how's the beach, kristin? >> it's probably about 67 out. the sun's going down. and you should have been here earlier. >> she went to the party by herself. >> a young man came out and was like, "oh, i know where she lives.

i can help walk her home." and that was the last time kristin was seen by anybody. >> but still, no sign of 19-year-old kristin smart. >> the media really picked up on this. this was a situation that was unlike anything that had happened. >> and the dog starts sniffing the doors down the hallway. >> the dogs lit up, went crazy. >> the house was searched. there were some really disturbing videos that were found there. it's a bad piece of evidence because it shows a pattern, right? >> it doesn't show a pattern of killing anybody. >> not that long after kristin smart disappeared, two more local college students from san luis obispo went missing. >> the case has stirred dread in the central coast community that a serial killer was on the loose. >> and it goes from a town in which nothing ever happens to a town in which three young women seem to be abducted and disappeared and perhaps murdered.

i remember when i walked in the door. i think one of the guys said, like, "hey, what do you want?" i said, "i'll take a beer." >> it's an off-campus party. it's a grimy rental house filled with boys. >> it was just the most run-of-the-mill, lame, everyone's out of town for memorial day weekend party. never in my life would i have thought that i would be thinking about this party 27 years later. and never in my life would i think that something -- such a notorious part of cal poly's history now would've occurred at that house that night. i mean, never in my life.

>> san luis obispo is considered by a lot of people to be about the perfect place to be. >> it's a beautiful town. it's pretty small. it's right between the mountains and the beach. >> it's a typical college town, so a lot of off-campus parties, a lot of activity in the downtown area in the evening with restaurants and bars. >> cal poly is truly a part of the fabric of san luis obispo. and the university itself has a sterling reputation. >> but in the summer of 1996, this peaceful, beautiful college town became known for something else -- the disappearance of 19-year-old cal poly freshman, kristin smart. >> kristin was from stockton, so from out of the area, and just trying to find her way in the world, kind of experimenting with meeting new people, new experiences, and going to parties.

>> in 1998, "20/20" sat down with kristin's parents, denise and stan smart. >> kristin is our oldest of three children that we have, and she was very conscientious as far as school goes. she had good grades. she liked to play soccer. was a very loving person. >> how's the beach, kristin? >> it's probably about 67 out. but the sun is going down. you should've been here earlier. >> she was adventurous, and she kept us all hopping all the time. and she was the first one to throw her arms around you. >> kristin had a great relationship with her family. she would call them every sunday. >> they're, i think, a very loving family, very dedicated family, very connected to kristin. they vacationed together and had continual contact ever since kristin came to cal poly. >> she was my next door neighbor, and she would spend a

lot of time in my room. she wanted to work for mtv. she wanted to be unique. she didn't just follow the crowd. >> kristen was with her friend, margarita campos, and they had gone to a very small, quiet party. and there was only one beer was drank by the two girls, and so she was not intoxicated. and then about 10:00, margarita wanted to go back to the dorms, and kristen did not. >> it was a friday night. it was a holiday weekend, and she was having a good time. so she was just looking at me like, "margarita, come on. i know you want to come. you said you were going to come with me. fine. just leave me here." so she went to the party by herself, and that was the last time i saw her. >> it was a privately owned house that was rented by cal poly students very close to campus. and it was a birthday party for one of the residents.

>> and the people at the party are not going crazy. >> no. >> this is not like "animal house" toga party. >> no, this is a quiet, what i would call a sad, kind of lame party. >> how old were you then? >> i was 20 years old. i was a sophomore. midterms were coming up, so i knew that friday night i wasn't going to stay out terribly late. >> and then appearing as if out of the mist is this 6'1", gorgeous -- like, matt, gorgeous model girl who shows up, and she's wearing these really shiny black vinyl board shorts. she walks up to me and she says, "hi, i'm roxy." >> so "roxy" was a name that kristin would sometimes give other people when she was out. sometimes you do it just for fun and giggles. sometimes you do it as a safety concern. >> and she's wearing, like, a tee top. she was wearing red puma tennis shoes. >> and i go -- naturally i go,

"oh, hey, i'm trevor." and she leans in and she kisses me. like, french kisses me. i've never met this girl in my life. and she grabs my hand and pulls me into the bathroom. >> i mean, is this the kind of thing that happens often? >> not to me. >> was she obviously drunk? >> i don't remember smelling alcohol on her breath. >> when someone kisses you and they've been drinking heavily, you taste it. >> oh, yeah, of course you do. oh, yeah, for sure. >> she pulls me into the bathroom, dark bathroom, and she shuts the door. so for a second, it's all black. i'm like, "what?" and then she turns on the lights. and she immediately goes to the mirror and she starts doing her makeup. i'm just standing there, and i'm like, "uh." and she's like, "do you think i'm ugly?" i went, "what?" and she goes, "do you think i'm ugly? do you think i'm ugly? really, do you think i'm ugly?" and i'm like, "no, you're gorgeous." it was like there's two different personas going on at that time. she says, "okay, i have to use the bathroom."

and then it's like, "oh, right." i'm like, "what am i doing?" the second i walk out of the bathroom, this guy just pops up right in front of me, as if he's waiting in line for the bathroom. he looks at me, and i just remember he had blonde hair, big blue eyes, a really intense stare, and he says with this authority in his voice. he goes, "what i'd like to know is what you did with her in the bathroom." and he said it in a way where i was like, "oh, no, this is your boyfriend." i was like, "oh, what have i got myself into?" and i'm like, "nothing, man." and he laughed. he had this big, goofy, like, laugh that was almost like a sigh of relief. and i was like, "oh, you're just some kid." >> so he broke off that intense stare. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. and he laughed, and then i was like, "oh, whatever, you're a weirdo." >> so at about 2:00, the party was ending and students were

leaving, and several of them saw kristin laying face down to the left of the driveway of the party house, pretty much passed out. >> by the end of the night, kristin was incapacitated completely. and that's when a young man came out and was like, "oh, i know where she lives. i can help walk her home." so he walked her, and the other girl, whose name is cheryl, home. >> at some point during the walk home, he hugs kristin. she's saying she's cold. kristin and the two students walking with her all live in different dorms. and as the three get closer to campus, the young man assures cheryl that he'll get kristin home safely. >> and then cheryl went off to the right, southbound towards her dorm. >> and that was the last time kristin was seen.

>> the entire campus is on edge over her disappearance. everywhere students turn, there are reminders, from the college newspaper to flyers that are being posted throughout cal poly. >> it's like everyone knows what's happening, so you get a little more nervous and stuff. >> it was shocking and the community was stunned. >> there was a phone call about 2:00 in the morning. my roommate grabbed the phone. and when she picked it up, she said she heard a voice, someone trying to talk. what if kristin was trying to get through to me?

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it's saturday the morning after the party and kristin smart has not made it back to her dorm room. >> her red backpack was untouched on her bed. she didn't have her wallet, her keys, her id, which was really peculiar. and her roommate thought it was weird. >> i don't think that there was one single time while she was my roommate that she didn't come home, unless she was going away for the weekend. >> and her roommate said, "margurita, have you seen kristin anywhere? her stuff's thrown all over her bed. and it hasn't moved a single inch since i was last here and that's what got us kind of thinking, "this is strange."

>> as other girls were waking up, they were like, where's kristin? margarita campos went to her room. they were supposed to meet that morning and kristin wasn't there. >> we just all kind of sat around, almost like a vigil. like when is she going to come around? >> authorities were contacted on saturday. the roommate and a couple other friends went to the supervising dorm guy and he took a small report, called his supervisor, a a cal polly police officer came and can nothing saying that, you know, she hadn't been gonge lon enough. cal poly police, they did not make an initial report. they said that kristin might be out of town because it was memorial day weekend. >> and then the days went by, nothing was touched and we're like, this is getting kind of weird. it was getting kind of like, maybe there's something wrong. >> pretty much everyone who is close to kristin is feeling uneasy. and by monday, which is memorial

day, that turns into real fear. >> the whole hallway that i lived in, everyone was on edge. everyone was worried, just constant concern. >> and then the morning of may 27th, they decided to call cal poly police department to report kristin as a missing person. >> and at that point, sometime in the evening, denise smart receives a phone call from cal poly asking if kristin is home. >> you know, i said no. they said, well, whose house would she go to? and i said, well, there's no place i know of that she would have gone to. you know, i just didn't know of any plans, particularly since she'd told me she was going to call me sunday. >> well initially, the cal poly police basically said that it was very likely she had just gone out of town, gone camping, gone with friends, and was going to be able to turn up later.

>> i went to bed that night and and i just prayed, be camping, be camping because i kept calling her dorm until, i mean, after midnight. >> she didn't come home. this is tuesday. and she still wasn't home. >> i tried calling the dorms and her roommate assured me nothing had been touched, nothing left. and she said, "kristin would not leave without her makeup." she just kept saying it over and over. she would not leave without her makeup. >> so we called the city police and explained to them what had happened. and they told us that it's not their jurisdiction. and they told us call cal poly. so we called the cal poly police and gave them the information. >> it wasn't until kristin didn't show up to class and the girls made a second report that cal poly actually filed a missing person's report and began their investigation. >> it seemed like there wasn't a lot of red flags that were being raised within the cal poly police department for whatever reason. >> i was petrified. i couldn't sleep at night. i was seriously -- i think i was a wreck. i was scared about her feelings

towards me, i think, because i did leave her at the party. and i just kept on thinking, what if i went with her, or what if i made her come home with us? >> she literally had vanished or disappeared back on the 25th, the three-day weekend, memorial day weekend, she had disappeared. >> on tuesday they started their investigation by interviewing a couple people at the party. they spoke to kristin's friends, but not a lot was done. >> every single day i spoke with someone at the campus police station. every single day they said, denise, i'm telling you this happens all the time. you cannot believe how many times kids just leave. when they have a hard time in school, they just leave." and i'd say, "but she didn't take anything with her. it's not like her to do that." and they'd say, "you just would be surprised what these kids do." >> i think the evolution of the investigation began very slowly. and then when it became abundantly clear that kristin

did not just stay overnight, it began to pick up slightly. >> frustration turns to criticism as cal poly campus police investigate what could have happened to missing student kristin smart. >> i don't know that the university police was equipped to deal with this early on. i think they certainly had personnel, but not a robust investigation unit, and really the tools that they really needed. >> denise smart, kristin's mother, had a really difficult time getting people to pay attention. >> i think it's just your intuition as a mother that you know something is wrong. >> the missing person's report was filed on may 28th, it was more than two days after kristin went missing. >> there are ten square miles of property at cal poly san louis obispo. today, every field, every patch of brush, and every rolling hill was scoured by law enforcement

officers. >> after today's ground search, police are growing more certain that kristin will not be found on campus. >> there were searches all over the cal poly campus and throughout the south county area and i knew that the community of san luis obispo county, a lot of people really stepped up and tried to make a difference and tried to do whatever they could to help find kristin and help the parents and the family. >> but still no sign of 19-year-old kristin smart. >> this was like the third week of looking for my daughter around in all the ravines and climbing through culverts and going out with people and looking for her. and she wasn't to be found. and campus police, they were saying, you know, we've run out of leads. and i said, no, you have to go to the lags people that saw her alive. >> i'm wondering, are you familiar with the term polygraph? polygraph? lie detector? ♪ ♪

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to care for all that is you. cal poly freshman, 19-year-old kristin smart has vanished without a trace, and as the weeks tick whereabouts are swirling. >> on the news they said that some anonymous person called in and said they saw her hitchhiking. >> someone said she'd been seen at a taco bell. >> there was a phone call about 2:00 in the morning. i was so afraid to answer the phone because i was either afraid someone was going to say we have kristin, don't tell anyone. my roommate grabbed the phone. when she picked it up, she said she heard a voice, someone trying to talk, but she couldn't really make it up and hung it

up. >> what if kristin was trying to get through to me. >> stan and denise smart are still trying to believe she's just missing, that she's not as one rumor has it dead and buried in a campus construction site. >> an australian reported at that same time of night seeing an altercation between two people in front of a dorm that happened to be right across the street from these huge 20 foot trec trenches. >> none of the tins a tips are going. like any investigation, the first people you look at are the people closest to the victim as hard as it is for the family to take. >> when the detective came to talk to me, we talked about who kristin was and the type of person she was, so i was dumbfounded when an hour after they left here my husband called me and said, well, you're no longer under suspicion. i couldn't even grasp what he was talking about because i was the one who was calling every radio station up and down the coast of california. i was the one who campus told me

that she was seen at a taco bell. we got the addresses for every taco bell in the state of california. i could have laid down here and cried and died but i needed to find her. >> campus police, they're talking to everybody at that party, and everyone who knew her in the dorm. by now university police have confirmed who was walking kristin home that night, a student named cheryl, and cal poly freshman, paul flores. >> it's not a criminal matter. because you're the last person, we appreciate you coming in. when you were leaving the party and everybody was kind of leaving, how did you end up getting together with kristin? >> i don't even know. she walked that way. i walked that way. that was the last time i saw her. then the other girl left at the corner over there and then -- and a couple times like on the way maybe probably twice, you

know, i went like that, just gave her a hug because she was freezing. >> so paul told the police that kristin could walk relatively fine and that he wasn't holding her up. he had his arm around her because she was cold. paul told police that kristin walked herself into her dorm and then into her room and that he did not walk with her to her room. >> what did she say? do you remember any of the conversations you had walking up the hill? >> no, she just said -- the only thing i remember is she was saying she was freezing. >> so it's very important that you realize, you know, how important this investigation is. >> yeah. >> you're grasping this, that this is -- this is very serious business with a missing woman and that sort of thing. >> yeah. >> you're aware of all this? >> i'm aware of this. >> the interviewer noted that paul had what appeared to be a black eye or a small bruise beneath his eye and also had some abrasions on his knees.

they asked where he got these injuries, and paul indicated that they came from a pickup basketball game. >> do you play basketball a lot? i noticed you got a couple of scabs on your knees. >> yeah, i was playing monday. >> monday? >> yeah. >> by any chance did you have any accident or anything? those look kind of >> yeah, the gravel's all loose there. >> what happened to your eye? >> i got elbowed playing basketball. >> everyone they talked to seems to be cooperative and willing to help with this investigation. >> it may come down to this, but i'm wondering, are you familiar with the term polygraph, lie detector, that sort of thing. >> yeah, i've heard of them. >> would you be willing to take one if necessary? >> yeah. sf . >> the smarts are the most dedicated parents.

>> give you an itemized list. >> and he climbed mountains searching for her. >> during the searches around the cal poly campus and elsewhere the media was there documenting this because this was unlike anything that had happened. >> the entire campus is on edge over her disappearance. >> so the media definitely was interested in this case from the start and covered it extensively. >> the cal poly police and kristin's family are working toward a common goal. they're searching for answers. >> initial jurisdiction was with the campus police, and they hung onto that tenaciously. they don't have the familiarity, was looking into possible homicides. >> could even expect the university police department to deal with a homicide. a homicide requires a lot of skilled personnel, expertise, a forensic lab. >> what were some of the outstanding mistakes that you think the campus police made in the early stages of this

investigation? >> they had done a little cursory look around the dormitories. >> so when the detective from the police department came to my home and sat at my table and said, well, i looked in paul flores's room, you know, i looked in his laundry. and i looked under the bed, and there's no evidence that kristin was there. well, you know, i'm not a private investigator, and i've not been trained in anything, but i can tell you flat out that your eyes are not the ticket to solving a crime. and whether it's fingerprinting the room or whether it's looking for hair samples or fiber samples that there are methods to look for that, and you can't expect a university to have that. and so the evidence that is lost is

>> there are not a lot of wet behind the ears rookies. these are experienced officers here that care. >> we reached out to cal poly and the current administration says it wasn't around at the time of the disappearance so it can't provide any insight into the initial investigation by campus police. >> a letter written to the university on behalf of the smart family suggests the campus police department bungled the case from the beginning. >> it took about 30 days. i believe the family's pressure, the acknowledgment of not kicking off the investigation quickly, that they reached out to the sheriff's office and requested that sheriffs step in and take over the investigation. >> the sheriffs now in charge have to confront a suspicion that the smarts dread. it's time to search the dorms again, this time with cadaver dogs.

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start of the summer. people are drifting off to vacations, and for days some believe that kristin's just gone away with friends, that she's come back. but when somebody goes missing, the first few days are crucial. and those days are lost. >> i think they should have looked into this more closely before school was out. >> at this point, we're re-interviewing and making initial interviews of everyone we can identify that was at the party just to see if anyone else may have seen something that we're missing. >> i'm getting more and more vg are ask anxious as time goes on, you know, that something bad has happened to her.

i can remember mike kennedy, the investigator for the campus police, indicating to me that they had no new leads. the investigation seems stalled, and the smarts ask the campus police to go back and talk to the two people who walked kristin home that night. and stan says the police reassured him. >> they said, "oh, these kids are nice and both of them offered to take a polygraph test." >> and i said, well, then you need to do it. >> so that night, cheryl and paul flores were walking kristin home. cheryl peeled off, and cheryl says that when she left, kristin was still out of it. paul was supporting kristin, and the they were headed for the dorms. >> university police are satisfied with cheryl's version of events, which leaves paul. >> paul was the last one known to be seen with kristin on that night. >> when university police talked to paul, they asked him about roxy, the name she was using at

that party. >> and when you saw roxy walking, where was the last place that you saw her? >> the last time i saw her was about, it was like right there, right by um -- >> sequoia? >> is that the one that's on the corner right there? >> mm-hmm. >> yeah, that one. >> okay. >> i saw her right by there. >> and where was she going? what was she walking? was she standing still? was she laying down? >> she was walking. >> was she saying anything when she walked away? >> no. it's like, we didn't even have any, i don't even remember any conversation really during this whole entire time. >> i don't remember saying goodnight. i don't. >> did you -- >> i don't remember. like, i probably did though. say see you later or whatever. >> and when they speak with paul flores again a few weeks later, it's on video. >> what's your best -- your best guess as to what happened?

>> hmm my best guess is maybe, she you know um -- because her dorm was by the parking lot over there. so, then i would figure, my best, um, guess is she went off with someone. >> if she's not alive anymore, what do you think happened? >> i would say that like someone who she hitchhiked with or something abducted her or something, you know. >> why would she be hitchhiking? >> well, what i'm saying, you know, people said they saw her hitchhiking. >> investigators decide to search the dorms again. the problem is it's been five weeks since kristin vanished. the school year is over. the rooms are already empty. >> it was really a perfect storm. the dorm had to be cleaned, and because it hadn't been identified as a possible crime scene, that was allowed to happen. >> but there's a kind of evidence that even an empty room can't hide, and that's a scent. so more than a month after kristin disappeared, they begin searching the empty dorm rooms with cadaver dogs. >> peter! >> hi, matt.

>> so nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. and this is my cadaver dog, riley. >> how much more keen is a canine's, a dog's ability, to smell a specific scent than a human's? >> their ability of scent is much greater than humans. you'll hear something like 10,000 times greater than humans. but it's something that really isn't totally quantified. they have a very accurate nose for what they've been trained to detect. riley is specifically trained to detect human remains. it's a number of volatile compounds that make up that human decomp, but to him, those scents mean one thing -- the anticipation that he's going to be rewarded with his toy. >> these dogs are trained to zero in on that scent, and follow it just about anywhere. >> so how are we going to make this challenging for him? >> by setting it in a challenging way, either buried or up high. >> c'mon boy, are you ready? search! >> to go back to kristin smart, how old can those scents of human decomposition be?

>> they can be anywhere from time of death to years down the line. >> and how much of the human remains do they need in order to actually alert that they found something? >> you can get down to very minute amounts, blood splatter, small drops. >> oh, wow, he just did an absolute laser right to the scent. >> yes! yes! >> good job. he really wants that toy at that point. >> he's like a matador with a bull. >> yes! and that's him working for his source that we put out and that's what he does. >> four different cadaver dogs search paul flores's dorm. the first handler was not given any information about who lived in that dorm. she releases her dog, and the dog starts sniffing the doors down the hallway. hits his brakes. comes back and alerts on the door to paul's room.

room number 128 at san lucia. >> the dogs lit up, went crazy. >> two beds in there. paul's and a roomate's, and the dogs went directly to paul's. and to a trash can on his side of the room. >> the dog alerted to the corner of the mattress, and that was a very intense alert. >> three other dogs blindly alerted on that same area. >> even though the dorm was cleaned out, the scent still was there of someone having died on the bed. and that was a real depressing thing to hear. >> paul flores is the last person to see kristin. has the scent of death in his room. now he's at the center of the investigation, and in his interview, he makes an interesting admission. he admits, it he lied. >> oh, it's not really lies. it's a fib. it's so minute, it's not -- well, well, i guess you can call it a little white lie, but -- when it comes to your hair, ingredients matter.

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the sheriff posse and a search and county rescue team gave it their best shot today, but still no sign of 19-year-old kristin smart. >> the sheriff's department is circling in on pall flores. the university already spoke with him. back in their very first audio tape interview with him, they saw those scrapes and another injury. >> in the early interview, he had a black eye that was pretty obvious that hadn't been there the night of the party. >> what happened to your eye? >> i got elbowed playing

basketball. >> you did? >> who were you playing basketball with? >> i was playing with my friend jeremy and two other guys. >> so about the -- close to the fourth week, then they actually went and they had gone and met with him i believe in the a grande police department. >> by the time he's brought back into the interview room, paul's story has been checked up, and they confront him about it. >> they talk to his basketball buddies, no, he didn't get a black eye playing basketball. >> last time we talked you had a black eye. >> yeah. >> remember that? >> yeah. >> and what did you tell us? >> i told you i got it playing basketball. >> that's right. >> where did you get it? >> in my car. >> he told a friend that he got it from being pushed at a party. he told another friend he didn't know how he got it. and then the story he ended up sticking to was that he got it by changing a radio in his truck. >> well, actually, i was working on my pickup truck and i bumped

my head against the steering wheel, but i was too embarrassed because that was such a dumb thing to do that i made up the basketball story. >> i hit the steering wheel. that's about it, but like how often do people hit their eye on the steering wheel so? >> i don't know. >> the investigator that i talked to who did the video, what struck him wasn't so much the inconsistencies and the wobbly story. what struck him was the body language. >> your best guess as to what happened? >> very, very fidgety, very very reticent to answer questions, and he just looks super nervous, scared, and wants to be anywhere in the world other than that room. now, of course anyone's going to be kind of nervous maybe speaking to police, i guess, anybody would be if they were speaking to you about a disappearance of somebody. >> but his hands inside his shirt. he was squirming, he was crying. >> his story changes multiple times. he admits that he's changed the story. >> you lied to us. >> oh, it's not really lies. it's a fib. it's so minute, it's not -- i

guess you can call it a little white lie, but. >> how you got your black eye is a white lie? >> yep. >> he said in previous interviews that he'd be happy to help, even take a polygraph test. >> is there anything else you told us that you didn't think was not a big deal that you haven't told us the truth? >> no. >> how do we know that? >> take my word for it. >> can we give you a polygraph? >> i told you i have to talk to my parents. >> well, if you're telling us the truth why do you have to talk to your parents to take a polygraph? >> because i do. >> and at that time he refused a polygraph and he walked out. he wanted an attorney, ask that was the last tame that anyone's been able to speak with him. >> if i was paul, wouldn't you want to help as much as you could to just answer questions and why would you be afraid? you know, i'm trying to be cooperative and why can't he?

>> i can't say anything i don't remember. >> paul flores was also a 19-year-old freshman here at cal poly. he grew up in the community. >> in high school paul flores was known as more of a creepy guy. people didn't really vibe with him that much. >> paul would give us -- us girls a weird vibe when we would hang out with him. >> paul flores and i graduated from the exact same high school, a lot of people that i'm close with today knew him, in fact, and what i've heard is a common theme we've heard a lot of people describe him as someone that was -- was awkward is the keyword that comes to mind. >> i felt bad for him because it isolated him, so you always felt like alone or different, and people made sure he knew that. >> paul was admitted to cal poly from a high school in arroyo grande. he was a terrible student.

i think his gpa was he had one successful class, and that was bowling for freshmen. he got in trouble loitering on the balconies of women to the point where police were called. >> he drank pretty heavily for a freshman. girls would tell their friends to stay away from him. >> the women had a nickname for him, chester the molester. >> paul flores of arroyo grande is the last person to see kristin smart alive. the sheriff's department is now looking at him as a potential suspect. >> people do not vanish off the face of the earth without a trace, and as we've been told 9 99% of the time, the person responsible was the last person seen with them. >> there they are, standoff, paul won't talk to police, and believe me, it is very frust frustrating to have a suspect and not find any physical evidence. >> and for everyone else, the world just keeps on turning, and you have to roll forward two

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a young man came out and was like, oh, i know where she lives. i can help walk her home. and that was the last time kristin was seen by anybody. >> and if they're ever gonna find kristin smart's body, if there's a body, maybe alive, who knows, they need to widen their scope of inquiry.

>> do you honestly think that kristin smart is still alive and out there somewhere? >> the reality is kristin is not found. there still is only one suspect. >> would you state your full name for the record, please? >> paul ruben flores. >> we're here to answer the questions. ask the questions or we'll leave. >> this guy murdered kristin smart and he's in your walmart, okay? >> they have the wrong guy. >> so out of the blue. >> out of the blue. >> a guy you don't know says, i killed her and buried her in my yard. you didn't want to call the sheriff or fbi? >> no, because i wasn't going to be kristin. if something happened, i'm dead. >> when you walk outside at nighttime, it's cold. the moon's out. and you know there's a girl buried somewhere. >> so a person can disappear, but the remains don't.

my mom was recording my brother's graduation party. paul flores and his friends were there. >> paul, are they going to call your name at cal poly in four years? >> no way. >> kristin was missing. paul was the last person to see her. >> hey, paul, do you have any information on that missing girl? what'd you do with her? >> he turned, like, beet red and ghost white. i remember that. it felt really odd. >> from abc news, tonight the case of the missing co-ed. >> "20/20's" tom jarriel interviewed stan and denise smart in 1998.

>> do you believe paul flores knows what happened to your daughter and perhaps killed her? >> i think she's deceased, and i think she died at the hands of paul flores. that's, uh -- >> of an accident? >> i want it to be something accidental. i don't want to think that anyone intentionally harmed my child. to have to think of the trauma they may have had to endure before dying is really more than i can deal with. >> denise smart tries a personal appeal to paul flores, approaching him at the gas station where he works. >> he was pumping gas, and he said, can i help you? and i said, yes, i'm kristin's mother, and i took his hand and i shook it and i held it with boit o both of my hands, and i need your help.

and he just started stuttering and stammering, and he quickly went inside the gas station and hid in a closet. >> with evidentiary dead ends everywhere, the investigation stalls out. the sheriff even tells the local paper we need paul flores to tell us what happened to kristin smart. absent something from mr. flores, i dont see us completing this case. >> i think that tells paul flores and his attorneys that they're home free. it's over with. >> for them to tell us there's nothing else they can do is just the worst possible thing you could hear. >> hi. hey, baby. >> how are you? how's it going? >> and so in order to get some accountability, kristin smart's family refuses to leave paul flores alone. >> how's it going? need some ribbons? >> once they have learned that he's employed by someone, then people have called and complained to the management that they don't feel it's safe or appropriate. >> flores is soon out of a job at a blockbuster video and is fired at least twice more.

>> everywhere he goes, he's followed and the family makes his life miserable. >> paul flores was fleeing into the navy. >> we had a legislator who phoned the navy and just made him aware of his past history. >> and i can imagine how the navy felt about that, and they decided not to accept him. >> flores' attorney calls it harassment. what do you call it? >> paul flores has the option right now, today, of stopping anything that he deems may be harassment. >> how? >> if he would come forward and talk with the sheriff's department and tell us what happened that night. >> the smarts work with private investigator tim hames to shadow paul flores. >> i'm hoping he'll see that we're still on him. we're not going away. >> he volunteers his time, spends hours staking out paul's every move. >> can you help me out? >> hames tries to confront flores, hoping to push him to confess.

>> he said i can't talk to you. you know, i can't tell you anything. >> they also filed a civil suit to get more information. they were able to get depositions from the flores family to try to get information about their daughter. >> the lawyers ask his father, did you ever talk about what happened? his answer's not as bizarre as his reaction to the question. >> has your son ever told you that he did not kill kristin smart? >> well, i never asked that question. do you know anything about it? he says no. >> during their depositions, ruben and susan flores refuse to acknowledge that kristin smart is probably dead. >> he's been accused of murdering this girl. is it your testimony that he

never talked to you about those things? >> was this girl murdered? >> we've never discussed it as a death. disappearance. >> one thing about a civil suit -- it means that paul popular flores, who has stopped talk to law enforcement, is compelled by law to answer questions. >> would you state your full name for the record, please? >> paul ruben flores. >> then you can see paul's lawyer pointing to a piece of paper on the table with the only answer they will hear for the rest of the deposition. >> what is your present address? >> on the advice of my attorney, i refuse to answer that question based on the fifth amendment of the united states constitution. >> he plans to answer that he will invoke the fifth amendment on all your questions. >> we're here to answer the questions. we're required to do so. ask the questions or we'll leave. >> where did you attend high school? what is the name of your father? how old are you? >> on the advice of my attorney, i refuse to answer that question based on the fifth amendment. >> after flores pleads the fifth

27 times, murphy gives up. >> i think that concludes the deposition. >> a county court spokesperson told us the civil lawsuit has long since been closed. >> not that long after kristin smart disappeared, two more local college students from san luis obispo went missing. >> 20-year-old rachel newhouse disappeared after she left a fraternity party at tortilla flats. then last month, 20-year-old audria crawford disappeared from her san luis ob >> that kind of stuff just doesn't happen here. >> i work at night, so now i make sure i have someone pick me up and walk me back. >> the case has stirred dread in the central coast community that a serial killer was on the loose. >> there was a suspect that was identified, rex allan krebs. >> we believe rex krebs is responsible for the deaths of both rachel newhouse and andrea crawford.

>> krebs is convicted of those murders, but investigators quickly realize that there is no way he could have killed kristin too because he was in prison for other crimes when she disappeared. >> they refocus on paul flores. the new plan, undercover fbi stings, but can they get their only suspect to open up and confess? no matter what type of dog you have... or, cat you have... frontline® plus lets you take them everywhere... no matter how you define it.

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as the years go on, it could be easy to forget a case like this, but billboards go up in town to remind everyone, don't forget about kristin smart. she's still missing. >> those billboards really became just important into keeping this case in the limelight. >> a lady came by my office and said, that sign is irritating. it's kind of a downer to see a sign about a dead girl every day when i drive through the village. when are you going to take it down? and i said, "ma'am, i'll take it down when we find kristin smart." >> at this point, it appears, at least to the public, that the investigation has gone cold, but the police and the fbi insist it continues to be active. >> agents repeatedly go undercover, hoping to create a situation where flores will slip up. >> to try and get paul to speak, to say something different than what he's said for years.

fbi takes him out fishing, catalina island, with his mom and dad, wine and dine him, get him drunk. same story. take him to a strip club and stuff in las vegas. he always said the same thing. they have the wrong guy. and if they're ever going to find kristin smart's body, if there's a body, maybe alive, who knows, i'm hoping she is, they need to widen their scope of inquiry. >> do you honestly think that kristin smart is still alive and out there somewhere? >> i honestly think there's a chance she could be, because we don't have her body. >> almost from the beginning, kristin smart's parents are repeatedly frustrated by the official investigation. >> one example, soon after kristin went missing, a tenant rents out a house owned by paul's parents. the tenant is washing her car and finds an earring, a woman's earring in her driveway. it's a tiny piece of potentially huge evidence.

>> and it was believed that that earring might have belonged to kristin. >> it apparently was collected by sheriff's personnel and stored somewhere but not correctly logged and tied to this case. >> no one really knows what happened to it -- >> and so, there wasn't any evidence that was able to be processed off it, if they wanted to run dna or anything, because the earring is gone. >> whose it was, whether or not it had anything to do with this case we'll never know. >> in 2005, trevor boelter says the sheriff's office reaches out to re-interview him. remember, he met kristin at that party on her final night. >> so, i met with them for two and a half hours. >> wow. >> and i remember telling my wife at the time, she was like, what happened? >> i'm like they don't have a clue. they have no clue what happened. >> the sheriffs contact you and ask you for theories about what might have happened to kristin smart?

>> yeah, they're like what did you hear? what are the rumors? >> they chase every theory, including allegations of a potential connection to one of america's most infamous murderers. >> suspicion hangs over scott peterson tonight in the christmas eve disappearance of his wife, laci, eight months pregnant. >> when that case unfolded with scott peterson, there was great interest in san luis obispo county as well. >> kristin smart disappeared in '96 when scott was a student there at cal poly. >> our investigators spoke to their investigators. multiple witnesses at the party said that scott peterson was not at the party, had never been to that house, so he was cleared. >> they can't seem to catch a break. and as the case languishes, paul flores' mother and father say that, like their son, they are also being harassed by the community. >> so, ruben was regularly having convoys of people coming by his house, throwing rocks in his yard, yelling and screaming at him. >> one man who was out shopping,

even posts a video on youtube of an encounter with ruben flores and his son paul. >> this guy murdered kristin smart, and he's in your walmart, okay. >> we're going to get you one of these days, paul. you're going to be called to accounting for what you did, and it's not going to be in the afterlife, it's going to be in this life. >> as this case unfolded over the years, i came to see it as almost a struggle or a tale of two mothers. one mother, denise smart was refusing to let her daughter be forgotten. on the other side, you have susan flores, as protective of her son as denise was vigilant in her determination to find her daughter. >> do you have any information as to where kristin smart's body is located? >> of course not.

>> so, then something happens that finally breaks the log jam in this investigation. there's a new sheriff, his name is ian parkinson, and he vows to really get to the bottom of what happened to kristin. >> i felt the family's pain. i felt that i could bring a fresh perspective to the case. >> the first year of parkinson's tenure, he actually more than quadrupled the amount of money and hours spent on investigating the case. >> the sheriff ordered a full reexamination of all of the evidence in the case. >> so, a few years after sheriff parkinson comes into office, there's a search of the cal poly campus, and it's a big event. >> kristin smart lived in that dorm, right there. and now, 20 years later, investigators think it's possible her body might be on that hillside, just a few hundred yards away. >> a new lead suggested the hillside could be where smart is buried.

>> under the blazing sun, the fbi evidence response team began the backbreaking process, searching the steep rugged landscape. >> we're hoping that we find something, and we're committed to nol stofb np not stopping until we're able to bring this to a closure. >> this morning, a possible break in the 20-year mystery. >> we've found things of interest in there. >> police hope this is their big break, but it's up to the crime lab to figure it out. will they finally find kristin smart? ♪ at olive garden, our cheese will make you melt and leave you bubbling with joy. it's what makes our amazing alfredos... well, amazing. it's the gift in every ravioli and the layer of lasagna you can't live without. best part is, the cheese keeps coming 'til you say “when” just like our never-ending first course that's always on us. olive garden. we're all family here. tv: try tide power pods with 85% more tide in every pod.

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another year goes by, another birthday passes, another family engagement passes, and i keep thinking about what i would tell my sister if i ever saw her again. >> you walk outside at nighttime, it's cold, the moon's out. and you know there's a girl buried somewhere. >> this giant p on the cal poly campus, it's a major landmark. it's been there, i think, about a century. you can't miss it when you come to campus. it's right behind the

dormitories, and so that's why police are searching there in 2016. >> investigation has lead us back here where it first began. >> investigators are now entering their third day of excavation on the cal poly campus. >> items of interest were found including either animal or human remains. >> the samples head to a forensic lab, the detectives here hope they've finally gotten a big break. >> proper identification of those remains may take some time. >> it could be ancient bones it could be a lot of different things. >> unfortunately, we did not find many results, but we knew at least we had checked that box. >> eventually, paul moves to the city of san pedro, which is south l.a. it's a blue collar neighborhood. the problem is his past follows him wherever he goes. >> neighbors say they got a disturbing flyer with flores' picture and allegations. >> when he first moved, he was actually pretty nice. but then like everybody stopped talking to him when they got the notice.

>> neighbors say that flores, now 43-years-old, lives alone, goes to work every day and has been friendly. frank romero says he's going to be watching his next door neighbor more closely. >> if he's done something in the past, he might do it again. >> a possible break in a 23-year-old cold case the disappearance of kristin smart. >> authorities executing several search warrants. >> today investigators went into this house and searched it. >> we seized a bunch of electronic data, laptops, phones, et cetera, from paul's residence. >> according to investigators, in his computer they found videos of paul having sex with unconscious women. they're homemade videos. >> and police say many of those videos were in a file with a simple label, practice. >> he allegedly also frequented bars and bring women home, allegedly drug them and rape them. >> some of the girls were

completely passed out. tramadol and flexeril were found in paul flores' home. we spoke to a doctor, and he said that if you mix those two together you would definitely get a sedating effect. >> that's exactly what we feared. he continued his predator behavior down in los angeles. >> it's a bad piece of evidence because it shows a pattern, right? a pattern of abuse, of drugging them, and of having sex with them. >> it doesn't show a pattern of killing anybody. >> paul flores was never charged in those cases, and the police investigation continued. >> the appetite from the public for news of this case has always been there. it really ramped up when chris lambert began releasing episodes of his "your own

backyard" podcast. >> chris lambert wasn't someone with an investigative background, like a news reporter. he was a music producer, a musician. >> he said he drove by a billboard every day and was like how is this girl still not found? >> it's been 23 years now. kristin has been a missing person for longer than she was alive. >> it became the number one podcast for a period of time, and that means it was getting national attention. that's good for us. you have a lot of cal poly students that graduate cal poly, and don't stay in this area. maybe they knew something. >> chris was able to get a handful of women in los angeles county to come and speak to him about their interactions with paul, which were very disturbing. >> a woman i spoke to strongly suspects that she was drugged by paul. >> at least one woman believes that paul drugged her after she had already consented to having sex with him. >> some people are afraid to go to talk to law enforcement. a, because they've either had some negative interaction, or b, because they don't want their name out there.

chris was a perfect conduit for that. >> i'm not just telling the story anymore at this point, i'm actively part of trying to push this forward. >> one of the most important witnesses the podcast produces is a woman who was a teenager when she met paul flores. >> jennifer hudson was at a skate ramp in san luis obispo, and paul flores showed up. >> so, the radio's on and we're kind of chatting. there was a public outreach commercial. >> and paul says "that -- was a -- tease, and i got sick of her and she's out under my ramp at my place in huasna." >> so, out of the blue -- >> out of the blue. >> a guy you don't know comments on a psa about a missing young woman into says basically, i killed her and because r yard? >> right. >> did you discount what paul flores said as just like a young kid talking crap, and not

knowing what he's talking about? >> no, no. it scared me enough that i never went back to that ramp, ever. >> you didn't want to call the sheriff or fbi? >> no, because i wasn't going to be kristin. and we lived out in a very rural area. >> you were worried that he would kill you too? >> right. >> did you ever feel any regret for not coming forward sooner with this? >> oh, every day. every day. i played a pretty significant part in her parents living every parent's absolute worst nightmare. >> by not coming forward? >> right. i've never been able to lay my head down in peace, and i deserve that. i 100% deserve that. >> i don't know about that. i mean, you were just a scared kid. you were 16. that's a child. >> yeah, but what if? >> did you ever reach out to the smarts? >> no, i don't have the vocabulary to -- um, sorry just doesn't cut it. um, i knew at some point i was

going to have to, um, rectify it somehow. sorry. >> finally, she does tell police what she knows about the case and it's a huge breakthrough for the investigation. >> the tide may be turning. new warrants, new technology. and a search for the ultimate clue. could it be hiding in his own father's backyard? yeah, everything's taken care of. -hey, jamie. -oh, what am i up to? just visiting a special secret client. i can't say who it is, but let's just say she bundled her dream house and her dream car for round-the-clock protection with progressive. oh. she has another house in malibu. she's been an astronaut, an architect, a ceo. we're in front of her house, dude. i'd love to tell you who her boyfriend is, but i don't think i "ken." i'd love to tell you, but i don't think i --

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i think it's very rare that somebody just disappears in thin air. >> we had to go back to the impinge, and that was what did we recover for evidence? >> investigators were out early wednesday morning searching the arroyo grande home of susan flores. >> they find nothing useful at paul's mother's house. one year later, a repeat search of ruben flores' home. >> with a sealed search warrant in hand, investigators went to work at around 7:30 a.m.

>> what we had discovered during the previous search warrants was that we kept going back to white court, and that was the home of paul's father. >> ruben flores had a roommate at the house at white court, and that man does an interview for chris lambert's "your own backyard" podcast. >> and he tells his story about how ruben would never allow anyone under that deck. >> a plumber even reached out last year to tell me that he was once called to the house to fix a sink. and when he told ruben he would need to access a pipe under the house, he was told to just forget the whole thing. >> the plumber said they need to get down below the house in the crawl space. and ruben said no, wouldn't let him in there. >> with some of chris lambert's witnesses, we were able to develop enough probable cause to go to white court, and do a search underneath that deck. >> people from all over the central coast gathered near

ruben flores' home tuesday -- watching as detectives investigated the area for the second time in just under a month. >> this search takes them under the deck. it's a deck they've walked over time after time. and they'd been standing, it turns out, right on top of the most important evidence they say they've had in 25 years. >> where does this thing come in? >> so, this comes in as my personal specialty as how this technology can be adapted to archeology. >> we got two archeologists, one that was an expert in ground penetrating radar. >> phil hanes was one of them. >> you actually are the person who uses this machine to detect bodies hidden underground. >> yes. that is absolutely one application. >> and then what you can see in parallel on the left-hand side of the screen here is called the raw radargram. this is actually the image of the radio waves traveling underground. and as they encounter something, you can see they develop little peaks. little parabolas. >> yep. >> we wanted to check a couple locations on the property.

and we also used canines again, we had a change in behavior alert underneath that deck. >> not a full alert. the dog doesn't give the strongest signal possible, but certainly interest in getting under that space. >> so middle of grid one, a big soil disturbance and no obvious reason for it? >> that's correct. >> we found an anomaly underneath the porch that measured approximately four feet by six feet, and it was between surface and, i believe, four feet underground. it's the approximate size, shape, and depth for clandestine burials. >> did you think, "okay, we found the body?" >> i certainly thought we had a good chance. >> and everybody was kind of watching to see what was gonna happen. and they started to dig. >> and the other archeologist who specialized in really the burial sites got into the hole, and she started scraping away.

>> we get down to about three to four feet, and we find this strange stain in the soil. >> got down to that floor, the soil staining started to spread out more and more, and that was what became a red flag and an indicator for what might be triggering the radar unit. >> soil staining. that is when i guess a body decomposes in fluids? >> yes. that is certainly one explanation. >> and at that point, i thought we found her. i mean, i got right down over the hole. you know, i thought we found her. >> everyone at the dig is kind of holding their breath. then, letting it out in disappointment. there was no body, no bones. just the stains. but the samples of the dirt head to a forensic lab. they're hoping for a result and the one they get is the kind that turns a case around.

>> so i get back in my car. i start heading back and i call the sheriff. i said, are you sitting down? >> i said, why? >> he said, sheriff, this is human blood. my heart just stopped. and all i could think of was we finally caught our break. >> and in those samples, we got more positive human blood and fibers that were black, red, and a grayish color, which kristin was wearing black shorts, red shoes, and a gray tank top. >> it's enough to finally get what they've desperately wanted since 1996. an arrest warrant. >> on april 13, 2021, paul flores is finally arrested. >> charge of murder, with zero bail. >> flores' 80-year-old father, ruben flores, also arrested

today at his home in arroyo grande, accused of being an accessory to the crime. >> the san luis obispo county sheriff's office arrested 44-year-old paul flores this morning. >> it was a very good feeling. it was a bit surreal. >> it is alleged that mr. flores caused the death of kristin smart while in the commission of, or attempted, rape. >> not only do prosecutors believe that paul flores is a killer, but that his father helped him cover it up. both defendants entered pleas of not guilty in court. >> susan flores is not arrested or charged in the case. >> two arrests, yes, but now an even bigger hurdle to clear, because prosecutors have a major issue here. they don't have a crucial piece of evidence, and that's kristin's body. >> this was my first no body case. very, very rare. very unusual.

>> so the case that's had so many ups and downs, so much frustration, comes to this. will the prosecution's case be enough to get a guilty verdict? - look mom! - wow! aaauuuuuuggggghhhh! wish i bought dixie®!!!

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this investigator told me that the problem was "law & order" on television where you can perpetrate a crime, investigate the crime, prosecute the crime, and send away the criminal in the span of about 45 running minutes. >> to protect the rights of the weak and voiceless! >> you're in contempt, mr. mccoy. >> it's for the jury to see justice done! >> and he says it just simply doesn't happen that way. >> after 26 years, the kristin smart case is finally going to trial. >> i remember the first day. it was very busy because there was two juries in there. so, it was a very full courtroom. >> what makes this trial so unusual is you have one jury for

paul flores and another jury for ruben flores, and they're sitting in the same courtroom at the same time, two different lawyers defending them. >> we either try them separately, and we have one jury for each one in a separate case, or we try them together and we pick two juries. >> and the smart family attended the trial every single day. >> i can't imagine the pressure that chris peuvrelle must have been under. he was tasked with trying to convict paul flores. >> there's always pressure in any homicide because you have to be perfect as a prosecutor. >> this is a no body case, and he's going to trial based largely on circumstantial evidence, which is a lot more powerful than a lot of people believe. >> i truly felt like this was a part of local history. >> it's a landmark day in this 26-year-old case. the kristin smart murder trial beginning here, in salinas, with opening statements made by the prosecution as well as the defense. >> prosecutors and many of the witnesses, wear a bit of purple to the trial.

it was kristin's favorite color. >> defense has no burden. i can just sit back. i don't even have to make an opening statement. if the state doesn't make their case, you can just say, okay, okay, prove it. prove it. >> i wanted to express to the jury just how long it's been since they've heard from kristin. >> she told me she was going to call me sunday. >> so before cell phones, before internet, and social media, they would wait for a phone call from kristin every single sunday. and that phone call was their time to catch up with her. >> and to miss, at the start of the trial, 1,355, and at the end, 1,370. that's a lot of sundays. >> we also heard from several of the key witnesses that night that kristin disappeared, the party that she was at. >> just about every other witness at the party testified

that kristin was incapacitated and couldn't walk. >> they asked me this in court. i don't remember seeing her drink. ever. >> so i think the proof is overwhelming that she was drugged, especially with how quickly she went from being completely sober at 10:30, 10:45 to one hour later, down in the grass, incapacitated, incoherent, can't move. >> maybe the most surprising, and important witnesses, paul's jury gets to hear from are two women who the court identifies as rhonda doe and sarah doe. they testify about getting a drink from paul and passing out, and they describe waking up to flores having sex with them, which they never consented to. >> i think it was absolutely critical, because they said what kristin couldn't. they told kristin's story for kristin. >> the defense claims their testimony is irrelevant, and remind the jury that paul is not charged with those alleged crimes. >> the defense, their main

strategy was discrediting witnesses, a strategy used by paul flores' attorney, robert sanger. >> when you cross examine a witness, your purpose is to discredit the witness, but you don't want to alienate the jury. you need the jury on your side. >> when the jane does were testifying, he would talk about their drinking. so there was a layer of victim blaming to sanger's questions. >> even though prosecutors were allowed to bring in the does' testimony during the kristin smart trial, ultimately there were no charges against paul flores in the l.a. county cases because of insufficient evidence. >> remember jennifer hudson, the teenager at the skate ramp back in 1996? she's the one who says paul flores confessed to her. she took the stand. >> and you were picked apart by their attorneys. >> yes. >> and that must have been brutal. >> it made me rageful. >> the defense went after

jennifer hudson relentlessly. i mean, they basically attacked her, both robert sanger and harold mesick. they went after her credibility tooth and nail. >> but you're defending a killer. you're going to come at me for actions other people have taken? >> the video of paul flores speaking with police soon after the disappearance was particularly troubling for him. >> well, you lied to us though, right? >> oh, it's not really lies. it's a fib. it's so, so minute, it's not -- well, well, i guess you can call it a little white lie. >> only one jury got to see that interview. >> paul's police interview is just not relevant to ruben's case. >> without a body, a critical component in ruben flores's case is convincing his jury that kristin's body was hidden there, and then moved away.

>> they were able to, through ground penetrating radar, find what they felt like was the grave site of kristin smart. >> you find a body, or you find evidence of a body. didn't find that at ruben's. no matter what they tried to make you believe. >> and that was also the same area that cadaver dogs had a change in behavior. >> the dogs had a subtle change of behavior. well, that's not an alert. >> prosecutors kept coming back to the cadaver dogs at trial because juries love cadaver dogs. they love this kind of evidence. this is the stuff juries eat up. >> the cadaver dogs were pivotal to this case because in 1996, we had four dogs alert on paul flores's side of the room. >> and what about the evidence presented by the prosecution from under ruben's deck, alleging marks of decomposition? >> they claim they found human

blood in the dirt, but acknowledge there's no dna to connect it to kristin. >> there's no objective physical evidence. none. >> after 12 long weeks, two separate juries, circumstantial evidence, and dozens of witnesses, it was time for what everyone, most importantly, the smart family, had been waiting decades for. a verdict. >> it was almost surreal. paul flores will learn his fate. the smart family will finally learn if they're going to get justice for kristin or not. to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to bare my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪

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with their children, and i just wonder if they really appreciate. >> how should she be remembered? >> someone who made such a difference in our lives and someone who gave so much. she just didn't deserve this. >> tonight, two verdicts in a california case that made national news. >> when you walk in knowing a verdict is going to happen, you get this enormous rush of adrenaline. >> we begin with breaking news. >> more than 25-year-old murder case. >> jury found 45-year-old paul flores guilty of her murder. >> he murdered kristin with zero remorse or concern. >> when i heard the verdict that paul flores was guilty of murder, i felt a sense of elation that we had accomplished it.

i felt a sense of relief that the smart family could finally have some semblance of justice for kristin. >> so what did convince paul flores's jury? prosecutors always want to know that. now, the jurors have never spoken on camera about what happened in the jury room until now. the jurors asked that we not identify them by name. >> it sure would've made life easier if the body was there, but i didn't need it to make the conviction. >> i think the biggest for me was the dogs hitting on the bed. you know, all the dorms in that place, and the dogs hit on his bed. dogs don't lie. >> i didn't even know about that. >> again, we watched that video two days. i mean, his body language in itself, he's pulling on his shirt and looking down and not really making eye contact.

>> you want to know if this was an accidental, horrible incident, or was he a predator? and he was a predator. >> but there are two verdicts coming down. two juries. the son, convicted. the father? >> now, unlike his son, ruben flores was found to be not guilty. >> in our case, again, we had no objective physical evidence. >> at paul flores' sentencing, you get a real sense of the pain the smart family still feels every day. >> this is a parent's worst nightmare, the disappearance and death of their child. >> lies at home staring at my sister, empty chair for over 26 years. paul had the freedom to do whatever he wanted with his family, and he still is holding the key to the one thing i desperately want, my sister. >> we will never rest until kristin is properly laid to rest by her family.

this fight is far from over. >> i'm tormented by the thought of how she lost her life. did a sexual deviant think his needs were greater than the value of her life? did she cry for help that never came? >> mr. flores, it is necessary to remove you from society so that you can no longer prey on and victimize women. you deserve to spend every day you have left behind bars. >> while his son goes off in handcuffs, 25 years to life, ruben flores holds a news conference on the courthouse steps as a free man. >> all that stuff they say is evidence? you look through it and there is no evidence against anybody, me, or paul. >> well, the story, unfortunately, isn't over, and it will never be over until they find kristin. >> every memorial day, another

anniversary of the worst thing a parent can endure. >> how's the beach, kristin? >> probably about 67 out, the sun's going down, and you should have been here earlier, but we love you! >> i got my shoes wet! >> today, is a day not really of joy, it's a day of relief that kristin's voice was heard. >> there she is, the graduate, yes! here's kristin. >> we're not happy because we don't have our daughter. we don't know where her remains are. so from that aspect, we don't have closure. >> love you! wish you were here! bye! >> and while the smarts don't have kristin's body, they did receive an apology from cal poly about how her disappearance was handled, which reads in part, we are very sorry for what the smart family has endured. we recognize that things should

have been done differently. we should also add tonight that paul flores is appealing his conviction. that is our program for tonight, thanks for watching. i'm david muir and from all of us here at 20/20 and abc news, good night. ama: breaking news in san jose were a fire has been damage to townhomes. the complex is on lis avenue. reports of this being an arson are under investigation. fire fighters enough time to get out with his family. >> i managed to take my mothn-