LA police say missing Hollywood executive was likely slain

LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) - Detectives are investigating the disappearance of a Hollywood studio executive as a homicide 10 months after he vanished under suspicious circumstances, and are seeking the public's help in solving the high-profile case, authorities said on Thursday.

Gavin Smith, a 57-year-old film distribution executive for 20th Century Fox, was last seen on the night of May 1, 2012, driving in his black Mercedes Benz away from a friend's house in the community of Oak Park, north-west of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles (LA) County Sheriff's Department said in a statement that the Mercedes had been found in late February in a storage facility in Simi Valley, about 32.2km away by freeway.

The storage facility has been linked to a man currently being held at a LA County jail on an unrelated narcotics conviction, according to the sheriff's department.