True Crime Vault: Never Made it Home

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She went to the party by herself. Our young man came out and was like, oh, I know where she lives. I can help walk her home. That was the last time Kristen was seen by anybody. But still no sign of 19-year-old Kristen Smart.

The media really picked up on this. This was a situation that was unlike anything that had happened. And the dog starts sniffing the doors down the hallway. The dogs lit up when crazy. House was searched.

There was some really disturbing videos that were found there. It's a bad piece of evidence because it shows a pattern, right? It doesn't show a pattern of killing anybody. Well, not that long after Kristen Smart disappeared two more local college students from San Luis Obispo, Wet Missy.

The cases stirred dread in the central coast community that a serial killer was on the loose. And it goes from a town in which nothing ever happens to a town in which three young women seem to be abducted and disappeared as it ever happened.

“I remember when I walked in the door, I think one of the guys said like, "Hey, what”

do you want to ask that? I'll take a beer, but soft campus party, it's a grimy rental house filled with boys." It was just the most run of the mill, lame everyone's out of town from Memorial Day weekend party.

Never in my life what I thought that I would be thinking about this party twenty-seven years

later. Never in my life would I think that something such a notorious part of Cal Poly's history now would have occurred at that house that night, I mean never in my life. San Luis Obispo is considered by a lot of people to be about the perfect place to be. It's a beautiful town, it's pretty small, it's right between the mountains and the beach.

It's a typical college town, so a lot of off-campus parties, a lot of activity in the downtown area in the evening with the restaurants and bars. Cal Poly is truly part of the fabric of San Luis Obispo, and the university itself has a sterling reputation. But in the summer of 1996 this peaceful, beautiful college town became known for something

else, the disappearance of 19-year-old Cal Poly freshman Kristen Smart. Kristen was from Stockton, so from out of the area and just trying to find her way in the world. Kind of experimenting with meeting new people, new experiences, and going to parties. In 1998, 2020 sat down with Kristen's parents Denise and Stan Smart.

Steven is our oldest of three children that we have, and she was very conscientious as far as school goes. She had good grades. She liked to play soccer, it's very loving person.

She was adventurous, and she kept us all hopping all the time, and that she was the first one

to throw our arms around you. Kristen had a great relationship with her family.

“She would call them every Sunday, there I think a very loving family, very dedicated family,”

very connected to Kristen, they vacationed together and had continual contact ever since Kristen came to Cal Poly. She was my next-door neighbor, and she would spend a lot of time in my room, she wanted to work for MTV. She wanted to be like you shouldn't just follow the crowd.

party.

“There was only one beer was drank by the two girls.”

So she was not intoxicated, and then about 10 o'clock Margarita wanted to go back to the

dorms, and Kristen did not. It was a Friday night, it was a holiday weekend, and she was having a good time. So she was just looking at me like Margarita, come on, I know you want to come. You said you were going to come with me, you know, fine, just leave me here, and so she went to the party by herself, and that was the last time I saw her.

It was a privately owned house that was rented by Cal Poly students. Very close to campus, and it was a birthday party for one of the residents. And the people at the party are saying, "I'm not going crazy." This is not like animal house, toga party. No, this is kind of a quiet kind of what I would call a sad kind of lane party.

How old are you then? It was 20 years old. I was a sophomore, mid-terms were coming up, so I knew that Friday night that I wasn't going to stay out terribly late. And then like appearing as if out of the mist is this six foot one gorgeous, like

Matt, gorgeous, model girl who shows up, and she's wearing these really shiny black, like vinyl board shorts. She walks up to me, and she says, "Hi, I'm Roxy." So Roxy was a name that Kristen would sometimes give other people when she was out, sometimes you do it just for fun and giggles, sometimes you do it as a safety concern.

And I'm shooting like a T-top, she's wearing red, Puma, and she's. And I go natural, I go, "Oh hey, I'm Trevor," and she leans in and she kisses me, like French kisses me.

“I think I'm about this girl in my life, and she grabs my hand and pulls me into the bathroom.”

I mean, this is the kind of thing that happens often, not to me. Or she obviously drunk, I don't remember smelling alcohol on her breath. When someone kisses you and they've been drinking heavily, you taste it. Oh yeah, of course you do. Oh yeah, for sure.

She pulls me into the bathroom, dark bathroom, and she shuts the door so it's like for others.

Second, it's all black, and I'm like, "What?"

And then she turns on the lights, and she immediately goes to the mirror and she starts doing her makeup. I'm just standing there, and she's like, "Do you think I'm ugly?" What? What?

And she goes, "Do you think I'm ugly?"

“Like, like, really like, "Do you think I'm ugly?"”

And I'm like, "No, you're gorgeous." It was like there was two different personas going on at that time. She says, "Okay, I have to use the bathroom," and then it's like, "Oh, right." I'm like, "What am I doing?"

The second I walk out of the bathroom, this guy just pops up right in front of me, as

if he's like, waiting in line for the bathroom. He looks at me, and I scrubber he had blonde hair, big blue eyes, really intense stare, and he says with this authority in his voice, he goes, "What I'd like to know is what you did with there in the bathroom." And he said it in a way where I was like, "Oh, no, this is your boyfriend."

I was like, "Well, what have I got myself into?" I'm like, "Thelton, man." And like, he laughed. He had this big goofy laugh that was almost like a sigh relief, and I was like, "Oh, you're just some kid."

So he sort of broke off that intense stare, and when he did his laugh, and then I was like, "Oh, whatever, you're weird, oh." So, at about two o'clock, the party was ending, and students were leaving, and several of them saw Kristen laying face down to the left of the driveway of the party house, pretty much passed out.

By the end of the night, Kristen was incapacitated completely, and that's when her young man came out and was like, "Oh, I know where she lives, I can help walk her home." So he walked her, and the other girl whose name is Cheryl, and home. At some point, during the walk home, he hugs Kristen, she's saying she's cold. Kristen and the two students walking with her all-live at different dorms, and as the

three get close to the campus, the young man is sure Cheryl, he'll get Kristen home safely. And then Cheryl went off to the right, southbound towards Horde, her dorm. And that was the last time Kristen was seen. The entire campus is on edge over her disappearance, everywhere students turn their art reminders from the college newspaper to flyers that are being posted throughout Cal Poly.

It was shocking, and the community was stunned.

It was a phone call about two o'clock in the morning. My roommate grabbed the phone, and when she picked it up, she said she heard a voice, someone trying to talk what if Kristen was trying to get through to me. It's Saturday, the morning after the party, and Kristen's smart has not made it back to her dorm room. Her bed backpack was untouched on her bed. She didn't have her wallet, her keys, her ID,

which was really peculiar, and her roommate thought it was weird. I don't think that there was one single time while she was wondering if that she didn't come home, unless she was going away for the weekend. When her roommate said, "You know, Margaret, have you seen Kristen anywhere?" Her stuff's all thrown all over her bed, and she hasn't moved a single inch since I was last year.

“That's what got us kind of thinking. This is strange.”

As other girls were waking up, they were like, "Where's Kristen?" Margaret, a compo, went to her room. They were supposed to meet that morning, and Kristen wasn't there. We just all kind of sat around, like I'm almost like a visual like, "When is she gonna come around?" Thorties were contacted on Saturday. The roommate and a couple other friends went to the supervising dorm guy. He took a small report called his supervisor, a Cal Poly Police Officer pain,

and did nothing saying that she hasn't been gone long enough. Cal Poly PD, they did not make an initial report. They said that Kristen might be out of town because it was moreial day weekend. And then, you know, the days went by, nothing was touched, and we're like, "Hmm, this is getting weird. It was getting kind of like, maybe there's something wrong."

“Pretty much everyone who is close to Kristen is feeling uneasy.”

And by Monday, which is Memorial Day, that turns into real fear. The whole hallway that I lived in, everyone along edge, everyone was worried. Like, this constant concern. The morning of May 27th, they decided to call Cal Poly Police Department to report Kristen as a missing person. And at that point, some time in the evening, Denise Smart received a phone call from Cal Poly asking if Kristen is home.

And, you know, I said, "No." They said, "Well, whose house would she go to?" And I said, "Well, there's no place I know of that she would have gone to." I, you know, I just didn't know of any. And he plans, particularly since she told me she was going to call me Sunday.

Well, initially, the Cal Poly Police basically said that it was very likely she had just gone out of town.

Gone camping, gone with friends, and was going to be able to turn up later. I went to bed that night, and I just prayed to be camping, because I kept calling her dorm until I'm in after midnight. She didn't come home. This is Tuesday, and she still wasn't home. I tried calling the dorms. Her roommate assured me nothing had been touched, nothing left. And she said, "Christen would not leave without her makeup, and she just kept saying it over and over.

She would not leave without her makeup." So we called the city police, and explained them what had happened, and they told us that it's not their jurisdiction. And they told us called Cal Poly. So we called the Cal Poly Police and gave them information.

It wasn't until Kristen didn't show up to class, and the girls made a second report that Cal Poly

actually filed a missing person's report and began their investigation. It seemed like there wasn't a lot of red flags that were being raised within the the Cal Poly Police Department for whatever reason. I was petrified. I couldn't sleep at night. I was seriously,

“I think I was a wreck. I was scared about her feelings towards me.”

I think, because I did leave red the party, and I just kept on thinking, "What if I went with her, or what if I made her come home with us?" She literally had vanished or disappeared back on the 25th, the three-day weekend, or the early weekend. She had disappeared. On Tuesday, they started their investigation by interviewing a couple people at the party.

They spoke to Kristen's friends, but not a lot was done. Every single day I spoke with someone out the campus police station. Every single day they said Denise, "I'm telling you this happens all the time. You cannot believe how many times kids

And I'd say, "But she didn't take anything with her. It's not like her to do that."

And they'd say, "You just would be surprised what these kids do."

“I think the evolution of the investigation began very slowly.”

And then when it became a bunnily clear that Kristen did not just stay overnight. It began to pick up slightly. Restoration turns to criticism as Cal Poly Police investigate what could have happened to missing students Kristen Smart. I don't know that the University Police was equipped

to deal with this early on. I think they certainly had personnel, but not a robust investigation unit and really the tools that they really needed. Denise Smart, Kristen's mother, had a really difficult time getting people to pay attention. I think it's just your intuition as a mother that you know something is wrong.

The missing person's report was filed on May 28th. It was more than two days after Kristen went missing. There are 10 square miles of property at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Today every field, every passive brush and every rolling hill, was scoured by law enforcement officers.

After today's ground search police are growing more certain and will not be found on campus. There were searches all over the Cal Poly campus and throughout the South County area. And I knew that the community of San Luis Obispo County,

a lot of people really stepped up and tried to make a difference and tried to do whatever they could to help find Kristen and help the parents and the family. But still no sign of 19-year-old Kristen Smart. This was like the third week of looking for my daughter around and all the ravines and climbing through culverts and going out with people looking for it.

She wasn't going to be found in the campus place. They were saying, "We've run out of leads."

“I said, "No, you have to go to the last people that saw her lying."”

"Undering a million of the term polygraph, white detector."

Cal Poly freshman 19-year-old Kristen Smart has vanished without a trace. And as the weeks ticked by theories of her whereabouts are swirling. On the news, they said that someone on this person called in said they saw her hitchhiking. Someone said she'd been seen at a taco bell.

It was a phone call about two o'clock in the morning. I was so afraid to answer the phone call. Because I was either afraid that someone was going to say, "We have Kristen, don't tell anyone." My roommate grabbed the phone and she picked it up.

She said she heard a voice, someone trying to talk. But she couldn't really point it out and they hung up. What if Kristen was trying to get through to me? Or what if someone was trying to call? Stan and Denise Smart are still trying to believe.

“She's just missing that she's not as one rumor has it.”

Dead and buried in a campus construction site. An Australian reported at that same time of night seeing an altercation between two people in front of a dorm that happened to be right across the street from these huge 20-foot trenches. None of the tips are going anywhere.

And of course, like every investigation,

the first people you look at are the people closest to the victim

as hard as that is for the family to take. When the detective came to talk to me, we talked about who Kristen was and the type of person she was. So I was dumbfounded when an hour after they left here, my husband called me and said, "Well, you're no longer under suspicion."

I couldn't even grasp what he was talking about. Because I was the one who was calling every radio station up and down the coast of California. I was the one who campus told me that she was seen at a Taco Bell. We got the addresses for every Taco Bell in the state of California.

We sent flyers to all of them. So I could have laid down here and cried and died, but I needed to find her. Campus Belize, they're talking to everybody at that party, and everyone who knew her in the door.

By now, in a university police have confirmed who was walking Kristen home that night, a student named Cheryl Cal Poly Freshman, Paul Flores. This student is not a criminal man. What we're doing is we're dealing with still a misinterpreted.

Because you're the last person we appreciate you coming in. When you were leaving the party, you know, how did you end up getting together with Kristen? I don't even know. She went that way.

I walked that way. That's what's my father then. Then the other girl left half the corner over there. And then, and a couple of times, like on the way,

I want to just give a kind of doubt, because she was pretty thin.

“So Paul told the police that Kristen could walk relatively fine”

and that he wasn't holding her up. He had her arm around her because she was cold. Paul told police that Kristen walked herself into her dorm and then into her room. And that he did not walk with her to her room.

What did she say? You know, when you had conversations, you had walking up the hill.

Now, she just said she was going to never,

she's saying she was a decent person. So it's very important that you realize how important this investigation is. Yeah. You're asking this.

This is very serious business with a missing woman and that's where you're aware of all that. The interviewer noted that Paul had what appeared to be a black eye or a small bruise beneath his eye

and also had some abrasions on his knees. They asked where he got these entries

and Paul indicated that they came from

a pickup basketball game. (dramatic music) I said it was good. I said, "Do you think that's the ball under?" You think I know she got a couple?

Yeah, that's good. It's my home. My day. My day. My day.

“- If by chance did you have the accident, I think that those were kind of fresh.”

- Yeah, that's a valuable thing. Take your hand on percent.

- What happened to your eyes? I did that whole thing, that was a pleasure.

- Everyone they talked to seems to be cooperative and willing to help with this investigation. - It may come down to this, but I'm wondering, are you familiar with the term polygrain? Why detector? That sort of thing? - Yeah, I pray enough, which would be willing to take one if necessary. - Yeah. - We're in the game behind. - The smarts are the most dedicated parents. I think you're lucky to be.

- And he climbed mountains, searching through. - During the searches around the Cal Polycampus and elsewhere, the media was there, documenting this because this was unlike anything that had happened. - The entire campus is on edge over her disappearance, so the media definitely was interested in this case from the start and covered it extensively.

- The Cal Poly police and prisons family are working for to come and go. They're searching for answers. - Initial jurisdiction was with the campus police. They hung onto that tenacious lady. They don't have the familiarity. It was looking into possible homicides, but I don't think she don't feel it. - I'd even expect the University Police Department to deal with the homicide.

A homicide requires a lot of skilled personnel expertise of forensic lab. - What were some of the outstanding mistakes that you think the campus police made in the early stages of this investigation? They had down a little cursory and look around the dormitories. So when the detective from the police department came to my home and sat at my table and said,

"Well, I looked into Paul Flores' room. I looked in his laundry and I looked under the bed, and there was no evidence that Kristen was there." Well, I'm not a private investigator and I've not been trained in anything, but I can tell you flat out that your eyes are not the ticket to solving a crime. And whether it's fingerprinting the room or whether it's looking for hair samples or fiber samples,

that there are methods to look for that, and you can't expect the University to have that. And so the evidence that is lost is irretrivable. - They're not a lot of wet behind-the-year rookies. These are experienced officers here. Good care. We reached out to Cal Poly and the current administration says,

"It wasn't around at the time of the disappearance, so it can't provide any insight into the initial investigation by campus police." - A letter written to the University on behalf of the smart families, suggests the campus police department bungled the case from the beginning.

“- It took about 30 days. I believe the family's pressure,”

the acknowledgement of not kicking off the investigation quickly, that they reached out to the Sheriff's Office requested that Sheriff's step-in and take over the investigation. - The Sheriff's now in charge have to confront this suspicion that this smarts dread. It's time to search the dorms again this time with cadaver dogs.

Memorial Day weekend is a start of the summer. People are drifting off to vacations.

that she'll come back. But when somebody goes missing those first few days,

are crucial, and those days are lost.

- I think they should have looked into this more closely before school was out. - At this point, we're re-interviewing and making initial interviews of everyone we can identify that was at the party, just to see if anyone else may have seen something that we're missing. - Getting more and more anxious as time goes on, that you know something bad has happened to her. - Christen Smart's father, family, friends, and law enforcement have been searching for

Christen for about a month. - I can remember investigator for the campus place indicating to me that they had no new leads. - The investigation seems stalled, and the smarts asked campus police to go back, and talked to the two people who walked Christen home that night. Instead, says the police, we assured him. - They said, "Oh, these kids are nice."

“And both of them offered to take a polygraph test and I said, "Well, then you need to do it."”

- So, that night, Sheryl and Paul Flores were walking Christen home. Sheryl peeled off, and Sheryl says that when she laughed,

Christen was still out of it. Paul was supporting Christen, and they were headed for the dorms.

- University police are satisfied with Sheryl's version of events, which leaves Paul. Paul was the last one known to be seen with Christen on that night. - When university police talked about, they asked him about Roxy. The name she was using at that party. - When you saw Roxy walking, where was the last place that you saw her?

- When I thought about, I thought, "Quite there, let's buy up." - Sequoia. - That one is on the corner, right there. - Yeah, that one. - I thought I'd cut by that. - Yeah, and where's her where was she going, where she walking, where she standing still, where she wants to go, where she's walking, where she's saying anything,

where she wants to go, no, it's like, we didn't even have the, I don't even remember any conversation really for this whole entire time.

I don't even remember saying good night, either.

Do you remember, like, kind of probably did those, you know, say, you know, see later. - And when they speak to Paul Flores, again, a few weeks later, it's on video. - What's your best, your best, yes, it's the what happened. My best guess is maybe, you know, because her dorm was by the park and not over there, so then,

I would figure, my best guess is she went off with someone. If she's not alive, what do you think of her? - I would say, like, someone who she hitched,

“like, whether something abducted or something, you know?”

Why would she be hitching? - Well, one thing, you know, people said, they saw her hitchhiking. Investigators decide to search the dorms again. Problem is, it's been five weeks since Kristen vanished. The school year is over.

The rooms are already empty. - It was really a perfect storm. The dorm had to be cleaned. And because it hadn't been identified as a possible crime scene, and that was allowed to happen.

- But, there's a kind of evidence that even an empty room can't hide, and that's a scent. So more than a month after Kristen disappeared, they begin searching the empty dorm rooms with cadaver dogs. - Peter. - Hi, Matt.

- Somebody's to meet you. - Nice to meet you. And this is Riley, my cadaver dog. - Hi, Riley. - How much more keen is a canines a dog's ability to smell a specific scent than the humans?

- Their ability to scent is much greater than humans. You'll hear something like 10,000 times greater than humans. But, it's something that really isn't totally quantified. They have a very accurate nose for what they've been trained to detect. Riley is specifically trained to detect human remains.

It's a number of volatile compounds that make up that human decomp, but to him, those sense mean one thing, and anticipation that he's going to be rewarded with his toy. - These dogs are trained to zero win on that scent, and follow it just about anywhere.

“So, how are we going to make this challenging for him?”

- By setting it in a challenging way, either buried or up high. - Ready? - Switch. - To go back to Kristen Smart, how old can those sense of human decomposition be?

They can be anywhere from time of death to years down the line. - And how much of the human remains do they need in order to actually alert that they found something?

You can get down to very minute of those blood splatter, small drops. - Oh wow, he just did an absolute laser right to the scent. Yes!

He really wants that toy at that point.

- You're like, "I never had a door with a bull."

- Yes, and that's him working for his source

“that we put out, and that's what he does.”

(dramatic music) - Four, different cadaver dogs search. Paul Flores' door. - The first handler was not given any information about who lived in that door.

She releases her dog, and the dog starts sniffing the doors down the hallway. Hitch's brakes comes back and alerts on the door to Paul's room, room number 128 at San Alicea. - The dogs lit up, went crazy.

- Two beds in there, Paul's and a roommate's, and the dogs went directly to Paul's, and to a trash can on his side of the room. - The dog alerted to the corner at the mattress and it was a very intense alert.

- Three other dogs, blindly alerted on that same area. - Even though the door was cleaned out, the scent still was there of someone having died on the bed. And that was a real depressing thing to hear. - Paul Flores is the last person to see Kristen

has the scent of death in his room.

“Now he's at the center of the investigation.”

And in his interview, he makes an interesting admission. He admits it, he lied. - Oh, it's not really lies to death. It's something new, it's not. Well, Paul, I guess he can call it a white lie.

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That's ABCSecretSavings.com/2020. (upbeat music) The sheriff found it posse and the county search and rescue team gave it their best shot today, but still no sign of 19-year-old Kristen Smart.

The sheriff's department is circling in on freshman Paul Florence. University police already spoke with him in the dorm room and a car, and remember, back in there, very first audio tape interview with him, days after Kristen disappeared,

they saw those scrapes and another injury. In the early interviews, it had a black eye that was pretty obvious. It hadn't been there on the night of the party. Take your hand up for a certain point.

What happened to your eye? I didn't have a little net mess below. Oh, he did. Okay. But I'll rewind my desk for a moment.

I'll send my friend Jeremy and two of the guys. So about the close to the fourth week, then they actually went, and they had gone and met with him. I believe in a right-gronded police department.

Paul's story has been checked out,

and they confront him about it. They talked to his basketball buddies. No, he didn't get a black eye-point basketball. Last time we talked to him, black eye. Yep, I know.

Yep. And what did he tell us? I told you I'd got to play basketball. That's right. Where did you get in my car?

He told a friend that he got it from being pushed out of party. He told another friend. He didn't know how he got it. And then the story he ended up sticking to was that he got it by changing a radio in his truck.

He said, well, actually, I was working on my pickup truck, and I bumped my head against the steering wheel.

But I was too embarrassed because I was such a dumb thing to do

that I made up the basketball story. I made the steering wheel. That's about it.

“But how often do people in their high-end steering wheel so?”

Wow, no. The investigator, then I talked to who did the video. What struck him wasn't so much the inconsistencies in the wobbly story. What struck him was the body language.

Your best guess is the blood out. Very, very fidgety. Very, very reticent to answer questions. And he just looks super nervous, scared, and wants to be anywhere in the world, other than that room.

Now, of course, anyone's going to be kind of nervous, maybe speaking to police, I guess, anybody would be-- if they're speaking to you about disappearance of somebody. Put his hands inside his shirt, he was squarming, he was crying. The story changes multiple times.

He admits that he's changed the story. When you like it, it was so, right? Oh, it's not really lies. The fit is so, so many new things. Well, poor, I guess you can call it a little white lies.

But how do you get your black eyes in my mind? Yep. He said, in previous interviews, that he'd be happy to help, but you even take a polygraph test. All this or anything else that you've told us that you didn't think

was going to make a deal. Yep. Did they have a total of such a truth? No. How do we know that?

Take my word for it, please. Do you want to get your polygraph? I told you I had to talk to my parents about that. Well, if you're telling us the truth,

“why do you have the time for your parents to take a polygraph?”

Because I do. And at that time, then he refused to polygraph, and he walked out, he wanted an attorney. And that was the last time that anyone's been able to speak with him. If I was Paul, once you want to help as much as you could,

to just answer questions, and why would you be afraid? You know, I'm trying to be cooperative, and why can't he? We can't say anything that I don't remember. Paul Flores was also a 19-year-old freshman to hear at Cal Poly, he grew up in the community.

In high school, Paul Flores was known as more of a creepy guy. People didn't really vibe with him that much. Paul would give us a girl's a word vibe when we would hang out. Paul Flores and I graduated from the exact same high school, or I graduated high school.

A lot of people that I'm close with today knew him, in fact. And what I've heard is a common theme. We've heard a lot of people describe him. Someone that was, what was switched awkward is the key word that comes to mind.

And I felt bad for him, because it isolated him.

So you always felt like, "Alo, we're different."

And people made sure he knew that. Paul was admitted to Cal Poly from a high school in a royal grand-day. He was a terrible student. I think his GPA was 0.6.

He had one successful class, and that was bowling for a freshman. He got in trouble, loitering on the balconies of women to the point where police were called. He drank pretty heavily for a freshman. Girls would tell their friends to stay away from him.

The women had a nickname form, Chester the molester. Paul Flores of a royal grand-day is the last known person to see Kristen Smart alive. The sheriff's department is now looking at him as a potential suspect. People do not banish off the face of the Earth without a trace.

And as we've been told, 99% of the time, the person responsible was the last person seen with them. There they are, stand off, Paul won't talk to police, and believe me in a very frustrating at a suspect and not find any physical evidence.

And for everyone else, the world just keeps on turning.

“And you have to roll forward two years after Kristen disappeared,”

anything to change. Two more local college students from San Luis Obespa went missing, one from Cal Poly, one from Questa College. Banished without a trace. Three young women missing over the last two thirds

college poet in San Luis Obespa.

Paces to regret that a serial killer was on the loose.

When those two young women went missing, it really terrified the community. They could possibly be a serial killer on the loose in San Luis Obespa County. People were terrified.

Was it going to happen again? Our young man came out and was like, "Oh, I know where she lives. I can help walk her home." And that was the last time Kristen was seen by anybody.

And if they're ever going to find Kristen's smarts body, if there's a body, it may be alive. Who knows, they need to widen their scope of inquiry.

“You honestly think that Kristen's smart is still alive”

and out there somewhere.

The reality is, Kristen does not found,

there still is only one suspect. I would just state your full name for the record, Lou. Paul Rubin, Florence. We're here to answer the questions. Ask the questions or willy.

This guy murdered Kristen's smarts in your Walmart, okay? They have their wrong guy. So out of the blue, out of blue, a guy you don't know says, "I killed her and buried her in my yard." You didn't want to call the sheriff for FBI.

No, because I wasn't going to be Kristen. If something happened, I'm dead.

If you walk outside at nighttime, it's cold.

It moves out and you know there's a girl buried somewhere. So a person can disappear, but the remains don't. My mom was recording my brother's graduation party. Paul, Florence, and his friends were there. Paul, are they going to call your name account, Paul, and four years?

No way. The person was missing, Paul was the last person to see her. Paul, do you have any information on that missing girl? What to do with her?

“He turned like beat red and goes white, I remember that.”

It felt really odd. ABCviews. Tonight, the case of the missing poet. 2020's Tom Jarrell interviewed Stan and Denise Smart in 1998. New belief Paul, Florence, knows what happened to your daughter and perhaps killed her.

I think she's deceased, and I think she died at the hands of Paul Florence. That's, I'll be an accident. I want it to be something accidental. I don't want to think that anyone intentionally harmed my child to have to think of the trauma they may have had to endure before dying is really more than I can do with.

Denise Smart drives a personal appeal to Paul, Florence, approaching him at the gas station where he works. He was pumping gas, and he said, "Can I help you?" I said, "Yes, I'm Kristen's mother, and I took a hand, and I shook it, and I held it with both of my hands, and I said, "I need your help."

He just started stuttering and stammering, and he quickly went inside the gas station, and he hit in a closet. With evidentiary dead ends everywhere, the investigation stalls out. The sheriff even tells the local paper, "We need Paul Florence to tell us what happened at Kristen's smart.

Absent something from Mr. Flores, I don't see us completing this case."

“I think that tells Paul Florence and his attorneys that, you know, they're home free.”

It's over with. For them to tell us there's nothing else they can do is just like the worst possible thing you could hear. "Hi, baby. How are you?"

When ordered to get some accountability, Kristen's smart family refuses to leave Paul Florence alone. "How's it going? Need some ribbons?" "Yeah."

Once they have learned that he's employed by someone, then people have called and complained of the management that, you know, they don't feel it safe or appropriate. Flores assumed out of a job at a blockbuster video, and is fired at least twice more. Everywhere he goes, he's followed and the family makes his life miserable. Paul Flores was fleeing into the Navy.

We had a legislator who phoned the Navy and just made him aware of his past history. I can imagine how the Navy felt about that and they decided not to accept it. Now, Flores attorney calls it harassment, what do you call it?

harassment.

If he would come forward and talk with the sheriff's department and tell us what happened

that night. The smarts work with private investigator Tim Hames to shadow Paul Flores. "I'm hoping he'll see that, you know, we're still on him. We're not going away." He volunteers his time.

"Go back." It spends hours staking out Paul's every move. "Hames tries to confront Flores, hoping to push him to confess." "Listen, I can't talk to you, you know, I can't tell you anything." They also filed a civil suit to get more information.

They were able to get depositions from the Flores family to try to get information about their daughter.

“The lawyer's ask, his father, did you ever talk about what happened?”

His answer's not as bizarre as his reaction to the question. "As your son ever told you that he did not kill Kristen Smart." When you've asked that question, you don't think about it, he says, "No." During their depositions, Rubin and Susan Flores refused to acknowledge that Kristen Smart is probably dead.

He's been accused of murdering this girl and he's a testimony that he's never talked to

about this. Is this girl murdered? "We've never discussed it as the death disappearance." One thing about a civil suit, it means that Paul Flores, who has stopped talking to law enforcement, is compelled by law to answer questions.

"I would just state your full name for the record, please." Paul. Rubin, Flores. Then you can see Paul's lawyer points to a piece of paper on the table with the only answer they will hear from the rest of the deposition.

What is your or a present address?

On the vice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. "He plans to answer that he will invoke the Fifth Amendment on all your questions. We're here to answer the questions, we're required to do so, ask the questions or will you know it, please."

"Where did you attend high-squat as the name of your fault?" Paul, are you? "On the vice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment." "After Flores, I plead to the Fifth, 27 times, Murphy gives up."

“"I think that concludes the death position."”

A county court spokesperson told us that the civil lawsuit has long since been closed. Not that long after Kristen Smart disappeared, too, more local college students from San Luis Obispo, went missing. "20-year-old Rachel Newhouse disappeared after she left in fraternity party at Tortilla Fland. Then, last month, 20-year-old Andrea Crawford disappeared for her San Luis Obispo duplex."

That kind of stuff just doesn't happen here. I work at night and so now I make sure that I have someone coming pick me up and walking back the case is dirt dread in the central coast community that a serial killer was on the loose." "There was a suspect that was identified, Rex Alan Krebs." "We believe Rex Krebs is responsible for the deaths of both Rachel Newhouse and Andrea Crawford."

Krebs is convicted of those murders but investigators quickly realize that there is no way he could have killed Kristen too, because he was imprisoned for other crimes when she disappeared." They refocus on Paul Flores.

“The new plan undercover FBI stinks, but can they get their only suspect to open up and confess?”

As the years go on, it could be easy to forget a case like this. But Billboards go up the end town to remind everyone, don't forget about Kristen Smart. She's still missing. "Those Billboards really became just important and keeping this case in the limelight." A lady came by my office and said, "That sign is irritating.

It's kind of a downer to see a sign about a dead girl every day when I drive through the village. When are you going to take it down?" and I said, "Now I'll take it down when we find Kristen Smart." "At this point it appears at least to the public that the investigation has gone cold, but the police and the FBI insist it continues to be active." Agents repeatedly go undercover, hoping to create a situation where Flores will slip up

to try and get Paul to speak, to say something different than what he says for years.

Wine and dynam, get him drunk, same story, taking to strip club from Las Vegas.

He always said the same thing. They have their own guy and if they're ever going to find Kristen Smart's body,

if there's a body, it may be alive, who knows, I'm hoping she is. They need to widen their scope of inquiry.

“You honestly think that Kristen Smart is still alive and out there somewhere?”

I honestly think there's a chance she could be because we don't have her body. Belmels from the beginning, Kristen Smart's parents are repeatedly frustrated by the official investigation. One example, soon after Kristen went missing, a tenant rents out a house owned by Paul's parents. The tenant is washing her car and finds an earring, a woman's earring, in her driveway, it's a tiny piece of potentially huge evidence.

And it was believed that that earring might have belonged to Kristen. It apparently was collected by Sheriff's personnel and stored somewhere but not correctly logged and tied to this case. No one really knows what happened to it and so there wasn't any evidence that was able to be processed off of if they wanted to run DNA or anything because

the earring is gone. Who's it was, whether or not it had anything to do with this case will never

help. In 2005, Trevor Belter says the Sheriff's office reaches out to re-interview him.

“Remember, he met Kristen at that party on her final night.”

So I met with him for two and a half hours. Well, and remember telling my wife at the time, she was like, what happened? I'm like, they don't have a clue. They have no clue what happened. The Sheriff's contact you and ask you for theories about what might have happened to Kristen's smart. They're like, what did you hear? What are the rumors? They chase every theory, including allegations of a potential connection to one of America's most infamous mortars.

Suspicion hangs over Scott Peterson tonight in their Christmas Eve disappearance of his wife Lacy, eight months pregnant when that case unfolded with Scott Peterson. There was great interest in Sam was responsible County as well. Kristen smart disappeared in 96 when Scott was a student there at Cal Poly. Our investigators spoke to their investigators. Multiple witnesses at the

party said that Scott Peterson was not at the party. He had never been to that house.

So he was cleared. They can't seem to catch a break. And as the case languishes, Hall floors as mother and father say that like their son, they're also being harassed by the community. Rubin was regularly having convoys of people coming by his house, throwing rocks in his yard, yelling and screaming at him. One man who was out shopping even posted video on YouTube of an encounter with Rubin Flores and his son Hall. This guy murdered Kristen smart and who's in

your Walmart. Okay. We're going to get you one of these days, Paul. You're going to be called to a county for what you did and it's not going to be in the afterlife. It's going to be in this life. As this case unfolded over the years, I came to see it as almost a struggle or a tale of two mothers. One mother Denise Smart was refusing to let her daughter be forgotten. On the other side, we had Susan for us, this protective of her son as Denise was vigilant in her determination

“to find her daughter. And do you have any information as to where Kristen smart's body is located?”

Of course not. So then something happens that finally breaks the log jam in this investigation. There's a new sheriff. His name is Ian Parkinson and he vows to really get to the bottom of what happened to Kristen. I felt the family's pain. I felt that I could bring a fresh perspective to the case. The first year of Parkinson's tenure, he actually more than quadrupled the amount of money and

hours spent on investigating the case. The sheriff ordered a full re-examination of all of the evidence in the case. So a few years after Sheriff Parkinson comes into office, there's a search of the Cal Poly campus and it's a big event. Kristen Smart lived in that dorm right there. And now 20 years later, investigators think it's possible that her body might be on that hillside just a few hundred yards away. A new lead suggested the hillside could be where Smart is buried.

Under the blazing sun, the FBI evidence response team began a back-breaking process

Not stopping until we're able to bring this to a closure.

“This morning, a possible break in the 20 year mystery. We found things that have interest in there.”

Police hope this is their big break. But now it's up to the crime lab to figure it out.

Will they finally find Kristen Smart?

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Another year goes by. Another birthday passes. Another family engagement passes and I keep thinking about what I would tell my sister if I ever saw her again. You walk outside at nighttime. It's cold. The moon's out and you know there's a girl buried somewhere. This giant pee on the Cal Poly campus. It's a major landmark. It's been there I think about a century. You can't miss it when you come to campus. It's right behind the dormitories.

“And so that's why police are searching there in 2016. Investigation has led us back here”

where it first began. Investigators are now entering their third day of excavation on the Cal Poly campus. Items of interest were found including either animal or human remains. Samples had to a forensic lab that detected here hope they finally got a big break. Proper identification of those remains may take some time. It could be ancient bones. It could be a lot of different things. Unfortunately we did not find any results but we knew that at least we had

check that box. Eventually Paul moves to the city of Sam Pedro which is South L.A.,

it's a blue collar neighborhood. The problem is his past follows him where he goes.

Neighbors say they got a disturbing fire with florist picture and allegations. When he first moved, he was actually pretty nice. But then while everybody stopped talking when they got the notice. Neighbors say that florist now 43 years old lives alone, goes to work every day and has been friendly. Frank Romero says he's going to be watching his next door neighbor more closely. Every bunch of them are in the past. She might do it again.

A possible break in a 23-year-old cold case, the disappearance of Kristen Smart. Authorities executing several search warrants. Today, investigators went into this house and searched it. We seized a bunch of electronic data, laptops, phones, etc. from Paul's residents. According to investigators, in his computer, they found videos of Paul having sex with unconscious women. There are homemade videos. And police say many of those videos were in a

file with a simple label, practice. He allegedly also frequented bars and bring women home allegedly drunk, drugged them, and raped them. Some of the girls were completely passed out. Tramodol and Flexero were found in Paul Flores in his home. We spoke to a doctor and he said,

That's exactly what we feared. He continued his predator behavior down a Los Angeles.

“It's a bad piece of evidence because it shows a pattern, right? A pattern of drugging them”

and of having sex with them. It doesn't show a pattern of killing anybody. Paul Flores was never

charged in those cases and the police investigation continued. The appetite from the public for the news of this case has always been there. It really ramped up on Chris Lambert began releasing episodes of his your own backyard podcast. Chris Lambert wasn't someone with an investigative background like a news reporter. He was a music producer, a musician. He said he drove by a billboard every day and was like, "How is this girl still not found?"

It's been 23 years now. Kristen has been a missing person for longer than she was alive. It became the number one podcast for a period of time and that means it was getting national attention. That's good for us. You have a lot of Cal Poly students that graduate Cal Poly and don't stay in this area and maybe they knew something. Chris was able to get a handful of women in Los Angeles County to come and speak to him about their interactions with

Paul, which were very disturbing. A woman I spoke to strongly suspects that she was drugged by Paul, at least one woman believes that Paul drugged her after she had already consented to having sex with him. Some people are afraid to go to talk to law enforcement, A because they've either had some negative interaction or B because they don't want their name out there. Chris was a perfect conduit for that. I'm not just telling the story anymore at this point, I'm actively part of trying

“to push this forward. One of the most important witnesses the podcast produces is a woman”

who was a teenager when she met Paul Flores. Jennifer Hudson was at a skate ramp in San Los Abispo and Paul Flores showed up. So the radio's on and we're kind of chatting. There was a public outreach commercial. Information regarding prison smart. And Paul says that was the tease and I got sick of her. And she's out under my ramp at my place in Los Abispo. So out of the blue, out of blue, a guy you don't know, comments on a PSA about a missing young woman. It says basically,

I killed her and buried her in my yard. Right. Did you discount what Paul Flores said as just like a

young kid talking crap and not knowing what he's talking about? No. It scared me enough that I never

went back to that ramp ever. You didn't want to call the sheriff for FBI. No, because I wasn't going to be Christian, but we lived out in a very rural area. You were worried that he would kill you too. Right. Did you ever feel any regret for not coming forward soon? Oh, every day. Every day. I played a pretty significant part in her parents living every parent's absolute worst liner by not coming forward. Right. I've never been able to lay my head down in peace.

And I deserve that. I 100% deserve that. I mean, you were just a scared kid. You were 16. That's a child. Yeah, but what if? Did you ever reach out to the smarts? No. I don't have the vocabulary too.

“Sorry, just doesn't cut it. I think you'll at some point. I'm just going to have to”

rectify it. So now, sorry.

Finally, she does tell police what she knows about the case, and it's a huge breakthrough for

the investigation. The tide may be turning. You warned new technology and to search for the ultimate clue could it be hiding in his own father's backyard? I think it's very rare that somebody just disappears in thinner. We had to go back to the beginning and that was what did we recover for evidence? Investigators were out early Wednesday morning searching the Arroya Grady home of Susan Flores.

They find nothing useful at Paul's mother's house. One year later, a repeat search of woman Flores' home with a sealed search warrant in hand investigators went to work at around 730 a.m. What we had discovered during the previous search warms was that we kept going back to

Rubin Flores had a roommate at the house at white court, and that man does an interview for

“Chris Lambert's your own backyard podcast. And he tells his story about how Rubin would never”

allow anyone under that deck. A plumber even reached out last year to tell me that he was once called to the house to fix a sink, and when he told Rubin he would need to access a pipe under the house. He was told to just forget the whole thing. The plumber said they need to get down below the house in the crawl space, and Rubin said no. Wouldn't let him in there. With some of Chris Lambert's witnesses, we were able to develop enough probable cause

to go to white court and do a search underneath that deck. People from all over the central coast gathered near Rubin Flores home Tuesday,

watching as detectives investigated the area for the second time in just under a month.

This search takes them under the deck. It's a deck that they've walked over time after time,

“and they've been standing. It turns out right on top of the most important evidence they say they've”

had in 25 years. What does this thing come in? So this comes in as my personal specialty as how this technology can be adapted to archaeology. We got two archaeologists, one that was an expert in ground penetrating radar. Phil Haynes was one of them. You actually are the person who uses this machine to detect bodies hidden underground. Yes, that is absolutely one application. And then what you can see in parallel on the left-hand side of the screen here is called the

raw radar gram. This is actually the image of the radio waves traveling underground, and as they encounter something, you can see they develop a little piece, a little parabolas. We wanted to check a couple locations on the property, and we also used canines again. We had a change in behavior alert underneath that desk. Not a full alert. The dog doesn't give the strongest signal possible, but certainly interest in getting under that space.

So middle grid one, a big soil disturbance, and no obvious reason for it. That's correct. We found an anomaly underneath the porch that measured approximately four feet by six feet,

“and it was between surface and I believe four feet underground. As the approximate size,”

shape, and depth before clandestine burials. Did you think, okay, we found the body? I certainly thought we had a good chance. In everybody was kind of watching, you know, to see what was going to happen, and they started a dig. And the other archaeologist, is specialized in really the burial sites, got into the hole, and she started scraping away. We get down to about three to four feet, and we find this strange staining in the soil,

got down to that floor. The soil staining started to spread out more and more, and that with what became a red flag and an indicator for what might be triggering the radar unit. Soil staining, that is when, I guess, a body decomposes and fluids. Yes, that's only one explanation. And at that point, I thought we found her. I mean, I got right down over the whole, you know, I thought we found her.

Everyone at the dig is kind of holding their breath, then letting it out into disappointment. There was no body, no bones, just the stains. But the samples of the dirt head to a forensic lab, they're hoping for a result, and the one they get is the kind that turns a case around. So I get back in my car, I start heading back, and I call the sheriff. I said, "Are you sitting down?" I said, "Why?" He said, "Share if this human blood."

My heart just stopped, and I, all I could think of was, we finally caught our break.

And in those samples, we got more positive human blood and fibers that were black red in a grayish color, which Kristen was wearing black shorts, red shoes, and a great tank top. It's enough to finally get what they've desperately wanted since 1996 and a rest warrant. On April 13, 2021, Paul Flores is finally arrested. Charge of murder with zero bail. Flores is 80-year-old father. Ruben Flores also arrested today at his home

in a royal grande, accused of being an accessory to the crime.

It was a very good feeling. It was a bit surreal. It is alleged that Mr. Flores caused the death of Kristen Smart while in the commission of or attempted rape. Not only to prosecutors believe that Paul Flores is a killer, but that his father helped him cover it up. Both defendants entered police of not guilty and court. Susan Flores is not arrested or charged in the case.

Two arrests, yes, but now an even bigger hurdle to clear because prosecutors have a major issue here.

“They don't have one crucial piece of evidence that's Kristen's body.”

This was my first no-body kid. Very, very rare, very unusual.

So the case that's had so many ups and downs, so much frustration comes to this. With prosecutions case, be enough to get a guilty verdict. This investigator told me that the problem was lawn work on television, where you can perpetrate a crime, investigate the crime, prosecute the crime, and send away the criminal in the span of about 45 running minutes. To protect the rights of the weak and voiceless, you're in contempt, Mr. McCalley.

It's for the jury to see justice stuff. And he says it just simply doesn't happen that way. After 26 years, the Kristen's smart case is finally going to trial. I remember the first day it was very busy because there was two juries in there, so it was a very full courtroom. What makes this trial so unusual is you have one jury for Paul Flores and another jury for Ruben Flores and they're sitting in the same courtroom at the same time

to different lawyers defending them. We either try them separately and we have one jury for each one in a separate case or we try them together and we pick two juries. And the smart family attended the trial every single day. I can't imagine the pressure that Chris Pervelle must have

been under. He was tasked with trying to convict Paul Flores. There's always pressure in any

“homicide because you have to be perfect as a prosecutor. This is a nobody case and he's going to”

try based largely on circumstantial evidence, which is a lot more powerful than a lot of people believe. I truly felt like this was a part of local history. It's a landmark day in this 26-year-old case, the Kristen's smart murder trial, beginning here in Salinas with opening statements made by both the prosecution, as well as the defense prosecutors and many of the witnesses, where a bit of purple to the trial, it was Kristen's favorite color.

Defense has no burden. I can just sit back. I don't have to make an opening statement. If the state doesn't make their case, you can just say, "Okay, you know, prove it, prove it." I wanted to express to the jury just how long it's been since they've heard from Kristen. She told me she was going to call me Sunday. So before cell phones, before internet and social media, they would wait for a phone call from Kristen every single Sunday, and that phone call was

there time to catch up with her and to miss the start of the trial, 1,355 and at the end, 1,370. It's a lot of some days. We also heard from several of the key witnesses that night that Kristen disappeared, the party that she was at. Just about every other witness at the party testified that Kristen was incapacitated and couldn't walk. They asked me this in court, "Well, I don't remember seeing her drink."

“Ever. I think the proof is overwhelming that she was drugged.”

Especially with how quickly she went from being completely sober at 10, 30, 10, 45 to 1 hour later, down in the grass, incapacitated, incoherent cam move. Maybe the most surprising and important witnesses pause jury gets to hear from, are two women who the court identifies as Ronda Doe and Serado. They testified about getting a drink from Paul and passing out, and they described waking up to Flores,

having sex with them, which they never consented to.

I think it was absolutely critical, because they said what Kristen couldn't. They told Kristen's story for Kristen. The defense claims their testimony is irrelevant, and remind the jury that Paul is not charged with those alleged crimes. The defense, their means strategy was discrediting witnesses.

When you cross examined a witness, your purpose is to discredit the witness.

“But you don't want to alienate the jury. You need the jury on your side.”

When the Jane Doe's were testifying, he would talk about their drinking. So there was a layer of victim blaming to Sanger's questions. Even though prosecutors were allowed to bring in the Doe's testimony during the Kristen's

smart trial, ultimately there were no charges against Paul Flores in the L.A. County cases,

because of insufficient evidence. The member Jennifer Hudson, the teenager at the skate ramp back in 1996, she's the one who says Paul Flores confessed to her, she took this stand, and you were picked apart by their attorneys. Yes, I'm not must have been brutal.

“It made me rageful. The defense went after Jennifer Hudson relentlessly. I mean, they basically”

attacked her, both Robert Sanger and Harold Nesick. They went after her credibility to the nail. Right, you're defending the killer. You're going to kind of meet for actions as our people have taken. The video of Paul Flores speaking with police soon after the disappearance was particularly troubling for him. When you liked it, it was so right. Oh, it's not really lies. If it's so, so many news, it's not well, well, I guess you can call it a little white life.

Only one jury got to see that interview. Paul's police interview is just not relevant to

Ruben's case. Without a body, a critical component in Ruben Flores's case is convincing his

jury that Kristen's body was hidden there and then moved away. They were able to

“through ground penetrating radar, find what they felt like was the grave site of Kristen Smart.”

You find a body, or you find evidence of a body. Didn't find that at Ruben's, no matter what they tried to make you believe. And that was also the same area that cadaver dogs had a change in behavior. The dogs had a subtle change of behavior. Well, that's not an alert. Prosecutors kept coming back to the cadaver dog's act trial because Droid's love cadaver dogs. They love this kind of evidence. This is the

stuff. Droid's eat up. The cadaver dogs were pivotal to this case because in 1996, we had four dogs alert on Paul Flores's side of the room. And what about the evidence presented by the prosecution from under Ruben's deck, alleging marks of decomposition? They claimed they found human blood in the dirt, but acknowledge there's no DNA to connect it to Kristen. There's no objective, physical evidence. None. After 12 long weeks, two separate juries, circumstantial evidence

and dozens of witnesses, it was time for what everyone, most importantly, the Smart Family had been waiting decades for a verdict. It was almost surreal. Paul Flores will learn his fate.

The Smart Family will finally learn if they're going to get justice for Kristen or not.

Hey, please stand Walter. My new comedy special, it was an accident, is now streaming on the way you live. I'm pissed off so often lately. Despite knowing we were headed toward the handmaid's tail and I was going to be wearing that big red cape, I've wouldn't have cut out carbs. I mean, I know what my fullness is because my kids told me, but I've seen the way I eat and I'm pretty sure I don't practice it. I don't know why I can't find a fella. Don't miss, it was an accident,

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[Music] Oftentimes I'll see myself in a restaurant in all. See my thers with their children and I just wonder if they really appreciate. How should she be remembered?

She just didn't deserve this. The night two verdicts in a California case that made national news. When you walk in, knowing a verdict is going to happen. You get this enormous rush of adrenaline. We begin with breaking news, more than 25-year-old murder case. Dolly found 45-year-old Paul Flores guilty of her murder.

The murder Kristen was zero remorse or concerned. When I heard the verdict that Paul Flores was guilty of murder, I felt the sense of elation that we had accomplished it. I felt a sense of relief that the smart family could finally have some semblance of justice for Kristen.

So what did convince Paul Flores's jury? Prosecutors always want to know that.

Now the jurors have never spoken on camera about what happened in the jury room until now. The jurors asked we not identify them by name. It sure would have made life easier

“if the body was there. But I didn't need it to make the conviction. I think the biggest”

for me was the dogs hitting on the bed. Now we're all the dorms in that place and the dogs hit on his bed. Dogs don't lie. Do you watch that video? Today's, I mean, his body language and itself he's pulling on a shirt and looking down and not really making eye contact. You want to know if this was an accidental horrible incident or was he a predator and he was a predator. But there are two verdicts coming down, two jurors. The sun convicted, the father.

And when Leica's son Ruben Flores was found to be not guilty in our case again. You had no objective physical evidence. At Paul Flores' sentencing, you get a real sense of the pain the smart family still feels every day. This is a parent's worst nightmare. The disappearance and death of their child. Well, I sat home, staring at my sister, empty chair for over 26 years. Paul had the freedom to do whatever he wanted with his family.

“And he still is holding the key to the one thing I desperately wanted. My sister.”

We will never rest until Christmas properly laid to rest by her family. This fight is far from over.

And I'm tormented by the thought of how she lost her life. Did a sexual deviant think his needs were greater than the value of her life? Did she cry for help that never came? Mr. Flores, it is necessary to rule you from society so that you can know longer play on and think device for men. You deserve to spend every day who have left behind bars. Well, his son goes off in handcuffs 25 years to life.

Ruben Flores holds a news conference on the courthouse steps as a free man. All that stuff you say is evidence. You look through it. And there is no evidence against anybody

or Paul. Well, the story, unfortunately, isn't over. And it will never be over

“until they find Kristen and every memorial day, another anniversary of the worst thing”

a parent can endure. Talk to me, Mr. Flores. Hi, about 67 out, this sucks thing about him. She's been here earlier, but I got my shoe back then. Today is a day not really of joy. It's a day of relief. That Kristen's voice was heard. We're not happy because we don't have our daughter. We don't know where her remains are. So from that aspect, we don't have closure.

While the smarts don't have Kristen's body, they did finally receive an apology from Cal Poly about how her disappearance was handled, which reads in part, we are very sorry for what the smart family has endured. We recognize that things should have been done differently. We should also add tonight that Paul Flores is appealing his conviction. That is our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I've David Nure and from all of us here at 2020 in ABC News. Good night.

In the suburbs of DC, a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

“Hello, what is emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.”

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators

to do had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio and 2020. Blood and water.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.