Woman Convicted in Belushi’s Death Is Paroled

FRONTERA, Calif. —  The woman convicted of injecting comedian John Belushi with a fatal dose of cocaine and heroin in 1982 was paroled from state prison Wednesday after serving half of a three-year term.

Cathy Evelyn Smith, 40, a former drug addict and rock groupie, was released from the California Institution for Women into the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS will hold her pending a hearing at which she will have to show cause why she should not be deported back to her native Toronto, an agency spokesman said.

Smith was initially charged with Belushi’s murder, but in a June 1986 plea bargain with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, she pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

She also pleaded no contest to three counts of furnishing and administering a mixture of heroin and cocaine, called “speedballs,” that killed Belushi, who rocketed to fame in the mid-1970s on television’s “Saturday Night Live”. Belushi, 33, was found dead in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont Hotel.

Smith was paroled after roughly half of her sentence was reduced because of good behavior and prison work credits, said Mike Van Winkle, spokesman for the California state prison system. “She was a model inmate,” Van Winkle said.

“I’m happy for her,” said attorney Howard Weitzman, who represented Smith during the criminal proceedings. “I said it then and I’ll say it now. She shouldn’t have been sent to jail in the first place. “She wasn’t responsible for the man’s death. He was.”

Weitzman said he did not know what Smith’s future plans are.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eldon Fox, who prosecuted Smith, said he was not surprised Smith was released early.

“There is nothing to suggest that she was anything but a model prisoner,” he said. “The realities of the case revolved around some interesting moral and ethical questions. In this particular case, the victim did, to some extent, assist her in his own demise.