‘Wired’ Author Subpoenaed in Belushi Death Inquiry

The lawyer defending Cathy Evelyn Smith, who is accused of murder in the 1982 drug death of comedian John Belushi, has issued a subpoena for author Bob Woodward to testify at Smith’s preliminary hearing.

Besides Woodward’s testimony, attorney Howard L. Weitzman said Monday, he is seeking unpublished notes and records that Woodward used to write his controversial 1984 best seller, “Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi.”

“We are requesting not only the person, but all the source material from the book that deals with Cathy and with Belushi,” said Weitzman, who last year successfully defended auto maker John Z. DeLorean against federal cocaine-trafficking charges.

The subpoena for Woodward and his notes was issued last week at Weitzman’s request by Robert R. Devich, supervising criminal judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Devich confirmed Monday. However, Weitzman said Woodward probably has not yet been formally served in Washington.

Woodward could not be reached Monday.

A spokeswoman for Simon and Shuster, which published “Wired,” said Monday that the company had no comment.

It is widely expected that Woodward will oppose Weitzman’s request for his testimony and notes.

Although Smith’s preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin April 30 in Los Angeles Municipal Court, Weitzman said it may be delayed while Woodward’s subpoena and other issues are resolved.

“Wired,” Woodward’s biography of Belushi, devotes many of its 423 pages to descriptions of Belushi’s fascination with and dependence on drugs, primarily cocaine. The final third of the book offers a detailed account of the last three weeks of Belushi’s life.

In an appendix, Woodward lists 217 people who granted him on-the-record interviews for the book, including Smith, with whom he spoke on four occasions.

Smith, 38, a Canadian citizen, was indicted for murder by a Los Angeles County Grand Jury in March, 1983, a year after Belushi’s death.

The body of the 33-year-old comic was found March 5, 1982, in a $200-a-day bungalow he had rented at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in West Hollywood. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office concluded that Belushi died of acute heroin and cocaine intoxication.

In an interview published in the National Enquirer several months after Belushi died, Smith was quoted as saying she repeatedly injected the comedian with “speedballs”--mixtures of heroin and cocaine--in the days and hours before he died.