Prosecutor Bobby Grace News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

John creech was on the phone a lot. >> he was calling multiple people very intensely. >> so like three or four or five calls to the same person over and over. >> exactly. >> reporter: some of those calls were to creech's buddies from the powerhouse gym. >> we did a multi-location search warrant, and we hit everybody that we believed might have helped on that evening. we hit all those houses all at once. >> reporter: one by one, those buddies turned. they told detectives how a frantic creech showed up late that night. how he persuaded one friend to get rid of gavin's cell phone. got another fri...

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 gavin's 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 and the car at his house for five to six days. >> really? >> yes. >> reporter: and that's when cree...

>> i'm just thinking how in the [ bleep ] that i get in this situation. you know, i was scared for my life. >> reporter: and then gavin then got out of the mercedes, said creech. and there was something in his hand. >> it was like a ten to twelve-inch stainless steel thing that at the time i thought was a knife. we fell in the ground, and we went at it for about ten or fifteen seconds exchanging punches. >> at some point did you get that weapon? >> i kept punching him until he let go of it. >> okay. and what'd you do with the weapon? >> i threw it over the back wall of my property. >> reporter...

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....

>> john had gavin pinned down. >> reporter: later, she said, creech wanted her to drive him back to the crime scene, help him take gavin to the hospital. a block and a half away, she refused to go closer and dropped creech off. >> why didn't you take him all the way back to the scene? >> because i was afraid of what i would see. >> reporter: gavin was dead by then. and the prosecutor told the jury creech wasn't going to any hospital. he was setting out to recruit help for his cover-up. >> so the first person he calls is jorge valles. >> reporter: jorge valles was the first of a series of frien...