Kristin Smart

A young woman vanishes from a college campus.

Missing: Gender: Female DOB: 2/20/77 Height: 6’1” Weight: 145 to 160 lbs. Eyes: Brown Hair: Dark blonde Remarks: Last seen 5/25/96. There is currently a $75,000 reward being offered.

CASE DETAILS

Eighteen year-old April Gregory and 19 year-old Kristin Smart never met. They were enrolled at different universities on opposite ends of the country. Yet within the same five hour period, they were both vanished with no warning and no explanation.

April Gregory took her schoolwork at Syracuse University very seriously. When she finished her freshman year, she immediately enrolled in the summer session. At 11:45 P.M., on May 24, 1996, April’s brother, Lamar, dropped her off at her dorm:

“I helped her with her bags to the front of the dormitory and that was the last I saw her.”

April walked up the steps, entered the doors under the watchful eyes of dorm officials, and went to her seventh floor room, then was never seen again. A short time later, police searched April’s room. They discovered that when she disappeared, she hadn’t finished unpacking. And in the closet, only one clue: her work uniform was missing. But April never arrived at work. April’s father, Herman, knew it could only be bad news:

“Rarely did she miss work. Very rarely. I just knew something bad had happened to my baby.”

At almost the same moment that April Gregory disappeared, another young woman mysteriously vanished 3,000 miles away. Nineteen year-old Kristin Smart was a freshman at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. About the time April should’ve been heading to work in New York, Kristin was returning to her dorm after a party. She wasn’t alone. Nineteen-year old Paul Flores was also a freshman at Cal Poly. He had offered to walk Kristin home after the party. An eyewitness saw Paul and Kristin on a street corner. Paul told police that Kristin went to her dorm, and he crossed the street to his. Denise Smart is Kristen’s mother:

“Kristin phoned home every Sunday religiously. And when that Sunday passed, and she hadn’t phoned, I knew something was wrong.”

Police and volunteers searched the campus for Kristin, but they didn’t find a clue. Then cadaver search dogs were taken through the dorms. According to Det. Sgt. Peter R. Bayer of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s office, the dogs earned their pay:

“Those dogs hit on this room, room 128, at the Cal Poly campus, and specifically came into this room and hit on this mattress and the corner of this mattress. This room was occupied by, coincidentally, the male subject that was last seen with Kristin Smart on the day she became a missing person.”

That male subject was Paul Flores. Det. Bayer said that authorities became suspicious of Flores’ statement that he and Kristin had gone home separately:

“He says he continued into his dorm, which is up the hill, and she left and went up between the two dorms to her own dorm. However, we believe that, based on what we’ve learned from the search dogs, she actually continued into his dorm with him.”

Kristen’s mother Denise has not given up hope of finding Kristen alive. But she’s not optimistic:

“As any parent can imagine, the longer that it goes on, the dimmer the light. And we can only hope.”

April Gregory’s father is haunted by his daughter’s disappearance:

“There’s a neighbor girl that resembles April a lot, and I’d be in the kitchen sometimes when she’d walk by the house. My heart would just flutter ’cause I’d be missing my April, and I’d be so disappointed that it’s not her. Everything brings April to my mind. I don’t cry as much as I used to. But the pain is still there. I really, really miss our daughter.”

Update:

In November of 1997, more than a year after she vanished, April Gregory’s former boyfriend was charged with her murder. Police claim that Terrance Evans killed April after an argument, dismembered her body, and then hid part of it in his house. The jury convicted Evans of second-degree murder. He is serving 25 years to life in prison.

In April of 2021, Paul Flores was arrested in connection with Kristin Smart’s disappearance, booked for a single charge of murder. His father, Reuben Flores, has also been arrested on a single charge of being an accessory after the fact. On October 18th, 2022, Paul Flores was found guilty of murder in the first degree. His father, Ruben Flores, was found not guilty. In March of 2023, Paul Flores was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of Kristin Smart.

Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season nine with Robert Stack and in season four with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu.