The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office has confirmed that remains discovered by hikers in Palmdale, Ca. Sunday to be Gavin Smith, the 20th Century Fox film distribution executive who disappeared in May of 2012. He was 57.

Smith was last seen leaving a friend's home in Oak Park on the night of May 1, 2012. No cause of death has been determined, but police are treating the death as a homicide.

The exec had been declared dead in May of this year, when police confirmed to his family that evidence pointed to the exec's killing the night of his disappearance.

"He said I don't know how to tell you this but Gavin isn't coming back," Tara Addeo, Gavin's sister, told KNBC in May. "There was enough biological evidence to prove that Gavin was killed."

John Creech, currently imprisoned in Los Angeles County for unrelated narcotics charges, has been considered a person of interest in Smith's disappearance since police found the exec's car inside a storage locker "linked to" him. Smith was allegedly having an affair with Creech's wife.

Smith, towering at 6-foot-6, worked for Fox's distribution arm for 18 years and famously played basketball for UCLA in the 1970s.

[Image via Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office]