Belushi Case
After Lightfoot and The Band, around 1976 Smith became a backup singer for Hoyt Axton, who was struggling with cocaine addiction at the time. She sang on his song "Fearless" (1976) and co-wrote "Flash of Fire" with Axton (1976).
Smith became involved with heroin use in the late 1970s. In Bob Woodward's Wired, she appears as a drug dealer to Rolling Stones band members Ron Wood and Keith Richards during their touring and rehearsals as The New Barbarians. She moved to Los Angeles and as her addiction increased she became a full-time drug dealer and courier to Wood, Richards and others in the entertainment world. Smith first met comedian John Belushi on the set of Saturday Night Live in 1976 when The Band were the musical guests.
She later met Belushi again through Wood and Richards and was contacted by Belushi to purchase the drugs that eventually killed him. Smith alleges that she injected Belushi with 83 speedballs (a combination of cocaine and heroin) at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, California in 1982, and that this injection led to his death. According to Woodward, Robin Williams was on the scene at the time, and was "creeped out" by Smith, whom he thought to be a "lowlife". Belushi had been battling cocaine addiction for years. He was not a heroin addict, though he had used the drug infrequently before his death.
Released after initial questioning on the morning of Belushi's death, Smith spoke briefly to freelance writer Chris Van Ness. Then, two National Enquirer reporters, Tony Brenna and Larry Haley, spoke with her and published their lengthy in-person interviews with her under the headline: "I killed John Belushi. I didn't mean to, but I am responsible." This led to the charge against Smith in Belushi's murder and 13 counts of administering cocaine and heroin. The National Enquirer reporters refused to testify at the subsequent trial and were threatened with incarceration by Judge Brian Crahan; however, he later vacated the contempt order.
Smith eventually returned to the United States, in June 1986 where she accepted a plea bargain by "plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and several drug charges". She served 15 months in prison at California Institution for Women between December 1986 and March 1988. She was deported to Canada after release and moved to Toronto "where she worked as a legal secretary and spoke to teenagers about the dangers of drugs".
Smith was arrested in July 1991 "with two grams of heroin in her purse" in Vancouver, British Columbia, for which she received a fine of CDN$2000 and "12 months' probation". She appeared in the E! television network show True Hollywood Story episode on Belushi's death which first aired in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Cathy Smith
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