The Disappearance of Kristin Smart

Kristin Smart was a 19-year-old freshman at California Polytechnic State University who disappeared on May 25, 1996, after attending an off-campus party. She was last seen walking home with fellow student Paul Flores in the early morning hours. Flores told investigators he had walked her partway and left her when she seemed close to home. She was never seen again, and despite being reported missing the same day, an immediate search found no trace of her.

The case went cold for decades, though Flores remained the primary suspect throughout. In 1996, investigators found evidence that Flores had a bloody shovel and soil on his property consistent with digging shortly after Kristin's disappearance, but this was not enough to charge him at the time. The case was periodically reopened as investigative techniques advanced. A podcast examining the case in 2019 renewed public attention and generated new tips that reinvigorated the official investigation.

In 2021 — 25 years after Kristin's disappearance — Paul Flores and his father Ruben Flores were arrested. Prosecutors alleged that Paul had murdered Kristin in his dorm room and that his father had helped conceal her remains on his property in Arroyo Grande. Excavations of the property using cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar located human remains consistent with a burial site, though the remains could not be forensically identified as Kristin's.

Paul Flores was convicted of first-degree murder in October 2022 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Ruben Flores was acquitted of accessory charges. Kristin Smart's remains have still never been officially recovered or identified, meaning her family has no grave to visit. Her case became a landmark example of a cold case finally resolved through the combination of advances in forensic technology, investigative persistence, and community attention — including the role of true crime podcasting in reviving dormant investigations.