Hello, welcome to dateline. Gavin smith was a larger than life kind of guy who lived life to the fullest. He was not the type that fled quietly into the night. So when he suddenly left without a trace, gavins life was wondering why his wife lisa wasnt doing more to find him. The years would force lisa to reveal and uncover painful secrets about her husband and their marriage. Heres Keith Morrison with dark valley. Reporter there is a kind of peace here, here in her own chosen exile the vast pacific for company. How else to live with whats impoble to understand . Or forget . What began that sunny afternoon, far away in Southern California san fernando valley, early may, 2012. Something was really wrong, but a lot were wrong than i could imagine. Reporter it was the boy who knew at first, knew something was wrong. His dad was supposed to take him to school that morning. But after school i was to go to school and pick him up after basketball practice. When i showed up, he said, daddy didnt pick me up this morning. I said, what . He said, daddy didnt pick me up this morning. Reporter busy family, the boy got to school some other way around the corner. He said he got a ride by someone else. The situation sounded too crazy, love affairs, drug dealers, too outlandish. Reporter once those stable loving piece versus blown apart, how do they come towing again in. Somebody is going to walk away from this who maybe you wish wasnt going to walk away . Exactly. How do people sleep at night . How do they live with themselves . Reporter but that afternoon, lisa smith knew instantly, something must be wrong. Her husband gavin was a dedicated father. Nothing would keep him from his kids ever. Reporter because gavin was so good at these things, his sister, he was so impressive, so tall. He broke out the tall gene . We did. Reporter whole family in. Whom family. Reporter gavin was the tallest, 6 6. He walked in the room, you wanted to gravitate to him. He was like a magnet. Reporter he played at ucla 1975, he was a forward. It was the 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 and he got the bug. Reporter the acting bug. First as a body double back on the Basketball Court in the movie inside moves. Then as a bartender in cob. Congrats, al. Reporter when he met lisa, he was acting, but also waiting tables. He twimpgled. He was just charming. I was thrilled that he asked me for my number. Reporter they married, had three sons together and with a growing family to support, gavin gave up acting and took a job on the business side of 20th century fox eventually as a Film Distribution executive. Fox is a Wonderful Company to work for. He loved it, it was film. Reporter the first place lisa called when gavin failed to pick up his son. They told me he never shown up to work. Gavin in 18 years never shown up to work. Reporter now lisa very worried now went to the sheriffs station to report gavin missing and waited and waited. Days later, gavins family went on nbc 4 in los angeles to plead for help. Im not going as to stop until i find him. So please help me find him. You guys want to pick one of these streets. Now im in panic mode. We got to do something. Reporter what did it feel like to be in that spot . Oh, it was surreal. Reporter the smith family put together a 20,000 reward for any information leading to gavins whereabouts. Nothing turned up. I would think that every hour that went by, you would be more dire and darker for you, right . Its very dark. Its very, very dark. Reporter it wasnt just the family having dark thoughts. They dont normally call a couple seasoned homicide detectives to look into a missing person. They do when there is some suspicious circumstances. Reporter and in this case, they called in sheriffs detectives tyla bay and his partner john obrien. His phone was missing. There was no use of it. We checked his Bank Accounts from the time he was missing. We checked his medical insurance to see if he check into a hospital. That never showed any activity. He was completely dropped youve the face of the earth. Reporter but then, out of nowhere, a sighting. Hundreds of miles north of los angeles, a businessman visiting the Central Coast says he saw gavin smith and a beautiful woman at a cash only theco restaurant in morro bay. I happened to click on the living and saw the photo and said, oh boy. Reporter the waitress corroborated the story. He was sitting right here, she was sitting right there. Reporter his sister raced up the coast to the restaurant. I said, heres my brothers pick. Did you see him . Reporter and . No that was truly heart breaking to me. Reporter it was all a big mistake. But it wasnt the last of the sightings. People seem to see gavin smith everywhere. Because he kind of stand out in the photo, big white smile, tan face, tall guy, pretty much every tall, tan, blond haired man was getting responsibilitied as being gavin smith. Reporter weeks, months passed. No sign of gavin. There was no answers. Lisa was forced to reveal something publicly. Something painful. And maybe crucial. Coming up, what had happened to gavin smith . It didnt make sense to me. We said, i think this is a suicide. Then we go, i this i this is a murder. Our gut instincts were going different ways. Reporter you wondered if she had something to do with this in. It crossed our minds all the time. Somehow it kept playing back, why wont you search . When dateline continues. Introducing the allnew chevy silverado. With fifty industryfirsts. 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And every size has our leakguard braid for backup protection. Find your flow combo with tampax. Gavin smith as just about anybody could see was his familys golden boy. His sister tara grew up in his aura, id olize him. He of all people should not just up and vanish. It didnt make sense to me. And so i just kept, no, it cant be. It cant be. I just kept hoping. I did everything i could. Reporter but even as she ran down lead, herself, it seem to tara that lisa, her sisterinlaw, gavins wife, wasnt searching. So he disappeared and you couldnt give up on the possibly hes out there somewhere and lisa could. And i wondered whether there were ever dark nights in your soul, i wonder if she had something to do with this. It crossed our mind all the time, i mean, it just did, did i think she could ever be the one responsible the physical, no, but somehow it kept playing back, why wont you search . Why . The only way somebody doesnt look for you is if you already know definitively. Reporter yeah. Theyre no longer living. Reporter and you must have had a reason for that in. Thats what i assume. Reporter it turned out lisa did know something, just not what tara expected. There were secrets they had. He adored me, our family was exactly what he wanted to have. It just got lost. Reporter lost. It all started in the early 80s even before she met gavin when he was a stunt man on the tv series reming on the steel. He played a shooting victim, falling from a second story window. The stunt went wrong and he broke his back. He would take pain pills for his back. So usually percocet, Something Like that for pain. When that didnt work anymore, he was prescribed oxycontin. And he was addicted to it. Reporter he went to a Drug Rehab Center called the Matrix Institute here in the san fernando veal. He clearly stopped using. He was feeling healthier than he felt in years. Reporter but when detective john obrien and tyla bay heard about his addiction, they had a raft of answers. We would have moments in the car where we looked at each other and said, i think this is a suicide and then an hour later, wed interview somebody and something would happen and wed go i think this was a murder and our feelings and our gut instincts were going different ways very early on very fast. Reporter thats got to be soar unusual. It was very confusing. Reporter confusing to lisa, too. Because here was another secret. The smiths were under water on their mortgage on the verge of losing their home. We were in a horrible position financially. Reporter lisa discovered before he disappeared, gavin had been taking money from his retirement account and recklessly blowing through his six figure salary and there were other signs of strain in the family. In april, 2012, a month before gavin disappeared, his son evan wrote this message on twitter. Thoughts and prayers out to my amazing mom and brothers, please. My dad decided to leave the family last night. Real family sticks together. Sister tara spoke with gavin at the time. He was struggling with losing what he had come to know and love for so many years and that was tis family unit. And he didnt want to hurt those boys and thats what he kept saying. I dont want to be without them. Reporter but as much as he loved his boys, detectives 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 to see if she had any information in. Reporter did she . No, their relationship had ended. She did not talk to him. She had no idea where he was at. Reporter but, though melanie was the reason gavin moved out of his house the month before she vanished, she was not he is first afavorite. There had also been a woman named chandy, it was years in the past, but phone record show he called her may 1st, a day before he disappeared. Cops tracked her down, too. What did she tell you . Sheing a only inned the prior affair and said she had not been in contact for some time and they had been talking via email. Reporter she says she hasnt heard from him since. Last sighting a colleague saw him driving his black mercedes. We felt the vehicle was still out there somewhere. Reporter so find the car and maybe find out what happened to gavin. And nine months after gavin vanished, they finally got the break they were looking for. I said, im here to talk to you about your daughter and he started crying and he said, she saw everything. Coming up. She was very nervous and startled. A new witness and a game changer of a clue. I kissed my partner on the cheek, it was pretty exciting. It was a big moment. You think you cant be shocked but you can be. When dateline continues. At comcast, we didnt build the nations largest gigspeed network just to make businesses run faster. We built it to help them go beyond. Because beyond risk. Welcome to the neighborhood, guys. There is reward. Beyond work and life. Who else could he be . There is the moment. Beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Reporter like it or not, its a fact. An element of human nature remember some people have affairs. Some of them just flings. Others a lot more. Around as detective tyla bay poked through gavins life, one name kept popping up. Chandy. Her full name chandrika remember and she says they had ap affair years earlier and he called her but now nine month after he disappeared. Detectives got a tip. Her father knew more. Her dad started telling the tale something his daughter may have seen and he was distraught and wanted to talk about i. You know rayna. He says, yeah, i know the name. She lived with chandy and she said she knew something, something important. And he goes i think she knows where the car is. Reporter the elusive mercedes. Detectives drove out to see reyna. We waited until she showed up. We kind of surprised her. Reporter its what you guys do in. You know, sometimes it works better that way, yeah. She was nervous and startled. Ultimately she provided us the paper for the storm locker. Reporter reynas storm locker, it was a big one, ten feet by 20. We rolled the door up. The only thing in it was a black Mercedes Benz with no license plate on it. Wow. A huge moment. Reporter a black mercedes van had to be gavin smith. I kissed my partner on the cheek. That itself a true story. It was big piece of evidence. When we were able to get closer and saw our entire crime scene in our opinion was in that car. Reporter crime scene, yes, suddenly all other theories seemed to fall away. The passengers seat was completely covered in blood and at one point it was very eerie where you looked at the blood and you can see a hand mark of gavin smith as he died in that seat. Reporter soon the news reached the family. Tara devastated. There is no going back from that . There is no going back. Reporter you accepted it . You know, youre forced. You know trauma happens to people all the time. You dont think its going to happen to you. But it does. You know when you already expect the worst, you think that you cant be shocked, but you 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 wiped up in the storm locker and above all, who would have wanted him dead . Reyna lyn seemed an unlikely suspect. She tells them she rented the storm unit for someone else. Meanwhile, they looked into the affair with gavin with chandy and discovered they met in rehab. Less than two years before gavin disappeared, lisa found out about it. I was heart broken. Reporter so she took an extreme step to save her family. She and two of her sons then 14 and 20 went to the house to speak to them family to family. I was upset when we were driving there, so i stayed in the car and let my sons go in the house. Reporter but 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 doesnt stay. Though 17 months later he disappears, lisa had a 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 contrary. Cell phone record showed gavins phone and chandies were in the same place that night. A little triopening lakes narrowed down just where in. We came down this street and this was the likely spot. Reporter a likely spot for a tryst, that is . So it seemed on the night he disappeared he met Chandrika Creech for sex for cost or to talk. Something. Quite a lot to learn from those phone record. But there was more. A third phone. John creechs phone in the same spot on the same night and this was eerie. Creechs phone seemed to be moving in sync with gavins. Gavin myth and john creech were running parallel. Reporter what was that like . It was an eye opening moment. Reporter but when they interviewed john creech. He denied ev knowing meeting him. He said he knew who he was. He knew they were having an affair in the past. Despite suspicion there was nothing they could do. One thing we didnt have was gavin smith. Reporter that is, they had no body, no what i to prove who killed gavin or that there was a murder at all. That is until a dog named buddy went for a walk. A real life doggy detective who makes a deadly discovery on a deserted trail. Coming up im already stopped, its like, wow, what is it . That looks pretty australian him. And a young woman finally finds herself in the middle of this mystery. I discovered he had scrapes on his hand and on his arms. When dateline continues. 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There was also a person of interest, the jealous husband of the woman gavin was having an affair with. But there was still no bodies in the an inquisitive dog buddy bounded onto the scene. Heres Keith Morrison with dark valley. Reporter rocky rama liked to drive his truck up to the outskirts of the Angeles National forest, a place where people tend to toss things like ol tvs, maybe some furniture. Rocky liked to poke around up here. Always with his dog buddy by his side. In october, 2014, they were just five minutes into their hike when something curious happened. We were walking up this little area right here and he runs to a bush and i go, buddy, stop. And hes just looking at the bush. He wont leave