Jurors will begin their second day of deliberations Monday in the trial of a convicted drug dealer charged with murdering a 20th Century Fox distribution executive having an off-and-on affair with the defendant’s estranged wife.
John Lenzie Creech, 44, is charged with murder, with a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, for the May 2012 beating death of Gavin Smith, a 57-year-old married father of three, in a West Hills business park. His remains were found in a shallow grave in the Angeles National Forest in the Antelope Valley about 2 1/2 years after he disappeared.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace told the eight-woman, four-man jury that Smith “was executed in cold blood by this defendant, who hit him repeatedly in the face” after using a cell phone with GPS to track down his estranged wife, Chandrika Cade, and sneak up on the two in Smith’s Mercedes-Benz.
“You don’t accidentally beat someone to death,” the prosecutor said in his rebuttal argument shortly before the jury was handed the case.
Defense attorney Irene Nunez told the panel that Creech had made “errors in judgment” by concealing Smith’s body and car after lawfully defending himself in a fight that he testified was initiated by Smith, but argued he was not guilty of first-degree murder.
Creech’s lawyer acknowledged her client is a “convicted drug seller” but said he “had to fight for his life” after the man who had “intruded” into his life and marriage approached him outside the Mercedes with a weapon following a fistfight between the two men inside the sedan.
“This was a tragic fight between two grown men, two flawed men, two imperfect men,” Nunez said. “There was no intention to kill. This was a spontaneous fight.”
Acquitting her client would be the “only just verdict,” she told the jury.
The prosecutor countered that Creech — who was taking growth hormones at the time and was an ex-con free on bail — could “kill with his bare hands” and “deliberately, viciously, intently delivered murderous blows to Gavin Smith repeatedly, which resulted in Gavin Smith’s death.”
Grace said Creech and Cade had an “unconventional marriage” in which the two “both cheated on each other,” and that it was “essentially a countdown to murder” when Creech “first uttered the threat” in 2010 that he would kill Smith if he continued to see Cade.
Creech told the jury that he took “full accountability” for failing to call 911 after what he described as mutual combat or to seek help for Smith, who was a member of UCLA’s 1975 NCAA-winning basketball team under Coach John Wooden and had worked for 20th Century Fox for 18 years.
Creech testified that Smith threw the first punch, choked him and tried to gouge out his eye as the two men struggled inside Smith’s car — with the prosecutor later telling jurors that the injuries to Smith and Creech were “not consistent with self-defense” and that Creech’s subsequent actions demonstrated a “stunning consciousness of guilt.”
Creech could face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted of first-degree murder and if jurors find true the special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait. The jury can also consider the lesser offenses of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.
