On May 25th, 1996, 19 year old Kristin Smart completely vanished after attending a college party. She was a bright young woman, with almost completing her freshman year of college she had so much to look forward to in her future.
However, she wouldn’t ever get the chance to complete anymore dreams or goals she may have had after this fateful night. What was supposed to be a fun college night out drinking with friends, turned into a 25 year hunt for answers from her loved ones.
The smart family waited a long time to finally get closure and answers about what happened to Kristin that night. However, little did they know, the person responsible for her disappearance and death was right there the entire time.
Kristin Smart was just 19 years old when she disappeared in 1996. She was originally born on February 20th, 1977 in Augsburg, Bavaria, West Germany.
Kristin’s parents, Stan and Denise Smart, were actually both teachers for American military personnel and that’s why she was born in Germany because that’s where they were living and working at the time.
However, shortly after Kristin was born the family decided to move back to the United States and settle down in Stockton, California where she grew up.
After moving back to the states, Kristin had a very normal and happy childhood. Her parents recall her always laughing and somehow never running out of energy.
Kristin attended Stockton’s Lincoln High School and she graduated in 1995. After graduating from high school, she decided that she wanted to further her education and attend college. She decided to go to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.
Kristin began attending the school in the fall of 1995 and she majored in architecture. She was so excited to begin college and be able to have that college experience she had always wanted. She had so many hopes and dreams for her future, but little did she know at the time, these would sadly never be able to come true.
May 25th, 1996, it was a Saturday and also Memorial Day weekend. Kristin was still living in the dorms at school at this point, and it was nearing the end of the semester and the end of her freshmen year.
Kristin and a friend of hers that also lived in her dorm building decided that they wanted to go out drinking this Saturday night as they would do fairly often.
The two girls went out together for awhile until Kristin’s friend decided she wanted to return to the dorms for the night as it was getting late and she was getting tired.
It was around 12:30 a.m. at this point when Kristin’s friend returned home, but Kristin being very intoxicated at this point decided she wasn’t ready for the night to be over just yet. She decided that she was going to attend a birthday party at a fraternity house off campus that she had heard about earlier that night.
Kristin went to this birthday party alone and continued drinking and partying when she arrived.
At approximately 2 a.m. that night, Kristin was found passed out in the neighbors lawn next to this fraternity house. She was found by two fellow students that had just left the party and their names were Cheryl Anderson and Tim Davis.
It was immediately clear to these two students that Kristin was very heavily intoxicated and that she would need help getting home safely that night. After they found her and began trying to pick her up to get her home, they were joined by another student that had just left the party, Paul Flores.
All three of them began helping walk Kristin back to her dorm room for the night. Tim Davis was the first to leave the group because he actually lived off campus at the time. Then when Cheryl, Paul and Kristin arrived on campus that night, Paul assured Cheryl that he could take Kristin to her room from there because they lived closer to each other.
Cheryl didn’t see anything wrong with this situation so she agreed to let Paul Flores take Kristin the rest of the way while she returned to her own room for the night. However, after Cheryl left Kristin that night, she would never be seen again.
Paul Flores was immediately questioned after Kristin was reported as missing because he was the last person to see her alive. However, Paul maintained his story that he waked Kristin to his dorm which was Santa Lucia Hall and then he let her walk the rest of the way to her own dorm, Muir Hall, by herself.
However, despite maintaining this story, police weren’t so sure that Paul Flores was being fully truthful about what happened that night.
Who is Paul Flores you may be asking? Well he was a fellow student of Kristin Smarts.
He was originally from San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. He was only four months older than Kristin at the time of her disappearance.
Paul was also a first year student at the California Polytechnic State University in May of 1996 when this all occurred.
There isn’t much more known about Paul Flores as a person and what his upbringing may have been like.
What we do know is that before Kristin’s disappearance, her and Paul were acquaintances and knew each other somewhat. It was said that they had met at a couple of fraternity parties before this night but never got to know each other very well.
At first when Kristin didn’t return home that night her family didn’t immediately worry. However, after a couple of days of trying to get into contact with her and not hearing anything back panic began to set in for them.
Kristin’s family tried reporting her missing to the police multiple time, but the police thought that she may have just gone on an unplanned vacation because she was a college student and it was that time of the year.
However, Kristin’s family and friends knew that this couldn’t be the case. After one week, Kristin Smart was finally officially reported missing to police and they began searching for her. Several search parties were set up, and it seemed like everyone was looking for Kristin.
However, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years with absolutely no answers for what happened to Kristen Smart. It was as if she had just vanished completely and never came back, but her family and loved ones knew that something sinister had to have happened to her.
They knew she would never leave without saying goodbye, and despite not having any solid evidence, her family believed for years that Paul Flores was responsible for the disappearance of Kristin.
Police also suspected Paul Flores of being involved right from the beginning. However, with no solid evidence linking him to Kristin’s disappearance the case went cold rather quickly.
On May 25th, 2002, six years to the day after Kristin disappeared, she was officially declared legally dead by the state of California. Although this gave some closure to her family and loved ones, they still had no idea what happened to her or where her body was.
On September 6th, 2016, over 17 years after Kristin Smart disappeared, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Departments announced that they were officially reopening the case and investigating a new lead they had.
The police haven’t released to the public any tips or reasoning they may have had for this, but we do know that the police strongly believed that Paul Flores’s father, Ruben Flores, had helped his son cover up the murder of Kristin back in 1996.
For this reason, police believed that Kristin’s body was most likely buried underneath the deck of Paul Flores’s parents home. They believed this because Paul was living in a dorm room at the time and didn’t have access to a vehicle. Therefore there wasn’t many options for him to be able to get rid of a body on his own.
Police eventually got a warrant to search the Flores family home and dig up the deck where they believed Kristin was buried.
On April 20th, 2021 it was announced that when digging underneath this deck police used ground penetrating radar and cadaver dogs in search of evidence. They actually didn’t end up finding Kristin’s body underneath this deck, but they did find biological evidence that according to police, prove that she was buried there at some point.
After this was discovered both Paul Flores who was 44 years old at this point, and his father Ruben Flores who was 80 years old were both arrested and charged in connection to Kristin’s case.
Paul Flores was charged with murder, and Ruben Flores was charged with accessory to murder after the fact.
Kristin Smart’s family were extremely happy to know that Paul Flores was finally arrested and charged in connection with this crime as they always thought he would be. However, even though he was finally arrested, it was still very hard for them and the police because they still didn’t have her body.
However, regardless of not having Kristin’s body the police felt like they had enough evidence to move forward with the charges. On March 10th, 2023 so pretty recently, the trial concluded and Paul Flores was officially sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Kristin Smart in 1996. Ruben Flores was acquitted of his accessory to murder charges.
Kristen Smart’s loved ones were ecstatic to find out that her killer had finally been brought to justice after nearly 25 years.
Kristin Smart finally got the justice she deserved, even if it took a very long time to get it.
Kristin was so young with so much life ahead of her when that was all taken away from her by a young man for seemingly no reason at all.
He took advantage of her when she was heavily intoxicated, and instead of getting her home safely like he should’ve done, he chose to murder her.
Paul Flores is finally behind bars for this murder, and Kristin’s loved ones can sleep easier at night finally having that security.
Her family and loved ones do hope that one day Kristin’s remains will be found so they can properly put her to rest. They also hope that Paul Flores is never allowed out of prison because he got to live a long life that he took away from Kristin at such a young age.
Kristin’s family also began the Kristin Smart Scholarship in 2020 that awards a woman graduating high school and attending college a grant to help them out financially.
Kristin’s family began this scholarship in an effort to help out other young women that are going to college to pursue their dreams just like Kristin was herself.
You can read more about the Kristin Smart Scholarship by clicking here.
Sources:
Hauser, C. (2021, April 14). A timeline of the kristin smart case. The New York Times.