Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Missing Dead: Kristin Smart

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

It was May of 1996 when college freshman Kristin Smart went to a party and never returned to her dorm. More than 20 years later, a stranger started a podcast that ignited interest in the case and brought a killer to justice. If you’d like to learn more about the cases covered in this episode, or learn more about Missing and Unidentified Persons Awareness Month, head to www.spotify.com/disappearances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of sexual assault and murder. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. In 1995, California Polytechnic State University and San Luis Obispo was one of the safer colleges in California. At least, that's what the university wanted prospective students and their families to believe. That year, the September 22nd edition of the school school. newspaper made it seem like the biggest concern on campus was bicycle theft. The Cal Poly report made no mention of the two rapes, two robberies, and one aggravated assault, all of which

had been reported to the FBI. But by the end of the school year, one crime would go public. Just before finals week in 1996, a 19-year-old freshman went missing after being escorted home from a party by two of her peers. She was last seen about a stones throw away from her dorm, roughly 40 yards. Somewhere in that last stretch, Kristen Smart disappeared. Her case sent shockwaves through Cal Poly, rattling everyone who lived in the quaint town of San Luis Obispo. How could a place many believed was so safe, so immune from danger, be the sight of a murder? And could they even call it a murder? if investigators couldn't find a body. Welcome to Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries,

a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host, Carter Roy. And I'm your host Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday, we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases and tell the tale of how real-life detectives close the case. You can find episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on. Spotify. The month of May is missing and unidentified person's awareness month, and in honor of this

important event, we had solved murders want to shed light on a topic that shrouded in misconception. No body homicides. According to former federal prosecutor Tad de Bias, more than 542 no body homicide cases have found their way into U.S. courtrooms. And of those cases, around 86% ended in a conviction, which is actually higher than for all homicide cases. And this is no small feat. For this series, we're debunking four words. No body, no crime. This is the first of three episodes on nobody homicides.

Today, we're unraveling the case of Kristen Smart, a Cal Poly student who disappeared from campus in 1996. When investigators ran out of leads, the public search for answers themselves. Instead of our usual cast of actors, we'll be diving deeper into the heart of these cases with the help of a friend and missing person's advocate, Sarah Turney. I'm Sarah Turney, and I host the podcast, Disappearances, and Voices for Justice. I'm probably most known for talking about my own sister's case, Alyssa Turney. Her case went from a missing person to a no-body homicide, and it can be a very person. really difficult and confusing experience. I grew up hearing about the Kristen Smart case ever since I

could remember, really. Kristen Smart was a household name, and growing up, Alyssa's case was always compared to Kristen's. It's just something that's lived with me and something I followed for a really long time. Sarah will be giving us her opinions and insights throughout our missing dead series. For even more programming around Missing Persons Awareness Month, be sure to check out her podcast Disappearances, a Spotify original from Parcast, and you can visit Spotify.com forward slash disappearances for more ways to get involved. And we'll be right back after this. Trying to be a bit more mindful of things you buy? For you and your family? Well, when it comes to laundry, choose All Free Clear. 100% free from dyes and perfumes. All Free Clear uses only essential

ingredients that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on. Pick up a bottle of all-free clear for your next laundry day. On May 27, 1996, Denise Smart received a horrible phone call. It came from the campus police at Cal Poly University, where her daughter, Kristen, was enrolled as a freshman. Kristen had apparently gone to a party on Friday night and hadn't returned to her dorm room. She wasn't back the next morning or afternoon. She wasn't back Sunday either, which was when her friends contacted campus police. But the police didn't think Kristen being missing was a huge deal.

They thought she must have gone out of town, which is why they then called Denise Smart, Kristen's mother, to ask if Kristen was home. Then Denise learned her daughter had been missing for almost three days. Which made the events of those three days and the stories of those who had seen Kristen absolutely crucial. So we'll start there with the days leading up to Kristen's disappearance. Three days earlier was May 24, 1996. Around 5.30 p.m. that day, Kristen left her mom a voicemail. She'd done poorly on a biology test, but she had good news. Her professor was going to let her retake it. Later that evening, Kristen knocked on a friend's door. The friend's name was Margarita Campbell.

Post, and she lived in the dorm next to Kristen's. Plenty of students had gone home for Memorial Day weekend, but the two of them decided to stay on campus. As soon as Margarita opened the door, she knew what Kristen was going to say. Let's go party. Margarita was more introverted than Kristen, and with finals approaching, she had exams to prepare for. But seeing Kristen in such a good mood, how could she say no? Around 8.30 p.m., Kristen, Margarita, and two other friends left their dorm rooms at Mirror Hall. Once outside, they spotted another friend driving a pickup truck.

Kristen climbed into the passenger seat while the other three hopped in the back. They spent the next few hours joy riding around San Luis Obispo, a pretty normal Friday evening for a few college students, but at some point, Kristen pitched a final destination. A frat party off campus. No one else was interested. Kristen's friends didn't love the idea of a testosterone-fueled kegher, but if that's what Kristen wanted to do, they weren't going to stand in her way. The only problem was she had left her purse, money, ID, and keys back at the dorm.

To save time, Margarita let Kristen borrow her keys. She could give them back tomorrow. Kristen's friends dropped her off a few blocks from the party, said their goodbyes, and Kristen headed towards the frat house. Kristen arrived at the party sober. She made her way through a crowd of 60-plus drunk students, mostly strangers, all vying for their turn at the keg. According to classmates, Kristen would sometimes act strange at parties,

pretending to be drunk even when she hadn't had anything to drink. By some accounts, Kristen was seen drinking tequila, chugging vodka, and making out with a member of the basketball team. But by others, Kristen didn't have a drink at all. Reports of how Kristen behaved that night differ wildly. Witness statements are so hard. That's Sarah. She knows firsthand how conflicting statements can affect an investigation. Like, you want people to absolutely come forward with information, but these witness statements

are notoriously unreliable. You have one person that saw one thing and maybe somebody else was across the room and saw another. And at the end of the day, who do you believe? Well, there is, however, one detail from that night that isn't up for debate. During the party, several students heard a loud thud in the hallway. When they peaked around the corner, they saw Kristen on the ground beneath another freshman. Paul Flores, also known as Chester the Molester. Paul had earned the nickname thanks to the off-color remarks he routinely directed toward women on campus. Like Kristen, he'd been struggling with academics.

With a 0.6 GPA, his future at Cal Poly was uncertain. But unlike Kristen, at least prior to this night, Paul had attracted the attention of both campus and local police. That December, he tried to enter a female student's room without her permission. The student called the San Luis Obispo Police Department and filed a report. Six weeks later, Paul got caught driving under the influence. of alcohol, so it was a little alarming to see him standing over someone at a party, especially a female.

But witnesses weren't sure whether Paul had knocked Kristen over on purpose, or if the sight of him standing over her was something to worry about. Afterwards, they dusted themselves off and headed in opposite directions. Around 2 a.m., a senior named Tim Davis found Kristen outside, asleep on the neighbor's lawn. Tim offered to walk Kristen back to our dorm room. It was only a 10-minute stroll, and another student, Cheryl Anderson, needed an escort back, too. The trio wound their way up, the well-lit street, towards campus, when they heard a voice yelling for them to wait up. It was Paul Flores again. Paul told Tim he could take the two young women home. He was headed in the direction of the dorms

anyway. So, Tim said good night to Cheryl and Kristen and turned back towards the frat house. Minutes later, Paul, Kristen, and Cheryl reached the path to Cheryl's dorm. Before separating, Paul tried to give Cheryl a kiss. Cheryl politely declined and left. Paul shrugged it off and latched his arm around Kristen's waist. He started carrying Kristen back towards Muir Hall. The dorm was only 40 yards away. What could go wrong?

Coming up. I do want to say, the second-year person, someone you love, anybody you know is not where they're supposed to be, go report them missing. A missing student, a black eye, and an earring that could be a clue. Now back to the story. Kristen's friend, Margarita Campos, was maybe the first person to notice her absence. On the morning of May 25, 1996, she was expecting Kristen to drop off the keys she'd borrowed the day before. As the day dragged on, Margarita started asking around. Kristen's roommate Crystal didn't know where Kristen was.

Crystal had spent the night elsewhere. When she came home, Kristen wasn't in her bed. Kristen's wallet, purse, and keys were right where she'd left them the day before. In fact, Kristen's entire side of the room looked completely untouched. Saturday came and went with no sign of Kristen. By Sunday, her friends had spoken to campus police. But according to Margarita Campos, the officials didn't act with any sense of urgency. they suggested that maybe Kristen just left campus for a few days.

But after continued pressure from Kristen's classmates, campus police called Kristen's parents on Monday. They confirmed that Kristen wasn't at home. Before pivoting to a new theory. Maybe Kristen ran away. After all, she was struggling in school, right? Denise knew better. Her daughter wouldn't have left everything she needed behind.

It didn't make sense. Christian was missing and needed help. It's so important to listen to your gut in these situations. No one is going to know the missing person better than their loved ones. What may not seem out of the ordinary to law enforcement could be completely out of the ordinary to a family member. You know these people better than anyone. So after speaking with campus police, the smarts felt like their daughter's case was being treated like another stolen bicycle. So they escalated the situation.

and contacted the San Luis Obisbo Sheriff's Department. But there, they were met with another frustrating obstacle. The Sheriff's Office claimed it was too early to file a missing persons report. Which is not unheard of in these types of cases. Pursuing a missing persons report is notoriously difficult. People will tell you you need to wait 24 hours, you need to wait 48 hours, they need to meet certain criteria. And let's talk about the 48-hour myth.

The myth that you have to wait 48 hours before you can report your person missing. And every department's a little bit different, but I do want to say, the second your person, someone you love, anybody you know, is not where they're supposed to be, go report them missing. And if they want to tell you that they have a policy about 48 hours, ask for that in writing, ask to see the policy, ask to speak to a supervisor to voice your concerns. It may sound dramatic, but these hours are so crucial.

you have to fight for that report. It took several days of pressure from family and friends to get police to investigate Kristen's disappearance. And when they did, they didn't seem to focus on potential suspects. Instead, they placed Kristen's life at Cal Poly under a microscope. A week after her disappearance, police published a field report. It mentioned that Kristen was seen socializing with several males at the party and said she didn't conform to, quote, typical teenage behavior.

and implied that she didn't have many close friends at school. The final line read, quote, These observations are in no way implying that her behavior caused her disappearance. But even still, some felt the report was placing the blame on Kristen. And those feelings were made worse when police waited another six full days to interview the last person to see Kristen alive. Paul Flores. When Paul arrived to speak to police, he had a shiner under his right eye.

He claimed he got hit playing basketball the Monday after Kristen disappeared. Except a friend of Paul said he saw the injury on Sunday a day earlier. Police wondered why Paul was lying. Had there been a scuffle? Perhaps between him and Kristen the night she vanished? Paul told investigators he and Kristen didn't spend much time together that night. He claimed they separated shortly after leaving Cheryl. He watched Kristen walk up the path towards her dorm alone before he headed to his own room.

Paul's roommate was away for Memorial Day weekend, so no one could really corroborate this story. But when Paul's roommate did return to campus, he told police about a bizarre comment Paul made. The roommate made an off-handed joke about what Paul might have done with Kristen, and Paul apparently responded. with? She's home with my parents. Investigators asked Paul to take a lie detector test. He said, sure, but he kept dodging the appointments. Eventually, the district attorney cornered him and brought him to a nearby station. He changed his story about how the black eye happened. He said he got hit in the face while

working on his dad's truck. But it wasn't the lies or the polygraph that started giving Paul away. It was his body language. During that 90-minute session, Paul pulled his arms into his t-shirt and began scrunching himself into a ball in his chair. Investigators felt like he was about to cave when Paul served them the unthinkable. He said, if you're so smart, then tell me where the body is. Police didn't have an answer, but at some point they remembered that comment he made to his roommate. She's home with my parents. Only to learn there had been some suspicious activity at Paul's mother's home in the days after Kristen disappeared.

Susan Flores lived in Arroyo Grande, about a 20-minute drive from Cal Poly. The week Kristen vanished, neighbors reportedly saw the family dig planter boxes out of their backyard. Days later, they were filled in with concrete slabs. And Paul once asked investigators if he could leave an interview early, because he needed to go help with yard work. Investigators went to the home and performed a radar scan of the backyard. The detectors registered an anomalous reading around the poured concrete. But for reasons we may never understand, they didn't get a warrant to follow up.

It's also important to note, Paul's parents were separated at the time. Paul mostly lived with his father Rubin, and Rubin was the one who'd been driving him around since his license was revoked after the DUI. Yet police never secured a search warrant to investigate Ruben's home. Or to take a closer look at the family's two trucks. Strangely, one of those cars was reported stolen shortly after Paul was brought in for questioning. The other was traded in.

Then there was the earring. In October 1996, about six months after Kristen's disappearance, Susan Flores rented out her property to a woman named Mary Lasseter and her family. One afternoon, Mary was washing her car in the driveway when she spotted a unique-looking earring on the ground. She'd seen a piece of jewelry like it before. It looked eerily similar to the necklace Kristen Smart was wearing and all the missing persons posters hung around town. Mary turned over the earring to the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department, but for reasons that are unclear, Kristen's family didn't hear about the earring, the piece of evidence that could put their

daughter's killer behind bars until January 1997, six months later, when Mary was brought in for questioning. And when Kristen's parents demanded to see the earring for themselves, the sheriff's department told them it had been misplaced. And they'd forgotten to tell the parents. Let's be real, humans make mistakes, even people in law enforcement. As unfortunate, As it is, something like misplacing or losing evidence does happen. But I do think that there's a line between an honest mistake and an unacceptable one. What's within their power is notifying the parents of what's going on, telling her parents what happened.

Missing this earring, missing this crucial piece of evidence is vital. Without the earring, police didn't feel like they had enough to arrest Paul, let alone get a conviction. Before the smarts knew it, it was May 25, 1997. The one-year anniversary of her disappearance, they were still putting up billboards of her smiling face and offering a $75,000 cash reward to anyone with information. Around this time, the sheriff of San Luis Obispo

made a disconcerting statement. He told the public, quote, We need Paul Flores to tell us what happened to Christed Smart. The fact of the matter is we have very qualified detectives who have conducted well over 100, interviews and everything leads to Mr. Flores. There are no other suspects. So absent something from Mr. Flores, I don't see us completing this case. It was awkwardly phrased, but the message itself was clear as day. As long as Paul Flores stayed quiet and as long as Kristen's body wasn't found,

Paul would get away with his crimes. Fourteen months after Kristen's disappearance, the district attorney tried once more to get Paul to confess, he offered Paul a deal. Only six years behind bars if he admitted to his crimes and led the police to Kristen's body. Paul shot it down. Luckily, for the smart family, there was one podcaster and 450,000 listeners who wouldn't let Paul Flores walk free. Coming up... I mean, I can't think of a better example of someone being driven by passion and just driven by empathy. Kristen's case catches a break.

Now, back to the story. A year after Kristen Smart's disappearance, investigators were still focused on the same suspect, Paul Flores. But without hard evidence and without a body, the only thing that could put Paul behind bars in their eyes was a confession. Search parties had scoured San Luis Obispo

and the surrounding areas for Kristen's remains everywhere from the Cal Poly hillsides to local landfills had been picked through, and still, no sign of the 19-year-old Cal Poly freshman. Six years after she disappeared in 2002, Kristen Smart's parents had her legally declared dead. So I just want to say in declaring someone legally dead, there are a lot of emotions that go along with that. It's a really hard thing to grapple with.

It was something that was really hard for me to grapple with when I was trying to make that decision for my sister. By declaring someone legally dead, you're basically saying to the courts, to the world, and more personally to yourself, that you're missing loved one is dead, that they're gone and they're not coming back. But there are upsides to this. I mean, there's a reason people do it, right? This way, they'd be able to file a civil suit against Paul Flores for the emotional distress

he'd caused a family over Kristen's disappearance. You can bring forth a wrongful death suit, and in those types of civil suits, more information can come to light that can actually have. help you prosecute the case later on. You can also do things like a civil suit for emotional distress, just like we're seeing in this case. But either way, it's a really difficult thing to go through that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. Meanwhile, Paul Flores continued his life. He dropped out of Cal Poly the summer. Kristen disappeared and had since moved to Southern California, where he was hopping from job to job, making ends meet. For over two decades, hundreds of commuters,

passed by a billboard with Kristen's face. This included a young boy from Orkett, California, just 23 miles away, a boy who'd eventually grow up and risk everything to answer that question. Chris Lambert was eight when he first saw the image of Kristen on his family drives. For years, he wanted to know more about the girl in the photo, the life she could have had, the person she would have become. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone. He wanted to know why more people weren't invested in finding the answer.

He wanted to get people talking about Kristen Smart again. In 2018, Chris quit his job at a recording studio and put everything he had into solving the mystery of Kristen's case. He wanted to know who had dropped the ball, why Paul Flores was walking free, and if all these years later, anyone would be willing to come forward with answers. So Chris made a podcast. It was called Your Own Backyard. Now, I have to give a huge shout out, another shout out to Chris and the Your Own Backyard podcast. I know I would have felt extremely fortunate to have worked with Chris on my sister's case. You have someone who was extremely empathetic and followed through to the very end. In the podcast, he explained how personal Kristen's disappearance felt to him.

As someone who'd grown up in what he believed was another safe, small California, town. He began by reviewing the facts of the case. Then he conducted interviews with locals and people who'd known Kristen. After a few episodes aired, he had the cooperation of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department. With a new sheriff on the force, they were willing to reopen the case and offer Chris details that had never gone public. And the relationship worked both ways. Whenever Chris received a new lead, he handed it over to the department who would take the tips seriously. It didn't take long for the podcast to receive national attention. More importantly, it put Paul Flores back under a microscope. After hearing the story, several women came forward.

They said they not only knew 40-year-old Paul Flores. He'd crossed a line with them. Colleagues claimed he'd made unwanted sexual advances. An ex-girlfriend said he'd physically and verbally abused her. While he was never charged for any of these offenses, come February 2020, things escalated quickly. On February 4th, police received a search warrant to raid Paul's home in San Pedro. They seized several videos Paul had recorded of himself, sexually assaulting at least 10 different women. The following day, police searched his father, Ruben Flores, his home. The same home police failed to surge back in the summer of 1996 when Paul was living there. It's not clear what, if anything, they found, but a few days later a witness told Chris Lambert

that on the night of February 9th, 2020, three days after this police raid, three people were spotted whispering under Ruben Flores' deck late at night. The witness was pretty confident that the three individuals were Ruben Flores, his ex-wife Susan, and Susan's boyfriend at the time. It took police about a year to secure another search warrant and return to Rubin's house, but on March 15th, 2021, they came armed with a team of detectives, forensic investigators, cadaver dogs, and radar scanners. They discovered a small grave site under the deck. Radar scanners detected soil that had been recently moved, and the samples they collected contained human blood and fibers. Even more damning, they found a

body-shaped stain inside Rubin's utility trailer. This evidence is huge. I mean, on one hand, it does fill you with dread, right? You never really want the answers to point to your missing person being gone. But on the other hand, in a no-body homicide, evidence like this can make or break the case. You have human blood, you have fibers, you have this body-shaped stain. I mean, this is some really strong evidence. They couldn't concretely link Kristen's DNA to the blood in the soil sample, but police were confident. Ruben and Paul had buried and exhumed her body more than once.

The first time was presumably at Susan's home beneath those planter boxes back in 1996. With that, police felt they finally had enough evidence to arrest the now 44-year-old Paul for murder and his 80-year-old father Rubin for accessory to murder. By April 2021, both were pleading not guilty, but behind bars. Now, I know it seems like this huge victory, but I can say that getting to the trial process is a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, yeah, it's a huge victory. But on the other hand, it's like you're finally starting the last battle in a really long war.

Basically, it all comes down to this. it all comes down to the trial. On July 18th, 2022, a joint trial commenced. Because the authorities had to gather so much evidence to prosecute a no-body homicide, the trial lasted for months. In September of 2022, an old acquaintance of Paul's named Jennifer Hudson took the stand. Her testimony was likely the final nail in Paul Flores' coffin. She claimed that back in 1996, she was skateboarding in a friend's house with Paul when a public service announcement came on the radio.

It was asking for details about Kristen Smart's case. Apparently, that's when Paul confessed something to Jennifer. He was at a party with Kristen the night she disappeared. And after he was done, quote, playing with her, he put her, quote, under his place in Hwasna. referring to a skate park about 20 minutes east of a Royal Grande. Jennifer could tell Paul was being serious. In fact, it scared her so much she was terrified to report it. It wasn't until she heard Chris Lambert's podcast and even talked to Lambert directly,

that she finally spoke to the police. It wasn't much, but Jennifer's statements seem like the closest thing to a confession they were going to get from Paul Flores. In October, 2022, the respective juries deliberated on Paul and Rubin's cases. They found Paul's father, Rubin, not guilty of the charges. But even with Kristen's body still missing, the jury found Paul Flores guilty of killing Kristen's smart. On March 10, 2003, Paul Flores was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Kristen's case is the perfect example of the power of podcasting.

Because when you come together with great content and people actually listen, when people actually share these cases, this is exactly what can happen. While Kristen's family can rest easier knowing her killer is behind bars, a lot of unanswered questions remain. Questions like, what happened in those 40 yards between Kristen's dormitory and the last time she and Paul were seen?

How did Paul get Kristen off campus and with whose help? And of course, where is Kristen's final resting place? Denise Smart has said that she learned a lot from losing her daughter. It's taught her that there's a lot more good people in the world than bad. I can tell you that when I was fighting for my sister, it was the good people that kept me inspired. The people like Chris Lambert at your own backyard. And I don't want to discount the role that the listener plays, the role that you listening right now. now play in these cases.

It takes all of us. It takes a community to move these cases forward, because I've said it before and I'll say it again. Media pressure moves mountains. Thanks again for tuning in to solved murders. And thanks to Sarah Turney for joining us today. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders

and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Solve Murders, True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as our head of production and Spencer Howard as our post-production supervisor. Quality control by Lisa Marie Gallegos, Stacey Nemick is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Solve Murders was written by Lori Marinelli, edited by Maggie Admire and Connor

Samson, fact-checked by Haley Milliken, researched by Mickey Taylor, produced by Joshua Kern and Aaron Larson, and sound design by Alex Button. Our hosts are Wendy McKenzie, and me, Carter Roy.