anybody.

So it was just very unusual.

And then also he had not picked up
his son from school,

and that was a big red flag,

because in all her years of knowing him,
he's never disappeared.

[Addeo] It was highly irregular

that somebody like him
would just not show up for work,

or not show up to get their child,
or just vanish into thin air.

Lisa told us of an extramarital affair
that was occurring,

and he was estranged

and living outside of the house
at the moment.

He's cheated on her before.
She caught him.

A promise was made that that would stop.

Lisa caught him again cheating now,
a year later, with a woman named Melanie.

And when she found out about that,
she kicked him out.

And then he leaned on a coworker,
and he was staying in her spare bedroom,

and she said that she saw him alive

at about 10:00 p.m. on May 1st.

He was drying some laundry and he...

he... he left.

[low, dramatic music playing]

[Addeo] The night before
Gavin went missing, I spoke with him.

And I could just sense
that he was very distraught at the time,

and he was in turmoil
about the decisions that he had made.

He had talked to me
about his relationship with Melanie.

From what I understood,
he had broke that off earlier,

and he just knew that he had to
somehow get back to the family,

and go back into the relationship,

and be the father.

That's all he really wanted to do.

[sniffles]

Sorry.

I just remember him...

just loving his boys so much.

And loving our daughters so much,

like they were his own.

It's one of the things that I know.

As a father,
he could not have done better.

[Labbe] There's some weird stuff here.

Did he run off
with one of these women or someone?

Did he just go to cool his jets?

Uh, did he commit suicide?

Lisa's pissed off.
You know, she's cheated on twice.

Did she set it up?

"Screw this b*stard.
I'm gonna hire someone to abduct him."

Or, you know, "I poisoned him."

It could be anything.

There was just a lot of follow-up
we needed to flesh out

to rule anyone out at that time.

We're following up on leads

and all the information
that we've gathered

about people he's come in contact with
and that he's known in the past.

[Labbe] When we talked to Lisa
that first time, she told us,

"My husband's having an affair
with this Melanie gal,

and, you know,
you might want to talk to her."

So we did.

[erratic, suspenseful music playing]

She comes down
wearing this white, sequined pajama outfit

that's almost 100% see-through,

and we're sitting across from this woman
that is very sexy and seductive, in a way.

And you're trying to be a professional
and ask all these questions,

and you're like, "This is just
another moment in the life of a cop."

You look at your partner and go,
"f*ck, man. Don't touch me right now."

"I need to get home and see my wife.
This is... This is f*cking crazy."

[dark, cryptic music playing]

[man] Melanie was
very forthcoming with them.

She indicated,
"Yes, we had been having an affair."

That Gavin was
kind of in an emotional state,

uh, but that she didn't want
to further cause problems in his marriage.

She'd told him, "I'm done.
I don't want to deal with this drama."

After talking to Melanie the first time,
I didn't feel she was hiding anything,

but we couldn't rule her out
as being involved.

There was too many other things
that needed to be done.

[reporter] They plastered
Gavin Smith's picture and car.

Wife Lisa and son Austin
leading volunteers,

combing this area of Sylmar.

He's got a family waiting for him,

and that we love him with all our heart.

It's difficult, but...

I just like to think about
all the good times we had,

and if we find him,
many more that I might have.

Lisa was, you know,
trying the best she could

to gather information.

I knew that they could use support,

and I would go down there
and continued to go down there

to do searches or talk to people.

I did everything possible
to try and find out where he was.

He disappeared.

He didn't actually have the longboard.

[reporter] Lisa Smith is certain
someone knows something.

[low, mysterious music playing]

Gavin Smith's phone
was a big piece of the puzzle,

because now you can start
painting a picture.

When did his phone go off-grid

and what were the hours
when he was last seen

leading up to him being missing?

Some of the phone stuff
had been already done by Missing Persons.

We just went back and did a more
comprehensive search warrant on that.

We looked at Gavin Smith's phone data
and identified,

"Okay, well, on the night
that his phone went off-grid,

he called Lisa, the three boys, Tara,

and a woman named Chandrika Creech."

We knew she was the last person
to talk to him based on phone records.

What we needed to now find out was,
"All right, who is this chick?"

Lisa Smith had told us
that Gavin, uh, met Chandrika

at a substance abuse facility
called the Matrix.

With all the excruciating pain
that Gavin was in from breaking his back,

sadly, the only thing that gave him
comfort at that point was opiates.

And that's where he ended up
succumbing to an addiction,

until he started telling me
that he was in, um, you know, rehab.

[Labbe] When he was there,

Chandrika walked in there to try
to sort out her life and her addictions.

[Grace] Initially, Chandrika was somebody
who was part of Gavin's counseling group,

but their relationship
turned into something more,

and Gavin had a pretty torrid affair
with Chandrika.

Lisa confronted Gavin about it,
and he confessed.

[Grace] The relationship with Chandrika
lasted for about a year,

and her husband,
John Creech, knew about it.

And then,
as a result of Lisa's involvement,

Lisa felt that
that relationship had ended.

[Labbe] Got a missing person,
and he had an affair with Chandrika.

That right there throws her on the radar.

So we went to interview her,
and we caught her at her house.

When we interviewed Chandrika,

she was an emotional wreck.

She was scared, apprehensive, evasive.

She was all over the map.

She said she talked to him.

She didn't know where he went,

but you could tell
that she cared about Gavin.

[Grace] She's adamant she doesn't know
what happened to Gavin Smith

after their contact on May 1st, 2012.

While we were interviewing her, a black
sports car pulled into the cul-de-sac,

and paused briefly,
backed up, and then left.

And talking to Chandrika
in that conversation,

she admitted that
that was her husband, John.

[Grace] Obviously, he's somebody
that the detectives want to talk to,

but they can't because he took off,
and they're immediately suspicious.

Later, we found out he's an ex-con.

You know, he's out right now
on a release system with Glendale PD.

He was involved in
some narcotics transactions and stuff.

So, yeah, immediately we know
we want to find out where he's at.

You know, as a cop, I look at an ex-con,

I look at a guy
who has narcotics background...

You know, he's pissed that his wife
had an affair with this guy.

Say what you will, you know.
A duck's a duck.

I see a duck, looks like a duck,
walks, talks like a duck,

you know, it might be a f*cking duck.

We looked at him pretty hard right away.

[mysterious music playing]

[Labbe] We were looking at
John Creech's call detail record.

What we needed to now find out was

how did John Creech's phone overlay into
Gavin Smith's movement and call frequency

on the night that he went missing?

I had a very strong background
in, uh, phone analytics and mapping,

and we were seeing bizarre patterns.

[harsh, foreboding music playing]

[Grace] The police were able to determine
that the night of May 1st, 2012,

Gavin and Chandrika
were in physical contact with one another.

And in fact Gavin Smith
and Chandrika's phones start to ping

in an area of the Hidden Hills
not far from the Creech residence

in an area that's viewed
as kind of a "lover's lane."

Where did John Creech's phone travel to?
Well, it traveled to...

Holy sh*t! It's pinging
to the area where Chandrika was.

And in mapping the cell towers,
we put all three phones right there.

At that time, we pretty much knew
that something bad had happened.

Even though this case
started out as a missing persons case,

we knew what we had at that point.

This is a m*rder.

[cryptic music playing]

[Labbe] We had no idea
where John Creech was at the time,

but my partner and I
had enough evidence at that time

to support getting a search warrant
to search John and Chandrika's home.

Chandrika was home.
Her elderly grandmother was there.

The caretaker to Chandy's grandmother
was there, Reina Lim.

[reporter] Neighbors say
a nice family lives inside,

but they also say the high shrubs
and multiple surveillance cameras

and warning signs to stay off property

are among the many signs
that have raised suspicion.

"Abnormal behavior"?

Like, there's certain cars that come
and they stay parked outside for a while.

We didn't find a lot of physical evidence
to maybe help us in the case,

but we were able
to document a lot of things

which to an investigator's mindset
are meaningful.

For instance, it's a cul-de-sac.
There's five homes on the block.

And for all intents and purposes,
this house is the Bellagio.

It's got an elaborate camera system.

It's got $8,000 bronze statues of Buddha
in the koi pond in the front yard.

He's got a moat.

A custom, probably at the time
about $200,000 pool.

The other houses?

Yeah, it's West Hills.
It's a nice area, but not that nice.

We learn Chandrika didn't know
how her husband paid for any of it,

and she can't answer
what he does for a living,

how he makes his income, if he paid taxes...

I mean, come on, are we stupid?
Are we felony f*cking stupid?

She's not telling the truth, right?

During the search warrant,
she was petrified.

She just didn't know what to do.

I didn't know if she was involved.

I knew she knew,
and she wasn't giving it up.

Also, she told us John was in Chicago.

She had no explanation as to why
he just uprooted and went to Chicago.

You know? What's up with that?

So, we didn't get the smoking g*n,

we didn't get his hands
with cuts and bruises on 'em,

but we got a lot of intel.

We knew we were on the right path.

We are still seeking
the public's assistance.

Uh, any information that we can glean
from the public, we welcome.

[phone ringing]

[Labbe] We got a tip
that Gavin Smith was seen

at a bistro or coffeehouse in Morro Bay.

[Addeo] Somebody had seen him
in Morro Bay.

He had gone to school to UCLA
and he knew Gavin.

And then the waitress verified
that that was Gavin.

And I'm... "Oh, my God.
Yes. Okay. He just went off the grid."

And then I drove there.

You know,
I think you just click into gear,

and I was just in overdrive.

We have to be in command and control
of our investigation,

at the same time, knowing it can
spin out of f*cking control at any minute.

And it might be little, it might be big,
but it's gonna spin out of control,

and it's how you contain that.

Now, you're the lead detective.

You've got Tara and... and whoever,
Code Three out there,

going up to Morro Bay
to knock on doors and do their thing.

We had 60 to 100 sightings that came in,

and we knew that this was a homicide,

but I can't prove it.

So I gotta follow up on it.

So what do I have to do?

I have to send two detectives to Morro Bay

to follow up on this lead

that he's up there at a hotel
having, I don't know, French onion soup.

As harsh as Ty can be, and very blunt,

and to some people maybe even abrasive,

he's able to... to show that,

"Hey, I might be talking this way,
but I am here, and I care."

I call him the Ragin' Cajun,
'cause he has that personality.

He's very loud, very boisterous.

But as far as a detective,
I know he had that passion,

and he had that care about his cases,
and he cared about all of us too.

I was raised...
"If you don't like something, say it,"

and I didn't care who I offended.

[low, foreboding music playing]

The lead from Morro Bay,
it seemed so credible.

The waitress came out, and she said,

"Well, maybe it wasn't him."

"The newsperson made it seem like
it was more him than what it was."

I don't even know how that all happened.

But that was, uh...
that was really disappointing.

She... She believed that something
very bad happened to Gavin,

but you don't have definitive proof yet,
so you're hoping they're alive,

but you know the worst is probably
gonna be your answer sooner or later.

Detectives, they had been monitoring
John Creech's movement

and determined that John Creech
had a history with law enforcement.

In fact, he had been charged
with the transportation of illicit drugs.

He once pled guilty
to distribution of narcotics,

and in lieu of going to jail,
he agreed to become an informant

and work, uh, with Glendale PD.

But he was absolutely useless,

'cause he didn't give 'em anything.
He just strung 'em along.

John Creech
was still in that Chicago area,

and we needed to bring him in
to do an interview.

So we contacted
the Glendale detective, Dave Kellogg,

and he agreed to help any way he could.

Dave called him in,
and one thing we had Dave do

was go sit down in a room.

We had it wired for sound and audio.

Then we came in. [chuckles]

[erratic, cryptic music pulsing]

We introduced ourselves.

We asked questions about Gavin Smith.

John Creech was cool
and tried to be charming,

tried to be quick-witted.

Classic con man.

"Yeah. I know that guy."
"Did you threaten him in any way?"

"No, never!"

He just downplayed everything,
and I decided to try a different angle.

I tried to make Gavin
look like a bad person.

I said, you know... I go,

"Gavin, this guy was a...
this guy was a stalker."

"He would cultivate women."

I did everything I could
just to get him fired up.

I go, "I don't blame you
if you did something to him."

"Cut to the chase.
Let's end this madness."

But he wouldn't break.

[dramatic music playing]

[Labbe] We explain to the judge
Creech's suspected involvement

in the Gavin Smith disappearance

and his lack of fulfilling his commitment
to provide information to law enforcement.

So the judge remanded Mr. Creech
into custody on his narcotics case.

Anytime you can get someone
you believe k*lled someone off the street,

that's a good thing.

That gave us time
to flesh it out and investigate.

So we were looking
at John Creech's phone data,

who he's calling, who's calling him.

And we notice that after Gavin Smith
had talked to Chandrika

on the night Gavin went missing,

there was a series of phone calls

that John Creech called
back-to-back-to-back-to-back,

and he's calling the same number,

and that number was Jorge Valles.

As we looked into him,

we realized that he was
an associate to Creech.

Mr. Valles had done a lot
of contracting work at the Creech home,

and as a result, Jorge Valles
and John Creech developed a friendship.

[Labbe] On the night Gavin went missing,

the victim's phone, John Creech's phone,
and Jorge Valles' phone

were registering on a cell tower
right in Jorge's backyard.

So, we made contact with Jorge Valles.

The first time we talked to Jorge Valles,
you could just tell he...

Completely fish out of water.

Valles tells them that John Creech
had called him excitedly

during the early morning hours
of May 2nd, 2012,

telling him that he needs help
and that he's coming to his residence.

Um, Valles is kind of taken aback by that,

but Creech comes over,

says he needs help moving this car,

and it's a Mercedes-Benz.

[Labbe] Jorge Valles saw
what looked like a mummified body

wrapped up in bedsheets
in the passenger seat,

and John Creech
told Jorge Valles that, "I k*lled him."

"I need you to hide him."

Jorge's like, "You're out of your mind.
You ain't hiding him here."

[Grace] Jorge Valles was very reluctant

to tell the detectives
what had happened next,

but he follows John Creech
in the black Mercedes

to this home in the Porter Ranch area,
a gated community.

And they drive up to one of the homes.

When Creech gets to the residence,

he drives the black Mercedes
into the garage,

leaving the black Mercedes there,

and then they leave the location.

[Labbe] Then John Creech told him,
"I want you to get rid of this phone."

And poor Jorge was stupid enough
to take the phone.

According to Jorge,

he said, the next day, he threw it
in a trash can behind a McDonald's.

Jorge saw injuries on Creech's hands.

He saw what he thought was the body,

but he couldn't identify
the license plate.

He couldn't identify the body.

So we still didn't have enough
to take to a DA.

[Grace] The detectives
are able to determine

that the home that John Creech
and Mr. Valles had gone to

was the residence
of an individual named Stan McQuay.

[Labbe] Stan McQuay is
a workout buddy of John's.

Mr. Health and Fitness Guru to the stars.

Stan McQuay was brought
to Lost Hills sheriff station.

We went to talk to him,
but he wanted his attorney.

So this high-profile attorney
representing Stan McQuay showed up.

He was very candid with me.
He said, "Ty, he's not gonna talk to you."

"I'm gonna advise him not to."
I go, "Go talk to him."

And he did.

So five minutes passed up,


I looked at John and go,
"This is very good for us."

"The longer he's in there, the better,

'cause the longer he's in there,
they're talking freely."

And that attorney's jaw's probably like,
"Oh, f*ck! Ugh!"

"What did you do now?"

So he comes out, and I loved it,
'cause he looked like a whipped dog.

Anytime you see a private defense attorney
that looks like a whipped dog...

a beautiful thing.

It's just like, "f*ck, yeah.
Now we're kicking some a*s."

These are the little things
that get us detectives excited!

"We got the upper hand."

Sure as sh*t, he says, "Hey, man."
He wants to talk to us.

"Can we do it tomorrow at your office?"

"Absolutely, man! No problem."

And he says, "Hey, detectives,
can you guys give him a ride home?"

And I said, "Yeah, no problem, sir.
We got that handled for you."

This is why, as a homicide guy,

you've gotta be able to navigate
without using the freeway.

So we took side streets,

and I stopped at every f*cking red light
for a long time.

We had a great conversation.

Stan McQuay told us that John showed up,

begged him to park the car in the garage.

He swears he didn't know the body
was in there until it started stinking.

Nothing can stop
the smell of a decomposing body.

And so he said
that he was leaning on Creech

to get up there and get the body out.

He said that John Creech showed up
with a U-Haul van,

he pulled the body out of the car,
and loaded it up in the van himself.

And, eventually, John Creech
picked up Gavin Smith's Mercedes-Benz

and moved it out of his garage.

We had written a search warrant
to U-Haul Corporation

of all the known people
so far in the case,

and none of our known target subjects

had rented any equipment
in our time frame.

It made it frustrating.

Gavin was missing, presumed dead.

And we still didn't have a body.

We didn't have the car.

We didn't know
if there was a weapon involved.

There was a lull
to where it was getting pretty ugly

that we know,
"What are we gonna be able to do next?"

And my partner John and I understand

that it's not checkers, it's chess.

And in this game of chess that we play
as homicide detectives with our bad guys,

there is no two-minute clock on.

It's your move.

Both the detectives, Labbe and O'Brien,
were extremely helpful.

It wasn't, like, the first 48 hours,
it's... it's solved.

It wasn't.

But they had
a lot of vested interest in this,

and they were gonna see it through.

[Labbe] In early February 2013,

one of the detectives at Homicide Bureau,

a retired guy,

he plays tennis with a group of men,

and one of those men

is Chandrika's father.

While they're playing tennis,
Chandy's dad wasn't acting right.

He said his daughter
moved back into their house,

and she was talking about
how her husband k*lled somebody,

and her dad was so shook up about it
that he felt compelled to tell a friend.

And so this particular detective knows me,

and he gave me the information right away.

I introduced myself to Chandy's dad,

and he says,
"I'll tell you everything I know."

He told us,
"I think the car is still around."

"It might be cut up."

"It may have been body-shopped out,
but there's still some of it around."

And he said,

"You need to look at Reina Lim,
the caretaker to Chandy's grandmother."

It was quite surprising to both of us.

It was like, "Nah, no way."

She's just the little 70-year-old,

non-suspecting,
Christian, Filipino caretaker

of a dying old woman related to Chandrika.

And that... The bell
just went on at that point, you know?

"Holy f*ck.
She's been there the whole time."

[Hernandez] This is an example
of "better off lucky than good,"

because it is a matter of timing.

Man, all of a sudden,
you get that break, and it's just...

it's just by chance.

But you have it, you gotta run with it.

I said, "Let's find her."

So we started command and...
uh, the surveillance on Reina.

And eventually, she came out of work,

and we made contact with her
in the parking lot.

You could tell she was a little startled.

But she knew who we were.
She knew what we were investigating.

We just talked to her
and explained to her what was going on,

how her name came up in the matter,
and she wanted to be completely helpful.

I felt she was being truthful.

She showed us documentation

that proved that she was paying the bill
to a storage facility for John Creech.

And probably, whether she knew it or not,
was paying the bill

for the storage facility
where evidence in a m*rder was at.

I don't know about you,
but I see a commonality.

"Jorge, can you hide this phone?"

"Stan, can I put this guy's car
and dead body

in your house for five days?"

"Reina, could she just pay the bill?"

Do you see a pattern here?

This is a classic con man.

He used anybody he could
to make himself less culpable, you know?

We get out there
and write our search warrant.

And of course when we pop the lock,
we find Gavin Smith's car inside.

It was pretty exciting,
'cause now we had our victim's vehicle

confirmed, intact, not cut up.

It's just lucky, you know.

The investigative gods
shined down upon us that day.

[tense music playing]

[Grace] After the car was found,

then they became determined that this
was gonna be a full-on investigation

that would probably lead to a filing,

and I was officially working with Ty.

[Labbe] I knew that Bobby
had a very strong reputation

amongst investigators in my unit
that I respected.

He's coming out of Major Trials Division,

which is a pretty tough pedigree
to get anyway in the DA's office.

I mean, he's a big shot.

[Grace] The key piece of evidence
that they want to determine

is whether the car
was where Gavin Smith met his demise.

There is a lot of critical work

that forensic analysts
would have to do with the car.

So they want to look for blood evidence.

They want to look for serology evidence,
DNA, saliva, hair,

anything that would connect Gavin Smith
to being in the vehicle.

[Labbe] We saw
that the license plates were removed.

The VIN was intact.

That was not removed.

That's how we identified it.
It was our crime scene.

[intense, dramatic music playing]

You could see blood,

a lot of blood
dried on the passenger side,

floorboard, dash, roof, back seat.

[tense music pulsing]

There was blood spatter,

meaning repeated punches and blows,

uh, casting of the blood on the ceiling.

We could see dried blood
inside the doorjamb

where the door closes.

I'm not convinced, to this day,

that Gavin's head
wasn't put in between that doorjamb

and repeatedly slammed.

He brutally beat the sh*t
out of this guy, you know?

Make no mistake about it.
This is an evil man.

[reporter] The 57-year-old Smith
disappeared May 1st 2012.

A year later, his Mercedes was found
at this Simi Valley storage facility.

[Grace] We needed to connect
John Creech to Gavin Smith's car.

So you want to fingerprint the car,

but you now have a real focus of where
to direct forensic people to look.

There was evidence in the car
that indicated he was k*lled in the car.

Mr. Creech is still a person of interest.

[Labbe] The DNA samples come back,
the blood evidence.

The blood evidence
came back to Gavin Smith.

You know,
I remember one of the things I saw.

The license plate was gone,

but the license plate screw
on the left side was screwed back in.

Well, I told the crime lab
I wanted that tested for DNA,

and it ended up
being a match to John Creech.

[mournful, subdued music playing]

[Addeo] It was bittersweet.

[chuckles ruefully, cries]

[tearfully] Because I knew that...

you know, that was...

The way that they were describing it,

I knew that there was
a lot of biological and DNA in the car.

So I pretty much knew then.

It was kind of at that moment...

Well, you know, now there's no going back.

And then you just ask yourself,

"How did it happen? His last moments?"

It's tough.

It's hard.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Grace] In terms of a prosecutor's view
of the evidence at that point,

now you can prove legally
that we had strong circumstantial evidence

that John Creech
was the reason why he was dead.

Obviously, there were still, you know,

major pieces to the story
that we didn't know yet.

[Labbe] At that time in the case,
we had two cooperating witnesses.

We had Jorge Valles, Stan McQuay.

The only thing we really didn't have
was, uh, the victim's body,

and we still didn't have an eyewitness
to anyone actually seeing how it happened.

There was way too many unknowns
than there were knowns.

"No body" cases are
some of the most difficult cases to prove.

All we had was the blood evidence
inside the car,

but you still don't know
how the person died,

and the coroner
would not be able to tell you definitively

that the person was actually dead.

[Dolson] The investigation's ongoing.

At this point,
we are not charging anybody with anything.

[Addeo] The sad part about it is
the not knowing for so long, you know?

It was heartbreaking.

Rightfully so, Lisa was extremely upset,

going every day
and not knowing what happened.

[Labbe] Even though
more than two years had gone by,

we weren't gonna present a case to the DA

until we had done
everything that we felt we could.

In October 2014,

in the mountain rolling hills area
of Palmdale, California,

a husband and wife were walking their dog.

Their dog was off-leash,
and it... it returned to them,

and it was carrying what appeared to be
a human bone in his mouth.

[huffing]

[man] If he smells something he likes,
he takes off.

[reporter] Buddy the brown Lab
found something he liked

while hiking the mountains of Palmdale
with his owner.

And they called the police
to come investigate.

So deputies responded
and called it into Homicide Bureau,

that they had a shallow grave
with found human remains.

[chilling music playing]

[Grace] When the detectives
go to the crime scene,

they have no idea who that person is.

Sometimes identifications
are made by teeth.

Sometimes if the remains are fresh enough,
you can do fingerprinting,

and in this particular case,
uh, the human remains did show

a number of surgeries
Gavin had had over the years,

so they were able to pinpoint
that was, in fact, Gavin's remains.

[Labbe] We sent the evidence at the scene
down to the coroner's office.

So the coroner begins their exam,

looking at X-rays, making opinions,
and determinations on what they saw,

which was a defensive-type wound
to his arm and fracture,

like he is blocking a blow,
which is consistent with what we knew.

He was attacked in the car.

It was evident and opined
that he had a fracture to the skull,

which was caused
by blunt force trauma to the head.

We saw complete orbital fractures of...

Pretty much obliteration
to his cheekbones.

Finding Gavin Smith, investigative-wise,
it's huge. It's pivotal.

But, uh, my concern is the family.

I want to be there for them.

[delicate, thoughtful music playing]

It should be my partner and I talking
to Mrs. Smith and the boys about this.

[Addeo] I remember Lisa had called me

and said that he has been found.

You know, I feel like that...

was a closure moment, because...

[stifling sobs]

[softly] Sorry.

You know how bad it was.

But then you know it's over.

Because it's true.

You know, families do need closure.

And bodies give closure.

It's not what we wanted, but...

we know he's not coming back.

[Grace] Even with the discovery
of Gavin's body,

there's still information
that we did not know.

Namely, we didn't know
how Creech actually k*lled Gavin Smith.

We knew that the only person
who possessed that information

was Chandrika Creech.

What we didn't know at that time

was the extent
of her involvement in Gavin's death.

As a result,
we made the decision to tell her

that we would consider giving her leniency

in exchange for giving
a truthful statement,

known as a proffer.

Chandrika agreed to cooperate
through her attorney...

and told us

that she had restarted
her relationship with Gavin Smith,

but they were not having sexual relations.

And they had a connection,

and they were talking to each other
in the car as friends.

She said she was consoling him
on his breakup,

and what is he gonna do,
his kids, and basically being a friend.

And that's when
the door to the car ripped open,

and Johnny jumped in
on top of her and him,

and started beating him.

[Labbe] How many times
did you see Johnny strike Gavin?

-Five.
-[Labbe] Five?

She was yelling and screaming,

and she said Johnny was just pummeling him
over and over in the face,

and she was able
to shimmy her way out the door,

and yelling at him to stop,
that he's gonna k*ll him.

And, at one point, Johnny stopped
while Gavin was unconscious,

uh, blood everywhere,

and he looked at her and he says,

"Shut the f*ck up or you're next."

She said she finally turned
and got away out of there.

And Johnny just kept beating him
while he was unconscious.

I think Chandy helped cover it up
'cause Chandy was scared to death of him.

[intense, suspenseful music playing]

[Grace] The prosecution of John Creech
started in June 2017.

The plan worked!

Gavin Smith is dead!

And he kept his secret for over two years.

I had to argue to the jury that no,
this isn't classic emotional k*lling,

but in fact the defendant
knew about the affair for a long time,

and he took the step
of tracking where his wife was,

so he wasn't
in a state of emotional distress

such that he did not know
what he had planned to do.

Some of the important witnesses were,
of course, Chandrika,

who was able to tell the story
of exactly how Gavin got k*lled.

He wasn't fighting back or anything.

He wasn't even pushing away.
He wasn't moving at all.

-[Grace] As a result...
-And he was moaning.

[Grace] John Creech took the stand

and said he got into
a mutual fight with Gavin.

[John] He punched me,
pulled me in by my sweater.

He put his hand on my throat,
choking me in my throat.

He's got my head pinned
against the ceiling,

and he's got his thumb in my right eye.

I'm hanging out the car
with just my head inside

as he's choking me and gouging my eye.

John Creech was claiming
Gavin Smith was armed with a hammer.

John Creech testified he was able
to overpower him and take that away.

Eventually, he got the upper hand
and accidentally k*lled Gavin,

but that it was
completely in self-defense.

And that, eventually, he took that...

whatever tool or item it was
back to his house

and threw it in his neighbor's yard.

[Grace] You made the decision
not to call 911. Is that correct?

I made that decision.

I live with that every day.

In my opinion,
he lied about everything he said.

[jury foreperson]
We the jury in the above entitled action

find the defendant, John Creech,

not guilty of the crime
of first-degree m*rder of Gavin Smith.

[dramatic stinger]

The verdict that came down

was not guilty on first-degree m*rder,
premeditated m*rder.

[foreperson] We the jury
in the above entitled action

find the defendant, John Creech,

guilty of the crime
of voluntary manslaughter of Gavin Smith.

[pensive, somber music playing]

But guilty of voluntary manslaughter
in the state of California.

That's, "f*ck you."

This was premeditated, planned,
and calculated, and he k*lled him.

Any time that you hear a verdict
that isn't what you wanted,

there's a deflation, sadness.

The trial judge went out of his way

to say that he disagreed
with the jury's verdict

and felt that the prosecution
had proven that it was m*rder.

Any other person sitting in this courtroom

would have called 911,
would have sought medical help,

and you did not.

And I think it's because, frankly,
you're a cold and cruel person.

[Grace] He was going to sentence
the defendant to the maximum,

which was 11 years.

In my mind, I was like,
"He's gonna get 30, 40 years, right?"

I mean, this was premeditated.

And then get 11 years?
That didn't seem like justice at all.

I was angry all over again.

I was so mad.

I mean, furious that...
Gavin wasn't gonna get justice.

[Grace] The good news
was that he was being investigated

for new drug-related charges

and later on prosecuted
for transportation and sale of drugs.

And he got around 26 years
for the federal charges.

And mainly that was because
he was a prior convicted federal felon.

He ended up
getting 40-plus years altogether.

So that's some comfort
to Lisa and her kids.

And the fact that he got
significant time in custody,

which was very deserving.

[sorrowful, somber music playing]

[tearfully] There were
a lot of things about him

that were pretty incredible.

You know?

Not everybody is perfect,
and, by far, he was not.

He was a lot of things.

But he was an incredible person.

He took advantage of what life has,
and he did a lot with it.

[pensive music playing]

[Labbe] It's sad, it's tragic,
but I have no regrets in this case.

I honestly don't think there's
a lot of investigators in our building

that would have done half of what we did.

It boils down to a passion
and a sense of duty.

Our job is to seek the truth,
and the facts,

and bring the person to justice.

That's what we do.
That's what we signed up for.

[car accelerating]

August 20th,
I get a phone call from Bruce,

and he tells me that his wife, Jana,
has been missing since that morning.

[Labbe] Just like the Gavin Smith case,

it's critical to look at anybody
that has close ties.

You have to look at every entity.

[Shonka] Who would want to hurt her?
Did she have enemies?

Bruce said because of Jana's father,

someone may have abducted Jana.

Her father was a very prominent politician
in the state of California.

[Labbe] Maybe she ran away.

Maybe there was an extramarital affair
that was occurring.

She's starting to really change
her outward image.

She'd had her teeth done.

Something just doesn't seem right,
seems kind of suspicious.

[man] She's a very sweet, friendly girl.

No reason for anybody to do this.

[dramatic outro music pulsing]