Memorial Day weekend holds a somber milestone for Denise and Stan Smart.

Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter, Kristin Smart.

Smart was a first-year student at Cal Poly in 1996 when she disappeared after a house party. Paul Flores, also a student at the time and the last person seen with her, was convicted of her murder in 2022, but her body was never found.

Thirty years later, the not knowing keeps her family up at night.

“It’s never-ending,” Denise Smart told The Tribune in an interview ahead of the anniversary. “We’re really tired of being brave and strong. ... We want just some semblance of peace in our life where we don’t feel like we’re fighting for something all the time.”

The Smart family and dedicated followers of Kristin’s case were hopeful they might get it when the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office launched a surprise search at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, Paul’s mother, on May 6 in an effort to uncover evidence that Kristin is or once was buried on her property.

Over the course of four days, investigators served multiple search warrants, used ground-penetrating radar and dug up concrete slabs in Susan Flores’ backyard while soil vapor scientists took samples from all around her house. Their tests yielded “very strong” results for evidence of human decomposition in one area of the side yard.

Investigators recovered “several items” of possible evidence, but ultimately, Kristin’s remains were not found.

On the 30th anniversary of Kristin’s disappearance, Sheriff Ian Parkinson said his agency remains committed to standing with the Smart family and bringing Kristin home. Until that happens, “there is no true justice,” he said in a statement Monday.

“The Sheriff’s Office will continue to pursue leads, conduct searches, and follow every path that could help us find Kristin,” Parkinson said. “We will not stop searching for her, and we will not allow her to be forgotten.”

If Kristin were still alive today, her mother is sure she’d be spending the long weekend with friends and family. She’d be dancing — the music turned up “way too loud,” Denise said — and she’d make her favorite breakfast, omelets.

“She didn’t give hugs — she wrapped her arms around people,” Denise said. “She always had a dream in her pocket. She loved living life, always ready to seize the day and plan for the next.”

Therese Cron, a close friend and advocate for the family, organized a small gathering on Monday afternoon at “Kristin’s Point of Hope” at Dinosaur Caves Park in Pismo Beach, one of her favorite places and the spot where a bench is dedicated in her honor.

Community members were invited to come together in the park at 760 Mattie Road at 6 p.m. for a joyful celebration of Kristin’s life by singing a few of her favorite songs, Cron said. Denise encouraged people to bring a single flower to place in the fence along the bluffs.

Though the anniversary is a hardly one to celebrate, Denise said she is grateful every day for the support from the San Luis Obispo County community.

“The unwavering support of so many is, without question, the strength that keeps our hopes alive,” she said.

Where is Kristin Smart?

Denise said early law enforcement failures are to blame for the fact that Kristin has not yet been found.

Kristin was last seen around 2 a.m. on May 25, 1996, with Paul Flores walking home from a house party near the Cal Poly campus. A student reported her missing to the Cal Poly University Police Department on May 27, but a police report was not taken until May 28.

That was the first time Denise and Stan were contacted about their missing daughter — three days after she disappeared.

Another early mishap included the Sheriff’s Office misplacing a piece of evidence — an earring resembling Kristin’s found in Susan Flores’ driveway with a red stain on the back.

“The reason we don’t have answers is because early law enforcement did not take it seriously,” Denise said.

In the following months, Paul Flores was interviewed multiple times, the Floreses’ Arroyo Grande property was searched and cadaver dogs were brought to Paul’s Cal Poly dorm room, reacting to his stripped mattress. He was named the only suspect in the case, but he wasn’t arrested.

Years passed. The Floreses’ properties were searched again, and a hillside on the Cal Poly campus near the Cal Poly “P” was excavated, but Kristin was never found.

A few moments brought renewed hope to the Smart family: meeting Sheriff Ian Parkinson in 2010 and Det. Clint Cole in 2017 when he took the lead of the Sheriff’s Office investigation with a new energy.

“Our hopes were renewed when Clint came on the scene,” Denise said. “It was monumental.”

Then, in 2018, Denise met Chris Lambert, who would soon after become the host of the popular “Your Own Backyard” true-crime podcast about Kristin Smart’s case that ultimately helped convict her killer.

Podcast listeners from SLO County and beyond began to show an out-pouring of interest and support in the fight to find Kristin, Denise said.

“Your community is truly amazing,” Denise said. “They have embraced our family with so much support.”

A new fire seemed to light in the investigation. Between 2011 and 2020, 18 search warrants were served at nine locations, 140 new items of evidence were collected and 91 in-person interviews were conducted, the Sheriff’s Office said in 2020.

A year later, a then-44-year-old Paul Flores was arrested and charged with murder and his 80-year-old father Ruben was arrested and charged with accessory after the fact, accused of helping his son hide Kristin’s body.

Investigators had uncovered traces of human blood in a patch of disturbed soil underneath a deck at Ruben’s home. Prosecutors, led by former Deputy DA Chris Preuvrelle, argued the area was a crude grave where Kristin was once buried before being moved.

After a four-month trial held in Monterey County, Paul Flores was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Kristin Smart and sentenced to life in prison. Ruben was found not guilty by a separate jury.

“You have been a cancer to society,” Monterey County Superior Court Judge Jennifer O’Keefe told Paul Flores during his sentencing.

Though Flores’ conviction was a long-awaited moment for the Smart family, their fight was far from over. Denise still believes her daughter is, or was, being “held hostage” buried at one of the Floreses’ properties.

“We want Kristin. We want peace,” Denise said. “We want to be able to lay our girl to rest and not be under the eye of these people. She did nothing to deserve that. She did nothing to deserve to lose her life.”

The recent search at Susan Flores’ home was the first major update in the case since the trial.

Denise said she felt the search was “overdue” and is immensely grateful to Sheriff Parkinson and his office for not giving up on finding her daughter.

“We are incredibly grateful to have this team looking for our girl,” Denise said. “We know this team will never give up.”

But since Sheriff’s Office investigators cleared out from the property on May 9 as quickly as they’d arrived, the Smart family is back to waiting.

In its most recent news release, the Sheriff’s Office announced the search had recovered “several items considered evidentiary in nature” that are currently being analyzed.

“Nothing surprises us anymore,” Denise said about the abrupt end to the search.

While the Sheriff’s Office announced no further updates would be given regarding the search, Denise said she assumes there will be more information to come.

“We always have hope for them to continue,” Denise said. “We don’t know that this is the answer, and they try to protect us, so they don’t always share more than what they share with you. So, I don’t think they’re going to give up.”

“I just, I don’t know who’s going to follow in their footsteps,” she said. “So I’m eager — our whole family is eager — for them to do this, because they are our last shot.”

Jeffry Radding, Susan Flores’ attorney, declined to comment and said she would not be fielding any media inquiries. Ruben Flores’ attorney did not respond to The Tribune’s attempts to reach him for comment.

How to support the Smart family

Denise described the search for Kristin as an ultra-marathon — one that everyone who has had a hand in the case has been running for the past 30 years, from the DA’s Office and law enforcement to concerned community members.

“Through a labyrinth of despair, miracles have still found us,” Denise wrote in a statement sent to The Tribune following the interview. “Today, Kristin’s brother and sister have built successful careers and beautiful families. Yet, it never leaves us for a single minute that ‘Auntie Kristin’ is missing from their lives, and that she should be here celebrating these joys with them.”

Kristin always had a vision, her mother said.

She loved to travel. She was a giver, often making handmade gifts to hand out on holidays. From a young age, she’d wrap her families’ things like they were presents and gift them back to them, even if it was just a simple bar of soap.

Through their grief, they have found other ways to give back in Kristin’s name.

The family started the Kristin Smart Scholarship in 2017, awarding $500 to $5,000 grants every year to college-bound women. Five of the eight awardees this year are from SLO County. The Smarts have awarded just over $116,000 since 2018, Denise said.

The scholarship is sustained by their annual fundraiser, which accepts donations at givebutter.com/kristinsmart.

The Smart family is also exploring options to renew Kristin’s commemorative bench at Dinosaur Caves Park, but they are running into obstacles after being given a price estimate of $7,000, Denise said. She invited anyone with ideas to contact Chris Lambert at yourownbackyardpodcast@gmail.com.

Kristin’s family has had to live for 30 years with the fact that they may never know where their daughter is, but they keep a “little candle of hope,” Denise said.

“It’s been very exhausting — very exhausting,” she said. “But you can’t give up.”

Full Coverage of the Kristin Smart Case

30 years after Kristin Smart disappeared, her family is still searching for peace

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