Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Desperate search for missing Kristin Smart

Episode Date: November 21, 2017

Kristin Smart was a 19-year-old student at California Polytechnic State University when she disappeared on May 25, 1996, after attending a campus party. No one has ever been charged in her disappearance and she is still missing more than 20 years later. Kristin's parents Denise and Stan Smart have never given up in their search for answers. They discuss their daughter's case with Nancy Grace, victims advocate Marc Klass and forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. The 20-year search for Kristen Smart has a new twist. Investigation has led us back here where it first began, the campus of Cal Poly, and that is the place where Kristen was last seen. A new lead in the long-going investigation was determined over the past couple of years after a comprehensive review of the case. That lead led us to this location.

We brought in specialty human remains detection dogs. We're hopeful that this will lead to the finding of Kristen or evidence that will bring closure to the family. This beautiful girl, beautiful girl, Kristen Smart, a student at Cal Poly. One night she attends a birthday party. She's never seen again. What happened? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

What happened to Kristen Smart? With me now, her family, Denise and Stan Smart. Also with me, Mark Klass, founder of Klass Kids, victim's advocate, lifelong mission. Also with me, Crime Stories investigative reporter, Larry Mayher. Everyone, thank you for being with us. I want to start with Kristen's parents, Denise and Stan. You know what?

Even now, after so many, many years, when people just suddenly ask me about my fiance's murder, it's like a bucket of cold water in the face. I can be having a perfectly fine day, then somebody brings it up, and all of a sudden, I'm right back where I started. To Denise Smart and Stan, I want to thank you for reliving this again in our search for justice. Denise, what do you recall that day? And again, thank you, Larry, Mark, and Joe Scott Morgan joining us. Denise, what do you recall of that day? Obviously, we didn't know the first day. We didn't know the second day. We didn't know the third day because Cal Poly did not take a request from her friends to look for her.

So by the time Monday evening came around, which was she disappeared Friday night, we didn't hear anything until Monday evening. And we got a call from the campus if we knew where she was. And, you know, I think every parent will tell you you have a gut reaction when you know something's not right. And someone calling you out of the blue and saying, do you know where your daughter is? And she's 200 miles away. Thumbs again just going back to there.

And I think it's as you referenced that it comes back. It just always comes back and whenever you hear about a missing child, you relive it for that family as well. When you say you relive it when you hear about a missing child or a missing teen, what do you mean you relive it, when you hear about a missing child or a missing teen, what do you mean by relive it? Well, that probably that first day, that first week, it just comes back into your psyche. You are thinking again about how this family is having to cope with something that is a nightmare beyond anyone's comprehension. And, you know, as we move forward through 21 years, it's a very long and lonely road

to have such a long unknown, to not know where your child is. Unfortunately, there are way too many families who lose their children to illness or accidents. And I don't want to say that there's resolution there, but when you are having to fight for justice and deal with so much frustration, highs and lows, anxiety, even though people, friends and family may feel you need to move on, when you don't know where your child is, you really cannot move on. In addition to Denise Smart, Kristen's mother, with us is Stan Smart, her father. Stan, back to May 25th. That night, your absolutely beautiful and brilliant daughter, Kristen, had gone to a party, a get-together.

She was a student there at Cal Poly, and two of her friends, Cheryl Anderson and Tim Davis, were also leaving the party, and they walked Kristen back to her dorm that night, right? What do you recall the first you heard Kristen was missing? What happened? Well, if you're asking me, initially, the campus police thought our daughter had gone camping with friends, and this is why she had not returned to campus, that she had overstayed the vacation time. And so initially I was a little upset, and although after a week it appeared that something horrible had happened. And so I had gone down there to take a look and meet with the campus police. The campus police were very ill-equipped to deal with a missing person.

I think probably they would be able to handle students that had been drinking or if there had been a party or a car parked where it shouldn't be, they had no idea what to do for an investigation into a missing person. And so I was rather disappointed. And they were real quick to point out that it was our daughter who had made an error, had gone to a party like many students going to college and away from home, and that she'd gotten into trouble and disappeared. And so they left really the blame with us and with our daughter, and that was very disappointing.

Anyway, after that and after looking for her and she wasn't appearing and they had found her purse and her belongings in the room, She had not taken those things with her. It was real apparent that something had happened to her. So it's a nightmare, like my wife had mentioned. I spent a lot of weeks down there, in fact, the whole summer looking for my daughter. And I think I could have been a tour director for San Luis Obispo County. And just, you know, a lot of heartache from it. And as my wife had mentioned, when we hear about other people who have lost a child and they're looking for their child, our hearts go out to them.

You know, it's amazing. Mark Glass, joining me, Victims' Rights Advocate. Mark, you lost your daughter, Polly, and you've devoted your life to crime fighting, finding missing people. Ever since, you know what, just today, today, I dropped the children off. You know, I always have Kyron Horman in the back of my mind. And so I'm probably the only person in Carpool that will not move with, you know, 50 cars behind me until I see them walk in the door. I don't just drop them at the curb.

I wait and I sit there. And sometimes when the hairy eyeballs get to be too much, I move forward and then I stop at a stop sign because I have my rearview mirror perfectly fixed so I can look back and see them walk in the door. Okay. Then just today, I can't, you know, drive to McDonald's, get some coffee. Okay. Chill, chill, go to work. No, I circle back and I go and I spy and make sure that they're okay. That's about 40 minutes later. Okay, now I know in my head, Mark, that's not normal.

I know this as I'm doing it, as I'm driving, clutching my coffee. I know it's crazy. I know it's not normal. But I can't help it. Mark? Well, you know, you're overly cautious, Nancy. of course you're going to be overly cautious i mean these are we've been covering these kinds of cases time and time and time again but as happens so often this is just another typical case of piling insult upon injury they're blaming kristin for her own disappearance it's absolutely mind-boggling stan stan says that

they're they're unequipped to deal with a missing says that they're unequipped to deal with a missing person. Well, they're unequipped to deal with basic human emotions when they tell these people that their very responsible daughter is missing because she made a mistake and did what every other college freshman in America has done since time immemorial, which is go to a party. So it started off on a very, very bad footing and unfortunately only got worse from there. You know, Mark Glass, I want you to tell something to the smarts, which they may have heard you say in the past many times. One thing that drives me crazy is when young girls say tweens, like 11 to 13 or then 13 to 15, quote, air quotey, go missing. The first thing cops say is, and look, I'm on the cop side. I am the system. I get it. But still, when cops say, oh, they're a runaway, you lose so much time.

It's precious time. Yes, like in this case, Mark Klass, when Polly first went missing, what did cops do when Polly went missing? Well, the first thing that they did was they put out an all-points bulletin, and they said that the information wasn't for press release. But, Nancy, let me tell you something. I never met Kristen, but I know Denise and I know Kristen's sister, Lindsay, and Lindsay is a formidable world-class athlete.

And if her sister was anything like Lindsay is, um, she's in a position to be able to hopefully take care of herself in a difficult situation. So again, to, to turn this thing around and blame it on, on woman who's missing just pushes the bounds of credibility. To Denise Smart, Kristen's mother, I just heard Stan, your husband, Kristen's dad, say that he goes there and he travels and searches and digs and pushes the whole summer, the whole for months there in St. Louis Obispo looking for Kristen. How in the past before she went missing that day, how often would you typically have spoken to her? Well, it was pre-cell phone days. So we had a standard Sunday night call.

So she would call every Sunday night. And when she didn't call on Memorial Day weekend Sunday, we weren't alarmed because it was a long weekend and she left us a message on Friday night. And she had missed us while we were out and she said, I've got good news, I've got good news, I can't wait to talk to you. So we weren't alarmed on that Sunday night and of course the next call we got was from you know Cal Poly security police when her roommate who

had been gone for the weekend came home and was alarmed and had a note from some of her other friends do you know where Kristen is and her purse and her belongings were on the bed just where her roommate had seen them when she had left. So it's like Stan said and Mark was referencing, every newspaper article that came out in that first six months was about this drunk girl. And it just made us livid. It has nothing to do with whether you've got shorts on, whether you've got long hair, short hair, it doesn't matter. What matters is this is a life, and we have to value the life and not point a finger and blame victims. And as we referenced, you know, Cal Poly was certainly ill-equipped and inexperienced in dealing with this. And, you know, there was a 19, in 1998, they passed the Kristen Smart Campus Safety Act, which requires California campuses to have a local agreement with law enforcement

if they are even beginning to look at a violent crime on campus. So everyone said, well, doesn't that make you feel better? Well, yes, but it's a little late for Kristen. And when I got on the phone two days after I heard about this, I called the FBI. It's connected to a sexual assault task force in Los Angeles. The director at the time was Ron Iden. He was amazing. He said he would call. They would send resources to Cal Poly. And guess what? Cal Poly has jurisdiction and they turned them down. No, no, they turned them down. Joseph Scott Morgan, death scene investigator.

They didn't need them. What? It's always campus police. Have you noticed that? Campus police say, oh, she just had too much to drink. Oh, she's out on a camping trip. Otherwise, all her ID and everything else laying on her bed. She clearly made it home from the party that night.

Two friends walked her back. Enter Paul Flores, a third that joined them. But her stuff's laying on her bed. We know she hasn't gone on a camping trip and left all of her ID and everything else there. Why would campus police so stupidly refuse FBI help? Joe Scott? I have no idea, Nancy. And speaking as a current university professor,

and it's mind-boggling that they would do this. And what Mrs. Smart had said just a moment ago really pricked my ears for a second. She made reference to the fact that there was a missing drunk girl. Awful. You know what? That narrative had to come from somewhere. And that narrative, in my opinion, started with security slash police.

And there's this huge disconnect. In investigations, there's a very specific timeline that we work on. And once that trail begins to go cold, once that trail begins to go cold, everything in the future has the potential to fall apart because the foundation you lay in the beginning. And to me, this smacks of just absolute apathy and laziness. And it's striking, absolute strike. Well, it strikes to me a finger pointing because Kristen's gone missing. They're on campus for stuff's in her dorm. She clearly made it that far. Nobody knows about this camping trip. And long story short, they start saying, oh, she was drunk.

She was wearing this. She was this. She was that. As if it's all her fault. It's their fault because we lost so much valuable time, days, days, as the trail goes cold and Kristen remains missing. I want to thank our partner making today's program possible, and it is Link AKC. Listen, Christmas is right around the corner with all the other holidays. Don't leave your dog out of the fun. Get the Link AKC Smart Collar, the new you must have a gift believe it or not it's backed by the american kennel club the link akc collar catch this is a gps locator and the fitness activity tracker all rolled into one smartphone app it even has an led light and temperature sensor

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Call today. That's pound 250, keyword grace. Call pound 250 and say grace. Those early errors lead to irrefutable loss of evidence that can never be reconstructed. Joe Scott Morgan, Mark Klass, Larry Mayher, Stan and Denise Smart with me. To Mark Klass, world champion victims' rights advocate, when Denise accurately says so much evidence was lost in those first 72 hours. For instance, what, Mark? What is she talking about? Well, first of all, Nancy, to give it a little context,

everybody agrees that when a child disappears, that time is of the essence. And you're sitting there as a parent clicking off those minutes, clicking off those seconds as police seemingly fumble their way through the mountain of evidence that may or may not be there. You had asked me earlier about what was one of the first things the police did when Polly disappeared. And one of the first things they did is they said that Polly must have run away with her boyfriend and that the entire incident was staged. Imagine that, a 12-year-old girl running away with her boyfriend. What? A 12-year-old girl?

Yeah, no, absolutely. That was a theory that was put forth by a famed FBI profiler. So you're sitting there watching these minutes tick away, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, and they tell you, if your child has been kidnapped and they're going to be murdered and they're not recovered within the first 72 hours, 72 hours, and they tell you, if your child has been kidnapped and they're going to be murdered and they're not recovered within the first 72 hours, 99% of them are going to be dead. And where does that leave you as a parent? It leaves you in fear, it leaves you frustrated, and it leaves you grasping at straws and hoping against hope itself.

I couldn't agree more. When we talk about missing evidence, there is a very important player in this scenario that I want to get to. That night when Kristen's friends, her two college friends that were in classes there at Cal Poly with her, they walk her, Cheryl Anderson, Tim Davis, both were leaving the party as well, and they walk her to her nearby dormitory where she was living. At that juncture, another student comes up, Paul Flores. He joins the group and offers to help. They all walk back. They all get Kristen to her room safely. Tim Davis departs the group first. He lived off campus, and he had driven to the party.

Cheryl Anderson was the second to leave. She tells Paul he could walk Kristen back to her dorm since he lived closer. They're right there at the dormitory. They can see it. And Flores says he walks smart as far as his dormitory, Santa Lucia Hall, and that she is fine and she walks back to Moore Hall dorm, her dorm, all by herself. Now, that is not what Cheryl and Tim intended.

They were all going to walk all the way back. What happened, Stan Smart? How is it that suddenly it's Paul Flores there alone with Kristen? Well, that's the big question. I really can't respond to that. You know, that being the last person seeing her alive, more than likely she was under the influence from alcohol or drugs given or taken at the party.

And I imagine he steered her over towards his dorm. His roommate wasn't there. His roommate was gone for the weekend, and I suspect that our daughter ended up in his room. There was a follow-up I'm sure you're going to mention with some dogs that ended up going to his room of all the rooms on the campus, and that someone had died there is what they could determine. But that was the last we had heard of our daughter, and that was... Wait a minute, wait a minute. Could you back that up, Stan? What did you say about evidence suggesting someone had died there?

Right. When there was a search of the campus, they used independent cadaver dogs at different times to go by, and they zeroed in on his room and the bed in his room and the wastebasket. And all they could determine was somebody had died in that room. They didn't know who was our daughter or someone else, but that was the evidence that they had. And at the time, and still, they've not been able to determine what chemicals, you know, when a body, when a person dies, they leave a scent, I guess you would say, that a dog can determine, but a human can't. And that's what, you know, the dog handlers indicated.

So it looks like someone died in Paul Flores' dormitory room. To Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, explain to our listeners how that would have happened. And a question, though, Stan Smart, when were the cadaver dogs brought into the room? When? During, oh, it was probably... It was later that summer. I was going to say three months after she disappeared. So three months later, they get evidence like that that may or may not ever be brought into a courtroom.

But it's three months later. Joe Scott Morgan, how does that help us find Kristen? Well, it gives us an indication that based upon the, there's two things here, all right. Just so that we understand, we have what's referred to as, as qualitative versus quantitative. Okay. And qualitative means that these dogs can go in and they can sense, they can sense a decompositional essence in the air. Okay. And that they picked up on this.

And it indicates to us that if something took place in that room involving human remains, a human person, that that essence that was left behind was not cleaned up, that this decomposition was still going on, even at the level of like blood. And that's what this would lead me to believe. And that it wasn't sufficiently clean in this area. And so you had all of this period of time until the dogs got there. I mean, we're going back to Memorial Day. You're talking about at the end of the summer. They would really hit on this very hard. Now, where it goes from there, Lord only knows. But yeah, it's a strong indicator. It can point us in certain directions. But yeah, you're right, Nancy. This is not something that you'll see pop up in court. So just to make a comment, if I could, on top of that, then the university

cleaned the room and they put students back in the room for the oncoming term in the fall, which is hard for me to believe that no one went in there and looked for forensic evidence and did not go through the room before they cleaned it, put students in it again to use it. Yeah, we asked if a forensic team had been brought into the room, and they point blank told us they didn't need it. They were just looking for evidence that Paul may have left behind. So there were no hair fibers had to be found or fingerprints because they never brought a forensic team. Oh, what a travesty. Look, I get really tired of people in the present going back to the past and saying, well, we didn't know what to do back then. The technology has now surpassed the people that we were back then.

That's a load of garbage. There is a way, even way back then, that we correctly process scenes. And this goes back to what we initially talked about with the disconnect between the local police, the FBI, and this Cal Poly group. And this does irreparable harm to this case. And I will not abide anybody making excuses in the forensic. Well, you're right, because I can recall to Mark Glass, when I first started prosecuting, which was back in the late 80s, we had fingerprint, we had hair comparison, we couldn't do a DNA test for a couple more years. But you could get hair similarities, you could determine absolutely fingerprints, you could

get fibers. I mean, fibers have been known since the Wayne Williams child serial killing case. Fibers can prove a case. All of that was in existence in the late 80s. Well, it was in existence. Yeah. And simple things like when he was first confronted by Cal Poly police, he had black eye bruises, scrapes on his knees. Did they take a photograph? No, they didn't take a photograph. And the only reason we know about those is he turned himself in over the weekend for an outstanding DUI and they happened to have taken his pictures and in the picture he was holding up his number so you can see the scrapes and bruises on his hands and the black eye that he has.

But, yeah, Cal Poly Police did none of that. So, you know, it's been frustrating from the get-go. With me is Larry Mayher, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Let me understand this, Larry. For those of you just joining us, we're talking about a missing girl, Kristen Smart. Beautiful, brilliant, athletic. Classes were finishing for a long holiday weekend. And Kristen calls her parents that Friday, May 24, leaves a message saying she and her friends are going to a party at 8 p.m. that night and asked her parents to give her a call before she leaves. They didn't connect. She did go to the party, and she had a couple of drinks.

Police say that two friends were walking her back to her dorm, Muir Hall. But enter a freshman, Paul Flores, who agrees to walk her the rest of the way. He's the last person seen with Kristen Smart. Am I missing something, Larry Mayher? As far as I know, no. At that point, investigators say Paul Flores, the 19-year-old freshman, became a person of interest in this case, and he has been a person of interest ever since they first talked to him, according to the sheriff's office. Now, this is different from campus police. The sheriff's office has a somewhat different, perhaps parallel investigation underway.

But the investigators in the sheriff's office identified Paul Flores as their person of interest right away. He told them that he saw Kristen outside her dorm, helped her back into the dorm, and then he stopped talking. Since then, to investigators and in a court deposition, he has taken the Fifth Amendment. You know what, Larry Mayher, you're right. And as a matter of fact, let's take a listen to Paul Flores. Where did you attend high school? On the advice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question

based on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. What is the name of your father? On the advice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. What is your mother's name? On the advice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. There you hear a person of interest, Paul Flores,

repeatedly taking the Fifth Amendment, even to the point he won't even say who his mom and dad are. He's taking the Fifth Amendment on that. The right to remain silent is as if his parents' names could somehow incriminate him in Kristen Smart's disappearance. All you business owners out there know how important it is. You got to keep going forward no matter what. But so often issues come up to take your focus away from growing your business, which is your number one goal. When it comes to things like reviewing contracts, staying current on fees, permits, registering trademarks, hiring, employee contracts, LegalZoom.com simplifies your life. LegalZoom was created 16 years ago by the brightest minds in law and technology. And you know, I always say, go ahead and groan, Alan Duke.

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about searches, searches of structures. Explain. Well, as you referenced before, Cal Poly police refused to let in outside help. And apparently the DA's office was working on the site and working on it. But it took 30 days before the jurisdiction was released. We had a meeting with local legislators, and her case was released officially to the Sheriff's Department, and there was an immediate search for, and we talk about, the cadaver dogs that hid on his room. But then after that, his family had two homes in a nearby town of Arroyo Grande. And based on the cadaver dogs alerting on his room,

a search warrant was issued for his father's house in Arroyo Grande. And once again, and this is the sheriff's department, these are the people that you want to trust. They did a search at the house, but they didn't bring a forensic team. They didn't bring the dogs. They just did a walk through the house and found newspaper articles about Kristen under both the father's and the mother's bed, found a police baton, and they left and they were done. And this property probably is at least a half an acre. You could have a cemetery in the backyard. And so we've asked repeatedly through multiple sheriffs, multiple investigators to go back to the house and to look again and to actually do a search. So it's just unreal to us that they didn't even bring a forensic team. when we asked why they were very straightforward with us and they said they were looking for her keys because

they'd found in criminal cases of violence against women that the perpetrator likes to hold on to an item so they didn't need a forensic team because they were just looking for her keys and on the same lines they had a search warrant well they didn't have a search warrant, but maybe they did. They went to the mother's house, which was about... Well, wait a minute. There were headlines, lots of headlines recently. Trumpeting, for instance, is Kristen Smart buried in this backyard.

Neighbors and a wonder dog say yes. What are they talking about, Stan? Well, the information that we had is that there's a possibility that our daughter could be in the backyard of the residence where the mother resides in Roya Grande. And there was a search with some ground-penetrating radar on some of the property but not all the property. And there's interest afterwards. Another person from my wife can give you better details on it. A person from the university came with another dog and felt that the residue or the body was still in the yard, that it hadn't been

searched completely. And so that's the big question, whether or not there could be a search warrant to go back in and look further in the yard for our daughter's body. Let me understand An ex-FBI agent suggests that Kristen's remains may be under a cement slab poured by the last man to see her alive, Denise. Right. Well, there are a couple of things I'd like to insert here. And one is that, yes, the FBI agent went forward and he wrote up Les subpoena to go back to the house. And apparently they took a vote in the sheriff's department and they opted not to follow that lead. They voted not to go back to dig in the yard. Now, subsequent to that, Paul Flores' mother and her boyfriend filed a civil lawsuit against my husband and I for their emotional distress.

So I can't begin to tell you how stressful that was and unbelievable. But in the course of that, the mother allowed an FBI person and others to go in and selected areas in the backyard, and they did do a dig in the areas that the mother approved that they could go to. And the dogs that my husband was referencing were from Dr. Vass from the University of Tennessee. And he looks for, again, the scent or the aroma in the land that possibly leads to a human remain in the yard. And he picked up the scent by going somewhere around the perimeter of the yard. So, I mean, I don't know where she is. I just know that we, as a family, want to feel at the end of the day, if we don't find her, that everything possible was done that could be done.

And when these things are only halfway done, there's no peace. if we don't find her that everything possible was done that could be done. And when these things are only halfway done, there's no peace. To Mark Klass joining me. Mark, all the way back to the room, room number 128, that dorm room, more than one dog was brought in to St. Lucia Hall. Each dog alerted on a corner of a bed mattress located on the left side of the room. That was Paul Flores' bed. Every dog did the same thing. Now, we know that a cement slab was poured by Paul Flores on his mom's property.

What will it take, Mark, to get a warrant to look under that? I believe, Nancy, that before victims ever have equity in our justice system at any level, we need a constitutional amendment for victims' rights in the United States Constitution, because the word victim doesn't exist in the Constitution. Yet at least 14 separate rights exist for individuals who have been accused of committing crimes in the Constitution. So at the very basic level, I think we need that. But we can't lose sight of the incredible irony that exists in this case. The day that she disappeared, May 25th, was designated by Ronald Reagan as National Missing Children's Day. And that was done as a way of bringing attention to the plight of missing children and hopefully prompting law

enforcement agencies to be trained in the investigation of missing children. But we can see from this case, from Pauli's case, from so many other cases, that that symbolism fell far short of its intended goal. Hopefully, as we move forward, law enforcement agencies will, and I think they have taken these kinds of situations more seriously so that the next time a young girl finds herself in Kristen's situation, it will be investigated correctly and it will be solved and the family will not be left in agony hanging there for more than two decades. All this time, Joe Scott Morgan,

I look back at the evidence, and we've even got Paul Flores lying, because he claimed the black eye, and you can see it in his mugshot for the DUI, was caused by taking an elbow to the face during a game of pickup basketball with his college buddy, Jeremy Moon, four days earlier. That's in the sheriff's Schaefer's report that I read. It's quoting and Schaefer was the FBI agent quoting investigators but prosecutors report they reach the friend Jeremy Moon and he didn't agree with that. So they go back to Flores and he says okay it's confirmed that he already had the black eye at the time he showed up to play basketball. So they asked for it.

He goes, well, I don't know how I got a black eye. And they go, well, why did you lie about it? And he says, well, I thought it would sound stupid to say I bumped it on the steering wheel of my truck. I mean, he's caught in one lie after the next. What more will it take Joe Scott, to reopen this and get a warrant for that cement slab and more? Yeah, I'll tell you what is going to eventually push this over the top is the fact that Kristen's parents continue to push on this thing. It just escapes me. How much more information do you need? How much more information do you need in order to generate a warrant relative to probable cause? Because the idea is stacking up all the time. of what the police have not done in this particular case or where they just seem to let it pass away.

This thing is absolutely unexplainable where they get to pick and choose in the backyard where they're going to search. It's like the inmates are running the asylum here. That runs completely contrary to everything that you practice in criminal investigations. You're not dictated as to where you will and will not go relative to something like this. You write the warrant and you go and you do it. But for whatever reason, they've chosen not to pursue this like it should be pursued. To Larry Mayher, Crime Stories contributing investigative reporter. Larry, where does the case stand now? What about Flores? Where is he? As far as I know, Flores is living his life. He is still identified as a person of interest by

San Luis Obispo County investigators. The county sheriff ordered an excavation on the Cal campus in 2016 and saying that what was found there is being reviewed and leads are being followed for what was recovered. Now, we do know that some human remains were recovered from that dig at Cal Poly, but those remains so far have not been identified. The FBI says it is still actively involved in this investigation, but it declines to elaborate on what the FBI is doing in this investigation. And that's where pretty much it stands at this point. The most recent statement from the sheriff, Ian Parkinson, is that the leads are being actively reviewed and that there is still

information they are recovering from the results of that excavation on the Cal Poly campus in 2016. Denise Smart, do you believe those are Kristen's remains? I don't know if they're Kristen's remains. But what I do know is that until you do the job 100%, you won't have an answer. And it could be that Kristen was in the yard, is no longer in the yard. She may have been moved to the parent, to the father's yard. But if you bring in the correct team, they can analyze and they can tell you if she was or she wasn't there. That's not something I can do.

But I believe she's not far away. The parents are not revered in the community, yet they hold two houses. They could easily move down the road and be anonymous citizens. But they have chosen to stay and protect these two homes. And normal people don't do that. And there's a billboard with Kristen's picture on it that they have to pass every single day to go to their houses. So what is she in one of those yards? I would say the chances are yes. What we know is that this guy, Flores, before he became a person of interest in Kristen's disappearance,

he had been accused of stalking another girl on campus. According to a St. Louis Obispo police report, he showed up drunk around Christmas trying to break into another Cal Poly co-ed's apartment, climbing up her balcony, and she suspects he was trying to break in on her apartment. Okay, the report goes on to state he is believed to have made countless anonymous phone calls for over six weeks to the girl and then approaches her at parties and won't leave her alone. Not long ago, Flores spotted in San Pedro, California. He stepped out of a home,

looked around to each side to see if anybody was coming. He opened the door to a white Chevy parked on the street. He starts the engine and then braked when a Daily Beast reporter approached him. The reporter asked, are you Paul Flores, the last person to see Kristen alive? And he played dumb, trying to only confirm that that Paul Flores lived at the address, saying, quote, oh, he does live there. Finally, he was pressed by the Beast reporter. Are you Flores? And he goes, oh, yeah. He starts rolling up the car window, put it in reverse. Then they said, do you remember Kristen

Smart? And he goes, uh, right. Yeah. Uh, have a good day. That's it. But you know what? It's not over yet. It's not over yet. You can't live under a dark cloud forever. You have to look back at the joy and the life that your child had. Denise and Stan Smart with me, Kristen's parents. What can you tell me about a scholarship? Well, as we talked about, 21 years is a very long time to focus and live under the dark cloud of your child's disappearance. So I think we all came to the conclusion that it was time to lift that cloud and focus on her life. She was a young woman with

big dreams. She believed in almost the impossible. And we feel it's time now to focus back on her life and her dreams and try to give other young women a chance to live their dreams. So the scholarship was set up so that we will honor young women who have interests similar to Kristen's, that they can move forward and reach their dreams. And although Kristen's voice and dreams were silenced, this is a way to give back. So we're really excited about it, and it's an uplifting piece. And as we've talked about in this whole piece is parents really don't have a voice,

and they can't lead. But in this scholarship, you know, we can lead and we can have a voice. And Kristen's dreams can live on through another student. Denise Smart, Stan Smart, still an inspiration as the search for justice goes on, as Denise outlines the Kristen Smart Scholarship. I want to take this moment and thank our partner. It's Super Beats. It's all about energy.

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