John Creech

Authorities have charged an alleged drug dealer for the murder of a former UCLA basketball player and Fox executive who went missing in May 2012.

It has been almost three years since Gavin Smith, 57, was last seen alive and four months since his skeletal remains were found by hikers in a shallow grave in the Angeles National Forest on October 26, 2014.

42-year-old John Lenzie Creech, a convicted drug dealer, was charged on Thursday while he was serving time behind bars on unrelated offenses, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Gavin Smith

Creech owned the storage facility in Simi Valley where Smith’s black Mercedes Benz was found in February 2013.

Smith was last seen on May1, 2012 leaving a friends house in Ventura County.

The father of three was also allegedly having an affair with Creech’s wife, whom he met in drug rehab in 2009.

Evidence recovered from the inside of Smith’s vehicle suggest he was killed inside and then dumped in the Angeles National Forest, according to a press conference last October given by Lt. Dave Dolson.

Creech is currently serving an eight-year jail sentence after pleading no contest to one count of sale or transportation of a controlled substance in September 2012, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

The case is still under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department but if he is convicted of the murder he faces 25 years to life in prison.