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The Haunting Murder of Kristin Smart

December 30, 2024

In this episode, Garrett and Payton dive into the infamous case of Kristin Smart, and how a podcast raised a cold case from the grave.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland, and I'm Garrett Moreland.

If you are watching on YouTube and you're like, "Geez, you guys look like death"—we do.

Well, not me—I meant to say not Payton. Payton looks beautiful. I look like crap. I mean to say, not you. See? I'm not doing okay. I'm not feeling the best right now. I'm going to be honest—I'm feeling a little loopy. Loopy is not the right word. My head hurts.

I don't know, guys—it's the day after Christmas. We're sitting here recording because we love all of you. We're also about to leave Daisy for a few days, so we're pretty sad about that.

I'll update you on the situation for Garrett's "10 seconds." Here's what's going on:

My knee has been hurting for a while. The last couple of days, I've noticed it's been hurting more than usual. Two nights ago, it was hurting really bad—so bad that my foot started to go numb, which, of course, made me panic.

The next day, I woke up and could barely walk on it. By last night, it was so swollen, but I didn’t do anything to it, so I had no idea what was going on.

At 3 a.m., Daisy woke Garrett up to go potty like she does every single night—thank you very much. I was already awake, and when Garrett came back in, I said, "Garrett..." I was near tears because my leg—my entire leg—was aching so bad.

The pain in my knee spread all the way to my shin, my calf, and the top of my foot. I had been sleeping with it elevated. I had taken ibuprofen. I was worried it was a blood clot because, you know... similar things.

Garrett said, "I think we need to take you to the ER." So at 3 a.m. last night, we went to the ER. I got it checked, and I had scans done.

It turns out I sprained a ligament in my inner knee, and there's also a fissure in my meniscus.

Do not ask me how it happened, because it’s embarrassing—because we figured out how it happened.

How did it happen, babe?

It starts with an "S" and ends with an "X."

No, I did not fissure my meniscus during sex!

You don’t know that. It could have been possible.

No. What happened was... the whole reason this pain started is because—I don’t know if you watch on YouTube—but every single time I record, stream, color, or ride as a passenger princess, I sit crisscross applesauce.

I don’t know what it is—there’s something very comforting to me about having my legs up.

Well, I’ve been doing it an abnormal amount. I’m talking every time I sit, my legs are in a crisscross position. They think that, over time, I literally sprained my ligament and fissured my meniscus by sitting crisscross applesauce for prolonged periods.

So, yeah—basically, I hurt myself sitting crisscross applesauce.

I can’t even walk right now. And, yeah—we were up at 3 a.m., and we're leaving tonight. It’s a whole thing.

We’re taking a redeye tonight, so we’re hanging in there.

Thanks for supporting us. Thank you for being here. Hope you guys had a great holiday.

Bonus episodes and ad-free content—as always, if you want it, feel free to check it out!

I think we need to jump into today's episode because—wait—people are going to be really mad that I didn’t say what my surprise was from you.

Well, tell them! You’re going to post it on socials, maybe?

Okay, I’ll post it on socials, but I’ll just tell you what it is—and then I’ll post pictures on socials. Garrett custom-made me a new wedding ring!

I did! I’ve been working on it for a few months with a company called Olive Ave. They’ve done all our rings—they’re amazing. We love them so, so much. I really wanted to make Payton a new wedding ring—something special. So, I worked with them, and they did a great job.

We really figured out something that feels very “Payton.” I’m excited for you guys to see it.

Yeah, go check my socials for that! And this isn’t sponsored at all—we just love them.

I actually reached out to a few different companies—they don’t even know this—so maybe they’re listening to this and they’re like, "What the...?"

But after I talked to Olive Ave and a couple of other companies, Olive Ave was the obvious choice, and they absolutely killed it.

The reason you reached out to them was that they don’t typically do rings like the one you made, but they were totally up for the challenge—and they nailed it.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, the ring I custom-made for Payton... I’ve never seen another company do a ring like that. I know that sounds—it’s just so unique. You have to see it. Once you see it, you’ll understand—it’s very personal.

Anyway, I love it. I was really excited to do it for Payton, and she loves it. It’s been really fun.

Yes! Thank you, Garrett. I love the ring so, so much. It was the best gift I’ve ever been given. It totally caught me by surprise, and I love it—so, thank you.

You’re welcome, baby.

Our sources for this episode are CBSNews.com, NYTimes.com, KSBY.com, SantaMariaTimes.com, LATimes.com, People.com, FoxNews.com, and NPR.org.

Before we get into this episode, I did want to let you guys know that this case has been covered a lot. There’s a ton of coverage on this case. In fact, there is a podcast called Your Own Backyard that covers this case extensively.

But it’s also a story that needs to be heard and proves why the true crime genre can sometimes be extremely helpful.

I do want to say before we get into this: when we cover high-profile cases like this, we will not have all the information. We’re squeezing this into about a 45-minute podcast. There will be a lot left out—it won’t be an insanely detailed podcast.

We’re going to give you the best summarized version possible, so know that ahead of time so you don’t get upset with us—that’s just what this podcast is.

If you want every nitty-gritty detail and the deepest dive, go listen to Your Own Backyard.

Every once in a while, a case comes along that reminds me why we do what we do—because true crime shouldn’t just be entertainment—it also serves a purpose.

Whether that’s spreading awareness of a cause, highlighting a community that doesn’t get as much coverage, or just getting a missing person’s face and name out there—we got into this business to offer support to the victims and their families.

To me, that is what comes first, and I know for a lot of you listeners, that comes first as well. We keep doing what we do because, honestly, you never know who will hear an episode and have the missing piece of the puzzle—which is exactly what happened to another podcaster named Chris Lambert when he covered a decades-old case about a young woman named Kristen Smart.

In 1996, Kristen went missing from her college campus in San Luis Obispo, California. But when there wasn’t enough evidence against the primary suspect—the suspect they had identified from the very first day—the investigation slowed.

That was until Chris Lambert decided to make a podcast about this case and give it new life. He encouraged witnesses to come out of the woodwork, speak up about their connection to the case, and ultimately helped get justice for Kristen Smart’s family nearly three decades later.

That’s so cool.

So, in the mid-90s, in California’s San Joaquin Valley, just a little northwest of San Francisco, we have a teenager, Kristen Smart, who is thriving. She’s crushing all of her high school classes—A’s and B’s across the board. She’s a proficient athlete who loves swimming and skiing. She’s also done a good amount of traveling for a kid her age in the ‘90s.

We’re talking about trips to London and Venezuela—she even spent one summer as a camp counselor in Hawaii. Kristen was super ambitious and always looking for her next adventure, which is why, when it came time to choose a college, Kristen begged her parents to let her go to a school in the Virgin Islands.

But both of Kristen’s parents pushed back—they didn’t think that was a safe place to go to school. They said, "Hey, we’d feel a lot better if you just went to college somewhere nearby"—somewhere they could get to her with a quick car ride.

The campus they preferred was one with a really low crime rate: Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.

Kristen didn’t love the idea, but if her parents were paying, how could she argue? At least she’d be out there on her own, starting a new chapter of her life.

That day finally came when she moved into the campus dorms in the fall of 1995.

Like most college students, Kristen saw Cal Poly as a way to sort of reinvent herself. When she wasn’t studying for her architecture degree, the 18-year-old Kristen was dyeing her hair from blonde to brunette or trying out new nicknames for herself, like Roxy or Trixie.

But Kristen also struggled to fit in a bit—probably because she stood out in a crowd. Kristen was tall for a girl—6'1", to be exact.

While Kristen worked hard to navigate the social scene at Cal Poly, she also struggled with the difficulty of her classes.

Kristen called her parents a lot that freshman year to say she had doubts about whether Cal Poly was the right place for her. She was falling behind in some of her classes, which was unlike her, but she found them too challenging—and she was getting a bit homesick.

Now, I’m not saying this to suggest that Kristen didn’t have any friends. I think it’s just that normal freshman-year experience that a lot of us go through when you leave your hometown and go somewhere new.

By the spring of 1996, after her freshman year, 19-year-old Kristen was begging her parents to let her drop out altogether. Around April, Kristen's mother wrote her a long letter encouraging her to push through. It was almost summer break. She told her, "Hey, things are going to get better." She said, "A world of opportunities is at your fingertips," and urged her to keep her focus on her classwork and learn from her mistakes—essentially, to get back on the horse.

When Memorial Day weekend rolled around and a lot of the students left campus for the holiday, Kristen decided to stay back. She was going to stay in the dorms over the holiday, figuring she could get some studying done for her finals.

She actually called her mom that day, around 5:30 p.m., to share some good news—she was able to make up a biology test from earlier in the semester.

Luckily, she wasn’t alone on campus that weekend. Her friend and neighbor from down the hall, Margarita Campos, stayed back too. While school was definitely on her mind, Kristen also wanted to blow off some steam that weekend—like any college student.

She encouraged her friend Margarita to go out with her that Friday night.

It was May 24, 1996. When they got to the first party on campus, Margarita was... underwhelmed, to say the least. Just a few guys were hanging out, playing video games on the couch, and she thought, I stopped studying for this? This is the party?

So, Kristen and Margarita left.

But Kristen wasn’t ready to head back to her room and call it a night. She begged Margarita to walk with her down to "Frat Row" to see if any of the frats were throwing parties.

Margarita was over it. She told Kristen, "No, I’m heading back."

Kristen said, "You can’t leave!" She had forgotten her purse, her ID, and her keys. If Margarita went back before she did, Kristen wouldn’t be able to get into the building.

Margarita compromised—she gave Kristen her set of keys and headed back to the dorms while Kristen continued to search for a party on her own.

Margarita said that when she left Kristen, it was around 10:30 p.m. They were both stone-cold sober.

If you're wondering, "Well, now Margarita doesn’t have keys?" I assume they thought Margarita would be able to get someone to let her in at 10:30 p.m. rather than in the early morning hours when Kristen came home.

So, they’re sober, but Kristen is still looking to have a good time.

Eventually, she found herself at a keg party with about 60 or so other college students.

The 6'1" Kristen was easy to spot in the crowd.

Reports of what Kristen was doing that night were a bit murky.

Some said they saw Kristen flirting with a bunch of boys at the party, maybe even kissing one of the basketball players, and maybe even pulling one into the bathroom. Others said they saw her chugging tequila.

Still, others said, "No—she didn’t have a drink in her hand at all."

Isn't that so interesting? You can get so many different eyewitness statements.

It sucks, yeah, because it makes everything very confusing. But there was one thing that several partygoers agreed on: at one point in the night, there was a loud crash in the hallway at this party. When everyone gathered around, Kristin Smart was on the floor, and a guy named Paul Flores was on top of her.

Okay, so here's the deal with Paul Flores. He's pretty quiet. He doesn't talk to too many people at the party—he mostly plays pool and hangs out by himself. But for a quiet guy like Paul, he sure does stir up a lot of gossip among his peers.

For starters, Cal Poly was a bit out of Paul’s depth. He never really had good grades or SAT scores in high school, but people said he got in because the university gave a little grace to applicants who were local to the area. So, he wasn’t doing well academically at Cal Poly, but honestly, his grades were the least of his problems at college.

The real issue was that Paul had been doing some pretty creepy things to female students on campus and had gotten a bad reputation because of it. One night, he drunkenly climbed a trellis up to a girl’s balcony outside her apartment. When she demanded that he leave, he refused—so she called the police. Apparently, this wasn’t an isolated incident. Paul was known to inappropriately hit on other female students. In fact, that was the only thing people on campus really knew about Paul Flores.

He would show up to all the parties and just act creepy. He had no friends. The girls—well, he literally earned nicknames around campus like "Chester the Molester" and "Scary Paul."

I don’t get why there are people like that. I don’t know... nothing. Keep going.

He’s their age—it’s wild. People literally referred to him as "Scary Paul."

"Oh, Scary Paul’s here again."

I’ve said this before—there are so many weird dudes out there. Some real creepy dudes, man.

So, basically, when the crash happens and people see Paul Flores on top of Kristin, they’re like, "Dude, get off!" Like—it’s just another Paul thing. No one’s really that surprised.

But other than that strange incident with Kristin, Paul seemed fairly subdued that night at the party. Kristin, on the other hand, had drawn a little more attention.

I guess at around 2:00 a.m. that night, a senior student named Tim Davis, who was helping throw the party, was clearing people out. That’s when he spotted Kristin—who had actually introduced herself as "Roxy" that night—passed out on their neighbor’s lawn.

So, he’s getting everyone out—it’s 2:00 a.m., time to go—and then he notices Kristin, aka Roxy, passed out.

Now, here’s what’s alarming: if Kristin wasn’t drinking, as a lot of the partygoers reported, then how is she passed out?

True.

The only thing people can think of is that she had been slipped something.

Oh.

Because when Tim woke her up, he could tell that she was really out of it.

Tim asked her where she lived, and Kristin told him which dormitory. Since it was only a 10-minute walk from the party, Tim was like, "Okay, let me just walk you to your dorm."

That’s when another girl who was also leaving the party, Cheryl Anderson, asked if she could walk with them. She’s like, "Hey, I’m alone as well—can I walk with you guys?" She was headed to the dormitory right across from Kristin’s.

So, the three of them started strolling when, out of nowhere, another guy came up and said, "Hey, hey, hey! I’m also going that way—let me take over. You just go back in the house."

Who do you think this is?

Paul Flores.

Now, Tim—a senior—knew Paul was weird but clearly didn’t know much about Paul’s reputation because he thinks nothing of letting Paul escort these two girls back.

During this walk, Cheryl realizes that Kristin is a lot more out of it than she is. When Kristin keeps needing to stop and Paul sort of supports her, Cheryl finds it strange. Then Paul says, "Oh, um, Cheryl, just go on without us. I can walk her home—you just go ahead."

Eventually, Cheryl gets to the door of her building, and she says goodnight to Kristin and Paul. At this point, she can see that Kristin is only 40 yards away from the front door of her building. So, she’s thinking, "Okay, I got her home safe—she’s only 40 yards away from her entry." She says to Paul, "Will you make sure she gets up to her room?" and he’s like, "Yeah, yeah, I will."

But then Paul does something really strange—totally on brand for him.

He’s supporting this very out-of-it Kristin and says, "Hey, um, Cheryl, do you want to give me a kiss before you go to your dorm?"

What?

She’s like, "No, Paul."

And he’s like, "Okay, how about just a hug?"

And she’s like, "No."

Then she watches as Paul walks back over to Kristin and leads her toward her dormitory.

The following morning is Saturday, May 25th, and Margarita is wondering why Kristin, her friend, hasn’t returned her set of keys—the ones she gave her the night before. So, she heads down the hall to Kristin’s room and knocks, but there’s no answer. It’s not until Kristin’s roommate comes back later that Margarita learns—through the grapevine—that Kristin’s side of the room is untouched. It doesn’t look like she ever made it back to her bed that night. Her purse, her ID, her keys—all the things she left there—are still in the same spot.

Wait, let me make sure I’m getting this right. That other girl saw them going toward the door?

Yes, toward her dorm.

Got it.

So, they figure, "Okay, maybe Kristin just met someone at the party. Maybe she’s out having a day with someone. Heck, maybe she decided to go home for the weekend, right? Maybe she’ll be back."

But when 48 hours pass and there’s still no sign of Kristin, her friends decide to call campus police.

It’s not until Monday, May 27th, that campus police call Kristin’s family, asking if she went home to see them for the holiday.

At this point, when the police call and it’s been this long since her daughter was last seen, Kristin’s mom is worried. It wasn’t like Kristin to go a few days without calling them, but it also wasn’t unheard of. When she gets this phone call, she’s like, "This is alarming."

Right after this call, Kristin’s parents go to the local police to file a missing person report because, by this point, Kristin has been missing for nearly 72 hours. Yet the police tell her family it’s still too early to file a report—which, as I will say for the 800th time, is not true. There is no waiting period on a missing person report in this country.

But they also say, "Hey, this is Cal Poly’s police jurisdiction anyway, so you would need to file there if you’re going to—and they’re probably already on it."

However, it is not until Tuesday that Cal Poly actually starts taking this investigation seriously. Partly because of the holiday, they’re thinking, "Well, she probably just went somewhere."

But this is also problematic because a lot can be done in four days to cover up a crime.

Now look, I get that these campus police departments probably don’t deal with cases like this very often—it’s sort of uncharted territory for them. But it’s completely understandable for the Smart family to be frustrated with how this whole thing has been handled. In fact, they say that the police treated Kristin’s case as if it were like another stolen bicycle on campus.

Plus, listen to what the campus police wrote in their initial report about Kristin’s disappearance:

"Smart does not have any close friends at Cal Poly. Smart appeared to be under the influence of alcohol on Friday night. Smart was talking with and socializing with several different males at the party. Smart lives her life in her own way, not conforming to typical teenage behavior."

Of course, they finish with: "These observations are in no way implying that her behavior caused her disappearance, but they provide a picture of her conduct on the night of her disappearance."

They’re victim-blaming.

It’s crazy—"She doesn’t live a typical teenage life?" Like, what? She’s doing what every other teenager is doing—every other student!

They’re basically shaming her.

It’s wild. They’re saying, "Hey, we’re not victim-blaming, but she was seen with a bunch of guys and she was drinking, so... sorry, she’s probably just somewhere. We can’t do much about that."

And even worse—they don’t call Paul Flores in for an interview until six days after Kristin goes missing.

Despite the fact that, in the initial investigation, when they figure out that she went to this party and they talk to people, everyone says, "Oh, she walked home with Paul Flores. He was the last person to see her before she disappeared."

He had six days to do whatever he wanted—whatever he wanted—even though the police knew he was the last person she was seen with.

And get this: when they do talk to him, they don’t check his dorm room either. That won’t happen for another 10 days.

It doesn’t matter at that point.

When I tell you how his first interview went with police, you’re going to be like, "Why did it take them another four days to search this kid’s room?"

So, the police make Paul walk through every step of what he did that night. By this point, they’ve heard through the grapevine that Kristin was last seen with Paul. They wait this alarming number of days, pull him in, and interview him a few more times that week.

And his story never stays consistent from the very first time.

He does manage to maintain that the last time he saw Kristen was after she said goodnight and walked toward her dorm alone that evening.

Here’s what’s even more problematic than the story changes: Paul shows up to that first interview, just days after she went missing, with scratches all over his hands and a very obvious black eye. Holy crap. He tells the police, "I don’t actually know how I got this black eye and these scratches—I just woke up with it." That’s what he tells police initially.

So, police pull him in the next day and ask, "Hey, how did you get this black eye, really?" The next day, he says, "Oh, um, actually, I got it playing basketball over the weekend." Then, during the third interview—before they’ve even checked his dorm—he says, "Oh, actually, no, it wasn’t from basketball. You’re right. I got it hitting my head working on my truck the other day."

This is wild. I used to get really frustrated about cases like this. I still do. But after working through so many, I’ve come to assume that someone, somewhere, drops the ball. Not always—but in cases like these, it feels inevitable.

I mean, I told you from the very beginning—there was one suspect in this entire investigation, and it’s very obvious.

It’s crazy because I know we’re going to get to it, but I already know that entire podcast—I've never even listened to it—is going to be the reason Paul gets caught. It was him the whole time. And the police knew it, too. He was right in front of their faces.

It’s just crazy. When you hear about Paul’s history—how he was called "Scary Paul" and "Chester the Molester"—his behavior is egregious. It’s insane.

They decided to talk to Paul’s roommate, and they learned something else: the two of them had been joking about Kristen’s disappearance after it happened. The roommate asked Paul, kiddingly, "What did you do with her? You know, since you were the last person to see her." Joking—like, "You were the last person to see her, and now she’s missing." And Paul said, "She’s home with my parents," as a joke.

That’s oddly strange and specific—something that definitely stood out enough for Paul’s roommate to tell the police. But, like I said, the police didn’t do much about Paul in the way of evidence until ten days after that first interview. That’s when they finally took a team of search dogs through the dorms at Cal Poly.

There were zero hits as they walked the dogs through the dorm, through Kristen’s dorm—until they reached Paul’s bedroom. In fact, the dogs went straight to Paul Flores’s bed. They got a hit.

At this point, Paul refused to take a polygraph. But he did have another 90-minute interview with the police, where he acted incredibly weird. He tucked himself into a little ball on the chair, pulled his arms into his shirt, and then looked the cops dead in the eyes and said, "If you’re so smart, then you tell me where the body is."

No one was even saying Kristen was dead. She’d been missing. And you're telling me he said all this—and he was never arrested?

Nope.

After that interview, Paul’s parents hired him a lawyer, which was definitely necessary because he was their prime suspect. Keep in mind, for the first month of the investigation, the Cal Poly police were handling the case solo. It wasn’t until after that first month that they finally handed the case over to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department. When the sheriff’s department came in, they were immediately like, "Paul’s our guy," primarily after hearing about the joke he made to his roommate—the one where he said Kristen was at home with his parents.

But it still took them about two months to finally get to the Flores home, 17 miles away. They didn’t bring cadaver dogs. They didn’t bring a forensic team or even search Paul or his dad Ruben’s car—which was a huge mistake, considering that right after this, one of their trucks was traded in and the other was reported stolen.

Holy crap—right after the family’s house was searched, one of their trucks got traded, and the other got reported stolen. It’s so embarrassing. Seriously, it’s embarrassing.

Because they didn’t come with reinforcements, the sheriff’s department didn’t find any notable evidence at the Flores residence during that first search. Still, they kept interviewing people, and about five months after Kristen’s disappearance—around the fall of 1996—Paul was actually brought in front of a grand jury.

They were deciding whether to indict him.

While the proceedings were kept under lock and key, I know that no charges were filed against Paul Flores at that time. So they basically flirted with the idea and decided not to do it—even though the police knew they had their guy.

For the next six or seven months, they kept interviewing witnesses, but it still wasn’t moving the needle. That’s why, in May of 1997, the sheriff made a statement to the press—one that would become a pretty big screwup in this case.

He said they had interviewed almost 100 people, and everything pointed to Paul Flores. They publicly named him as the main suspect and said, “We need Paul Flores to tell us what happened to Kristen Smart.”

Then he added—and I quote—"Absent something from Mr. Flores confessing, I don’t see us completing this case."

He said this publicly, which basically handed Paul Flores a pass on a platter. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he could get away with this crime.

And Paul heard them loud and clear.

When the Smarts sued Paul Flores in a wrongful death civil lawsuit—because, at this point, everyone knew he did it—he already had his strategy: say nothing, plead the fifth. When he was deposed by the Smarts’ lawyer six months later for that civil suit, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right 27 times.

Holy crap. He was like, "Nope, I’m not talking."

But it turns out that telling Paul Flores to keep his mouth shut wasn’t the only ball dropped by police. There was a giant piece of evidence they’d received about three months after Kristen disappeared—one that fell completely through the cracks.

When Kristen disappeared in May of 1996, Paul’s parents, Susan and Ruben, were separated and living apart. Susan and Ruben become a big part of this case—I’ll just spoil it for you—because many people believe that both of them were involved in helping cover it up. They believe Paul did something to Kristen, then called his parents, and his parents helped him get away with the crime.

At the time, Susan and Ruben were living separately. But four months later, they decided to give their relationship another shot. Susan put her house up for rent and moved back in with Ruben for a bit. That’s when Susan decided to rent her home to a young couple, who moved in that fall.

This is the home Paul Flores would have returned to after Kristen disappeared. Susan rented the house out, but one day, while the young couple’s mother was washing her car in the driveway, she noticed something on the ground that caught her eye—it was an earring.

And it wasn’t just a simple diamond post earring. It was a very specific earring—one that matched the necklace Kristen Smart was wearing in her missing person posters.

That’s insane. And this house still hadn’t been searched with cadaver dogs, even though Paul basically told his roommate she was at his parents’ house.

The young couple knew about the connection between Susan, Ruben, and the Kristen Smart case, so they decided to turn the earring over to the sheriff’s department. But for some reason—God knows why—it was never marked or filed as evidence.

This woman, who was living in the house, basically said, "Hey, I found this earring—I’m pretty sure it’s hers because it matches the missing person poster." And they never filed it as evidence.

Here’s the most frustrating part: I know what you’re thinking—that this house, the one the couple moved into, was the house police had searched. But no—they never searched it. This was Susan’s house. The police had only searched Ruben’s house. So Susan’s house had never even been searched.

The earring was found in the driveway, which essentially means there were two places where Paul could have hidden evidence—but only one was searched. He said, "She’s at my parents’ house," but since his parents were separated, they only searched Ruben’s house and left Susan’s house unsearched.

In fact, Susan’s house wasn’t searched until long after the earring was turned in—specifically, March 1997, 10 months after Kristen’s disappearance. But the police didn’t find anything of note. It would take another three years before they returned to search Susan’s property.

At that point, why even search it? By then, Susan and Ruben had split for good, and Susan was living in the house where the earring was found.

On June 19, 2000, there was a knock on Susan’s door. This time, it was the FBI’s Evidence Response Team with a search warrant. The warrant even gave them permission to dig up the backyard. But for some reason, they didn’t follow through and dig it up.

In 2007, they showed up again—2007! She went missing in 1996! They brought ground-penetrating radar, but once again, they didn’t find anything of note.

Guys, it’s 11 years later. You can imagine how frustrating this entire process must have been for the Smart family—to feel like this entire family had something to do with their daughter’s disappearance, probable murder, and yet, they’re so close yet so far from finding any real sign of her. This entire family pled the Fifth.

Despite the mistakes made along the way, it seems like the sheriff’s department was committed to the case—especially since they kept it open for more than a decade while continuing to pursue leads and searches. But on the other hand, this means Paul Flores was out there living his life.

He left college, moved to Southern California—Irvine, to be exact—and got a job there.

I’m going to mention that Garrett probably went to the restaurant Paul Flores was working at in Irvine at the time.

What year?

Like the early 2000s—2007, maybe.

No way. You were living in our area.

100%. I was basically in middle school or high school. I should have looked it up—it was a common chain, like a Chili’s or an Outback Steakhouse.

That’s insane.

I’m telling you, I’ve seen this guy.

You probably ate at that restaurant while he was working there.

That’s wild.

And might I add, during this time, Paul Flores was hitting on girls, roofying girls—still being "Scary Paul." This was after Kristen Smart. After he’d been outed as the main suspect in her disappearance, he was still a free man and maybe the only person in the world who knew what happened to her that night.

However, there was one person who couldn’t stand the thought of that. And it wasn’t someone related to Kristen—it was actually a complete stranger: a journalist and podcaster named Chris Lambert.

So this is where Chris Lambert enters the story.

Chris grew up in the San Luis Obispo area. He was about eight years old when Kristen disappeared from college. He remembers driving by a billboard with her missing person poster every day on his way to school.

Years later, when Chris was an adult and became a CBS News consultant, he had a thought: Whatever happened to that girl on that billboard from my hometown? Why hadn’t her case been solved?

The billboard was still up.

Chris’s intention was to get some answers. He wanted to reignite conversations about her case—this was a hometown case for him. So he started interviewing people about Kristen and Paul. From that, he launched his own podcast called Your Own Backyard in September of 2019.

By then, it had been 23 years since Kristen went missing.

Also, I want to point out that 2019 was before we even started this show. That’s impressive in itself—it was still early for true crime podcasts to be gaining mainstream traction.

Basically, Chris was like, "I’m going to look into this case." He didn’t even know much about it when he started. He looked into it and thought, Wait—you’re telling me we probably knew where her body was at one point? We know who did it? We know who she was last seen with—and this is unsolved?

And Paul Flores was still free.

So he decides to make a podcast. He’s like, "If I can spread the word, maybe the police will do something."

I’m going to be honest—the podcast was very successful. A lot of people started coming out of the woodwork to say, "Hey, we listened to your podcast. It was released episode by episode, and I have information about Paul Flores." They wanted to share it with Chris.

This is when a lot more victims of Paul Flores—not murder victims, but sexual assault victims, victims of creepy dates, and creepy work stories—started coming forward.

For example, in February 2020, about six months after the podcast was released (and honestly, a couple of months before Garrett and I were going to start Murder with My Husband), Chris got a really fascinating tip. Apparently, just a few nights after police conducted their last search of Ruben Flores's house, a neighbor noticed something strange.

Ruben, his ex-wife Susan, and her new partner all stayed up throughout the night after the police had just searched the house, doing something underneath Ruben’s deck. So, the police search the house, they leave, and then a neighbor notices all three of these adults doing something underneath the deck.

I cannot believe that the parents were allegedly involved. What evil human beings.

There were also a lot of accounts from women, as I mentioned, who had encounters with the now 42-year-old Paul Flores. Apparently, there were a number of women who Paul had made inappropriate passes at, who he had tried to kiss, and who he had tried to force himself upon. An ex-girlfriend of his even said he was physically and verbally abusive throughout their relationship.

Now, Chris also made sure to share these tips with the police. He wasn’t just making the podcast—he was taking everything he was learning to the police. I mean, his goal was to find out what happened to Kristen once and for all and to make sure the right person ended up behind bars.

Eventually, the noise surrounding Paul Flores and this case—because of the Your Own Backyard podcast—was so big, so loud, that police could not ignore it.

In April 2020, solely because this podcast was gaining steam, police decided to raid Paul’s home in San Pedro, California. What they found pretty much put the nail in Paul’s coffin. It was a trove of videos and photos on Paul Flores’s computer—now 42 years old and living in his own house—showing him engaging in sexual acts with at least 10 different unconscious women.

He had drugged women and then filmed himself sexually assaulting them, and all of this was found on his computer. But the police didn’t move in to arrest Paul just yet—they were still going for the big ticket, which meant they were trying to find evidence that he had murdered Kristen Smart.

In March of the following year, they returned to Ruben Flores’s house. At this point, they were pretty sure the parents were connected. This was the same house where Ruben and Susan were seen doing something under the deck by the neighbors.

This time, the police found something notable after digging under that deck—all because the podcast had pushed them to go back and do it.

Police collected soil samples, and when they sent them out for analysis, they discovered that the soil underneath the deck contained fibers and biological evidence, meaning there was human blood and DNA underneath the deck.

They also found a four-foot-deep hole under that deck that was completely empty—but still, it was four feet deep. That’s so sad. They also found some suspicious stains inside a trailer parked on the property, but they didn’t find a body.

You have to understand, this was happening live as Chris was reporting on his podcast. He would drop an episode, and then the police would follow up. Then he’d drop another episode, saying, "There’s a hole under there."

Unfortunately, the biological evidence was so old that it couldn’t be concretely tied to Kristen Smart. But it was enough for them to get an arrest warrant.

In April 2021, police not only arrested the now 44-year-old Paul Flores for murder—they also arrested his 80-year-old father, Ruben, for being an accessory after the fact. If they believed that Kristen’s body was on Ruben’s property, that meant he was involved.

Eighty years old—could you imagine being arrested at 80 for something you did when your son was in college? Yeah, I mean, I’m glad he was.

When the trial began in July 2022, Paul and Ruben, who both pleaded not guilty, were tried together for Kristen's disappearance and murder. Chris, our podcaster, sat in on the trial and made updates on the podcast.

They had two separate juries—one for each of them. While a lot of witnesses were called to the stand, one witness blew the entire case out of the water. It was a woman named Jennifer Hudson, who had hung out with Paul shortly after Kristen’s disappearance.

Her story—her testimony—changed everything. Jennifer said that during the summer of 1996, she and a few friends were at a skate park with Paul when a message came over the radio about Kristen’s disappearance. That’s when Paul turned to Jennifer and said, "Hey, I was at a party with that girl last night."

So, he’s hanging out at the skate park, something comes over the radio about Kristen’s disappearance, and he just tells them, "Hey, I was at a party with that girl that night." Then he said, "I actually was there, and I did it. I put Kristen under a skate ramp at my parents’ house."

Through tears, Jennifer told the jury how Paul had basically confessed to the murder and how she had held onto this information because she was scared of him. But it had eaten away at her for years. When her friend told her about Chris Lambert’s podcast, she thought, "Okay, I’m finally going to do it. I’m going to come forward to Chris and share what Paul told me."

As far as we know, this was the only confession he ever made to anyone regarding Kristen’s murder.

Between Jennifer’s testimony and the stories from the other women Paul had sexually assaulted, he didn’t really stand a chance.

On October 18, 2022, Paul was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was literally found guilty of her murder at trial. However, his father, Ruben Flores, was acquitted of his charges of accessory.

The two juries didn’t necessarily line up. One said yes—Paul did it. The other said no—the father was not involved. Susan Flores and her boyfriend were never charged either.

In March 2023, Paul was sentenced to 25 years to life for killing Kristen Smart, which was a significant win for the justice system, considering that to this day, Kristen’s body has never been found. It was a “no-body” case. That’s sad. I mean, it’s probably gone, which is horrible—but he was found guilty.

Paul, who maintained his innocence throughout, has still never confessed openly to what happened that night. He’s never told Kristen’s family what happened. We need to bring back truth serum, honestly. Because of that, a lot of questions remain:

Did Paul mean to kill Kristen? Was there a struggle that night that gave Paul that black eye? Did he drug her too much and cause her to overdose? Where is Kristen’s final resting place?

We believe that, at one point, it was in Ruben’s backyard. That’s so crazy. But, obviously, because of the heat on them and the police threatening to come back and search, they must have moved her—allegedly.

If it weren’t for Chris Lambert and the renewed interest he sparked in the case—and, honestly, a lot of the evidence and testimony he uncovered—this case might never have been solved. I don’t think the police ever would have done anything.

To be honest, Chris was referred to as "the podcaster" at trial. He was brought up multiple times by Paul Flores’s defense. At this trial, it was "the podcaster, the podcaster," because he became such an integral part of the resurgence of this case and the evidence that was presented.

Props to him—that’s amazing. Like I said earlier, it’s cases like these that remind me why true crime podcasts are valuable and why these stories need coverage—especially unsolved ones.

It was also heartwarming to hear this sentiment from Kristen’s mother, Denise Smart. She said that while there is certainly a lot of evil in this world, there are far more good people willing to come together and help in a time of need. Her family has basically said that without Chris and his podcast, they would have never gotten justice.

One hundred percent. And we’ve seen this before. I hate bringing it up, but Gabby Petito’s case is a good example. Everyone was going crazy, and then YouTubers came out with the footage. It does happen—it does work. Of course, it can sometimes get out of hand, and I understand there’s a lot of sensitivity around it. But with ethical coverage, it’s incredible to see the good that can come out of it as well.

It’s not just the podcasters—it’s the listeners.

Yeah, 100%. Chris’s podcast was like a signal to listeners who had had contact with Paul Flores, making them think, "Wait, I need to come forward and share my interaction with him." Word of mouth is powerful.

And that’s the very summarized story of Kristen Smart. Again, if you want a deep dive into a very well-done podcast, I’d suggest listening to Your Own Backyard.

All right, you guys—that was our case for this week. We’ll see you next time with another one in 2025, I believe.

I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye!

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