‘It Was My Fault,’ Smith Says on Tape

Cathy Evelyn Smith told a free-lance writer in a tape-recorded interview played in court Friday that she was to blame for comedian John Belushi’s drug overdose death.

“They’re probably right . . . It’s all my fault,” Smith said in a gravelly voice on the May 23, 1982, recording, which was surrendered to Municipal Court on Thursday by free-lance writer Christopher Van Ness.

Smith told Van Ness that she spent most of the last five days of Belushi’s life with him at a Hollywood hotel, where his body was found on March 5, 1982.

“Every time he did anything, it was when I was around,” she said. “I did it for him.”

‘Shooting Him Up?’

“Were you shooting him up? Is that what was happening?” Van Ness asked.

“Yeah,” Smith answered.

During the last 24 hours of his life, Belushi took drugs “maybe 20 times . . . it never stopped,” Smith said. But when she left him for the final time, “he was fine. It wasn’t an overdose as far as I know.”

Smith is charged with second-degree murder. The tape was played during a preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for a Superior Court trial.

Attorney Denies Harm

Outside court, Smith’s attorney, Howard L. Weitzman, said the tape would do no harm. He said it substantiates his client’s claim that, although she repeatedly helped Belushi to “shoot up” with cocaine and heroin, she could not have administered the fatal dose.

But prosecutors said the tape strengthens their case.

After Van Ness continually refused to surrender the tape, Los Angeles Municipal Judge James F. Nelson cited him for contempt on Sept. 27 and sentenced him to 10 days in jail. When a Superior Court judge refused on Wednesday to vacate the sentence, Nelson ordered Van Ness to jail.

While awaiting transportation to County Jail, however, Van Ness agreed to surrender the tape and was freed. He had tried to avoid providing the tape under California’s Shield Law.

On Friday, Weitzman cross-examined Van Ness about the methods he used to obtain the interview.

Van Ness admitted to Weitzman that he had lied to Smith. He also said he did not tell Smith he was a free-lance writer.

According to the tape, Van Ness instead told Smith, a casual friend, that he had spoken to her attorney and assured her that he would discuss their conversation with the lawyer in order to use the information on her behalf.

The conversation “is privileged between you and I,” he told Smith. “Talk to me like I was Robert,” he urged her, referring to her attorney, Robert Sheahan.

“I’m trusting you with my life,” Smith told him.

“You’re in good hands, believe me,” Van Ness responded, adding that “my main ambition is to protect your life and, two, get you some money.”

In the tape Van Ness referred to the possibility of using some of the information in a publication, if it would be to Smith’s benefit. The money, he said, would help to pay her legal fees.

Not a Drug Dealer

Smith, who described herself as a “gofer,” not a drug dealer, said at one point that Belushi sent her out to purchase $100 worth of heroin. But later, when he asked her for more drugs, she declined and told him to go to sleep.

She said Belushi was a heavy cocaine user, who also had taken heroin as far back as 1978.

“I don’t know what they’re trying to do to me . . . this is ridiculous,” she told Van Ness. “You just don’t die (from using drugs) in five days.”

Smith said Belushi last took drugs at 3:30 the morning of his death. “We sat up and talked until 7:30 a.m. Then he went to sleep.”

Shortly Before He Died

She later said she left the hotel at about 10 a.m., shortly before the time that medical experts have testified that Belushi died.

After the hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Elden Fox said “unless someone else snuck in and administered the final dose, it had to be Smith.”

Weitzman said the tape makes it “clear that someone came in after Cathy was gone.”

Nelson has admitted the tape into evidence, but said Weitzman can argue against that when the hearing resumes with final motions on Nov. 12.