How Police Closed in on the Last Person to See Missing College Student Kristin Smart Alive

The disappearance of California Polytechnic State University student Kristin Smart, who vanished on the eve of Memorial Day weekend in 1996 after attending an off-campus party, shocked the coastal city of San Luis Obispo.

The 19-year-old freshman was found partially unconscious on a neighbor’s lawn that Friday night, and two students, including one of Smart’s friends, offered to help her get back to her dorm because she was unsteady on her feet. As the group headed back to Muir Hall, where Smart lived during the school year, freshman Paul Flores volunteered to walk her home.

Smart was never seen again. The next afternoon, when Smart failed to show up for a study session, her friend alerted campus police, which didn’t begin fully investigating her disappearance until days later, when classes resumed. 

Smart’s disappearance and the decades-long investigation that followed is examined in the upcoming People Magazine Investigates episode “Where Is Kristin Smart?,” which airs tonight at 9/8c on ID/Investigation Discovery and streams on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)

Police initially suspected that Smart had gone on an unannounced vacation, but they later interviewed those who had last been seen with her, including Flores, whose dorm was in nearby Santa Lucia Hall. He claimed to police that he got Smart to the sidewalk near his dorm — and that she walked off on her own, back to her dorm.

“During this interview, the University of Police see that Paul had abrasions on his knees and a fresh black eye, and they asked about how he obtained his black eye and his abrasions,” Sheriff Ian Parkinson of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office says in the clip.

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Flores told investigators that he got his bruises and scratches during a basketball game two days after Smart’s disappearance. To check out his story, investigators spoke with Flores’ roommate, who was out of town that weekend. He described Flores as weird and quirky.

According to investigators, the roommate said that when Flores got home, Flores had mentioned he’d been with the student who was now missing.

When the roommate asked Flores if he had anything to do with the teen’s disappearance, Flores made an apparent joke, saying that the missing student was having lunch with his mother.

Investigators found Flores’ tone — as related by his roommate — concerning.

Flores was later declared a person of interest in the case.

But where was Smart?

People Magazine Investigates: Where is Kristin Smart? premieres tonight at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max.