Episode 06: Ongoing and Active

A note from the Smart family. The statute of limitations in this case has expired on everything except murder. Anyone who comes forward with information will not be charged with any crime. San Pedro, known by locals as San Pedro, is a harbor community in the South Bay of California. Technically part of the greater Los Angeles area, a waterway runs alongside the quiet neighborhoods.

and the air smells like a combination of car exhaust and fish market. The region is a haven for windsurfing, cruise ships, and seafood. And for the last nine years, It's also the home of Paul Flores, who, with the help of his parents, purchased a house here in 2011. At 6.30am on a Monday morning, I find his street. I'm hopeful that I can catch him leaving for work so I don't have to knock on his door.

The street is so narrow that parked cars have two of their tires up on the curb to leave enough road for other cars to drive on. When two cars come down the street in opposite directions, one of them has to pull to the side. to allow the other to pass. I find a place to park and I sit for a few hours hoping that Paul will come out.

Several neighbors move their curtains aside to look at me, and an occupant of the house next door comes out to water his lawn, glancing over at me repeatedly, before taking a seat on a large porch swing. which curiously is turned to face Paul's house. Directly across the street is a banner advertising an at-home daycare center for children.

I'm not the first person to come here to try to talk to Paul, and the neighbors are clearly tired of it. I can't tell whether they don't know what he's been accused of, or don't care. It's worth noting here that in 1996, Paul Flores' attorney came to the Smart Family's attorney with an offer. Allow Paul to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter with a six-year sentence.

and an agreement not to pursue him in civil court, and he would lead authorities to Kristen's body. Before the Smart family could even consider the compromise, he withdrew the offer.

The guy on the swing never goes back inside, and I finally decide to try knocking around 9am. An old GMC truck is parked horizontally in Paul's driveway, something I've never seen before, and which I'm assuming was intended to block access to his front door. I'm just able to squeeze past it. and the neighbor watches me approach Paul's metal screen door. I knock three times, and while I'm waiting, the neighbor says something that I can't quite make out.

before finally disappearing into his own house. I'm not sure if he's going to call the police or come back out with a weapon, so I leave a business card and go back to my car. I don't want to wrap up this story without speaking to Paul, but I'm almost positive that he won't talk to me. In 2016, he was approached at the same curb by a writer from the Daily Beast, but at the mention of Kristen Smart,

Paul responded, no, no, no, I'm good, and retreated back into his house. I'm not even that lucky. I wait for almost eight hours. parked far enough down the street that no one in the house could see me without coming out, but there's no activity at all. It doesn't look like Paul is home, and if he is, he clearly isn't going to answer the door.

I figured that trying to get answers directly from Paul Flores was always going to be a long shot. He's learned that not talking is the best way to stay out of trouble. I think about Sheriff Ed Williams' comment to the Slow Telegram Tribune in 1997. Absent something from Mr. Flores, I don't see us completing this case. But personally...

I don't have any interest in trying to complete a case. I'm only interested in finding a missing person. And luckily, I don't think that Paul Flores is the only person who can tell us where she is.

On March 22nd, 2013, residents of the Five Cities region of the Central Coast opened their mailboxes to find a newspaper they didn't subscribe to, and in fact have never even heard of. It's called the California Register, and eight of its 15 by 23 inch pages are focused on the details of the Kristen Smart case, laying out an exhaustive chronology of events alongside childhood pictures of Kristen.

The articles are thorough, but also pointed and sarcastic. It credits Cal Poly campus police with quote, moving at the speed of light. and pulls no punches with the sheriff's department or the Flores family, taking them both to task with biting humor. The entire paper is the work of one Grover Beach real estate broker named David Smallwood.

It was serendipitous. I put in an ad in the newspaper, and they wanted, I think it was $350 for four lines and no pictures. It was a classified ad. I go, that's highway robbery. That shouldn't be 50 bucks. I was so upset about it. Finally, somebody said, why don't you just write your own newspaper then? Maybe I should. Of course, I don't know anything about it. Had to learn InDesign.

I wrote it. I did the layout, design. I did everything but print it. I had somebody else do that. The question was, what's my first story going to be about? You know, should I make it like a travel? thing on travel or talk about wine and cheese and all the vineyards or because that's like everybody's doing that right that's passe what is my passion It came to me one day when I had my little girl. She was on the monkey bars over at Dinosaur Caves Park in Shell Beach.

And I looked down at the stanchion there. Here was a laser-etched photo of Kristen Smart. And I go, my God, that's my story. I don't know anything about it. And I'll bet you a lot of people don't. So I went home. I went to kristinsmart.com, and Dennis Mann responded to me, and I said, I need to speak to the parents. And I traveled up to Stockton, California.

And I looked at him right away, and I can see nothing but pain and aggravation, like how many times do we have to tell this story? Will it ever stop? David pays out of his own pocket to have thousands of copies of the paper printed and distributed on the Central Coast, leaving stacks at businesses around San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande. He even mails a copy to Paul Flores in San Pedro.

After putting out his first issue, though, he doesn't stop pursuing the Kristen Smart case. A second issue follows, and David starts to take more of an offensive approach, with headlines like, the Cal Poly cover-up. where he charges that Cal Poly intentionally swept things under the rug to avoid a public relations nightmare, comparing the situation to Penn State's handling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

He's particularly critical of efforts to clean Paul Flores' dorm room before investigators came in to search it, calling it a quote, overt attempt to destroy potentially damning evidence. He also cites a line in the original Cal Poly campus police incident report, which blames the investigation's slow start on Denise Smart's concession that her daughter might have just gone camping.

It's something Denise flatly denies ever saying, and David Smallwood sees it as a blatant attempt by Cal Poly campus police to shift the blame off of themselves. After some digging, David learns that Paul Flores has most recently been working at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in South Central Los Angeles before being fired in March of 2013. Just a few months ago,

I was able to contact one of his co-workers from the plant, and she agreed to speak with me under the condition of anonymity. So he was working in the lab. He was mixing the ingredients and the sugar in the very back. He was always weird at the plant. He was always trying to flirt with the girls. He wouldn't take no for an answer. He was being rude. Every time we would tell him no, he would get in our face. He would just stare at us weird, you know, for a couple minutes.

He would stand there and for a good minute or two just be staring at him. And even me and I was like, Paul, what are you doing? He's like, oh, and then he would walk away. And it was like, oh, it was like that creepy, weird stare. And he would. He wouldn't talk. He wouldn't say anything. He would just stand there. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. And he did it to a couple of other women. They would just.

Be like, what are you looking at? Or what's wrong? Or, you know, he always gave out that creepy, weird vibe. Was always trying to tell me like, hey, let's hang out. Let's do, you know, something. Let's go out. And I told him I didn't drink. One night he was like, let's go to a bar. There's a bar down the street called Sam's. He said, you know, if you ever get drunk, don't worry. I will take care of you and you can spend the night. And I was like, leave me alone. He doesn't take no for an answer.

I had finally told my supervisor and I said, look, you know what? I already told Paul, leave me alone. I'm not going to go out with you. I don't want to get a drink with you. He made a weird comment saying, you know, if you ever get drunk, don't worry, I'll take care of you.

And I said, look, he's harassing me. Can you please tell him to stop? And I remember one day in the break room, we were all in the break room, and there was a show that came on about... Kristen Smart and it was talking about what happened and then it showed Paul on the TV and we were just like, oh my gosh, wait a minute. And it showed a picture of Paul in a blue shirt.

That was the last person that she was seen with. And we all just froze like, oh my God, that's Paul. Is that Paul in the lab? And he came inside the lunchroom and it was commercial. And I took a picture of him standing there making the coffee. and then when he left right when he left the show came back on and we were just like oh my gosh like what if he saw that he didn't i don't think he saw it and then it turned out it was paul so

They were worried for my safety, so I had gotten a police escort to my car, and I didn't want to even interact with Paul. Every time he would say hi after that, I was just like, oh, I got a bad vibe from him. My supervisor told me to do a sexual harassment case if I wanted to do a case on him. And I filled out paperwork and I told him, you know, what happened and what Paul had said to me.

They told Paul about it, and he just kind of like, okay, whatever, shrugged it off. Then I found out a couple weeks later that Paul had got fired, and everybody was talking. Like, they said they... fired him because he, on the paperwork that he did for Coca-Cola, he put it under a different name. But I think what it was, as soon as that

thing aired on TV and showed Paul's face all over, you know, in the lunchroom. I think Coke was like, look, you know what? We don't want everybody to know about it. So I think they fired him because of that. But they just said it was because of paperwork to cover themselves.

When he got fired, people started talking about this other girl that worked in Downey and she worked at Coca-Cola. She worked the same shift as Paul. She was doing the same thing, the ingredients at night. She's referring to Amberlee Hill. who was found dead in January 2007 after working an overnight shift at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Downey, California. Newspapers described her as a potential witness in a sexual harassment case at the company.

but it was unclear whether that played a part in her murder. According to the Los Angeles Times, she was found in the wilderness, still clothed in her Coca-Cola uniform, and partially wrapped in plastic shipping material. Paul didn't start working for Coca-Cola until the following year, and at a different bottling plant. But they both worked the same position and the same schedule, and Amber's murder has never been solved.

Somebody had mentioned to Paul about that, he just laughed it off like, oh, okay, like, alright, whatever. If Paul Flores was responsible for the death of another woman, 11 years after Kristen's disappearance,

Whose conscience is that on? Back on the Central Coast, David Smallwood continues to investigate and make connections. focusing on what he believes is the most obvious theory which he intends to prove. She's in the backyard. You can't go burying people in the backyard! In the summer of 2014, a reader from Atascadero sends a copy of the California Register to her brother in Mammoth Lakes, a recently retired police sergeant named Paul Dostey.

and i go okay i'll read it because most articles are very short and lack details and reading david's article read like a crime report I mean, it was in such incredible detail and everything. I go, holy smokes. And so she says, well, call that guy up. I go, okay, I'll just call this news guy. He'll probably just blow me off, but you just try everything.

And he goes, I'm available 24-7. You come anytime. And I go, wow, that's interesting. I didn't realize he was one-man newspaper. He didn't have a boss that can do whatever he wants. Paul Dostey's background is in detective work. but specifically supervising avalanche rescue and clandestine grave detection dogs. In other words, Paul Dostey trained dogs to find missing persons. I went through. I was a canine supervisor when we got our first dog.

And later on, I got Buster and he was also certified in Avalanche and certified in Cadaver Dog, you know, two certifications for that. And then I retired and. It all actually started with the Manson case. In 2008, Dostey and his grave detection dog, a black Labrador named Buster, joined a team of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists at Barker Ranch. the home of the Manson family in the late 60s, to search for possible clandestine graves missed by the original investigators.

To make a long story short, they did a little dig and didn't find anything. We did soil samples on the sites and there was plenty of human decomposition indicating there's human remains at all the sites we've identified there. So I guess I just wanted to prove that the dog is right. And a friend of mine, she said she knew a guy that was doing some mass grave work overseas. Would I be interested? I said, you bet.

Dosti took Buster to Tarawa, an atoll in the Central Pacific, hoping to find the remains of Marines missing since World War II, in a search conducted by Mark Noah, the founder of a non-profit research organization. called History Flight. So our first day on Tarawa, he tested the dog all day. Tested on sites where there were human remains or recovery. Tested on sites where there's no dead people.

And he was 100% accurate. The dog was 100% accurate. In our last trip to Tarawa, he alerted in several locations, kind of in a line. And when they excavated the site, they found 35 U.S. Marines, including Lieutenant Alexander Bonningman, who was a Missing in Action Medal of Honor awardee.

That was, I thought that might help. Never did, as far as convincing people. His credentials are enough to impress David Smallwood, though. And after obtaining the permission of the renters directly behind Susan Flores' house.

Paul Doste brings Buster down to Arroyo Grande. On June 2, 2014, they enter the yard that borders the back fence of the Branch Street home. When we train the dog for the target odors, the human remains and there's human bone, human decomp, and then that chemical signal changes over time. He's trained on all that stuff. So I just launched him in the yard and then the way you got to tell them how to tell you. So if he finds the target odor, he lays down.

And it was really quick, and the dog alerted her all around that corner of the property. It's strong there, and of course, subsequently, it's a pretty strong belief that she's had concrete poured on her. She's in concrete, but concrete is porous. He had no problem getting detection through that concrete. I pretty much knew that we were getting it through the wall there, kind of like a big chemical plume in the air that we can't detect. And Buster is detecting in parts per trillion.

We're not search and rescue. They do a great job of finding a big, stinky, dead guy out there. We are looking for a minutia of evidence. Part of the skepticism that law enforcement occasionally has about working with cadaver dogs... is that they can't speak to tell us what exactly they're smelling. So how do we know that Buster wasn't alerting on some old chicken bones that the Flores family had buried under the concrete in their backyard? Or, as Ruben Flores tried to suggest,

that the cadaver dogs alerting to Paul's mattress in his Cal Poly dorm room could have been detecting a tri-tip sandwich that Paul had eaten there. What happens when a cadaver dog smells something that is not human? It goes over them like they're not there. And one day I was working over in Linden on the Schermantyne case, and there's this dead cow about half eaten. I go, oh, man.

big stinky dead cow out in the pasture there you know but i recognized it immediately as a training opportunity and so i get buster out and i work them right he went probably within three feet of that cow which is a big stinking massive decomposing cow like it wasn't even there he just didn't even turn his head to check it out just went he was looking for his target odor

His target odors are human-specific chemicals that are released from a decomposing body. Cadaver dogs aren't rewarded for alerting on animal remains, so they learn to bypass them during a search.

So with a positive alert at the fence line of Susan Flores' backyard, the next step is to obtain a soil sample to send to a lab for testing. But before they can collect it, the other tenant of the house returns home.

and abruptly tells Dostian Smallwood to get out of his yard. He didn't know his girlfriend gave us permission, and he freaked out, thought he was going to be killed, and you're trying to get me killed and get us off the property. So that was kind of a weird experience, man. He was screaming. Luckily, they're able to get permission from the homeowner directly next door to Susan, and they obtain a soil sample there to send in to be tested by a forensic anthropologist in Tennessee named Arpad Vass.

Dr. Vass is best known for being a prosecution witness in the 2011 Casey Anthony trial, where he testified that the air in Anthony's trunk tested positive for both human decomposition and high levels of chloroform. a compound which is sometimes used by criminals to immobilize, incapacitate, or murder their victims. Here, Dr. Vass explains his role in that trial.

Casey Anthony was accused at the time of having a hand in her child's death. Theory was that the child was placed in the car trunk for transport somewhere. And so they had five cadaver dogs alert on the trunk of that vehicle. But they couldn't determine what the compounds were that the dogs were alerting to. They called me in to analyze the chemical composition of the trunk.

And so it ended up being that there's about an 80% match of chemicals that should have been there if a body decomposed and what actually was there. In addition, they had huge amounts of chloroform found in the trunk of that vehicle, which was a big surprise to everybody. Essentially, that was the beginning of odor analysis, odor mortis in this country, that trial.

So to follow up on Buster's alert, Dr. Vass analyzes the soil sample at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, searching for compounds which would indicate the presence of human-specific chemicals. One of the samples from Susan Flores' neighbor's yard tests weak positive for chemicals consistent with human decomposition. Weak positive essentially means that some, but not all, of the chemicals expected are present.

which Vast says should be expected when the soil sample was collected from the yard next door. Excited by these results, David Smallwood brings Paul Dostey and Buster back to Arroyo Grande for a second search. this time at the house where the soil sample was taken from. On August 1, 2014, Buster is let into the neighbor's backyard. You know, I don't tell him where to go. I just let him do his thing.

But it was a smaller yard, and I said, go find. And he went out there, sniffed around, and right by that planter, it was like a little lemon tree, right in the corner, boom, he alerted. And it was that quick. I mean, I would say less than 10 seconds. Just bam, and that's it. And it all points to that corner. After a weak positive soil test and two cadaver dog alerts, David Smallwood expects the Sheriff's Department to immediately apply for a new search warrant.

But they don't. Instead, they dismiss the results because Buster isn't certified. His license expired when Paul Dostey retired. A dog doesn't care about being certified? He smells dead people. That's what he's trained to do. The next issue of the California Register goes for broke with a headline that reads, Kristen Smart's body finally found? Question mark.

It's bold, and it has some unexpected effects. First, it upsets the Smart family, who release a statement saying that the headline is misleading, and that they asked for it not to be published. Then... Some people in the community miss the question mark and think that the Kristen Smart case is now closed. A few people I talked to early on remembered seeing a headline in a newspaper that said Kristen had been found.

and we're surprised to hear that the search is still ongoing. Smallwood's articles get more sardonic, too. When he talks about the lost earring, he puts the word lost in quotes, and he asserts that authorities, quote, really did not want to find Kristen Smart. He points out that if investigators don't trust Buster's alert, they can always bring in their own certified cadaver dogs to see if they can confirm his findings.

It's something that Paul Dostey suggested too. You would think that they would immediately get their dogs and reproduce it. Since you have permission, you don't need a search warrant, you know, that you can get two yards that are right at that corner and work the dogs in.

They never did anything. In its first few issues, the California Register started out sympathetic to Sheriff Parkinson, giving him the benefit of the doubt. But after declining to follow up on Buster's alerts, it seems like the gloves come off. The next issue, which comes out on January 15, 2015, hits the hardest. Headline, Search Dog Buster Detects Human Remains Behind a Royal Grande Home.

Soil sample contains a human-specific chemical, but Sheriff ignores it all. It bothers the Sheriff's Department enough that they put out a press release about it the next day, which reads in part, Most of what is published centers around Mr. Smallwood bringing in a former Mammoth Lakes police officer and his dog to conduct their own investigation.

After several area searches, including next door to the home of the mother of subject Paul Flores, they believe they found positive evidence that Kristen was there. They believe that this possible evidence was ignored and or discounted. They were well aware of the fact that the residence has been searched three times. There are many facts about the search at the Arroyo Grande residence that the publisher does not know and has only speculated about. The search warrants were sealed by the court.

They were sealed because the disclosure of information contained within the search warrants would only harm potential prosecution. The California Register continues to publish information on this case, which is not only inaccurate and misleading, but also damaging to the investigation. While it's technically true that the Branch Street house was searched on three separate occasions, it's only fair to note that just one of those searches was conducted by the sheriff's department.

The other two searches were organized by smart family attorneys, and none of the three searches were thorough enough to rule the property out entirely. But aside from that, they do have some points. David Smallwood doesn't have all the information. And headlines like Kristen Smart's body finally found are kind of misleading at a glance. And in charging that the sheriff's department is part of a cover-up involving Cal Poly,

He's only going to alienate both of them. Several Facebook commenters side with the sheriff's department, one going so far as to say that Smallwood should be, quote, taken out back, given a few swats on the ass. and thrown in a cell until Kristen is found. Another commenter suggests that Smallwood should be investigated as a suspect in Kristen's disappearance. The sheriff's statement, coupled with the Smart Family's statement,

is a blow to David Smallwood's credibility. But it doesn't stop him from continuing his own investigation. Yeah, it was a punch in the gut. But you see, I promised the parents when I spoke to them, I'm going to raise awareness. And brother, did I raise awareness. On January 26, 2017, he pays to fly Dr. Arpad Vass, the forensic anthropologist, from Knoxville, Tennessee to Arroyo Grande.

with a new machine that Dr. Vass claims can detect DNA matches with 85-90% accuracy. They obtained fingernail clippings from Denise Smart, and set out with a new piece of technology, which Vass has coined the inquisitor i i don't know what to call it i call it the inquisitor the gizmo it's essentially an instrument of my own design It's not based on odor analysis. This instrument is based on resonance frequencies.

All objects in the universe are made up of molecules, and all those molecules vibrate at a very specific frequency. I found a way to amplify that resonance frequency. and beam it out into the environment like a radar gun. And when it hits an object of similar composition, it excites that object and beams back a signal to our secondary antenna.

Then I can determine whether or not that object is present in the environment. In this case, we were using keratin DNA as the source material for comparison. That is, keratin DNA from Denise Smart's fingernail clippings, which should match Kristen's DNA. Without filling in Dr. Vass on the details, David Smallwood takes him to the parking lot of Last Chance Liquor.

and asks him to do a 360 scan of the area. And we got hit in the back of that house. Floyd's house, I believe, mother's house. I was standing about a half mile. half mile or a quarter mile away from that house at the time. And it was pointing right towards Susan's backyard. So we walked up the street here, and we went into the parking lot of the condos right behind us to do another 360, Doc. Boom! I got something right here.

That intersected with the other line right over the rear left corner of the house. Let's walk down here along the sidewalk here. Do another 360. Once again, it intersected. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean the body's there. I mean, it could have meant the body was there. As a control, they take the machine to the Cold Canyon landfill and the Cal Poly P, but they don't get a hit at either location.

They do get a positive hit at their red brick dorm buildings, and another in the parking lot of the sheriff's department, pointing to an outbuilding they believe to be an evidence locker. So is Kristen Smart's DNA in the sheriff's evidence building? and in the Cal Poly dorms, and Susan Flores' backyard? It's hard to know without understanding how the Inquisitor machine works, and Dr. Vass is hesitant to go into details while the patent is pending.

But he says that investigators don't have to take his word for it. And even if they don't listen to me, or want to believe my technology, that's what the certified cadaver dog does. They should listen to that.

They have to bring in the right dog for the right job. So I really don't have a clue why they don't pursue that at all. Smallwood, Dostey, and Vass are all adamant that investigators could follow up with their own searches to rule out their findings. But the Sheriff's Department doesn't seem to take the California Register seriously. And neither does Cal Poly. In 2015, a broadcast journalism major named Olivia DiGennaro

puts out a two-part story on the case for Cal Poly's Mustang News, titled Where is Kristen Smart? I was not familiar with the case at all, and I think if you asked most people who were... at Cal Poly with me, most of my classmates, they had never heard of the case either. I actually, during my senior project, while I was doing research into the case, I just did a video where I walked around campus and asked people, do you know who Kristen Smart is?

And people had either no idea who she was or had incorrect information about who she was. It just kind of struck a nerve. This blonde Cal Poly freshman goes missing. I had never heard about it. When you're in orientation and a new student, they don't tell you those things, obviously. How I first learned about the case, I picked up a California register. She interviews Sheriff Parkinson.

attorney James Murphy, and Denise Smart. She's even able to obtain a copy of the 2000 search warrant template, and a video recording of Paul Flores' 1997 deposition, which she releases in full. It's one of the most thorough and well-sourced pieces that's ever been done on the case. But the two-part series was originally supposed to be four parts, before faculty in the journalism department nixed the final two. which featured extensive interviews with David Smallwood.

My faculty editors at Mustang News got really nervous about publishing a lot of the stuff. My editor was like, in all caps, no, we cannot publish this. You know, it's just too... Too much speculation. I honestly never finished it the way I wanted to just because I got so much pushback from Mustang News not really wanting to put their own neck on the line. She sends me the Google Doc, which she saved.

and it's covered in notes from her instructor. One note reads, I have read his quote, newspaper, and see many red flags in his coverage. He highlights entire sections, several paragraphs at a time, and writes cut next to them. Every mention of Buster the Cadaver Dog. Every mention of Dr. Arpad Vass and the soil samples. Olivia defends her journalistic choices, writing quote,

have read Smallwood's publications. I think to be thorough, we should go into his claims and offer the sheriff's rebuttal of them. In capital letters with a period at the end, her instructor writes, No. David Smallwood's charge that Cal Poly and the Sheriff's Department have both worked to cover up aspects of this case only gets more compelling when they avoid responding to his claims. David insists that they're both part of a conspiracy.

And they both insist that David is not a trustworthy source. So Smallwood starts to file complaints with the grand jury. I put in a formal complaint every year that the sheriff is not doing his job. Here is one of those complaints. Right there. Citizen complaint form. And every year, he receives a certified letter thanking him for his interest in San Luis Obispo County.

Last year, he finally decided to step away from the case, citing his frustration with Sheriff Parkinson's administration and the Smart Family's continued support of him.

No, no, no. I'm always interested in the final chapter of justice. You see, there's a gaping wound for the smart family because they don't have any closure. But I... decided i'm not going to do anything more with it unless you know if paul flores says i want to talk to you well i'll say okay let's talk but until the parents realized that the Sheriff's Department has never been working in their behalf until they realize that I really don't want to be part of it anymore.

The blanket dismissal of Buster's alerts and the Inquisitor machine isn't the first time that the Sheriff's Department has refused to follow up on a potentially promising lead either. In 2003, Dennis Mann's website Son of Susan gets an anonymous email from an author who calls himself Ben Franklin. The gist of his tip is that police should take another look at Paul's best friend at the time, who may have more information than he admitted to.

Ben Franklin claims to have worked with Paul at the 76 station over the summer of 1996. After four tips, he disappears, but Dennis finds an expert who's able to track the author's IP address. to the computer lab at Sonoma State University. Dennis contacts the Sonoma State IT director, a man named Barry, and asks him to cross-check a list of students and faculty

with a list of Paul's co-workers from the 76 station. Barry confirms that one of the names appears on both lists, but he can't legally give the name out without being subpoenaed. He's more than happy to give the name to the sheriff's department, so Dennis passes the information on to them, and waits. A few years pass, and Denise Smart eventually requests that investigators follow up on the Ben Franklin lead.

when she's told that they already have, and that it was a dead end. Dejected, Dennis calls Barry at Sonoma State to find out what happened, when he informs Dennis that no investigators ever contacted him. According to Barry, Even if the investigators contacted someone else at the university, that person would have had to come to him for the info. And that never happened. From 2003 to 2016, the Smart Family is kept in the dark.

about whatever investigators have discovered, until Barry himself, now retired and living in another state, sends Denise an email confirming that he was never subpoenaed for the information, and expressing his disappointment. So what's going on behind the scenes? Do investigators have game-changing information, which enables them to rightfully refuse to follow up on confirming the alerts on Susan Flores' backyard?

the tips about Ruben Flores' avocado grove, emails from Paul's co-workers, and numerous other leads over the years? Or has the sheriff's department been stringing along the Smart family for two decades? I've talked to a lot of people over the last 18 months, and there are many strong proponents of both theories. My personal opinion won't have any effect on things.

I don't purport to be any sort of authority on this case, and I readily concede that the sheriff's department has far more information than me, and it's information that they feel they can't share without jeopardizing their case. With all of that knowledge, They have to be closer to a resolution than I am. But then I reflect back on all of the articles I've read through. All of the times that the Sheriff's Department has refused to comment or share information with the Smart Family.

citing an ongoing and active investigation. Ongoing and active. In articles from 2002, 2003, 16 and 17 years ago. From 1996 to 2000, and again from 2002 to 2015, the Smarts pursued a subpoena, specifically a subpoena Ducey's Tecum. which sought the disclosure of the Sheriff Department's investigative documents from their daughter's case. They were denied access to the records, citing an ongoing and active investigation. The basis for the denial...

is that the public's interest in protecting the integrity of the criminal investigation outweighs the Smart Family's right to disclosure. Once a year, they had a standing court date to appeal the decision. And every year, they were denied access to the documents. October 23, 2003. Judge Roger Paquette denies the Smart Family access to the Sheriff's Department's investigative documents.

citing an ongoing and active investigation. November 9, 2004. Judge Roger Paquette again denies the Smart Family access to the documents, citing an ongoing and active investigation.

There are articles every year in the Slow Tribune about it. In February 2007, Judge Charles Crandall again denies the family access to the documents, but this time, he agrees that the ongoing and active investigation is particularly slow, describing it as, quote, tepid, if not cold, and calls for a review on September 20th, after which the case will be declared cold unless there is a, quote,

unusual development before then. The review is delayed, but finally in December 2007, San Luis Obispo Superior Court rules that the sheriff's office must release their case files to the Smart family. Before they receive the documents, though, the decision is overturned by the Second District Court of Appeal, citing an ongoing and active investigation. How long is too long?

If it's true that the investigation was ongoing and active in 1996, and it's still ongoing and active now in 2019, one giant nagging question lingers. Where is Kristen then?

I hope they have that answer somewhere in their documents, and I hope that they'll share it with the Smart Family soon. I don't want to be an adversary of the Sheriff's Department. I don't have the experience or the resources to accomplish what they're capable of. I just want to believe that they're doing it. Over the past six weeks, the podcast has started to have a ripple effect. In the last episode, I mentioned a tip that was submitted back in 2004 by an anonymous author.

who Dennis Mann has been looking for for 15 years. The day after the episode was released, I got a message from Seattle, Washington, from a guy claiming to be the author, and was able to confirm through private information. that he was in fact the guy we were looking for. I did leave that tip in 2004.

I kind of figured when I gave that lead that it may actually turn up something and then I would hear about it. And anything I've heard about the case has just been nothing but struggles and trying to dig up the yard. I personally believe that they're looking in the wrong yard. He flew to the Central Coast last week and showed me to the exact spot where he and his roommate believe Kristen was buried. I think this is an important lead.

and I'm still working on it every day alongside several others. I'm hoping to follow up with new episodes sometime down the road. The podcast also managed to reignite the passion of a fervent Kristen Smart supporter. who had previously burned out after conducting several self-funded searches. Clark Baird was a year younger than Kristen, and sat behind her in a math class at Lincoln High School in Stockton.

After moving to the Central Coast and starting his own business, Clark slowly became obsessed with finding Kristen, even seeking the help of psychics and researching real estate records, until coincidentally or serendipitously. He ended up in a rural location that Susan Flores had listed at the time that Kristen disappeared. He took me to the spot just a few weeks ago to meet the property owner and caught me up on the way.

So I went to Lincoln High, graduated in 96, so I graduated the same year that she went missing. We had a few classes together. The one that I remember most vividly is that she sat in front of me in a math class with Mr. Gray. And she sat in front of me and she was really shy.

You know, like, everybody's sad. I think that was probably because Anna Bacca. I learned so much about her from listening to your podcast. It was fascinating. Like, the very first podcast I'm listening to, driving to my... daughter's soccer game yesterday and I'm just driving down the road with like tears in my eyes I'm like a really emotional person I feel energy really strong and I just like

Yeah, getting home to me is almost like the same thing. Like you said, it's almost like I've lost her. Because her and I were just an acquaintance. We maybe had a couple conversations, but I don't think she ever thought about me other than knowing I was in her class.

me you know Christian wasn't really a party person per se in high school that I knew of and so I think that night that everything happened it was almost like she was just just going out to just you know maybe she I wish I had this fun in high school or blah blah blah so it was almost to me I had this sense of like first time of her like really partying I guess

So, yeah, I mean, like you did, you know, you know so much more about this than even I do, but I think, you know, occasionally, you know, the community would start talking about the case and then billboards would get put up and I'd drive by and just... have this weird feeling about I'm like man here I have this connection because she's from my hometown I had school with class with her now here I am I own my own business work with a lot of

you know high-end clients in the area maybe i could do something what what could i do so i reached out to the to denise and just told her hey i'm willing i'm here i want to be like a liaison what can i do Run a golf tournament or, you know, do something to, like, help. What can I do to help? I'm here. Clark put up his own billboard on the 101.

and brought out a crew to search the rural area he'd found, chartering a helicopter to fly over the densely forested surroundings, and was convinced that he was going to find Kristen there. Clark's whole story needs its own episode. but after finding some compelling items in the area, which Buster the cadaver dog also alerted on, he passed on the information to the sheriff's department, along with the Flores family's connection to the property.

He's hopeful that Ian Parkinson will be the sheriff the Smart family has been waiting for. We're waiting for the hero. We're waiting for the guy that says, who cares if somebody's hushing this or doing this? You know, imagine you're the sheriff. It finds Kristen smart. I mean, to me, if I was in politics, which the sheriff is a political, you know, that would like skyrocket you to like the tops of everything is to be the person. So that's me. It's like I'm waiting for it.

the hero to show up. I'm waiting for the guy that says, I don't care. Just start over. Gather all this information. Talk to the people that were involved. Let's go look.

it's been 23 years but obviously those cadaver dogs and you know some of the other resources they have now in the technology may be able to turn up something if they'll just do it yeah in 2016 After the sheriff's department announced their intention to excavate the Cal Poly hillside, instead of following up on this property, Clark Baird decided to hang it up, going so far as to throw out all of his papers and files on the case.

Another in a series of people who tried to help, but became discouraged by law enforcement's lack of interest in outside assistance. But I'll be following up with Clark again, and hopefully we'll have more to share soon.

In 2017, the Smart Family announced that they intended to start focusing on the positive by launching an annual Kristen Smart Scholarship as a way to help young women like Kristen achieve their career goals. The scholarship is offered to prospective students pursuing degrees in architecture or international relations. And because of how underrepresented a female perspective has been on Kristen's case.

women with an interest in law enforcement or forensic science. The scholarship is funded by the non-profit organization Justice for Kristen, which you can donate to at kristinsmart.org. At the end of our interview, I ask Stan Smart if he has anything he'd like to say to the Flores family, but he affirms that they've given up on that tactic. I think it's wishful thinking on my part or your part to think that they will change.

I know in counseling people and working with people and large groups of people, fortunately, professionally, I've had that opportunity. Unless people are ready to change and they want to make a change, they won't. And so I think they're very... dug in, and I think they somehow have justified in their mind that our daughter didn't count, that she wasn't a human, that she wasn't someone loved.

that we care and miss her dearly, and we hold them accountable for it. I mean, they feel that, well, you know, she... It's been a problem for Paul. Well, would they care if Paul disappeared? Would they care if one of them disappeared? Would they care if their daughter disappeared? then it would become very personal yes they would care okay that's very human i don't know why they can't relate to us and they've shown no concern over the years

they actually, I think, probably have laughed about it. So I'm not happy with them one bit. I think they should be held accountable. I think probably in the end they will be at this point. For whatever reason, I think Paul's gotten real lucky and people have not followed through on things maybe they should have through law enforcement and others to hold them accountable.

So at some point in time, they will be. Is that something that you're looking forward to seeing, or you kind of resigned at this point? I'm getting younger every year that I get younger. How's that? And my wife's always concerned that we're getting older and older. So are they. I don't know if we're getting any wiser, and I don't know if they are. I suspect they're not getting wiser.

But anyway, yeah, I would like to have it resolved in our lifetime. I don't want our children to still be working on resolving it years and decades from now. I don't think that's right. In the interest of positivity, though, Clark Baird doesn't want to waste an opportunity to speak directly to Paul Flores for the first time. I plead to Paul, man. It's just times...

Now's the time to come forward and to make this right, to share what happened and to bring this thing to rest because you don't want to go on another 40 years, man. It's time. It's time, man. You can get this behind you. and feel so much better because I feel for you. I feel sad. I've struggled in my own life, man. I've faced my demons and struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse and where your life's at right now. I think that...

The higher self of Paul Flores is telling you that right now, time for you to come forward and tell us what happened. I'd be there with you if you want to share your story with somebody and you want to confide in somebody that's not. Your parents that are leading you in the wrong direction and been enabling you for so many years to keep this a secret. I'm sure they're not happy with where their lives are at right now because even though you guys aren't in jail.

You guys have been living in hell for the last 20 plus years, and I'm sure you guys are all tired of the fight and are ready to try something different. What else, Chris? Anything else? That's good.

While this case has had an overwhelming emotional impact on my life and the lives of the people I love, I've tried to focus on the positive parts too. This past February, I was invited to join Denise Smart and two friends while they sang some of Kristen's favorite songs on the cliffs of Shell Beach, near a spot dubbed The Point of Hope. on what should have been her 42nd birthday. Happy birthday dear Kristen. Happy birthday to you. I always do cha-cha-cha. Cha-cha-cha.

How do you conclude a story where a person is still missing at the end? Maybe you don't. Maybe we all just keep telling the story to everyone we can. Over the past month, I've received over 300 emails. ranging from messages of gratitude and encouragement to people who think they know where Kristen's body is. I think I've shared everything I can for now, but I'm still looking. The answer is in our community.

And it only takes one person to do what Paul Flores failed to do, on May 25th, 1996. Let's bring Kristen home. You've been listening to Your Own Backyard, Episode 6, Ongoing and Active. Your Own Backyard is written, produced, and hosted.

by Chris Lambert. Associate producer is Alexandra Wallace. Special thanks to Dennis Mann, Peter King, Nicholas Winery, Candice Vanderplass, Derek Payne, Jamie Lewis, Garen Sinclair, Sandy Arnold, April Cole Worley, Carrie Quimby Zenich, Alyssa Brigham, Kaylin Pope, Sydney Brandt, Olivia DiGennaro, Dallas Bronson, Giovanna Sarnicola, and Matthew Frank.

If you feel that you have information that could help law enforcement with their investigation, you can directly contact San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Detectives at 805-781-4500. Want to reach out to us directly? Send an email to your own backyard podcast at gmail.com or visit our website at your own backyard podcast.com. To keep up with new episodes, subscribe to Your Own Backyard on Apple Podcasts and follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Original music is by Chris Lambert.

Want to help keep Kristen's memory alive? You can donate to the Kristen Smart Scholarship at KristenSmart.org. A note from the Smart family. The statute of limitations in this case has expired on everything except murder. Anyone who comes forward with information will not be charged with any crime.