murder of gavin smith. reporter: not guilty of first degree murder! but the jury wasn t done. guilty of the crime of voluntary manslaughter. reporter: the verdict, guilty of voluntary manslaughter. in other words, they believed john creech killed gavin smith in a moment of blind passion. i was devastated by the verdict. i am still devastated by the verdict because he did absolutely plan on murdering my husband and thought about it for years and did it. reporter: what about creech s friends jorge and stan, who helped creech cover up the killing? they both had significant criminal liability. so why weren t they charged? because we needed them to be able to tell the story about how this man was killed and what happened to him. reporter: so they both got immunity. same thing with chandrika, who helped burn bloody clothing and never called the police. it seems to me that everybody got deals and everybody got off.
welcome back. nearly three years after gavin smith s disappearance john creech was charged with his murder. police ble believe john carried out the killing as revenge with the affair with his wife khanchan c. one person could give the truth to them directly. so they figured out a way to get it. once again, here s keith morrison. reporter: detectives john o brien had a problem. an important witness who wouldn t talk, chandrika creech had clammed up. but there s more than one way to get a story. they found an associate of john creech s, someone who knew chandy. they convinced him to wear a wire and meet with her. it worked. do you want the whole story? yeah.
tryst, that is. met for sex or confident or something. quite a lot to learn from those phone records, but there was more. a third phone. john creech s phone. in the same spot, on the same night. and this was eerie, creech s phone seemed to be moving in sync with gavin s. john creech s phone and gavin smith s phone paralleled each other. together together. together. sometimes hitting off the exact same towers or parallel towers. wow. what was that like? that was an eye-opening moment. reporter: but when they interviewed john creech. he denied ever meeting gavin smith. he said he knew who he was, that he was having an affair with his wife in the past. reporter: so, despite their suspicions, there was not much police could do because one thing we didn t have was gavin smith. reporter: that is, they had no body.
reporter: him. the coroner soon confirmed it. after 2 1/2 years, here was the body of gavin smith. the clothing was still intact. and he had been wrapped in his own blanket that he had in the trunk of his car. reporter: the coroner also found the cause of death, and it was grim. blunt craniofacial trauma, that is multiple blows to his face. he was beaten to death. it was repeated hitting in order to do that much damage. very violent. reporter: there were also fractures to the right forearm. possibly defensive wounds. gavin had tried to fight, but clearly he was no match for his killer. whoever did this was strong, very strong. powerhouse gym was very gossipy. so if you told the wrong person something, your secret would be all over the gym. reporter: lauren, just 18 years old back then, asked us not to use her last name.
i threw it behind my house where i knew it would be all right. why would you do that, sir? why wouldn t you just leave it where it was? well, i can play armchair quarterback all day about things, but at the time it seemed like the right decision. reporter: creech admitted he made some wrong decisions too. like asking friends to help him dispose of gavin s phone and car and body. i take full accountability for everything after fact. if i could change it, i would. sir, actually you never took full accountability because you never came forward to the police, did you? not on advice of counsel, no, and i still take accountability for that. reporter: lisa smith was in the courtroom to hear creech s testimony. my skin was just crawling. it was really hard. it was really hard. he s a cruel man. reporter: jury deliberations stretched across two days. then, the verdict. we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant john creech not guilty of the crime of first de