In 1996, Kristin Smart vanished after a night out. The last man seen walking her home had unexplained scratches, rug burns, and a black eye the next morning. Cadaver dogs later alerted on his dorm mattress. It took 25 years and a podcast to catch him. Kristin was never found.
On Friday, May 24, 1996, Kristin Smart left her parents a voicemail saying she had good news and would call again Sunday. That night, she asked her friend Margarita Campos to join her in searching for a party. With Memorial Day weekend approaching, few parties were taking place near campus. Kristin had lost her dorm key, so she relied on Margarita’s key to enter their building. She also left without identification, a wallet, or money and did not drive.
They joined other young women and rode to a house party with an acquaintance. Kristin found it unremarkable and drank only one beer before they continued looking for another gathering. After driving around unsuccessfully, Kristin and Margarita walked through a nearby neighborhood. Margarita became tired and decided to return, while Kristin continued alone, taking Margarita’s dorm key and placing it in her sock.
Around 10 p.m., Kristin encountered a birthday party at a house associated with Sigma Chi. She drank considerably more than usual. Around 2 a.m., Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson found her lying on a lawn, unable to stand. They helped her toward campus. Paul Flores joined them and later continued walking with Kristin after Tim and Cheryl left. Flores said he watched her walk toward her dorm before going inside. Kristin never arrived at Margarita’s room.
I'd recommend the podcast Your Own Backyard if you want to take a deep dive into this case. Absolutely infuriating how poorly this was handled by law enforcement.
Some people definitely don’t deserve to live for their crimes and are way beyond rehabilitation. But I also don’t believe in the death penalty. Not sure what the middle ground is here.
I think the death penalty can only be considered when the rate of innocent people convicted, death penalty or not, is closer to zero. Until then, it shouldn't be an option.
The way no one understands nuance and this comment made everyone mad is wild. I hate it here. Sorry dude.
I understand what you meant. Some people don't deserve to live for their crimes but that doesn't mean we believe the state, or me, or anyone, should actually come forward and fix that.
Much like I don't think my coworker deserves their promotion, and yet I dont believe the police should come force them out of it.
I think there are a lot of bots and troll accounts on here too. I posted something in a different sub a few days ago and got three responses at the same time that were very similar and weirdly hostile, and I swear it’s meant to either boost engagement or just piss people off to sew discord. I don’t want to post anything anymore.
No, it’s more like he deserves to die but we don’t trust our justice system to enact the death penalty without making any mistakes/possibly executing an innocent person. Some people deserve to die but the death penalty itself, death row, the justice system are a shitty process that would inevitably end up with innocent people suffering.
Some people definitely don’t deserve to live for their crimes and are way beyond rehabilitation. But I also don’t believe in the death penalty.
The middle ground is recognizing that these two statements are a complete contradiction, and that you have severe cognitive dissonance. The only way to fix it, is to eliminate the contradiction.
The middle ground is recognising that our prisons contain thousands of people convicted of crimes they didn't commit, and reckoning with the number of innocent people the state would murder if the death penalty was broadly enforced. Obviously.
The middle ground is recognising that our prisons contain thousands....
That's all well and good... but if and when the "left" finally decides to get serious and take power (and control the justice system), there should be a move to re-open criminal cases where the conviction was unjust (because say racism). But a move to get rid of capital punishment altogether, is a mistake. By all means, get the innocent people out of the prisons. But the guilty murderers (and possibly serial rapists) deserve to be on death row.
It's as blatant as the sentences you typed. If some people "don't deserve to live for their crimes" then you believe they should be executed. Murder, by the way, is "unjustified" killing. Executing monsters is completely justified, as you pointed out.
Don’t have to wish someone would be executed to wish they were dead. You can think someone doesn’t deserve to live for their crimes without thinking that murder is the answer. Wishing someone would drop dead isn’t the same as wishing they got shot dead. It’s not a contradiction, especially since the death penalty does in fact mean state sanctioned killings. Not to mention the issue of innocent people in prison… and also the fact that life without parole when you’ve been convicted of certain crimes can and often is worse than being put to death. You can believe someone shouldn’t be alive but that that’s not up to humans to decide. Not even in a religious way, just let nature run its course yknow
Middle ground would be death penalty only if it's a slam dunk, no doubts case. Like if the killer is on surveillance video shooting the person and there's clear video evidence of the act. Otherwise, no.
It was truly wild hearing it for the first time AS that trial was happening…like, such a disconnect from all those years ago to the seeing someone finally at trial? But it still wouldn’t do anything to bring her back. I feel for her family 💛
A young woman looking for random parties alone at night should be safe because pieces of shit like Flores shouldn't exist in the first place... but it's generally understood as risky behaviour so I wonder what the thought process was and if part of it is because it was 90s.
I'm fifteen years younger than Kristin and in my time the rule of thumb was nobody gets left alone in a bar or party and if you arrived together you leave together. So back then if your friend got headache you went home too, even from same party or bar.
Wonder if the social media and stories like Kristin's made us more cautious and if Kristin and her friends didn't have that.
I also briefly wondered why the other young woman who initially found Kristin blackout drunk let her leave with Flores rather than getting her to her dorm, but then I realised she was protecting herself because her male friend had car somewhere and broke away from the group earlier so her options would have been being alone with Flores who had harassed her and the other women before and who she knew was creep or letting Flores and Kristin go their way.
Lots of college campuses pride themselves on how safe they are, and they advertise their security teams and their safety features left and right. It’s so easy for students to think they’re in a safe little bubble even when they’re slightly off campus.
A lot changed in 15 years though, cases like these are why later generations take women’s safety much more seriously.
OJ killed Nicole only 2 years prior to this. Hearing testimony about their relationship by her sister is insane today, but back then, domestic abuse was still much more accepted. Obviously.
After her disappearance there were two more girls who went missing a while later in SLO so at one point people thought it might be one guy. Aundria Crawford and Rachel Newhouse’s killer was found not long after but definitely made people more aware of the danger even in a small town. Party culture is definitely not the same. Places in SLO that would be packed with people partying are calm even on Fri and Sat night. There is still a bad scene DT but even that is muted.
Yes. 3 girls missing and murdered within a couple years of each other was such a strange feeling on campus. There were flyers all over campus bringing awareness to them being missing. I specifically remember seeing Rachel’s flyer every day going into my geography class.
So scary and so damn sad.
Those were strange days at SLO.
I agree, law enforcement fumbled this but also universities have a tendency to do the initial policing and they waited too long to do anything meaningful. Very sad. Hopefully one day her family gets her back. That’s the real nasty part of this.
"Additional searches followed, including a nine-hour search of Susan’s property in 2000 using ground-penetrating radar, which produced inconclusive results without excavating the concrete.
In 2007, following a separate lawsuit the Flores family filed against the Smart family, another radar search was permitted, but investigators were barred from examining the planter area and the garage built over it."
Watch and listen to a lot of true crime and the thing that annoys me the most besides the horrific crimes are the friends and family who try to help someone get away with the crime. I know people can be terrible but I feel like if my brother said he killed someone id be informing the authorities asap
I was talking to a group of random people I'd met at a pub. All normal looking average guys in their 40s. 3 out of 5 said they'd cover for their kids if they killed someone in a drunken hit and run accident. When I ask if they'd do the same in an outright murder scenario, they all said no eventually, but 2 of them needed a 5 minute talk to decide, and even then it was a hesitant no. I slowly excused myself and left wondering how common this is.
Depends on the who and why. Killed his wife because she wanted a divorce? Sure Buddy I'll help you, I'll be over in 20 minutes. And then he's gonna open the door to cops.
Killed his boss who once again fucked him over by taking credit for his work, while bullying him? Well I might not agree with that, but I'd also help my son not go to prison for that either.
How would you feel as a father if it was the other way around? Your son gets murdered and it turns out he was a bad boss and a bully, and some employee killed him instead of just reporting it to HR and/or quitting. Then the murderer's parents lie to the police to cover for him. Would have been nice if your son had a chance to have a learning experience and maybe redeem himself, no?
Idk if you listened to this one specifically but to your point it was wild to me that had they just turned Paul in there’s a real chance he’d be getting released around this time and the rest of his family could have had a relatively normal life. Instead they spent the last 20+ years dealing with court cases, protests against them, being ostracized from the community (all of this rightfully so), only for Paul to still end up in jail
It's completely beyond me how you got nine upvotes when half of your post is a non-sentence that makes no sense. People really do respond to pure emotion, huh?
I keep reading and re-reading trying to figure out which word they mistyped to get the sentence to make sense, but nothing so far. It’s truly a bowl of that figure seven.
Fr wth? Swipe autocorrect fails, maybe? Plus dyslexia?
I'm thinking Once → police? So my best guess is:
"Police internal affairs traffics kids. They all do." or possibly "Police internal affairs. Traffic kids is all they do."
Also maybe Kids → kinda? So perhaps "Police internal affairs. Traffic is kinda all they do"?
My best friend growing up ended up being a rapist as a teen & young adult.
My mom & I lived in his mom & dad’s basement for a year when I was 5 while we were getting away from my mom’s crazy ex. So I got an up close & personal view of his family life.
His dad was checked out, only called in for extreme trouble. His mom treated him like gods gift to the world… and excused any bad behavior. He got whatever he wanted, and when things didn’t work out, she had a flood of excuses ready for him.
He grew up the epitome of entitled, which was wild because they were not particularly wealthy. Working man salary with a STAHM for years.
He once bragged to me about fingering a girl who sat on his lap while they were in a crowded setting. He described her reaction as, letting him do it. He was describing shock.
Another girl accused him of raping her at junior prom.
When he tried to rape my mom on her birthday while he was 17, she awoke to him removing her underwear in her bed. She rebuffed him, and this shit had the gall to argue with her about how she had to because he thought she was desperate & because he had the hots for her.
He became a high school drumline coach out of high school, and had to drop out of CU freshman year to deal with the trial for raping a girl from said drumline.
After acquittal, he married another girl from the same drumline when she turned 18. Then she disappeared 3 weeks later.
Some people’s best parenting intentions create monsters.
And then you have the family in Japan that literally suspected that their son had killed an ex and buried her under their house and the police still refused to investigate
That detail is so chilling. I listened to the podcast a year or so ago and the tenant’s story of hearing it go off every morning until it finally just stopped STILL randomly pops into my head. Even just this morning.
My wife went to high school with Paul Flores. All the police would have had to do is talk to anyone from AGHS class of 95 and they would have said yeah, Paul did that shit.
I’m a bit younger than you but there was a creepy Paul at my school who masturbated in the classroom and attempted to sa a woman outside of school and was beaten to the point of facial deformity as a result. Also, creepy Paul was a juvenile and the man was an adult and the man was not charged with a crime. This was like 2002 or so
Anyway, he did EVENTUALLY get sent to a school for criminally dangerous children and that’s the last I heard of him. 100% this kid could not be out in society. I often wonder what happened to him
Can you share with us a story that you've heard about Paul, that can further indict him in our minds? I'd be super interested to hear about some creepy stuff from hs
Listen to the podcast Your Own Backyard. It’s incredible and addicting.
Tons of creepy stories about him by pretty much every woman and girl who interacted with him. He’s also a serial rapist who drugged his victims, and most likely roofied and raped Kristen before he killed her.
It's not just that. The creep's dad was a former sheriff's deputy. He'd been covering up awful things that kid's whole life and his buddies in the dept continued to "help" after he retired.
It was very much sounding like police interference when reading the article rather than them being incompetent, but this just makes it so clear.. them “losing” the earring and when being barred from investigating the freshly poured concrete under the new garage them just going “m’kay”. What a bunch of fucking pieces of shit. Then let’s wonder why nobody trusts the police and straight up hates them.
Glad a good one has taken over that clearly corrupt station who immediately done more work in that short period than they did in years before him. Still don’t understand how they didn’t check the area where they weren’t allowed before
Listening to the podcast and hearing those renters saying they kept hearing the watch alarm go off every morning at the time she would get up for work gave me FULL BODY CHILLS.
A man who killed his wife and refuses to reveal where her body is cannot be freed from prison, after the High Court overturned the Parole Board's decision to release him.
The part that stuck with me the most is the people who rented the house from the Flores family could hear a watch alarm going off at the same time every day, likely still attached to Kristen’s remains right under their patio.
Seems like something they could have asked her roommate about. Did Kristin wear a watch and what was her regular alarm? A college roommate would know this.
Bought a 20 dollar timex at Walmart for a camping trip in 2016. That watch got tossed into a box where it remained, going off everyday at its set time. After three moves, and ten years of hearing that alarm daily, coming from whatever corner of my house the watch now resided, it has finally died. So 10 years with a good battery!
It got tuned out most of the time. And then one day you’d hear it and be reminded. My GF hated it, “ just find it and shut off the alarm” she said. Preposterous.
I have a rule where anything i haven’t touched since i moved into a place doesn’t come to the next place i move to. You should just get rid of the whole box 😌
Tear that planter and the garage with the ground under it apart. I don’t understand how they could have been barred from searching that area. What a sick family.
Wow so many departments dropped the ball in this case… if the campus police took this missing person case seriously or police department they would have more than likely nabbed this POS earlier and possibly found her remains because the evidence was more intact…. So sad to that family
I listened to a podcast on this from a younger guy. I totally forget the name, he was a local to the San Luis Obispo area.
It’s been solved, Paul Flores killed her and his dad concealed her body under his deck for around a decade before disposing of the remains elsewhere when heat from law enforcement turned up.
Unfortunately her remains were never found but they did convict Paul Flores. I don’t think they did convict the father.
On October 18, 2022, the two juries returned their verdicts. Paul Flores was convicted of first-degree murder in Kristin Smart’s death, while Ruben Flores was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact. Kristin’s remains had still not been found.
I don’t understand how the dad was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact when it’s pretty damn obvious he helped his scumbag son conceal the body. He also moved it years later and is a big reason as to why her remains have never been found. My heart goes out to Kristin Smart and the Smart family.
On Friday, May 24, 1996, Kristin Smart left her parents a voicemail saying she had good news and would call again Sunday. That night, she asked her friend Margarita Campos to join her in searching for a party. With Memorial Day weekend approaching, few parties were taking place near campus. Kristin had lost her dorm key, so she relied on Margarita’s key to enter their building. She also left without identification, a wallet, or money and did not drive.
They joined other young women and rode to a house party with an acquaintance. Kristin found it unremarkable and drank only one beer before they continued looking for another gathering. After driving around unsuccessfully, Kristin and Margarita walked through a nearby neighborhood. Margarita became tired and decided to return, while Kristin continued alone, taking Margarita’s dorm key and placing it in her sock.
Around 10 p.m., Kristin encountered a birthday party at a house associated with Sigma Chi. She drank considerably more than usual. Around 2 a.m., Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson found her lying on a lawn, unable to stand. They helped her toward campus. Paul Flores joined them and later continued walking with Kristin after Tim and Cheryl left. Flores said he watched her walk toward her dorm before going inside. Kristin never arrived at Margarita’s room.
After reading the article, I don't understand at all how they could have left her alone with a guy who was known for harrassing and assaulting women. He had a pretty long track record of forcing himself on women, even at the exact party they were at, and the two people she was with still left and let him accompany her alone at night while she was intoxicated?
And then not only that, another student said he biked past the dorm window at 2am and saw a man and woman in a physical struggle, but instead of contacting police or anything he just kept biking. This story is so infuriating because there were so many points of failure - like 10 or more people who could've prevented what happened if they just acted a little smarter at various points. So fucking tragic and unnecessary, she was failed by so many people.
Students who knew him perhaps. But I doubt every single person at that university knew him.
I'm saying it's one thing if those 2 people said to each other "Let's let Chester the Molestor drag Kristin away. " And it's another thing if they thought "Oh, this guy knows this drunk girl. Okay, now she's with a friend who can get her home."
Sorry, didn't mean to sound snippy. I'm just pointing out there's no reason to blame the two other students because we don't know if they knew Flores and if they knew of his reputation as a creep. That school had 17K students in 1996.
Teach your children to help each other. Buddy system equals more safety. I was always taught to wait until you watch the person go inside their apartment. Then leave, especially if they are intoxicated may even want them to stay if they are, too intoxicated. Either way being left alone can be dangerous.
I used to catch a bus to Community School in San Luis Obispo right in front of Garland's where he worked on Grand Avenue in Grover Beach. I remember one time after getting home from school I went inside there and ordered a hamburger and I'll never forget his stupid fucking face. He always looked on edge like he was tweaking.
What has always haunted me is that everybody on campus talked about it being Paul Flores right after she went missing.
People said she was buried in the concrete in a family member’s house in a nearby town.
Shocking it took a podcast to take him down, decades later.
Thank you, Podcasting team.
As a side note, my husband attended Cal Poly SLO and when Paul was sentenced for her murder, I asked if he saw the news and he had no clue what I was talking about. He grew up in a very remote area of the US and still had dial-up internet in 2010, so when he was applying for colleges, he was going off the vibes of the attendance counselors who visited his high school. He never once googled his own alma matter, even when he graduated 😂
One of the most haunting aspects of this case is that a tenant of, I think, a property owned by Paul’s mom, could hear a beeping or an alarm at around 4:30 am every morning for a while. Kristen was known to have set her watch for the same time out of habit from when she had a job as a life guard. edit sorry, wasn’t clear. The tenant could hear the noise from the bedroom window into the backyard. So the thinking was they were hearing a watch that was buried beneath the back yard on the property
I was at a party the first time I met her. Paul Flores was there too. Had been to quite a few parties where he would show up, not drink (just cup hold) and stare. No one really invited him. Or at least no one admitted to it.
He left soon after everyone started talking about him being a creep and not taking no for an answer.
He went on to rape a couple of people I used to know after her disappearance. He has yet to face the consequences of using date rape drugs on them and recording the assaults.
One of the victims names got leaked. She had to change names, move, and start over. Too many strangers trying to contact her.
Paul's parents acted like everything he did was normal. It was disgusting. They knew he was a serial rapist and did nothing.
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u/Iambhalo 2d ago
On Friday, May 24, 1996, Kristin Smart left her parents a voicemail saying she had good news and would call again Sunday. That night, she asked her friend Margarita Campos to join her in searching for a party. With Memorial Day weekend approaching, few parties were taking place near campus. Kristin had lost her dorm key, so she relied on Margarita’s key to enter their building. She also left without identification, a wallet, or money and did not drive.
They joined other young women and rode to a house party with an acquaintance. Kristin found it unremarkable and drank only one beer before they continued looking for another gathering. After driving around unsuccessfully, Kristin and Margarita walked through a nearby neighborhood. Margarita became tired and decided to return, while Kristin continued alone, taking Margarita’s dorm key and placing it in her sock.
Around 10 p.m., Kristin encountered a birthday party at a house associated with Sigma Chi. She drank considerably more than usual. Around 2 a.m., Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson found her lying on a lawn, unable to stand. They helped her toward campus. Paul Flores joined them and later continued walking with Kristin after Tim and Cheryl left. Flores said he watched her walk toward her dorm before going inside. Kristin never arrived at Margarita’s room.
Read the full story here.