Speaker 1: Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: You see stars, you feel giddy, but sometimes that makes
Speaker 1: you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
Speaker 1: because the story starts out with Once upon a Times
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
Speaker 1: and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Today's guests are true crime producer Jeff Shane and journalist
Speaker 1: and podcast host Connor Powell. Connor is a journalist and
Speaker 1: podcast host whose latest podcast is Lords of Soccer, How
Speaker 1: FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game and the Largest corruption scandal
Speaker 1: in the World. He's also host of Katie Studio's upcoming podcast,
Speaker 1: Death Island. You can follow Connor on Twitter at Connor M. Powell.
Speaker 1: Episode forty four, The Case of the Cheaters, The Family Affair,
Speaker 1: and the Fallen Star. At six ft seven, Gavin Smith
Speaker 1: was a strikingly handsome man with blonde hair and a
Speaker 1: killer smile. When he walked into a room, all eyes
Speaker 1: were on him. Women wanted to be with him and
Speaker 1: men wanted to be him. But despite the attention, Gavin
Speaker 1: remained humble. He was a generous and kind man who
Speaker 1: would give you the shirt off his back. In January,
Speaker 1: at twenty three years old, he was working as a
Speaker 1: waiter at an upscale restaurant in Los Angeles. That's when
Speaker 1: he met Lisa. Lisa, like Gavin, had blonde hair and
Speaker 1: tan skin. They looked like kenn and Barbie. Gavin was
Speaker 1: immediately attracted to Lisa and flirted with her as he
Speaker 1: served dinner. By the time the check came, he got
Speaker 1: her number and her heart. The couple had a fast romance,
Speaker 1: getting engaged as five months later and were married in
Speaker 1: November the same year. Lisa owned her own accounting firm
Speaker 1: and was the breadwinner for the couple, while John served
Speaker 1: as golf caddy and acted in bit parts in movies.
Speaker 1: Lisa worked full time and gave birth to three sons.
Speaker 1: By the time baby number three came, Gavin was thirty nine,
Speaker 1: and Lisa demanded that her husband get a real nine
Speaker 1: to five jobs so that he could help support their
Speaker 1: growing family. Gavin obliged, and, working a connection from the
Speaker 1: Ritzy golf course he caddied at, got an entry level
Speaker 1: position at twentieth Century Fox, making forty dollars a year,
Speaker 1: but his affability helped him rise in the ranks. Quickly,
Speaker 1: and he soon was a high powered, well respected film distributor.
Speaker 1: Lisa was able to sell her business and become a
Speaker 1: stay at home mom. Despite all the new responsibilities, Gavin
Speaker 1: still made time for his family. His boys, who were
Speaker 1: every bit as handsome and athletic as their dad, were
Speaker 1: the center of his universe. Living in a beautiful mansion
Speaker 1: in a Los Angeles suburb, Gavin Smith almost had it all.
Speaker 1: Here's Jeff. His job at Fox wasn't the first time
Speaker 1: Gavin had success. In college, she played basketball under the
Speaker 1: iconic coach John Wooden, and he was on the championship team,
Speaker 1: and you know, for anyone who knows basketball like this
Speaker 1: was a big deal. And it's no surprise that Gavin
Speaker 1: dreamt of playing in the NBA. But when he wasn't
Speaker 1: drafted after college, he was crushed and he ended up
Speaker 1: running off to the mountains for five or six days
Speaker 1: to cool off, and during this time no one knew
Speaker 1: where he was. But when he got back, he was
Speaker 1: flying back to his old self. So he really just
Speaker 1: needed that time to kind of decompress. And back in
Speaker 1: present day, it seemed that Gavin and Lisa really weren't
Speaker 1: doing as well as outside appearances may have led you
Speaker 1: to believe despite earning a hundred and eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year, the couple had bought their home at the
Speaker 1: height of the housing market, and the two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight financial really hurt them. They were living beyond their means.
Speaker 1: The market value of their home plunge to less than
Speaker 1: the balance ode on the mortgage, which meant they were
Speaker 1: completely underwater financially. So it's not a surprise that Gavin
Speaker 1: and Lisa were in the midst of trying to sell
Speaker 1: their house, Yeah, Connor, And to make matters worse, Gavin
Speaker 1: also wanted to retire from his cushy job at Fox
Speaker 1: and pursue acting again. His wife Lisa, though, was concerned
Speaker 1: that they literally couldn't afford to do that, and not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: the financial issues were causing a rift in the once
Speaker 1: idyllic relationship. Gavin and Lisa were in a bit of
Speaker 1: a dark place in their marriage and constantly getting into fights,
Speaker 1: and Gavin had even talked about being depressed. So Connor,
Speaker 1: in your podcast Lords of Soccer, you explore kind of
Speaker 1: the underbelly of soccer and how crime and corruption kind
Speaker 1: of has fallen into this world and in thinking about
Speaker 1: Gavin and his mediorc rise in college basketball and not
Speaker 1: being able to be draft it, what can you tell
Speaker 1: us about athletes frame of mind and their psyche after
Speaker 1: you know, being kind of celebrities in the college world
Speaker 1: and then falling into nothing after not getting drafted and
Speaker 1: going back to the start. Yeah, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: a guess as surprise that Gavin, you know, serve entered
Speaker 1: a dark period of his life after not getting drafted.
Speaker 1: He had played at u c. L A, which I
Speaker 1: mean in the nineteen seventies that was the epitome of sports,
Speaker 1: not only college sports, but just really sports in America,
Speaker 1: playing for John Wooden and not to get drafted. I mean,
Speaker 1: that would have been the end of his entire career.
Speaker 1: He had probably been playing basketball since he was a kid,
Speaker 1: practicing year round, being recruited by the top schools in
Speaker 1: the country, plane on a championship team, and then literally
Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye, you know, snap of
Speaker 1: the finger, it's over. There's no place to play if
Speaker 1: you don't get drafted out of college. So I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised he went dark and probably tried to have to,
Speaker 1: you know, reevaluate his life, and you know, he sounds
Speaker 1: like he stumbled into acting is something that he wanted
Speaker 1: to pursue, probably to try to grab onto that sort
Speaker 1: of rush of celebrity and fame and being held up
Speaker 1: on a pedestal. To make matters worse, Gavin had been
Speaker 1: dealing with a long standing back injury from his basketball days.
Speaker 1: Plagued with chronic discomfort, he was prescribed painkillers, which he
Speaker 1: soon got addicted to. While Gavin still managed to get
Speaker 1: to work every day, his addiction became out of control
Speaker 1: and Lesa begged him to go to rehab. Wanting to
Speaker 1: save his marriage, Gavin obliged and had its treatment in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. Like most things in his life, Gavin
Speaker 1: succeeded and was able to kick the habit. Here's connor. However,
Speaker 1: when he was in rehab, he picked up a new addiction,
Speaker 1: a thirty three year old woman named Shandrica Creech. Fifty
Speaker 1: seven year old Gavin had become a group leader at
Speaker 1: the rehab facility in Shandrica enrolled there for her alcohol problem.
Speaker 1: Always wanting to help others, Gavin took a liking to
Speaker 1: the assualt re Burnette, and by two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: their rehab relationship was getting hot and heavy. When Gavin
Speaker 1: got out of rehab, he continued seeing Shandraka behind Lisa's back. However,
Speaker 1: in July of two thousand and nine, Lisa became aware
Speaker 1: of the relationship and confronted her husband Gavin. The couple
Speaker 1: decided to go to counseling, and Lisa truly believed the
Speaker 1: affair was over. However, despite all of that, things really
Speaker 1: just weren't working in the marriage, and Gavin moved out
Speaker 1: of the family home. While Lisa was holding firm with Gavin,
Speaker 1: she was telling friends behind his back that she felt
Speaker 1: like they would ultimately get through their issues and for her,
Speaker 1: this move out was more of a scare tactic to
Speaker 1: put Davin back on the right track. Despite all that,
Speaker 1: the eldest son in the family was distraught, tweeting publicly
Speaker 1: quote thoughts and prayers out to my amazing mom and bros.
Speaker 1: Please my dad decided to leave the family last night.
Speaker 1: Real family sticks together end quote. And there was another problem,
Speaker 1: a big problem. Schandrica was also married to a man
Speaker 1: named John Creech. Now John was a former dealer turned
Speaker 1: steroid taking bodybuilder. It's not really the type of guy
Speaker 1: you want to mess with. John found out about the
Speaker 1: affair after seeing his wife's cell phone bill and was
Speaker 1: less forgiving. John got physical, roughing up Shandraka, shoving her
Speaker 1: and pushing her. It was bad enough that she had
Speaker 1: to end things with Gavin, and aside from being a
Speaker 1: wife beater, John was also not faithful to his wife.
Speaker 1: At the time Schandrico was with Gavin, forty two year
Speaker 1: old John was dating an eighteen year old Tye school senior.
Speaker 1: He was basically obsessed with this girl and would send
Speaker 1: her love sick texts like I don't want to come
Speaker 1: off with that guy to other people, you know, the
Speaker 1: older perv or something. Even though my slash our intentions
Speaker 1: are genuine, a lot of people won't see it that way.
Speaker 1: I like you because of you, not your age. I'm
Speaker 1: not giving up, I mean to me, Connor, this sounds
Speaker 1: like grooming at its finest. What do you make of
Speaker 1: kind of this weird sick love square because it's involving
Speaker 1: four people instead of three. I mean, John sounds like
Speaker 1: exactly the type of person you don't want to mess with.
Speaker 1: Right and and he's been a drug dealer, he's on steroids,
Speaker 1: he's grooming a young girl for a relationship that she
Speaker 1: probably isn't ready for, and he shouldn't be in not
Speaker 1: only because of his age, but also more importantly because
Speaker 1: he's married. So this is just not the type of
Speaker 1: situation that, if you are Gavin, that you want to
Speaker 1: get tangled up with. But it doesn't appear that he
Speaker 1: was willing to give up Shandrica, even despite all the
Speaker 1: baggage that she brought to the relationship, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's like they met and rehab, which maybe
Speaker 1: is a time when they were feeling especially vulnerable, and
Speaker 1: so they kind of lashed onto each other as kind
Speaker 1: of trauma survivors of we gave up this addiction and
Speaker 1: now we found each other, and that kind of seems
Speaker 1: like their new vice. Yeah, it was definitely a vice.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think anyone listen knows this isn't
Speaker 1: going to end well for anyone. And do you know anything,
Speaker 1: Honnor about steroids. I mean, having worked on a true
Speaker 1: crime podcast called Lords of Soccer about people in the
Speaker 1: sports world, I imagine you know, steroids come up and
Speaker 1: I've heard that it changes your personality. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us anything about what taking stories might do to someone's
Speaker 1: psyche or the way they handle rage. Yeah, steroids, Um,
Speaker 1: you know impact your body physically, presumably in a better
Speaker 1: way to make you stronger, fitter, faster, but they also
Speaker 1: mess with your chemical in your mind as well. And
Speaker 1: people who tell steroids are prone to anger, prone to
Speaker 1: fits of instability. And if you add that on to
Speaker 1: somebody who already has a criminal background, you know you're
Speaker 1: talking about a personality that is really not a stable
Speaker 1: personality and probably tends towards violence. On May second, Gavin
Speaker 1: was supposed to pick up his son and drive him
Speaker 1: to school, but he never showed up. Despite all the
Speaker 1: drama Gavin and Lisa had been through, he was always
Speaker 1: a present father. Bailing was just not like him. The
Speaker 1: boy had to get to school, so he called a
Speaker 1: friend and got a ride. By the end of the
Speaker 1: school day, Gavin was still not answering, so as son
Speaker 1: told Lisa, Lisa called Gavin's office, who told her he
Speaker 1: hadn't been at work. Now officially concerned, Lisa filed a
Speaker 1: missing person's report To understand what was happening with Gavin's disappearance.
Speaker 1: We should go back a couple of years. In December
Speaker 1: of two thousand and ten, Lisa and Gavin were trying
Speaker 1: to deal with his infidelity. Lisa had thought he had
Speaker 1: broken things off with his mistress, Sandrica, but Gavin broke
Speaker 1: the news to her that that was not in fact
Speaker 1: the case. He had recently rekindled things with the young woman,
Speaker 1: but it got worse. Shandrica's husband, John, also knew about
Speaker 1: the affair, and to say it was unhappy, it's probably
Speaker 1: a mild statement. Gavin showed Lisa some of the emails
Speaker 1: he had received from John. One of them read, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get you, Gavin, your wife is getting a copy
Speaker 1: of all these emails. Your fuck You'll prick. Gavin was pissed.
Speaker 1: Gavin told Lisa that John was a dangerous drug dealer
Speaker 1: who had threatened him. Gavin agreed to change his phone
Speaker 1: number and his email addresses. So let's just get this
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of different names and a lot
Speaker 1: of different players. Gavin and Lisa are married for a
Speaker 1: long time and have children together. Gavin goes to rehab
Speaker 1: and meets Sandrica and they start having an affair. It
Speaker 1: turns out Shandrica is married to a man named John
Speaker 1: who is this kind of would be criminal and Gavin
Speaker 1: tells his wife Lisa about the affair. She attempts to
Speaker 1: forgive him. John finds out about his wife Shandrica's affair
Speaker 1: and is pissed and starts texting Gavin the other man
Speaker 1: all these threatening things, and so at this time, Gavin
Speaker 1: then has to tell his wife Lisa about his affair
Speaker 1: and this threatening husband. I almost feel bad for Lisa's
Speaker 1: not only she finding out about the affair, which is
Speaker 1: bad enough and crushing, She's also finding out that the
Speaker 1: husband of the woman who her own husband is having
Speaker 1: an affair with seems to be a psychopath and is
Speaker 1: not stable and is threatening her husband John Yeah Connor.
Speaker 1: And it seems that she was maybe not thinking straight
Speaker 1: because what she did next is a little debatable. Lisa
Speaker 1: told her three sons about their father's infidelity and the
Speaker 1: situation with John. So what happened next was Lisa, her
Speaker 1: nineteen year old son, and her fourteen year old son
Speaker 1: decided to confront the situation and talk to John face
Speaker 1: to face. They were thinking that perhaps if they showed
Speaker 1: him that they too were hurt by this whole thing,
Speaker 1: that John would come down and leave the family alone.
Speaker 1: Who could be angry with two teenage boys. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the definition of not thinking clearly. Lisa tells
Speaker 1: your sons about the affair, which is understandable, but then
Speaker 1: she brings them to meet with John to try to
Speaker 1: stop him. This is the guy who's a drug dealing,
Speaker 1: steroid using and presumably very violent guy. This seems like
Speaker 1: a horrible choice in a series of bad decisions by
Speaker 1: several people. Lisa and her two teenage sons drove to
Speaker 1: John's house, and as Lisa waited in the car, the
Speaker 1: two boys knocked on his door, and according to these
Speaker 1: two teenagers, when they first introduced themselves to John, he
Speaker 1: was very angry. John told them he was furious with
Speaker 1: Gavin for sleeping with his wife Andrika. The two boys
Speaker 1: both cried, and the fourteen year old begged John not
Speaker 1: to hurt his dad. He allegedly told him, I'm in
Speaker 1: eighth grade. I'm too young to lose my dad. He
Speaker 1: went on to apologize for his dad's behavior at least
Speaker 1: a hundred times and pled for John not to hurt
Speaker 1: his family. John allegedly told the boys that he had
Speaker 1: been following Gavin and he knew where the kids went
Speaker 1: to school, but Towards the end of the conversation, John
Speaker 1: began to calm down a little bit, and he told
Speaker 1: the boys that by coming over and having this conversation,
Speaker 1: they had saved their father's life. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a break. We'll be back in just a moment. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, Gavin was missing. His family was
Speaker 1: hopeful that his disappearance was similar to when he went
Speaker 1: off the grid after not making the NBA, but things
Speaker 1: felt different this time. Aavn was now a father of
Speaker 1: three and had a good job. He wouldn't abandon his responsibilities.
Speaker 1: Lisa informed the detectives about his affair with Chandraca. They
Speaker 1: soon went to speak with her. When detectives arrived at
Speaker 1: her house, Sandrico wouldn't let them inside, but would speak
Speaker 1: to them on the porch. She admitted to the affair,
Speaker 1: but told them she had no idea where Gavin was.
Speaker 1: Detectives had a feeling that Shandrico wasn't being completely upfront
Speaker 1: with them, so they had an undercover informant bade her
Speaker 1: into telling the full story. It turns out Chandrika really
Speaker 1: wasn't honest with the police. During their first meeting, she
Speaker 1: told the informant a completely different story. According to her,
Speaker 1: on the last night Gavin was seen alive, on May first,
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, they had decided to meet up
Speaker 1: around eleven pm in a remote area of town to
Speaker 1: fool around. She got into Gavin's black Mercedes and sat
Speaker 1: on his lap on the passenger side of the car. Now,
Speaker 1: according to her, what happened next was that suddenly John
Speaker 1: showed up and pulled the door open. He had tracked
Speaker 1: her using the map function on their phones Family plan. Now,
Speaker 1: according to Chandrika, she jumped off of Gavin and the
Speaker 1: two men began yelling at each other. Before she knew it,
Speaker 1: John was on top of Gavin in the car, punching
Speaker 1: him repeatedly in the face, too many times to count,
Speaker 1: she said. As the beating continued, she could hear Gavin moaning,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't really moving. She allegedly yelled at John
Speaker 1: to stop and that he was going to kill Gavin,
Speaker 1: but he didn't, and so at this point, Schandrika was
Speaker 1: very scared, and she ran towards John's car and drove off.
Speaker 1: As she sped off, John allegedly yelled towards the car,
Speaker 1: you're next so Sandraca then went home, and later John
Speaker 1: showed up. He was covered in blood, his knuckles were
Speaker 1: all scratched up. John apparently told Schandrika they needed to
Speaker 1: go back to get Gavin and drive him to the hospital. Terrified,
Speaker 1: Chandrika listened, but when they arrived back at the scene,
Speaker 1: Gavin was dead. The couple drove back to their house
Speaker 1: and John started calling friends who thought would help them
Speaker 1: clean up the murder. Shandraca told the informant that somehow
Speaker 1: blood had gotten on her clothes, so she burned them
Speaker 1: in the fireplace along with John's and John ended up
Speaker 1: finding a friend who would let them part the car
Speaker 1: in his garage while Gavin's body was still inside it.
Speaker 1: So five days go by and John and Schondrica knew
Speaker 1: that they needed a better long term plan for the
Speaker 1: car and Gavin's body, so they ended up recruiting Shandrica's
Speaker 1: grandmother's home care aid to rent a storage unit and
Speaker 1: a U haul truck for them. The aid, for some reason,
Speaker 1: decided to go along with this and got them the
Speaker 1: storage unit and the truck, and John took Gavin's body
Speaker 1: about an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: to bury it. He then told the Mercedes with his
Speaker 1: truck to the storage unit and locked it up. So
Speaker 1: police had all this information from their undercover informant, but
Speaker 1: they needed the physical evidence before making any arrest, so
Speaker 1: they sat on the story, meaning that while they were
Speaker 1: investigating Gavin's family was still hoping he might be found alive,
Speaker 1: they were out searching form hanging up missing posters, pleading
Speaker 1: with a public for information. Almost a year went by
Speaker 1: and the police ended up getting a tip from Shandrica's
Speaker 1: grandmother's aid, the one who had rented the storage facility
Speaker 1: and the U haul. She told the cops about the
Speaker 1: storage facility and the bloody car inside of it. Perhaps
Speaker 1: she felt guilty about helping cover something up, but she
Speaker 1: also ended up getting full immunity before the information, so
Speaker 1: that probably helps offten the blow. Honnor, what do you
Speaker 1: make of the informants information? I mean, how much in
Speaker 1: your experience can police trust what an informant tells them
Speaker 1: about a possible criminal So, as I learned doing the
Speaker 1: Lords of Soccer podcasts about FIFA's corruption, um, you know,
Speaker 1: informants played a huge role in bringing this massive criminal
Speaker 1: corruption case against the guys who run global soccer, And
Speaker 1: it literally started with a guy named Chuck Blazer who
Speaker 1: didn't pay his US taxes. And when the prosecutors and
Speaker 1: the FBI went to Chuck Blazer and basically said, we
Speaker 1: know you're not paying taxes. We want you to flip
Speaker 1: on everybody and uh FIFA and basically tell us how
Speaker 1: they're all doing things dodgy. He was the key to
Speaker 1: that case. And in most cases, some type of informant
Speaker 1: or somebody flipping somebody who knows what's going on and
Speaker 1: gets a deal from a prosecutor. You know, that's really
Speaker 1: what ends up making a lot of these big cases
Speaker 1: and their key because you've got to have somebody who
Speaker 1: literally knows where the bodies are buried, and an informant
Speaker 1: like the grandmother's homemade you know, that's probably more valuable
Speaker 1: to the police in this situation than anything else. I
Speaker 1: guess with informants, it's kind of like the ends justify
Speaker 1: the means, and so if they can give a criminal
Speaker 1: some leeway and he or she provides the information, then
Speaker 1: the police can get an even bigger criminal who's committed
Speaker 1: to even worth crime. In March two thousand thirteen, police
Speaker 1: located the storage facility, and when they opened it, they
Speaker 1: found Gavin's blood soaked Mercedes. The car was a gruesome
Speaker 1: crime scene. Detectives found Gavin's skins stuck to the car's
Speaker 1: leather seat. They also identified bloodstains inside the Mercedes and
Speaker 1: on the rear bumper that matched Gavin's DNA. Despite the
Speaker 1: heartbreaking ending, Gavin's family could finally declare him dead. When
Speaker 1: Lisa found out, she was inconsolable, crying for ninety minutes straight.
Speaker 1: Even though their marriage had been crumbling, she still had
Speaker 1: love for him. Police still hadn't located Gavin's remains, which
Speaker 1: for them was the last piece of the puzzle they
Speaker 1: needed to charge John with murder. On October, two and
Speaker 1: a half years after disappearing, a hiker stumbled upon the
Speaker 1: skeletal remains of Gavin Smith. The medical examiner determined that
Speaker 1: the former movie executive had been badly beaten. The damage
Speaker 1: to his skull was equivalent to falling from a second
Speaker 1: story building face first. Finally, in January of two thousand
Speaker 1: and fifteen, John Creech was charged with first degree murder.
Speaker 1: Cops had an easy time finding them because he was
Speaker 1: already incarcerated for dealing drugs. Despite the damning evidence against him,
Speaker 1: John pleaded not guilty. All of his cohorts, including Shandrica,
Speaker 1: had made deals with the district attorney in exchange for
Speaker 1: their testimonies against John, they would receive full immunity. When
Speaker 1: Shandraka took the stand, she recounted the moment she watched
Speaker 1: her husband beat her lover Gavin to death. How many
Speaker 1: times did the definist strike John? Honestly too many times
Speaker 1: to count, doesn't She was asked why she didn't come
Speaker 1: forward with the information earlier. This was her answer, why
Speaker 1: didn't you go and tell anybody about it? Because I
Speaker 1: thought I'd get in trouble for telling them later instead
Speaker 1: of immediately. So, Connor, I mean, do you buy the
Speaker 1: fact that she says she was afraid. What's your take
Speaker 1: on her testimony. I don't doubt that she was afraid.
Speaker 1: It seems like she may have been more of a
Speaker 1: willing participant than she said on the stand. You know,
Speaker 1: she did help cover up the murderer. She did help
Speaker 1: hide it. She also appears to have basically worked with
Speaker 1: him over a long period of time to make sure,
Speaker 1: you know that the body stayed covered up, you know,
Speaker 1: and hidden and that the vehicle stayed hidden and they
Speaker 1: cleaned up. She burned her own clothes and burned John's clothes,
Speaker 1: So she was a much more active participant than she
Speaker 1: likes to say. But I don't doubt that she was
Speaker 1: also scared for her life. What is the line between
Speaker 1: being scared for your life and helping cover something up willingly?
Speaker 1: Only she would know that. But it does seem like
Speaker 1: she was way more participant of this murder than, you know,
Speaker 1: than she wants to admit to herself, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: even if we believe this story that she told the
Speaker 1: informat fully, she got in a vehicle and was by
Speaker 1: herself and willingly went home to wait for John. I mean,
Speaker 1: she could have gone straight to a police station, she
Speaker 1: could have called the police, but instead she decided to
Speaker 1: just kind of go along with it willingly. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that's really the thing is in that first seconds,
Speaker 1: if you cared about Gavin, he would think somebody like
Speaker 1: Shandrico would call an ambulance, go to the police immediately.
Speaker 1: But she went home where that's the most obvious place
Speaker 1: that John's gonna look for her. Right, So it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like she was doing anything out of concern or
Speaker 1: care for Gavin. It was simply I'm gonna go home
Speaker 1: and deal with the problem that they're now facing. So
Speaker 1: John also took the stand to try to defend himself.
Speaker 1: Here he is, have a listen. It was a quick sequence,
Speaker 1: like he pulled stuck up right there and he's just
Speaker 1: penning my head against it. Even he's got a long
Speaker 1: reach and he just penning my head up against the ceiling.
Speaker 1: And at that point is when I pressed off. I
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, I just went in to
Speaker 1: you know, fight or flight mode. And at that point
Speaker 1: when he especially when he bit down to my thumb,
Speaker 1: I really tripped out. But the prosecution countered with a
Speaker 1: witness who saw John after the murder. The witness said
Speaker 1: that John's hand was swollen roughly twice the size of
Speaker 1: its normal hand size, and he had no other injuries
Speaker 1: on his face, which would imply he had been the
Speaker 1: one doing all of the hitting. Other witnesses also spoke
Speaker 1: about how Gavin was a peaceful man who wouldn't hurt anyone.
Speaker 1: Having covered a fair amount of true crime over your career,
Speaker 1: what do you make of someone just throwing out the
Speaker 1: self defense defense. Well, there's probably some truth to self
Speaker 1: defense in a lot of cases, but it seems as
Speaker 1: if John was sort of hunting Gavin, hunting his family.
Speaker 1: He obviously followed Shandrika to her meet up with Gavin,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't appear that he suffered any bodily harm
Speaker 1: in the altercation with Gavin. So it's hard to say
Speaker 1: that that's self defenses. I think most people would recognize
Speaker 1: and understand self defense. It sounds like he was essentially
Speaker 1: stalking him, he had made threats against him, and then
Speaker 1: he essentially beat him to death. Let's stop here for
Speaker 1: another break. As both the prosecution and defense rested, the
Speaker 1: jury was faced with a choice of first degree murder,
Speaker 1: second degree murder, or voluntary manslaughter. After less than one
Speaker 1: hour of deliberating, nine women and three men acquitted John
Speaker 1: on the first two charges. John was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Speaker 1: For Gavin's family, it was a devastating blow. Voluntary manslaughter
Speaker 1: meant that the jury believed that the murder was not premeditated,
Speaker 1: but rather a crime of passion. It only carried a
Speaker 1: maximum sentence of eleven years. At the sentencing hearing, Lisa
Speaker 1: made an impassioned speech, this man chats wife with my
Speaker 1: husband being dead in a car, leaving had car for
Speaker 1: days and someone else's stands like the body man and
Speaker 1: the queen's house, traces him into a van. Please about
Speaker 1: to a desert, complains on the stand about his four
Speaker 1: biceps and having to dray right less than twenty five
Speaker 1: yards and being into death and then he couldn't get
Speaker 1: down in there because he hadn't dug it deep enough.
Speaker 1: Because my bodies that my husband's body was in bad
Speaker 1: condition of day sex. He killed him. I would have
Speaker 1: been a worse in the world. But no, he hadn't
Speaker 1: take him high him. He wanted us to never ever
Speaker 1: find And I hope that he his life for the
Speaker 1: drug conviction, felloy, federal file and jet file, and I
Speaker 1: hope he said the rest of his life and pritty.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't be a moss, needs to be at walls
Speaker 1: like an animal that he is. The judge handed John
Speaker 1: the maximum eleven year sentence. He will be eligible for
Speaker 1: parole in January. Connor, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Tell us again about your podcast Lords of Soccer and
Speaker 1: where we can find it. Yeah, if you like true
Speaker 1: crime stories, this is the mother of all true crime
Speaker 1: and corruption stories. It's a global corruption scandal that started
Speaker 1: decades ago with essentially a few people who ran global
Speaker 1: soccer again. It's called The Lords of Soccer, How FIFA
Speaker 1: Stole the Beautiful Game, And it's available everywhere you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Connor, you are also hosting Katie Studios upcoming
Speaker 1: podcast Death Island. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about that? Yeah? And this is another just sort of
Speaker 1: incredible story. It's all about an island in Thailand called
Speaker 1: koto which, on the surface seems like a beautiful diving paradise,
Speaker 1: crystal clear waters, you know, perfect beaches. But over the
Speaker 1: course of the last twenty years, there have been just
Speaker 1: a string of deadly, grizzly death. Some of them are
Speaker 1: very clearly murder, some of them could be accidents. Some
Speaker 1: of them we don't know. And the problem and the
Speaker 1: reason we don't know, and the reason we're looking into
Speaker 1: Kotao and the people who run this island is it's
Speaker 1: run by mafia like figures, a small group of people
Speaker 1: who basically want to keep the party going and the
Speaker 1: money flowing. And so anytime somebody dies there, whether it's
Speaker 1: clearly a murder or an accident, it just all gets
Speaker 1: brushed the side and blamed on somebody who isn't going
Speaker 1: to prevent the good times the money from flowing onto
Speaker 1: this island. And it's basically a mafia run island that
Speaker 1: has this horrible string of deaths and it's a really
Speaker 1: fascinating story and it's coming out this fall. Shameless plug.
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Speaker 1: and listen to season three of our hit series, The
Speaker 1: Piked and Massacre. Episodes there every Wednesday wherever you get
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Speaker 1: at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy in Love is produced by
Speaker 1: Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graeves and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound design by Jeff Ta. Crazy in Love
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios.
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