Kriti Mehrotra
When the decomposed body of Fox Studios executive Gavin Smith was found buried in a shallow grave nearly 2½ years following his disappearance in October 2014, it baffled the nation. That’s because, as carefully chronicled in Netflix’s ‘Homicide: Los Angeles: A Hollywood Affair,’ he was a revered professional and dedicated father despite his flaws, including having extramarital affairs. Little did anyone know it was actually his on-again-off-again romantic involvement with fellow married woman Chandrika “Chandy” Cade-Creech that inadvertently resulted in his demise.
Chandrika And Gavin Couldn’t Stay Away From One Another
It was reportedly back in 2008 when Chandrika first came across Gavin at a rehabilitation center called the Matrix shortly after they’d both joined for their respective severe addiction issues. While the former was struggling with alcohol abuse, the latter had trouble managing his pain medication (opiates) after years of self-administration for a back injury stemming from his early stuntman days. It turns out that this relative newlywed — she’d tied the knot with John Creech in 2007 — was initially just the 1989 married dad of three’s counseling group member, only to soon turn more.
However, things changed around a year later, in 2009, as Gavin’s wife Lisa found out about his affair with Chandrika and confronted him, driving him to call things off in the hopes of saving his family. But alas, according to the episode, this illicit couple couldn’t stay away for long as they re-started correspondence through e-mail in 2010, that is, until the latter again discovered his unfaithfulness. Yet this time around, she drove to the Creech household alongside two of her sons, where John almost immediately threatened the film executive’s life upon learning the whole truth himself.
As per court records, the ex-con had explicitly told Gavin’s young sons they had “saved” their “father’s life by coming here today,” indicating he could have gotten very violent in his bubbling rage. Nevertheless, by the time spring 2012 rolled around, the former and Chandrika had once again rekindled their romance, with a major difference being they were both estranged from their spouses. That’s not to say they weren’t still married because they were, leading John to use a cell phone with GPS to track them as they met in a secret spot in Hidden Hills around midnight on May 2, 2012.
Chandrika Creech Never Went to the Police, But She Did Testify Against John
Neither Chandrika nor Gavin knew that within moments of their secret rendezvous in the latter’s car, they’d get jumped by her estranged husband John, and that it would lead to a physical altercation. As per the former’s own accounts, her spouse had instantly, aggressively begun punching her lover in the face while she screamed before he shouted at her to shut up if she didn’t want to be next. “Honestly, [he punched him] too many times to count,” she later testified. “More than a dozen. [Gavin] wasn’t fighting back or anything. He wasn’t even pushing away. He wasn’t moving at all…”
That’s when Chandrika admittedly fled the scene in fear for her own life, yet she never asked any passerby for help or contacted the police even after the Smiths had worriedly reported Gavin missing. She testified during John’s 2017 trial that she thought she would “get in trouble for telling [authorities the entire ordeal] later instead of immediately,” which is why she never attempted even when they questioned her. Furthermore, she alleged her other reason was the fact she was terrified of John — “[he was] just really rough with me. Just hustling me around and hitting me in the face,” so she didn’t leave him either.
In fact, as per the aforementioned original, Chandrika apparently didn’t even know what her husband did for a living until he was arrested and convicted on unrelated drug charges in October 2012. It was only then she seemingly attempted to move on in life, just for investigators to uncover the affair as well as other crumbs of evidence that eventually tied both her plus John to the crime scene.
In the end, Chandrika testified under total immunity that she knew her spouse had enlisted the help of acquaintances and friends to hide his actions, but to no avail, as Gavin’s body was discovered in 2014. So, with her statements, John was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on July 3, 2017, following which she has preferred to keep both her personal and professional life well away from the limelight.
Read More: Tara Addeo and Lisa Smith: Where Are Gavin Smith’s Sister and Wife Now?
