Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Gorgeous coed leaves college party for dorm, DISAPPEARS. Hear LATEST in search for Kristin Smart.

Transcript

Gorgeous coed leaves college party for dorm, DISAPPEARS. Hear LATEST in search for Kristin Smart. · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: What happened to Kristen's Smart? What went wrong? Is there
0:11
Speaker 1: a new break in the case? Three and sixty fourth
0:14
Speaker 1: supplemental reports serving eighteen search warrants. The sheriff is saying
0:20
Speaker 1: thirty seven pieces of evidence from the early days of
0:23
Speaker 1: the case are now being submitted to modern DNA testing.
0:27
Speaker 1: Is there light at the end of the tunnel? What
0:31
Speaker 1: happened to Kristen's Smart? Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Paul
0:45
Speaker 1: Flores was the last person to be seen with her,
0:48
Speaker 1: according to witnesses. Two days later, May twenty seventh, Kristen's
0:52
Speaker 1: resident hall neighbor reported her missing. Nearly a month after
0:55
Speaker 1: her disappearance, cal Poly Police turned the case over to
0:58
Speaker 1: the San Luis Obispel County Sheriff's Office, and hundreds of
1:01
Speaker 1: volunteers went on an organized search for Kristen on June
1:05
Speaker 1: twenty ninth. In July nineteen ninety six, investigators named Paul
1:09
Speaker 1: Floras a key witness. Christen's parents stand in Denise Smart
1:13
Speaker 1: have filed several lawsuits against Flora's starting just months after
1:17
Speaker 1: she went missing. In this November nineteen ninety seven deposition,
1:21
Speaker 1: you can hear James Murphy, the Smart family's attorney asking
1:24
Speaker 1: Flora's about his parents, name, place of work, are you
1:27
Speaker 1: presently employed? And Christen's disappearance, but Flora's refused to answer
1:32
Speaker 1: each question except to say this, on the advice of
1:35
Speaker 1: my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on
1:38
Speaker 1: the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. You're hearing
1:41
Speaker 1: our friends at ksby NBC six reporter Megan Healy speaking
1:46
Speaker 1: just then. I'm NC Grace. This is Crime Stories, joining
1:51
Speaker 1: me an all Star panel, Cloyd Steiger, Joseph Scott, Morgan,
1:55
Speaker 1: Karen Starks, Cheryl Appoint and Anne Emerson w CIV, ABC
1:59
Speaker 1: four and Emerson. Let's start at the beginning. When did
2:02
Speaker 1: Kristen Smart go missing? She went missing from Sam Elizabeth's
2:06
Speaker 1: Bow on Memorial Day weekend about twenty four years ago.
2:10
Speaker 1: According to reports, she was at early in the Saturday
2:14
Speaker 1: morning a Memorial Day weekend before it was kicking off,
2:17
Speaker 1: and this a nineteen year old girl had gone up
2:21
Speaker 1: and headed back to her dorm and that's when she
2:24
Speaker 1: went missing. We have not seen her since her trip
2:27
Speaker 1: back to the dorm. So she goes missing en route
2:34
Speaker 1: or after she had already gone back to her dorm
2:38
Speaker 1: At California Polytechnic State University, Polly Cow Cow, Polly, that
2:47
Speaker 1: is where she goes missing. I want you to hear
2:52
Speaker 1: this her family, Denise, and stand smart. Denise, what do
2:56
Speaker 1: you recall of that day? Obviously we didn't know the
3:02
Speaker 1: first day, We didn't know the second day. We didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: know the third day because cal Poly did not take
3:09
Speaker 1: a request from her friends to look for her. So
3:13
Speaker 1: by the time Monday evening came around, which was she
3:17
Speaker 1: disappeared Friday night, we didn't hear anything till Monday evening
3:21
Speaker 1: and we got a call from the campus if we
3:24
Speaker 1: knew where she was. And I think every parent will
3:28
Speaker 1: tell you you have a gut reaction when you know
3:31
Speaker 1: something's not right and someone calling you out of the
3:34
Speaker 1: blue and saying do you know where your daughter is
3:36
Speaker 1: and she's two hundred miles away? Bumps again, just going
3:41
Speaker 1: back to there. And I think it says you referenced
3:45
Speaker 1: that it comes back. It just always comes back. And
3:50
Speaker 1: whenever you hear about a missing child, you relive it
3:54
Speaker 1: for that family as well. When you say you relive
3:58
Speaker 1: it when you hear or about a missing child or
4:01
Speaker 1: a missing team, what do you mean by relive it?
4:05
Speaker 1: Well that probably that first day, that first week, it
4:10
Speaker 1: just comes back into your psyche. You are thinking again
4:13
Speaker 1: about how this family is having to cope with something
4:17
Speaker 1: that is a nightmare beyond anyone's comprehension. And you know,
4:23
Speaker 1: as we move forward, it's a very long and lonely
4:27
Speaker 1: road to have such a long unknown to not know
4:31
Speaker 1: where your child is. Unfortunately, there are way too many
4:35
Speaker 1: families who lose their children to illness, their accidents, and
4:39
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that there's resolution there, but
4:42
Speaker 1: when you are having to fight for justice and deal
4:46
Speaker 1: with so much frustration, highs and lows anxiety. Even though
4:50
Speaker 1: people friends and family may feel you need to move on,
4:54
Speaker 1: when you don't know where your child is, you really
4:56
Speaker 1: cannot move on. In addition to Denise Smart, Christen's mother
5:00
Speaker 1: with us as stand Smart, her father Stan back to
5:04
Speaker 1: May twenty fifth, that night, you're absolutely beautiful and brilliant daughter.
5:11
Speaker 1: Kristen had gone to a party I get together. She
5:14
Speaker 1: was a student there at cal Poly, and two of
5:20
Speaker 1: her friends, Cheryl Anderson and Tim Davis, were also leaving
5:24
Speaker 1: the party and they walked Kristen back to her dorm
5:28
Speaker 1: that night, Right, what do you recall the first you
5:33
Speaker 1: heard Kristen was missing. What happened? Well, if you're asking me,
5:38
Speaker 1: initially the campus police thought our daughter had gone camping
5:42
Speaker 1: with friends, and this is why she had not return
5:45
Speaker 1: to campus, that she had overstayed in the vacation time,
5:50
Speaker 1: and so initially I was a little upset, and although
5:55
Speaker 1: after a week, you know, it appeared that something horrible
5:58
Speaker 1: had happened, and so I had gone down there to
6:02
Speaker 1: take a look and meet with the campus police. And
6:05
Speaker 1: the campus police were very ill equipped to deal with
6:09
Speaker 1: a missing person. I think probably they would be able
6:12
Speaker 1: to handle students that had been drinking, or if there
6:16
Speaker 1: had been a party or a car parked where it
6:18
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, but they had no idea what to do
6:20
Speaker 1: for an investigation into a missing person, and so I
6:25
Speaker 1: was rather disappointed. And they were real quick to point
6:29
Speaker 1: out that it was our daughter who had made an error,
6:31
Speaker 1: had gone to a party like many students going to
6:35
Speaker 1: college and away from home, and that she gotten into
6:39
Speaker 1: trouble and disappeared, and so they left early to blame
6:42
Speaker 1: with us with our daughter, and that was very disappointing. Anyway,
6:49
Speaker 1: after that and after looking for and she wasn't appearing,
6:54
Speaker 1: and they had found her purse and her belongings in
6:57
Speaker 1: the room. She had not taken those things with her.
6:59
Speaker 1: It was real apparent that something had happened to her.
7:02
Speaker 1: So it's a nightmare. Like my wife had mentioned, I
7:05
Speaker 1: spent a lot of weeks down there, in fact, the
7:07
Speaker 1: whole summer looking for my daughter. And I think it
7:11
Speaker 1: could have been a tour director for Saint Louis Bispo
7:13
Speaker 1: County and just you know, a lot of heartache from it.
7:18
Speaker 1: And as my wife had mentioned, when we hear about
7:22
Speaker 1: other people who have lost a child and they're looking
7:25
Speaker 1: for their child or our hearts go out to them too.
7:29
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University,
7:33
Speaker 1: author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott,
7:37
Speaker 1: what do we know about the facts surrounding her disappearances.
7:43
Speaker 1: It's almost as if this young girl who was a
7:47
Speaker 1: freshman in college is kind of dropped off the face
7:50
Speaker 1: of the earth. She was last seen leaving the party.
7:56
Speaker 1: She was allegedly accompanied by this fellow who has been
8:03
Speaker 1: you know, kind of named as a key witness, I
8:07
Speaker 1: think a person of interest, and she's nowhere to be found.
8:12
Speaker 1: It's like she just vanished off the face of the planet.
8:15
Speaker 1: And so that's left the investigators with a dead end.
8:18
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of complications along the way
8:21
Speaker 1: early on in working with the campus police and the
8:24
Speaker 1: local authorities, and of course state gets involved, and I
8:28
Speaker 1: would imagine the FEDS at one level. So there was
8:30
Speaker 1: a real lack of communication from Jump Street. Although the
8:33
Speaker 1: case has been stymied after this young girl disappears following
8:38
Speaker 1: a party on the way back to her dorm. Take
8:40
Speaker 1: a Listen Our physic Ks by NBC six. The sheriff
8:44
Speaker 1: office confirmed it has a possession of two trucks that
8:47
Speaker 1: belonged to the Flores family in nineteen ninety six. Ever
8:52
Speaker 1: since Kristen Smart's disappearance, a cloud of suspicion has followed
8:56
Speaker 1: Paul Flores around. It's believed that Flores, who was all
9:00
Speaker 1: so acl Pouli student, was one of the last people
9:02
Speaker 1: to see Kristen. According to investigators, Flores has been referred
9:06
Speaker 1: to as a person of interest in the case since
9:09
Speaker 1: the beginning. Kristen's family has been very vocal in their
9:12
Speaker 1: belief that Flores killed her. The two trucks, which Sheriff's
9:15
Speaker 1: officials say belonged to family members of Paul Flores in
9:19
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six have been a hot topic in recent
9:22
Speaker 1: episodes of the Your Own Backyard podcast. The Sheriff's office
9:25
Speaker 1: has closed in the case has always been a priority.
9:28
Speaker 1: Now Since twenty eleven, which is when Ian Parkinston became
9:31
Speaker 1: the sheriff, investigators have searched one hundred and forty new
9:36
Speaker 1: items of evidence. They have also conducted physical evidence searches
9:40
Speaker 1: at nine separate locations and have resubmitted thirty seven evidence
9:45
Speaker 1: items from the beginning of the case for modern DNA testing.
10:03
Speaker 1: Time stories with Nancy Grace. The sheriff Office confirmed and
10:07
Speaker 1: has the possession of two trucks that belonged to the
10:10
Speaker 1: Florest family in nineteen ninety six. Ever since Kristen Smart's disappearance,
10:16
Speaker 1: a cloud of suspicion has followed Paul Flores around. It's
10:20
Speaker 1: believed that Flores, who was also a Colpoli student, was
10:23
Speaker 1: one of the last people to see Kristen. According to investigators,
10:27
Speaker 1: Flores has been referred to as a person of interest
10:29
Speaker 1: in the case since the beginning. Kristen's family has been
10:32
Speaker 1: very vocal in their belief that Flores killed her The
10:35
Speaker 1: two trucks, which sheriff's officials say belonged to family members
10:39
Speaker 1: of Paul Flores in nineteen ninety six, have been a
10:42
Speaker 1: hot topic in recent episodes of the Your Own Backyard podcast.
10:45
Speaker 1: The Sheriff's office has closed in the case has always
10:48
Speaker 1: been a priority. Now since twenty eleven, which is when
10:51
Speaker 1: Ian Parkinson became the sheriff, investigators have searched one hundred
10:56
Speaker 1: and forty new items of evidence. They have also conducted
10:59
Speaker 1: physical evidence searches at nine separate locations, and I've re
11:03
Speaker 1: submitted thirty seven evidence items from the beginning of the
11:07
Speaker 1: case for modern DNA testing. Investigators have now sees two
11:11
Speaker 1: trucks as evidence that belong to the family of what
11:14
Speaker 1: many believe as a prime suspect and the disappearance of
11:18
Speaker 1: a California college girl, Kristen Smart, who vanishes near her dorm.
11:24
Speaker 1: We know that cops have revealed details about the new evidence.
11:28
Speaker 1: It's a long, long, overdue break in the disappearance of
11:31
Speaker 1: the nineteen year old girl. These two trucks are now
11:35
Speaker 1: in evidence and they were confiscated from the family of
11:38
Speaker 1: this so called key witness, Paul Flores. What do we
11:42
Speaker 1: know about Flores. We know he has long been the
11:45
Speaker 1: prime suspect and Smarts disappearance, but he's never had any
11:49
Speaker 1: formal charges filed against him. Listen to her family, Denise
11:55
Speaker 1: and stand Smart. What happens, Stan Smart? How is it
11:59
Speaker 1: that suddenly it's Paul Flores there alone with Kristen. Well,
12:04
Speaker 1: that's the big question. I really can't respond to that.
12:07
Speaker 1: You know, at that being the last person seeing her alive,
12:12
Speaker 1: more than likely she was under the influence from alcohol
12:16
Speaker 1: or drugs given her taken at the party, and I
12:20
Speaker 1: imagine he steerred her over towards his dorm. His roommate
12:24
Speaker 1: wasn't there, as roommate was gone for the weekend, and
12:29
Speaker 1: I suspect that our daughter ended up in his room.
12:34
Speaker 1: There was a follow up. I'm sure you're going to
12:36
Speaker 1: mention with some dogs. It ended up going to his room,
12:40
Speaker 1: of all the rooms on the campus, and that someone
12:43
Speaker 1: had died there is what they could determine. But that
12:46
Speaker 1: was the last we had heard of our daughter. And
12:48
Speaker 1: that was Wait a minute, Wait a minute, could you
12:50
Speaker 1: back that up? Stan? What did you say about evidence
12:53
Speaker 1: suggesting someone had died there? Right when there was a
12:56
Speaker 1: search of the campus, they used independent right, cadaver dogs
13:01
Speaker 1: at different times to go by, and they zeroed in
13:04
Speaker 1: on his room and the bed in his room and
13:08
Speaker 1: the waste basket, and all they could determine was somebody
13:12
Speaker 1: had died in that room. They didn't know who was
13:15
Speaker 1: our daughter or someone else, but that was the evidence
13:18
Speaker 1: that they had and at the time, and still they've
13:23
Speaker 1: not been able to determine what chemicals you know, when
13:26
Speaker 1: a body, when a person dies, they leave a sat
13:30
Speaker 1: I guess you would say that a dog can determine,
13:33
Speaker 1: but a human can't. And that's what you know. The
13:37
Speaker 1: dog handlers indicated, So it looks like someone died in
13:42
Speaker 1: paul floor, his dormitory room. Then the university cleaned the
13:46
Speaker 1: room and they put students back in the room for
13:49
Speaker 1: the oncoming term in the fall, which is hard for
13:53
Speaker 1: me to believe that no one went in there and
13:55
Speaker 1: looked for forensic evidence and did not go through the
13:59
Speaker 1: room before they cleaned it put students in it again
14:02
Speaker 1: to use it. Yeah, we asked if a forensic team
14:06
Speaker 1: had been brought into the room, and they point blank
14:09
Speaker 1: told us they didn't need it. They were just looking
14:12
Speaker 1: for evidence that Paul may have left behind. So there
14:17
Speaker 1: were no hair fibers had to be found our fingerprints
14:19
Speaker 1: because they never brought a forensic team. When he was
14:22
Speaker 1: first confronted by cal Poly police, he had a black eye, bruises,
14:28
Speaker 1: scrapes on his knees. Did they take a photograph? No,
14:32
Speaker 1: they didn't take a photograph. And the only reason we
14:34
Speaker 1: know about those is he turned himself in over the
14:36
Speaker 1: weekend for an outstanding dui and they happened to have
14:39
Speaker 1: taken his pictures and in the picture he was holding
14:42
Speaker 1: up his numbers, so you can see the scrapes and
14:44
Speaker 1: bruises on his hands and the black eye that he has.
14:47
Speaker 1: But yeah, cal Poly police did none of that. So
14:51
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's been frustrating from the get go.
14:56
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to Paul Flores, Where did you
15:00
Speaker 1: end high school? On the advice of my attorney, if
15:03
Speaker 1: used to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment
15:06
Speaker 1: a United States Constitution, what is the name of your father?
15:10
Speaker 1: On the vice of my attorney, I refuse to answer
15:12
Speaker 1: that question. Based on the Fifth Amendment of the United
15:15
Speaker 1: States Constitution, What is your mother's name? On the vice
15:19
Speaker 1: of my attorney, I refused to answer that question based
15:22
Speaker 1: on the Fifth Amendment a United States Constitution. There you
15:26
Speaker 1: hear a person of interest, Paul Flores repeatedly taking the
15:30
Speaker 1: Fifth Amendment, even to the point he won't even say
15:32
Speaker 1: who is mom and dad are? He's taking the Fifth
15:34
Speaker 1: Amendment on that on the right to remain silent, is
15:37
Speaker 1: as if his parents' names could somehow incriminate him in
15:40
Speaker 1: Kristen Smart's disappearance to Joe Scott Morgan joining me, Professor Forensics,
15:44
Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University, Joe Scott, he's been a prime suspect
15:48
Speaker 1: all these years, but he's never been charged. Why you know,
15:51
Speaker 1: I think that they were lacking some type of physical
15:55
Speaker 1: evidence to tie him back to these to her disappearance,
16:00
Speaker 1: and you know, absent that you don't have a proverbial
16:03
Speaker 1: nail to essentially hang the evidence on the wall here,
16:06
Speaker 1: So they need something. Forensics and investigations is all about connection, Nancy,
16:11
Speaker 1: and if they don't have that one central tie back point,
16:14
Speaker 1: that's a problem. I got really, you know, we were
16:17
Speaker 1: on the air together, I think in back in two sixteen,
16:20
Speaker 1: Nancy and I really got my hopes up about this
16:23
Speaker 1: case because don't you remember they went out to the scene,
16:25
Speaker 1: they actually had a physical location where they were going
16:27
Speaker 1: to take heavy equipment and begin excavating an area, because
16:31
Speaker 1: at that point in time, we thought that we had
16:33
Speaker 1: a body, and of course that turned up to be
16:35
Speaker 1: a dead end. You're right, this is what we know
16:37
Speaker 1: about the timeline. Take a listener. Forensic KSPI. June nineteenth,
16:41
Speaker 1: two thousand, the San Luisbesville County Sheriff's Office searched the
16:44
Speaker 1: Royal Grande backyard of Susan Flores, Paul's mother. It would
16:48
Speaker 1: be one of several home searches over the years. On
16:51
Speaker 1: May twenty fifth, two thousand and two, exactly six years
16:54
Speaker 1: after she disappeared, Kristen Smart was declared legally dead as
16:58
Speaker 1: part of a discovery process in a civil suit. Crews
17:01
Speaker 1: dig up the yard of the Flores family home in
17:03
Speaker 1: May two thousand and seven. The search yields no new evidence.
17:07
Speaker 1: Ian Parkinson is then elected as sheriff in two eleven,
17:10
Speaker 1: pledging to review the Smart case. I would be equally
17:14
Speaker 1: frustrated not having this case solved after all these years.
17:17
Speaker 1: Fast forward to September sixth, twenty sixteen, when investigators excavated
17:22
Speaker 1: this count Poly hillside after FBI cadaverdogs alerted in surrounding areas.
17:27
Speaker 1: Deputies have not said what they found there, remaining tight
17:30
Speaker 1: lipped about the investigation. Then, through a series of major mistakes,
17:36
Speaker 1: Kristen has not reported missing for days. Take a listen
17:41
Speaker 1: to this. So we had a standard Sunday night call,
17:44
Speaker 1: so she would call every Sunday night, and when she
17:47
Speaker 1: didn't call on Memorial Day weekend Sunday, we weren't alarmed
17:51
Speaker 1: because it was a long weekend and she had left
17:53
Speaker 1: us a message on Friday night and she had missed
17:55
Speaker 1: us and we while we were out and she said,
17:58
Speaker 1: I've got good news. I've got good news. I can't
18:00
Speaker 1: wait to talk to you. So we weren't alarmed on
18:04
Speaker 1: that Sunday night. And of course, so the next call
18:07
Speaker 1: we got was from you know, cal Poly security Police
18:11
Speaker 1: when her roommate, who had been gone for the weekend,
18:14
Speaker 1: came home and was alarmed and had a note from
18:17
Speaker 1: some of her other friends. Do you know where Kristen
18:19
Speaker 1: is and her person her belongings were on the bed,
18:22
Speaker 1: just where her roommate had seen them when she had left.
18:25
Speaker 1: Every newspaper article that came out in that first six
18:29
Speaker 1: months was about this drunk girl and it it just
18:34
Speaker 1: made us live it. It has nothing to do with
18:36
Speaker 1: whether you've got shorts on whether you've got long hair
18:38
Speaker 1: short hair. It doesn't matter. What matters is this is
18:42
Speaker 1: a life and we have to value the life and
18:44
Speaker 1: not point a finger and blame blame victims. And as
18:48
Speaker 1: we referenced, you know cal Poly was certainly ill equipped
18:52
Speaker 1: and inexperienced in dealing with this, and you know there
18:55
Speaker 1: was there's an In nineteen ninety eight they passed the
18:58
Speaker 1: Christian Smart Campus Safety which requires California campuses to have
19:03
Speaker 1: a local agreement with law enforcement if they are even
19:07
Speaker 1: beginning to look at a violent crime on campus. So
19:10
Speaker 1: everyone said, well, doesn't that make you feel better? Well, yes,
19:14
Speaker 1: but it's a little late for Kristen Guys Nancy Grace.
19:31
Speaker 1: Here we are heading straight into breaking crime and justice news.
19:35
Speaker 1: But first, how can you keep yourself and your children safe?
19:41
Speaker 1: I have investigated and prosecuted literally thousands of felony cases.
19:48
Speaker 1: I have covered literally thousands of cases of missing people,
19:53
Speaker 1: adults and children, unsolved homicides, violent crimes. After all the cases,
20:01
Speaker 1: after speaking to all the victims, all the police, all
20:05
Speaker 1: the witnesses, over years, what can we do about it?
20:11
Speaker 1: I don't want to just sit back and report on it.
20:13
Speaker 1: I want to take action. And I know you must
20:16
Speaker 1: feel the same way. You don't want to just hear
20:18
Speaker 1: about crime. You want to do something about it and
20:21
Speaker 1: do something to stop it. And here is the news,
20:25
Speaker 1: Don't Be a Victim Fighting back against America's crime Wave,
20:30
Speaker 1: a brand new book. After interviewing literally hundreds of crime
20:36
Speaker 1: victims and police, we put our knowledge into Don't Be
20:41
Speaker 1: a Victim. This book is for everyone he wants to
20:47
Speaker 1: stay safe or he wants to keep your loved one safe.
20:52
Speaker 1: Crime online dot Com. Preorder now and know that portions
20:56
Speaker 1: of our proceeds goes to the National Center for Missing
21:01
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children. You can't live under your duck side forever.
21:13
Speaker 1: You'd have to look back at the joy and the
21:17
Speaker 1: life that your child has. Denyse Smart speaking to me
21:21
Speaker 1: about the disappearance of her daughter to jo Scott Morgan,
21:24
Speaker 1: what do you know about the new so called new
21:27
Speaker 1: evidence and what impact it may have on the case. Well,
21:30
Speaker 1: you reflect back, Nancy to say the way things were
21:33
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety six when we had to take
21:36
Speaker 1: huge samples in order to search for DNA. You know,
21:39
Speaker 1: contained within a sample you know, I'm thinking back to
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, all of these cases, these infamous cases from
21:45
Speaker 1: our past. But jumping forward, I think that it's fascinating
21:49
Speaker 1: they have these two trucks. Now. I don't know if
21:52
Speaker 1: they're in preceding condition, chances hard as they are not.
21:55
Speaker 1: But what they're going to be looking for, Nancy, with
21:57
Speaker 1: these two vehicles that we've talked about, is these things
22:01
Speaker 1: that are absolutely unseen with the naked eye. Is there
22:06
Speaker 1: any remnant of any contact DNA that is left behind,
22:10
Speaker 1: whether it be skin cells or maybe dried blood. And
22:14
Speaker 1: then another question we have to ask is the sample
22:17
Speaker 1: going to be viable? But they have got a good
22:20
Speaker 1: start because they've got both of these trucks in their
22:23
Speaker 1: possession at this point in time, and they'll be digging
22:25
Speaker 1: through the seats, going into the fibers of the seats.
22:27
Speaker 1: So look on the door panels, on the carpet, if
22:31
Speaker 1: there is carpeting in the vehicle, anywhere that they can
22:34
Speaker 1: find that could be protected, that could hold some keys.
22:38
Speaker 1: Just got I don't understand these are these are possessions
22:45
Speaker 1: that were owned by the suspect, the only suspect we've got.
22:51
Speaker 1: Why are we just getting them two trucks now seized
22:56
Speaker 1: belonging to the family of Paul Flores. Why are we
22:59
Speaker 1: just getting them? I don't know, that's a question. I
23:02
Speaker 1: think that that's key here, Nancy. I'm wondering if there
23:04
Speaker 1: hasn't been some kind of resistance on the part of
23:06
Speaker 1: the family, you know that they're you know, come hell
23:09
Speaker 1: or high water, they're not going to release these or
23:12
Speaker 1: did are the police casting a wider net now thinking
23:15
Speaker 1: that maybe one of these vehicles could have been used
23:20
Speaker 1: in this particular case, either as a conveyance or maybe
23:23
Speaker 1: a location where something horrible happened. And now they're going
23:26
Speaker 1: back and they're going to sift through because now, you know, contextually,
23:30
Speaker 1: we're looking at the world that we live in now
23:32
Speaker 1: with the abilities that we have in DNA that did
23:35
Speaker 1: not exist when this first happened. Say they may have
23:38
Speaker 1: thought back then, well, yeah, he may have used the trucks,
23:41
Speaker 1: but we don't have any way to go back and
23:43
Speaker 1: collect this evidence. Now we do. Now we can go
23:46
Speaker 1: back in, we can dig these things out, we can
23:49
Speaker 1: root it out, and hopefully they're going to be able
23:51
Speaker 1: to collect something at a level that most people and
23:54
Speaker 1: even I can't can't comprehend. What we're learning is that
23:58
Speaker 1: California Police is these two vans, vans belonging to the
24:03
Speaker 1: family of the primary suspect and in in Christen Smart's disappearance
24:08
Speaker 1: from her California college campus. Now, what do we know
24:13
Speaker 1: about the vans, what was inside of the vans? It
24:18
Speaker 1: could be a plethora of information, but we know that
24:21
Speaker 1: Sheriff Ian Parkinson states that one hundred and forty new
24:25
Speaker 1: items of evidence and thirty seven item of evidence for
24:30
Speaker 1: DNA testing is being All of it is being examined.
24:36
Speaker 1: We know that the office is executed eighteen search warrants,
24:40
Speaker 1: conducting physical evidence searches at nine separate locations, and they
24:45
Speaker 1: are doing a complete reexamination of every item of physical
24:50
Speaker 1: evidence sees by all agencies. It's confusing to me what's
24:55
Speaker 1: new and what's old. Listen to her family denied and
25:00
Speaker 1: stand Smart Denise, you were talking about searches, searches, obstructures,
25:06
Speaker 1: explain well. As you referenced before Count Polly police refused
25:12
Speaker 1: to let in outside help and apparently the DA's office
25:15
Speaker 1: was working on the side and working on it, but
25:18
Speaker 1: it was took thirty days before the jurisdiction was released.
25:21
Speaker 1: We had a meeting with local legislators and case was
25:25
Speaker 1: released officially to the Sheriff's department, and there was an
25:28
Speaker 1: immediate search. As for when we talk about the cadaver
25:32
Speaker 1: dogs that hit on his room, but then after that,
25:35
Speaker 1: his family had two homes in a nearby town of
25:38
Speaker 1: a royal Grande, and based on the cadaver dogs alerting
25:43
Speaker 1: on his room, a search warrant was issued for his
25:47
Speaker 1: father's house and a Royal Grande. And once again, and
25:51
Speaker 1: this is the Sheriff's department, these are the people that
25:53
Speaker 1: you want to trust. They did a search at the house,
25:56
Speaker 1: but they didn't bring a forensic team, they didn't bring
25:58
Speaker 1: the dogs. They just did a walk through the house
26:02
Speaker 1: and found newspaper articles about Kristen under both the father's
26:06
Speaker 1: and the mother's bed, found a police baton, and they
26:10
Speaker 1: left and they were done. And this property probably is
26:13
Speaker 1: at least half an acre. You could have a cemetery
26:15
Speaker 1: in the backyard. And so we've asked repeatedly, through multiple
26:19
Speaker 1: sheriffs and multiple investigators, to go back to the house
26:23
Speaker 1: and to look again and to actually do a search.
26:27
Speaker 1: So it's just unreal to us that they didn't even
26:30
Speaker 1: bring a forensic team, and when we asked why, they
26:33
Speaker 1: were very straightforward with us and they said they were
26:36
Speaker 1: looking for her keys because they'd found in criminal cases
26:41
Speaker 1: of violence against women that the perpetrator likes to hold
26:44
Speaker 1: on to an item, So they didn't need a forensic
26:47
Speaker 1: team because they were just looking for her keys. And
26:50
Speaker 1: on the same lines, they had a search warrant. Well,
26:53
Speaker 1: they didn't have a search warrant, but maybe they did.
26:56
Speaker 1: They went to the mother's house, which was about Wait
26:59
Speaker 1: a minute, there were headlines, lots of headlines trumpeting for instance,
27:05
Speaker 1: is Kristen Smart buried in this backyard? Neighbors and a
27:09
Speaker 1: wonder dog say, yes, what are they talking about? Stand Well,
27:16
Speaker 1: the information that we had is that there's a possibility
27:20
Speaker 1: that our daughter could be in the backyard of the
27:23
Speaker 1: residence where the mother resides in Royal Grande. And there
27:29
Speaker 1: was a search with some ground penetrating radar on some
27:33
Speaker 1: of the property, but not all the property, and there's interest. Afterwards,
27:39
Speaker 1: another person from my wife could give you better details
27:42
Speaker 1: on it. Person from the university came with another dog
27:47
Speaker 1: and felt that the residue or the body was still
27:51
Speaker 1: in the yard, that it hadn't been searched completely. And
27:55
Speaker 1: so that's the big question whether or not there could
27:57
Speaker 1: be a search warrant to go back in and look
28:00
Speaker 1: further in the yard for a daughter's body. Let me
28:03
Speaker 1: understand about an FBI agent suggests that Kristen's remains maybe
28:11
Speaker 1: under a cement slab poured by the last man to
28:15
Speaker 1: see her alive. Denise right, Well, there are a couple
28:20
Speaker 1: of things I like to insert here, and one is that, yes,
28:23
Speaker 1: the FBI agent went forward and he wrote up a
28:28
Speaker 1: subpoena to go back to the house, and apparently they
28:33
Speaker 1: took a vote in the sheriff's department and they opted
28:36
Speaker 1: not to follow that lead. They voted not to go
28:39
Speaker 1: back to dig in the yard. Now, subsequent to that,
28:43
Speaker 1: Paul Flowers's mother and her boyfriend filed a civil lawsuit
28:47
Speaker 1: against my husband and I for their emotional distress. So
28:51
Speaker 1: I can't begin to tell you how stressful that was
28:53
Speaker 1: and unbelievable. But in the course of that, the mother
28:57
Speaker 1: allowed an FBI person and others to go in and
29:01
Speaker 1: selected areas in the backyard, and they did do a
29:03
Speaker 1: dig in the areas that the mother approved that they
29:06
Speaker 1: could go to, and the dogs that my husband was
29:10
Speaker 1: referencing were from doctor Vast from the University of Tennessee,
29:13
Speaker 1: and he looks for again the center of the aroma
29:18
Speaker 1: in the land that possibly leads to a human remain
29:25
Speaker 1: in the yard, and he picked up the scent by
29:28
Speaker 1: going somewhere around the perimeter of the yard. So I mean,
29:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know where she is. I just
29:35
Speaker 1: know that we as a family want to feel at
29:39
Speaker 1: the end of the day, whether if we don't find her,
29:41
Speaker 1: that everything possible was done that could be done. And
29:45
Speaker 1: when these things are only halfway done, there's no peace.
29:49
Speaker 1: But what I do know is that until you do
29:52
Speaker 1: the job one, you won't have an answer. And it
29:56
Speaker 1: could be that Kristen was in the yard is no
29:58
Speaker 1: longer in the yard. She may have been moved to
30:00
Speaker 1: the parents, to the father's yard. But if you bring
30:03
Speaker 1: in the correct team, they can analyze and they can
30:06
Speaker 1: tell you if she was or she wasn't there. That's
30:08
Speaker 1: not something I can do, but I believe she's not
30:11
Speaker 1: far away. The parents are not revered in the community,
30:15
Speaker 1: yet they hold two houses. They could easily move down
30:19
Speaker 1: the road and be anonymous citizens, but they have chosen
30:22
Speaker 1: to stay and protect these two homes and normal people
30:27
Speaker 1: don't do that. And there's a billboard with Kristin's picture
30:30
Speaker 1: on it that they have to pass every single day
30:35
Speaker 1: to go to their houses. So what is she in
30:38
Speaker 1: one of those yards? I would say the chances are yes,
30:41
Speaker 1: what happened to Kristen Smart. I know that the new
30:45
Speaker 1: DNA techniques are part of the relaunch of the investigation,
30:50
Speaker 1: But what was seized in those vans? Joining me Cheryl
30:53
Speaker 1: a point genetic genealogist, the Jane Hunter, Cheryl appoint what
30:57
Speaker 1: can be learned now Nancy? With again the new techniques
31:03
Speaker 1: in DNA testing, they don't need the amounts of DNA
31:08
Speaker 1: that was needed in nineteen ninety six to possibly nail
31:12
Speaker 1: down a perpetrator or actually in this case, nail down
31:15
Speaker 1: the DNA of miss Smart. It's very possible that they
31:21
Speaker 1: can scourge these vehicles and find my new particles of
31:25
Speaker 1: DNA that will prove that she possibly was in one
31:29
Speaker 1: of the vehicles. And I believe at this point that's
31:32
Speaker 1: what they're looking for. They're taking items that were in
31:35
Speaker 1: the vehicles, but they're also going through the carpets the
31:39
Speaker 1: seats looking for our blood samples like Joseus Scott Morgan said,
31:44
Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, it's very possible nowadays
31:49
Speaker 1: that if it's there, they will find it. Prime Stories
32:05
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace one hundred and forty pieces of new
32:09
Speaker 1: evidence Wow, three hundred and sixty four supplemental reports, serving
32:16
Speaker 1: eighteen search warrants. The sheriff is saying thirty seven pieces
32:21
Speaker 1: of evidence from the early days of the case are
32:24
Speaker 1: now being submitted to modern DNA testing. Two. Ann Emerson WCIV,
32:34
Speaker 1: ABC four, what can you tell me about a podcast
32:37
Speaker 1: about Kristen Smart. Well, well, you know, there was a
32:42
Speaker 1: podcast that is hosted by a man in Chris Lambert
32:45
Speaker 1: called Your Own Backyard And from what I've gathered this
32:50
Speaker 1: he actually grew up right around the corner from where
32:52
Speaker 1: this happened, and I think this just kept on sticking
32:55
Speaker 1: with him and kind of he wanted to know more
32:57
Speaker 1: about it, and as he kind of started unraveling things,
33:02
Speaker 1: he was learning more and more and more. It became
33:04
Speaker 1: this podcast as of September, and honestly, the christ and
33:09
Speaker 1: Smart's family thinks that this has really raised the raised
33:14
Speaker 1: it awareness about this case again. And we've seen it
33:17
Speaker 1: happen in another Prime podcasts. We saw it, and we've
33:21
Speaker 1: seen it happened a couple of times now where the
33:24
Speaker 1: profile of this case just goes through the roof and
33:26
Speaker 1: it puts a lot of pressure on the sheriff's department
33:29
Speaker 1: to come forward with some answers when you have so
33:31
Speaker 1: many people calling him saying, what are you doing about
33:34
Speaker 1: this young girl's disappearance? And I'm looking over what the
33:38
Speaker 1: sheriff actually said about what they've released. You know, this
33:41
Speaker 1: is what they did, was they don't They said they
33:44
Speaker 1: don't generally practice on comments on items of evidence and
33:47
Speaker 1: an active investigation, which is extraordinary in itself because we're
33:51
Speaker 1: talking about twenty four year old case that's older than
33:55
Speaker 1: this young girl was when she disappeared. She's been missing
33:58
Speaker 1: longer than she's actually was a was was with her family. Now,
34:04
Speaker 1: what's so interesting is that this has been this case
34:07
Speaker 1: has been since twenty eleven. He kind of gives us
34:10
Speaker 1: a laundry list of all the work that they've done,
34:14
Speaker 1: almost you and from what we also understand from the
34:17
Speaker 1: Lambert work with this podcast is that this is generating
34:22
Speaker 1: more interest and possibly more tips. So this is an
34:26
Speaker 1: opportunity for the sheriff to get in front of his
34:28
Speaker 1: case and say, you know, I came in, I was
34:30
Speaker 1: going to do something about this. I told you I
34:32
Speaker 1: was going to keep this investigation open, and here we go,
34:35
Speaker 1: and you know what, you know, the Smart family has
34:38
Speaker 1: a lot of hope that something may be coming down
34:41
Speaker 1: the pipeline soon. Take a listen to our friends at
34:44
Speaker 1: ksby NBC six. Chris Lambert, creator of Your Own Backyard podcast,
34:49
Speaker 1: recently sat down with the San Luisimbisbo County Sheriff's Office. Now.
34:53
Speaker 1: He says he always intended on doing so, but wasn't
34:55
Speaker 1: able to include them in any of the episodes in
34:58
Speaker 1: his series. Now the meeting didn't help with his research,
35:01
Speaker 1: he says he was able to bring new ideas and
35:03
Speaker 1: theories to sheriffs. Chris Lambert released six episodes in Your
35:08
Speaker 1: Own Backyard, a podcast series focused on the disappearance of
35:12
Speaker 1: cal Pauly's student Kristen Smart, a case that's been unsolved
35:15
Speaker 1: for twenty three years. Lambert says he wasn't able to
35:18
Speaker 1: speak with sheriffs before his last episode was released, but
35:21
Speaker 1: since then he has so. It was a lot of
35:24
Speaker 1: how about this theory? Like does this check out? Do
35:27
Speaker 1: you know anything more about this? Is this a waste
35:29
Speaker 1: of time, Like I'm getting tips that are like you
35:31
Speaker 1: should look in this location, and I don't want to
35:33
Speaker 1: waste a lot of time going to that location if
35:35
Speaker 1: you're already positive that it's been debunked. Lambert says the
35:39
Speaker 1: face to face meeting with Sheriff's helped with his research,
35:42
Speaker 1: and he believes some of the information he's received has
35:45
Speaker 1: helped investigators. You're hearing our friend Michael Torres talking about
35:50
Speaker 1: that Chris Lambert Your Own Backyard podcast credited with bringing
35:53
Speaker 1: the case back to the highlight. But it sounds like
35:56
Speaker 1: more than that, there are tips that Lambert got that
35:59
Speaker 1: maybe at least didn't Karen Start with me, New York
36:02
Speaker 1: psychologists joining me. You can find her at Karen start
36:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Karen. All these years, the family has waited
36:09
Speaker 1: for answers, and now I hate for them to get
36:13
Speaker 1: their hopes up if there's not a break in the case.
36:16
Speaker 1: But there's really no alternative. What are they going through?
36:18
Speaker 1: Karen Start, Nancy. It's unimaginable what they're going through because
36:22
Speaker 1: they have no Look, you don't ever get closure when
36:26
Speaker 1: someone is dead and they can't get her back again.
36:30
Speaker 1: But they suffer not knowing what happened. Will they ever
36:33
Speaker 1: have a chance to really bury a body, to know
36:36
Speaker 1: where she's located, and so it's been excluciatingly difficult for them.
36:41
Speaker 1: There is no doubt that they've been suffering mentally, emotionally
36:45
Speaker 1: missing her, not knowing what happened. So if they could
36:49
Speaker 1: come up with anything, it's the best thing that can
36:51
Speaker 1: happen to this family to just got Morgan's still not
36:54
Speaker 1: able to nail down exactly what the new evidence is now.
36:59
Speaker 1: Some out reported to be vans, some report outlets reported
37:02
Speaker 1: to be two trucks, But it's my understanding that the
37:06
Speaker 1: vehicles have belonged to the chief suspect, Paul Flories. His
37:10
Speaker 1: family had them and the state got them. I got
37:14
Speaker 1: to wonder what took them so long to get them.
37:17
Speaker 1: But do you believe that these are vans full of items,
37:21
Speaker 1: say from an apartment? Are they just simply the vehicle itself.
37:24
Speaker 1: What's your understanding, Joe Scott as to what the evidence
37:27
Speaker 1: actually is. I don't know. I think it's the fact
37:30
Speaker 1: that they've mentioned these two vehicles, and my one thought
37:36
Speaker 1: is this, maybe this is a line of logic the
37:39
Speaker 1: police are tracking down. Is that since no one has
37:43
Speaker 1: been able to locate her remains. I'm wondering if they're
37:47
Speaker 1: not viewing one of these two vehicles as a conveyance
37:51
Speaker 1: for her remains to a specific location. If that is
37:54
Speaker 1: a case, and she was injured either outside the van
37:58
Speaker 1: or vehicle and then placed in or maybe she was
38:01
Speaker 1: injured within the vehicle, that's going to create a whole
38:05
Speaker 1: new spectrum of evidence in and of itself, regardless of
38:09
Speaker 1: what else is in there as far as other objects.
38:12
Speaker 1: If she contacted the floor, if her blood contacted the floor, anything,
38:17
Speaker 1: skin cells, whatever it is. If they think that these
38:19
Speaker 1: things have been locked down well enough to preserve the evidence,
38:22
Speaker 1: they're going to go in and they're gonna take this
38:24
Speaker 1: thing apart, these things apart piece by piece, and examine
38:28
Speaker 1: each and every inch of this thing in order to
38:31
Speaker 1: analyze it for potential evidence. We wait as justice unfalls.
38:35
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime Stories, signing off, good Bye friend,