The search for Kristen Smart, missing for more than 20 years, heated up this week when the Sheriff’s Office and FBI began a methodical excavation on the Cal Poly Campus, as well as several other undisclosed locations in the county.
SLO County Sheriff, Ian Parkinson said their 20-year investigation into Smart’s disappearance, “has led us back here, where it first began on the Campus of Cal Poly.” Parkinson spoke at a news conference held Tuesday, Sept. 6, in a student housing parking lot behind the dormitories where Smart was last seen in May 1996.
Parkinson explained that due to the location of where they will be digging, they thought it best to hold the press briefing and disclose why they were digging up the hillside below the landmark Cal Poly “P.”
He added they were hopeful that the search would lead to finding Smart’s remains and bring some closure to her long-suffering family, which had their daughter declared legally dead in 2002.
Hailing from Stockton, Smart was just 19 and a freshman at the university when she disappeared after an off-campus party on Memorial Day Weekend.
She was reportedly very intoxicated that night and two other students, Cheryl Anderson and Paul Flores helped her up and walked her towards the dorms. Anderson left Flores and Smart near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Perimeter Drive and walked to her dormitory.
Flores told investigators that he left Smart outside her dorm and walked to his own dorm on the same street. She was never seen again and Flores has had a cloud of suspicion over him since that night.
He reportedly lives in the Los Angeles Area and would be nearly 40 now.
Sheriff Parkinson said he assigned a new detective to the case to bring in a fresh set of eyes and go over all that has been done. “As you can imagine, the case is quite large,” Parkinson said.
The Sheriff said they’d developed a new lead that strongly indicated that Smart was buried on that hillside.
With the lead, and with cooperation from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the FBI was invited in. Sean Ragan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Office, said they brought in an investigative unit specializing in old cases, which includes two springer spaniels and a German shepherd mix cadaver dogs that are specially trained to detect old remains. They train the dogs in Civil War-era cemeteries and battlefields, SAC Ragan explained.
In the January search, the dogs alerted on “several areas of interest,” Sheriff Parkinson said.
SAC Ragan said the Los Angeles Office’s “Evidence Response Team,” would bring 25 agents and personnel to conduct the digs over two days. SAC Ragan said they spent one day prepping the sites, will dig for two days and then take down their command post on the fourth day.
He explained that their intent was to dig down about 3 feet and out 90 feet, mostly with shovels, trowels and special equipment. A backhoe was used initially but the team planned to sift the dirt looking for any clues and the length of the dig depends on what they uncover.
They would look for any materials that are not part of the natural habitat, and sift down to ½-inch sized materials. “It takes quite a bit of human labor,” SAC Ragan said.
Sheriff Parkinson said over the past five years, the department has worked with the FBI, the State Department of Justice, Ventura County Crime Lab, and the SLO County District Attorney’s Office, which has also assigned a prosecutor to work on the case.
And because the plan was to disturb soils on the hillside, they also consulted with the State Department of Fish and Wildlife to minimize environmental disturbances.
That area was searched extensively back in June 1996, when more than 400 volunteers combed the entire campus looking for Smart. But as the Sheriff pointed out, they were looking “for a missing person, as opposed to what we’re focused on.”
Sheriff Parkinson asked the public to stay away from the dig area over the rest of this week.
If Smart is found on the hillside it would be just about 250-300 yards from the Santa Lucia Dormitory Building, where she disappeared. But Sheriff Parkinson cautioned that until they find her, they needed to “manage our expectations.”
Asked if the department knew where Flores is now and whether they have been keeping tabs on him, Undersheriff Tim Olivas would only say, “He’s a person of interest in the case.”
There is still a $65,000 reward being offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whomever harmed Kristen Smart. And any information that someone might have can be reported anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 549-STOP.
