lisa smith knew instantly, something must be wrong. her husband gavin was a dedicated father. nothing that would keep him from picking up his kid ever. reporter: because gavin was so good at these things, said his sister tara addeo, he was so impressive, so tall. you both got the tall gene, right? we did. whole family. whole family. reporter: gavin was the tallest, 6 6. he walked in a room, you noticed him. you wanted to gravitate to him. he was a magnet. reporter: he played basketball for legendary coach john wooden, ucla, 1975. he was a forward. it was wooden s final championship team. just to be on that team was pretty fantastic, it was a once in a lifetime. reporter: and then he drifted a bit. worked as a golf caddie and this being los angeles, and he a good-looking, towering athlete. people noticed him, movie people. they gave him a couple of roles.
phone, he said, that allowed him to track her phone and followed her only because he was worried, he said. and then he saw her car parked near gavin s and thought it best to talk to them, but he didn t sneak up on them, he said. so i knock on the hood of the car. was chandy sitting on the lap of this guy? she was sitting on his lap. they just kept talking, so i walked over to the passenger side door, and i knocked on the window. what did they do? chandy opened the door. and what did she say to you? what the [ bleep ] are you doing here? reporter: he started to argue with chandy, he said, and then gavin joined in. i walked around the door, and i m leaning down to tell him to mind his own business. as i m leaning down to tell him that is when he leaned up and punched me. he punched me. pulled me in by my sweater. put his hand up on my throat. he s choking me in my throat. reporter: it was gavin who threw that first punch, he said. so, of course, he fought back. do
it s a serious business, covering for a crime that awful. but chandy had a card to play. she agreed to testify. members and alternate members of the jury. reporter: and in june 2017, john creech went on trial. on the face of it, it looked like a solid case. the phone evidence, the coverup, the truly appalling crime scene in gavin s car. but did it add up to first degree murder? gavin smith had been dead five years. he was killed in his mercedes-benz in an act of almost stunning brutality. by the defendant john creech who s sitting here in the courtroom. this became gavin smith s tomb. reporter: but what happened wasn t merely an outburst of rage, said prosecutor bobby grace. no, he said. creech had been
Transcripts for MSNBC Morning Joe 20191225 11:21:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
the only way somebody doesn t look for you is if you already know definitively yeah. they re no longer living. and you must have a reason for knowing that. that s what i would assume. reporter: and it turned out lisa did know something, just not what tara suspected. there were secrets, which lisa and gavin kept hidden. i was the love of gavin s life. he adored me. our family was exactly what he wanted to have. he just got lost. reporter: lost. it all started in the early 80s, even before she met gavin, when he was a stuntman on the tv series remington steele. he played a shooting victim falling from a second story window. the stunt went wrong, and he broke his back. he would get pain pills for his back. so usually percocet, something like that for pain. when that didn t work anymore, he was prescribed oxycontin, and he was addicted to it.