Craig Smith saved the planet, did you? He died for a righteous cause
From the start I’d always held out hope that this story would have a happy ending. That if only I could find Craig Smith, I could help him get his life back on track: get him the medical help he needed, reconnect him with his songwriting royalties, arrange for legal reissues of all of his music.
Mike Medina and I had even fantasized about a benefit concert for Craig, maybe at the Troubadour, with a variety of new and old artists performing his music. The evening would end with Craig himself nervously mounting the stage to perform a few of his songs, and against all odds pulling it off. His old friends would be there looking on—Chris, Marvel, Heather, Jason, Suzannah, Nez, Bruce, Michael Storm, David Jackson, Cheryl. Grown men would be seen to weep discreetly as Craig’s voice once again filled the room. A good old-fashioned Hollywood ending.
But in the real world there are no good old-fashioned Hollywood endings anymore. There never were. At least not like you see in the movies.
Craig Smith’s body was found in North Hollywood Park, where he’d been living, on and off, for many years. The same park where he and Cheryl used to take walks. The same park where she had once run away from.
At the northeast corner of the park, along Chandler Boulevard, is the North Hollywood Community Center. Also known as the North Hollywood Recreation Center, it’s a group of buildings and facilities including a gymnasium, tennis courts and a swimming pool. A tall steel flagpole stands near the center of an expanse of concrete near the entrance to the main Community Center building. Two brick walls, about two feet high, snake around it, marking out a zigzag pathway. It was here, on the afternoon of March 16th, that Craig laid his sleeping bag on the concrete at the base of the flagpole and lay down to sleep. The walls offered some minimal concealment from pedestrians and passing patrol cars, which is presumably why he chose the hard concrete to bed down on rather than any of the park’s grassy areas. Perhaps he no longer cared. Smith’s health had been in a poor state for many months; he’d lost a lot of weight.
According to the coroner’s report, at 4:50 p.m. an anonymous citizen noticed the body of what appeared to be a homeless man lying partially in a sleeping bag near the flagpole, and dialed 9-1-1. An emergency vehicle from the Los Angeles City Fire Department arrived at the location within three minutes and pronounced the subject dead. Police reported the case to the coroner’s office, and an investigator visited the scene at 7:10. “At the time of the scene investigation, there was no available information as to who the decedent was or his medical history,” noted his report.
Craig was wearing a blue and white jacket, a white T-shirt, green pants, white socks and white sneakers. At 7:20 p.m. his body was still warm to the touch and there were no signs of rigor mortis. “The decedent’s hygiene is very poor,” noted the scene investigator, “he is filthy. He is very thin with no obvious signs of trauma noted. Brown plaques were noted to the tongue.”
An autopsy was performed the next day, and the cause of death was determined to be bronchopneumonia, group B streptococcus. The coroner noted that there was thick green pus in Craig’s bronchi, trachea and the small airways of his lungs. A toxicology report showed no traces of drugs or alcohol, and there were no injuries to the body. “The manner of death is natural,” concluded the medical examiner.
Natural. Just another day on the streets of L.A.
Craig Smith was 66 years old. The L.A. Coroner’s office was unable to locate his next of kin so his remains were cremated and held at the L.A. County Crematory. If unclaimed after three years they would be buried in a common grave. I wanted to save Craig at least that final indignity. His family had resisted any attempts at contact. I was told they had nothing they wanted to say about Craig. Nevertheless, through a friend of a friend we were able to get word to them. A few days later Craig’s remains were listed as “released.” The assumption that his family had collected Craig’s remains gave me some small sense of relief. However, my assumption was misguided. The coroner’s office later told me that one of his brothers had stopped by to collect Craig’s meager belongings—ID cards, keys, a notebook, miscellaneous papers—but had declined to take his ashes.
Craig’s death shook me. It shook me to the core. For a long time I struggled to find something positive to take from this experience. Had my search just been a colossal waste of time? If I had acted more quickly and decisively could the outcome have been different?
And what about Craig himself? What he had done to his mother was terrible; he’d brought untold distress and heartache to his family. But it still tore me up that a man who had once had so much talent and promise could die alone and unloved under such cruel circumstances. That his remains would continue to sit on a shelf unclaimed.