Page 2 - Named Chandy News Today

Welcome back. nearly three years after gavin smiths 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, heres keith morrison. >> reporter: detectives john obrien had a problem. an important witness who wouldnt talk, chandrika creech had clammed up. but theres more than one way to get a story. the...

Meet chandy in there. they met her husband. his name was john, john creech. not pleasant. >> when they came out, they were both crying. >> reporter: they told their mom creech threatened to kill gavin if he didnt stay away from chandy. so 17 months later, he vanishes after calling chandy? lisa had a very bad feeling. >> everything changed right then for me. >> reporter: detectives were suspicious too. remember, chandy told them she didnt see gavin that night. but there was evidence to the contra...

Passenger seat. >> it looked like a body. it was just stiff, like a stick, you know, a long stick. >> and you said it was wrapped up? >> wrapped up in a blanket. >> reporter: eventually jorge got rid of gavins cell phone, but that very night, said the prosecutor, creech called a friend from the powerhouse gym, stan mcquay. >> he asked if he can come over and if he can park his car in my garage. >> was the body still in it at that point? >> yes. >> reporter: mcquay allows creech to keep the body ...

>> reporter: once chandy felt safe, she spilled it. all of it. how she and gavin met in secret at that secluded cul-de-sac, got close in gavins car. >> and then all of a sudden the door opened, and johnny just goes -- and i just like pushed myself out this way. got out the drivers side. >> reporter: creech burst in like a machine, said chandy. started slugging, wouldnt quit. >> and i was like, stop it, youre going to kill him -- i was like screaming my head off. and then he comes out of the car ...

Can be is all i can say about that. >> reporter: but if gavin was dead, and certainly it looked that way, where was his body? how did his car wind up in the storage locker? and above all, who would have wanted him dead? reina lim certainly seemed an unlikely suspect. she told them she had rented the storage unit for someone else. meanwhile, detectives looked further into chandys affair with gavin and discovered the two had met in rehab and in december 2010, less than two years before gavin disap...

All struggled with adridiction d serious financial problems. detectives were far from answers, but that would change when someone gave them a name that led to a crucial discovery. heres keith morrison with more. >> reporter: like it or not its a fact, an element of human nature. some people have affairs. some of them just flings and others a lot. as they poked through his life. one name kept popping up. chandy. her full name, chandrika creech. shed already told the detectives that she and gavin ...

Learned, gavin had been unfaithful to his wife, had been seeing a woman named melanie, and now that gavin had disappeared without a trace -- >> we went to talk to her and to see if she had any information. >> did she? >> no. the relationship had ended, and she had not talked to him, and she had no idea where he was at. >> reporter: but though melanie was the reason gavin moved out of his house a month before he vanished, she was not his first affair. there had also been a woman named chandy. tha...

>> and did that upset you? >> very much so. >> reporter: so weeks later, two men arrived with a trailer. >> and did you watch them take the mercedes out of your garage? >> yes, i did. >> reporter: that, said prosecutor grace, is when they moved the mercedes into reinas storage locker. where, months later, detective labbe noticed one crucial little detail that survived the attempted cover-up. >> i was looking at the license plate, and i see that its not there. there should be a california license...

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 gavins and thought it best to talk to them, but he didnt 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 ...

Its 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 gavins 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....