A lurid tale of sex, deceit and brutality as trial begins in the slaying of Fox executive

The lovers made a plan to meet around midnight in a secret spot in Hidden Hills.

Chandrika Cade and Gavin Smith arrived separately, but soon settled into the passenger seat of his black Mercedes-Benz. It had been four years since they met at drug rehab and their on-and-off-again affair — one that had already threatened to tear apart both their marriages — was back on.

But moments later, a silhouette showed up in the darkness — Cade’s husband, John Creech. He’d tracked them using an iPhone app that pinpointed Cade’s location.

What happened next, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday, was “an act of almost stunning brutality — almost indescribable violence.”

During opening statements Thursday in Creech’s murder trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace showed jurors a picture of the front passenger seat of Smith’s car smeared with dry blood.

“Beaten to death by bare fists.… This became Gavin Smith’s tomb,” Grace said, telling jurors that Smith’s body would eventually be found wrapped in blankets and buried in the desert. Creech stored the car in a friend’s garage for a while, Grace said, and then moved it to a self-storage unit in Simi Valley — storage locker No. 504.

Creech, 44, is charged with murdering Gavin Smith, a 20th Century Fox executive whose body was found along a hiking trail outside Palmdale more than two years after he vanished May 1, 2012.

Grace said the slaying echoed back to Dec. 8, 2010 — 510 days earlier — when two of Smith’s sons visited Creech and apologized for their father’s relationship with Creech’s wife. “You saved your father’s life by coming here,” Creech said, according to previous testimony in the case from one of the sons.

“That 510 days,” Grace told jurors, “was a countdown to murder.”

But Creech’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Irene Nuñez, said the killing wasn’t a long-planned attack, but rather a split-second decision to protect his life.

Earlier that night, Creech woke up to the sound of an alarm on the oven and was startled to find his wife not at home. He knew she’d been drunk and high earlier in the day, Nuñez said, and he was scared for her safety. His wife’s grandmother, who lived with them, was also scared and urged him to go search for her.

When Creech arrived at the desolate spot, Nuñez said, Smith pulled him into his car and began choking him and gouging at his eyes. Out of fear for his life, Creech started to punch Smith, Nuñez said. Eventually her client escaped and began to walk away, but saw Smith running toward him with a tool that resembled a hammer and an ice pick, Nuñez said, so Creech swiped at Smith’s legs and his head smashed into the cement.

“What we have here is a case of self-defense,” she told jurors, adding that her client, who is expected to testify, had made “errors in judgment” after protecting himself, such as not coming to the police after the incident.

Nuñez told jurors that Smith, 57, had a reputation as an “angry, scary, intimidating, cruel” man — a description, the attorney said, that Smith’s wife, Lisa, gave to detectives who interviewed her about his disappearance.

Smith — who helped distribute box office hits such as “Titanic” and “Avatar” and also played basketball at UCLA under Coach John Wooden — was reported missing May 2, 2012. Prosecutors said Smith, who was living apart from his family, hadn’t followed through on a promise to pick up his teenage son and drop him off at school that morning, and that wasn’t like him.

Search parties fanned out across the area and his family offered a $20,000 reward. A month after the disappearance, investigators searched a San Fernando Valley home in connection with the case, towing away boxes and a computer. But sheriff’s officials insisted that the investigation was still considered a missing person case.

Eight months later, authorities got a tip to check a storage locker in Simi Valley. Inside locker No. 504 — which traced back to Creech — authorities found Smith’s bloody Mercedes-Benz. But still no body.

A few days before Halloween in 2014, people hiking in the desert near Palmdale spotted a shallow grave. The skull and bones, the coroner confirmed, belonged to Smith.

The skull of Gavin Smith is believed to have been found near this shallow ditch the size of a grave on a hiking trail two and a half years after he went missing.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

In April 2015, a grand jury indicted Creech on murder charges and a month later, hundreds of pages of grand jury transcripts were made public.

Cade testified at the time that after Creech sneaked up on her and Smith that night, her husband began punching Smith and then turned to her with a menacing message — “You’re next.” She fled.

When Creech returned home, Cade testified, he assured her he wouldn’t hurt her. He asked for a ride back to Smith’s car, saying he needed to “bring Gavin to the hospital.”

She dropped him back off at Smith’s car, according to the transcript. When he eventually returned home, she said, he was covered in blood.

In the early morning hours, Creech frantically dialed friends and got a hold of bodybuilder Stan McQuay, who he knew from the gym. Creech then drove to the man’s house and stored Smith’s car in the garage, according to the transcript.

McQuay told the grand jury that after he noticed Creech was covered in blood, he asked, “What’s going on?”

He’d gotten into a fight with a man who was seeing his wife, Creech told McQuay, adding that he’d come back in a few hours and “get the car and the body,” McQuay testified. Creech took the body, but left the car in McQuay’s garage for more than a week, McQuay said, adding that two men then showed up with a trailer and hauled it away.

In court Thursday, Creech occasionally whispered to his attorney and often stared downward. When the prosecutor showed jurors a picture of Smith smiling, Creech stared up at the screen. He stared, again, when the prosecutor displayed a picture of Smith’s skull, which was missing orbital bones.

“This defendant,” Grace said, “brutally, brutally — stunningly — caved Gavin Smith’s face in with his fists.”

A juror winced.

Times staff writer Javier Panzar contributed to this report.

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For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber

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