Body of missing ex-UCLA basketball player found two years later
The body of former FOX executive and UCLA basketball player Gavin Smith was found on Oct. 26, two and a half years after the man disappeared and was declared legally dead.
The LA County Sheriff says Smith’s body was found by hikers in a shallow grave in Palmdale, which is in a northern part of the Los Angeles county and in a desert area.
Smith was last seen on May 1, 2012, when he left a friend’s home in Oak Park, Calif. His family reported him missing when he failed to show to pick his son up for school the next morning.
Smith had three children, including one son, Evan, who played basketball at USC. Smith had drug, marital and financial problems.
Initially classified as missing, Smith was declared dead in 2013 after his Mercedes was found and based on other information from witnesses.
Smith was a star basketball player for Van Nuys High School in the San Fernando Valley and played on the 1975 UCLA national championship team, which was John Wooden’s last year as the Bruins’ coach. Smith later transferred to Hawaii, where he set the school’s single-season record by averaging 23.4 points per game.
The LA Times reported Thursday that Smith “was likely killed at the direction of an individual and with the assistance of others experienced in violent crime.”
A man serving time on a drug charge has been connected to the case. It is believed that Smith and the incarcerated man’s wife were having an affair.
