The Haunting Story Of Gavin Smith, The Film Studio Executive Who Was Murdered By His Lover’s Husband
John Creech bludgeoned Gavin Smith to death in May 2012 after catching him having an affair with Creech’s wife — then buried him in a shallow grave in California's Angeles National Forest.
Gavin Smith
Gavin Smith shortly before his disappearance.
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Gavin Smith led a seemingly charmed life. He worked a glamorous job as a film executive for 20th Century Fox while living with his wife and three sons in California. Charming and good-looking, Smith was beloved by those who knew him, who described him as a model father.
But behind closed doors, Smith was struggling with marital issues, financial strain, and drug addiction. During this rough patch, he also pursued multiple extramarital affairs, including one with a married woman named Chandrika Creech. Tragically, this affair would cost him his life.
On May 1, 2012, Smith suddenly went missing after leaving a friend’s house late in the evening. More than two years later, authorities finally found Smith’s skeletal remains buried in a remote area of rural California. Before long, investigators would unravel a shocking story of infidelity, jealousy, and murder.
The Basketball Star
Young Gavin Smith
Facebook/Remembering Gavin Smith!
A young Gavin Smith, circa 1968.
Born in 1954, Gavin Smith grew up in the San Fernando Valley in California. While in high school, Smith made a name for himself as a star basketball player.
He went on to attend the University of California, Los Angeles and to play as a forward for the school’s basketball team. In 1975, the team won the national championship under coach John Wooden.
In 1976, Smith transferred to the University of Hawaii and played for the Rainbow Warriors in his last season.
“[He was] a big-time scorer. Scored a lot of points,” Rainbow Warriors head coach Riley Wallace told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 2015, according to ESPN. “He had the long hair and wore a bandanna and was a heck of an offensive player.”
But by the time he graduated, Gavin Smith had set his sights on another kind of stardom.
Gavin Smith Settles Down In Hollywood
Smith
Wikimedia Commons
Gavin Smith was a loving father and successful film distributor. But loved ones say he led a double life.
After college, Smith decided to leave basketball behind him. He moved back to California and pursued an acting career, appearing as a bodyguard and a bartender in a few small productions.
In 1989, Smith settled down and married Lisa Smith, an accountant he’d met earlier that year while working as a waiter. The couple had three sons together.
Smith eventually gave up on his acting dream, and it was then that his career started to take off. After his brief stint in front of the camera, Smith pivoted to work on the business side of the film industry. As an executive at 20th Century Fox, he made $180,000 a year distributing films like Avatar, Titanic, and the Star Wars trilogy. By 2012, Smith had become the company’s regional branch manager for the Dallas and Oklahoma City areas.
Smith Family
Smith Family
Gavin Smith with his wife, Lisa.
But while it seemed from the outside as if Gavin Smith had it all, loved ones say he was secretly living a double life of sex, drugs, and irresponsible spending.
Living A Double Life
Although Gavin Smith maintained a well-paid job, finances became a major stressor for him and his family starting around 2008.
The Smiths’ home had plummeted in value shortly after they bought it, causing them to panic. The family reportedly struggled to pay their mortgage and tried selling their house.
Meanwhile, Smith had begun dabbling in drugs to manage his chronic back pain and soon became addicted. In 2008, he wound up in a rehab facility called Matrix. It was there that he met a married woman named Chandrika Creech. The two began a sexual relationship, kickstarting a string of affairs Smith would have with multiple women.
Chandrika Creech
LA Sheriff’s Office
Gavin Smith’s former lover, Chandrika Creech.
Lisa Smith soon found out about Chandrika Creech. She also learned that her husband had become increasingly irresponsible with his spending. It turned out that Gavin had swiftly burned through his year-end bonus from Fox and had been taking money from his pension fund. He had also begun a sexual relationship with another woman named Melanie, and was allegedly paying to set her and her children up in a new home.
To Lisa Smith, it seemed as though her husband was in the throes of a mid-life crisis.
“In hindsight, all the signs were there,” Lisa told Daily Mail in 2013. “He was dressing like a 20-year-old to go to drug rehab meetings and working out like mad.”
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