The body of missing 20th Century Fox distribution executive Gavin Smith has been found, the coroner’s office confirmed Wednesday night.
Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office Lt. Larry Dietz did not provide any further details, citing a security hold by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Fox11 reported tonight that Smith’s body was found in the Angeles National Forest about a week ago, an apparent victim of murder.
NBC News reported the body was found in the high desert north of Los Angeles.
Smith was last seen between 9 and 10 p.m. on May 1, 2012, leaving a female friend’s home off Kanan Road in eastern Ventura County, in his black, 2000-model Mercedes-Benz 420 E.
Smith was officially ruled dead on May 1, the two-year anniversary of his disappearance, a sheriff’s official confirmed at the time.
Smith’s Mercedes was recovered on Feb. 21, 2013, at a storage facility in Simi Valley.
The storage facility was linked to John Creech, who was in custody at the Men’s Central Jail on an unrelated narcotics conviction when the search took place, sheriff’s Lt. Dave Dolson said at the time. Creech is now serving an eight-year sentence.
In June 2012, a SWAT team and detectives raided a West Hills home owned by Creech. The Los Angeles Times reported afterward that it had obtained documents that indicated sheriff’s deputies felt an unspecified felony related to Smith’s disappearance may have occurred there.
Smith, who played basketball at UCLA in the 1970s, reportedly met Creech’s wife, Chandrika Creech, in some sort of rehab therapy, according to the newspaper, which reported that Creech has denied knowing Smith, despite his wife saying otherwise.
Bill McSweeney, chief of the Sheriff’s Detective Bureau, told the Los Angeles Times on May 1 that investigators “have physical evidence of his (Smith’s) death.”
Dolson said last year that after detectives found Smith’s car, they served several search warrants in the San Fernando Valley and began investigating the death as a homicide “based on the vehicle’s condition and information developed from persons cooperating in the investigation … ”
