LOS ANGELES â Scores of sheriffâs deputies and federal agents dug up dirt at three sites at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo University last week, looking for the body of Kristin Smart.
The freshman, nicknamed Roxie, vanished 20 years ago after going to a fraternity party during Memorial Day weekend 1996. Lawmen were led here by a trio of the FBIâs own Quantico-based Springer spaniels and German shepherds who hoped they got a human cadaver hit at three spots along the hill in January.
Her anguished parents Stan and Denise said in a recent statement their hopes are âtemperedâ but endorse the dedicated effort to track down their missing daughter and wish âthe âperson of interestâ will soon be held accountable for taking her life and harboring her remains for over 20 years.â
Experts and neighbors tell The Daily Beast they might be digging in the wrong spot, and that they have reason to believe Smart may be buried in the backyard that once belonged to the last man seen with her.
In 2000, FBI Special Agent Jack Schafer did his own private investigation into Smartâs disappearance, reviewing sheriffâs reports, witness statements, a civil lawsuit, and interviews conducted by law enforcement with the prime suspect: Paul Flores.
âI believe Kristin Smart is deceased and that her death and/or disposal of her remains are a result of a criminal act,â Schafer concluded.
On her last night alive, according to Schaferâs report citing official investigative documents, Smart, a 19-year-old, blond, 6-foot-1 swimmer was passed out drunk on a lawn around 2:30 a.m. after partying at an off-campus home on Crandall Way hosted by Kappa Chi fraternity.

A group of students rousted her awake. Once she was up, Smart involuntarily clung onto a troubled Cal Poly interloper named Paul Flores who joined the handful of students retreating for the night to the dorms.
Flores, also 19, who barely knew Smart before that night, told investigators she was âwalking real slowâ and put his hands on the drunken teenâs waist allegedly to keep her warm from the early-morning chill of May 25, 1996.
â⌠a couple times like on the way, maybe probably twice you know, I went like that just gave her kind of a hug âcause she was freezinâ,â he told Cal Polyâs campus cops, according to Schaferâs report. Flores said he left Smart at her room at Muir Hall before crashing at his room in nearby Santa Lucia Hall.
âOK um, she walked that way, I walked that way,â Flores told campus cops. âThatâs the last time I saw her.â
A missing personâs report was produced on May 28, 1996, and in it Smartâs roommate noticed that none of her belongingsâID, toiletries, or clothingâhad been missing from her dorm.
On June 29, 1996âmore than a month without a sign of Smartâauthorities were led by cadaver dogs roaming the campus to room No. 128 in Santa Lucia Hall.
Flores lived there with his roommate, Derrick Tse.
More cadaver dogs were brought in and âeach dog alerted on a corner of a bed mattress located on the left side of the room.â It was Floresâs bed, Tse told cops, according to a police report Schafer cited.
That portion of mattress was confiscated as evidence, and the dogs returned and again âalerted on Room No. 128â and even without the mattress âalerted on the left side of the room.â It âindicated a strong possibility that a deceased body had been in that room.â
Tse quoted Flores to police as saying, âYes, I killed her and brought her to my momâs and she is still there.â
On May 31, 1996, investigators from the San Luis Obispo District Attorneyâs Office asked Flores about cuts on his knees and a bruise under his right eye.
He claimed the black eye was caused by taking an elbow during a game of pickup basketball with his college buddy Jeremy Moon at Harlow School in Arroyo Grande four days earlier, according to Shaferâs report quoting investigators.
But prosecutors reported they reached Moon and the story didnât square. Flores already had the black eye âwhen he saw him on Sunday, May 26, 1996,â a day after Smart was reported missing, and âcould not have sustained the injury playing basketball,â investigators wrote.
When Moon asked about the shiner, Flores said he âdidnât know how he got the black eye.â

The following month prosecutors interviewed Flores again.
The teen admitted heâd lied about the black eye because the warrant states he claims to have struck his face on a steering wheel âwhile working on his truck on May 27, 1996.â
Why lie?
Flores said âit would âsound stupidâ saying he bumped his eye on the steering wheel of his truck,â the report states.
Time slogged on and Flores was never charged.
The Smart family took their fight to civil court by filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Flores.
The complaint, obtained by The Daily Beast, was filed on Nov. 28, 1996, in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court. It blasts Flores for having âpreyed upon the victim, Kristin Smartâ who was in an âintoxicated stateâ and ultimately âmurdered Kristin Smart on the premises of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.â
It also blames the freshman for âintentionally inflicted emotional distress upon the parents of Kristin Smart by taking the body of [sic] Kristin Smart and secreting and/or destroying the body⌠in a hidden place in the County of San Luis Obispo.â
When Flores appeared on Nov. 14, 1997, with his attorney to be deposed, he only confirmed his name and birthdate. He was repeatedly (almost 30 times) pointed by his attorney to read from a typed sheet to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to innocuous yes/no questions and mundane ones like the names of relatives or his age.
The family accused Cal Polyâs campus police of being âgrossly negligent in the performance of their dutiesâ because âcritical evidence pertaining to the investigation to the murder of Kristin Smart was irretrievably lost and valuable evidence was destroyed.â
A university spokesman refused âto discuss any further details related to the Smart case while the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffâs Office excavation/investigation is ongoing.â
Before Flores was suspected in Smartâs disappearance, he was accused of stalking another female on campus. According to a March 27, 1996, San Luis Obispo police report a drunken Flores was accused âaround Christmasâ of attempting to break into a Cal Poly coedâs apartment. Flores allegedly âclimbed up her balcony and she suspected he attempted to break into her apartment.â
The student refused to press charges, but Flores didnât stop. The report states that he is the one who was believed to have made countless anonymous phone calls for âthe last six weeks.â
Then at a party in March, according to the police report, âFlores tried to talk to her and she told him off in very strong words.â
Today Flores lives in San Pedro, California. He stepped out of his home looking to each side as if his head was on a swivel when The Daily Beast approached him on Saturday. With the coast seemingly clear he opened the door to his white 1960 Chevrolet Impala parked on the crammed street where heâs resided for almost two years.
He started the engine and began pulling off from the curb, then braked just as a Daily Beast reporter approached him.
When asked if he was Paul Flores, the last person to see Kristin Smart alive, he played dumb, at first only confirming Flores was someone who lived at the address.
âOh, he does.â
When pressed that he was Flores the man replied, âOh. Yeah.â
Flores rolled up the car window and reversed. He parked the car again and exited.
When asked if he remembered Smart he said, âRight. Yeah.â
Flores refused to weigh in on the fedsâ search for Smartâs remains.
âIâm fine. Iâm good. Have a good day,â he said.
Probed about him having a hand in Smartâs demise, Flores replied:
âNo-no-no. Iâm good,â he said. A 57-year-old neighbor across the street who gave only his first name, Gary, said Flores was a ânice guyâ who âhas never bothered me.â
He remembered that when Flores moved in somebody had come and plastered the street with posters revealing Floresâs past as a prime suspect.
âAll these printouts were put up saying âDonât trust him,ââ Gary said. âI felt bad for him.â
In July 1996 sheriffâs deputies made the first of multiple searches of the Flores residences. They started with the home of Paulâs father, Ruben Flores.
A year later Susan Floresâs Arroyo Grande property was visited by sheriffs and this time they utilized ground-penetrating radar technology to look underground. The results after the search were inconclusive.
They may have been following up a tip made by a 21-year-old food prep cook. He lived directly across the street and saw something that haunts him âlike it was yesterday.â
He stood at his kitchen sink watching Flores and a friend labor at night digging and pouring concrete not more than 100 feet away.
The neighbor told The Daily Beast the man he saw, who days later would be identified as Flores, and an unknown âyoung man with dark hairâ took turns shoveling and wheelbarrowing to create a gaping four-foot-deep hole in the recesses of Susan Floresâs backyard.
âThe hole was about waist-deep, mid-thigh level, and stretching seven to eight feet long, four to six feet wide,â the witness, who requested anonymity, said.
They worked by a retaining wall at the rear of the backyard for almost five hours altogether during the late night.
âIâve never seen these guys before,â he said. âAnd theyâre digging in this womanâs yard at this time of the day, and the kind of digging they were doing plus the concrete just didnât make sense.â
In the middle of the construction effort he says he saw both men grab from both ends and lug a rolled-up rug with something âheavy inside.â
âIâll tell you as a 15-year floor layer I can take a whole room of carpet, roll it up like a burritoâwe call it cockroachingâyou throw it on your back and walk it upstairs,â he said. âTwo people were needed to move this. So it was heavy.
âAnd thatâs the thing Iâm tripping on,â he added.
He said they began to backfill the hole with dug-up dirt and poured concrete to form a slab.
A week later when Floresâs mug was splashed on the local news, the neighbor realized who the digger was.
âI recognized Flores and I knew exactly what I saw.â
Schaferâs report prepared back in 2000 referred to another neighbor named Lauri Quinn who also shared her version of seeing âongoing construction work in the backyardâ of Susan Floresâs property and later ânewly constructed concrete planters cut into the existing cement in the backyard.â
Flores himself even abruptly attempted to cut short an interview with San Luis Obispo County prosecutors to attend to a âconcreteâ project at 4 p.m. of June 19, 1996.
âI just have to go,â Flores told them.
When investigators asked where, he said âI have to clean up some stuff. Some concrete.â Asked where he needed to clean it, Flores said, âMy momâs house.â
Another critical piece of evidence pointing to Susan Floresâs property is a certain earring that was âmisplacedâ by San Luis Obispo deputies. A beaded turquoise earring was discovered by a renter of the residence named Mary Lassiter when she was washing her car in October 1996.
Lassiter and her husband Joseph were deposed during the familyâs civil dispute against Flores. Joseph Lassiter said the earring he saw was âhooped with beads that hangs downâ and had âred stuffâ on it, according to the warrant. That red stuff, the warrant notes, âresembled blood.â
Somehow during the recovery of the soiled item âthe earring⌠was misplaced by the [San Luis Obispo] deputies and has yet to be found,â Schaferâs report states.
On March 3, 1997, sheriffâs deputies returned to the Flores residence with dogs, who gravitated to the corner of the backyard, but made no alert to any human remains.

On March 4, 1997, a contractor named Gary Mann conducted multiple ground penetrating radar scans for the sheriffâs office on Susan Floresâs property on the second day of the initial search. But, according to Schaferâs report, sheriffâs deputies discounted the âcadaver dogsâ interest in a corner of the backyardâ at the residence because they âbelieved, at the time, Paul Floresâ mother, Susan Flores, did not resideâ there.
âLater investigation determined that, in fact, Susan Flores did reside at [redacted] at the time of Kristin Smartâs disappearance,â the report states.
Mann found âbroken pieces of cement he understood were placed there by Ruben Flores [Paulâs father] and Paul Flores about the time Kristin Smart disappeared.â
Mann informed San Luis Obispo sheriffâs deputies of a âbackfill of some kind and looks to be man madeâ and believes he âdiscovered some anomalies on the west side of the backyardâ but told authorities âhe was 80 to 90 percent sure that his conclusion that the anomaly he discovered were a natural excavation or erosion.â
Schaefer speculated Susan Flores may have consented to a second search of the property because Smart's remains might have been excavated, which would explain the broken pieces of concrete.
Mann maintains that the home was âunfinished businessâ the warrant states and that he was âtroubled by stains on the west side of the house that showed dirt had once been piled against the houseâ and also by âsplatters of dirtâ on the wooden fencing four feet away from the house.
After Schafer produced his report in 2000, he submitted to the San Luis Sheriffâs Office in hopes it would be used to obtain a warrant to search Susan Floresâs property again.
âI forced the warrant on a skeptical police force. I was told that officers present did not want to pay to have the concrete repaired if the search turned up nothing. That was a lost opportunity,â he wrote in a 2007 email to the Smarts.
Back in 2014 retired Mammoth Lakes, California, police detective Paul Dostie had traveled to Arroyo Grande with Buster to search for Smart, fresh off their biggest find ever.
Marine First Lt. Alexander âSandyâ Bonnyman Jr. was killed fighting the Japanese in the Battle of Tarawa in 1943. Bonnyman was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, but his body was never recovered.
That was until Buster, the black Labrador from Mammoth Lakes, California, arrived on Tarawa on a mission teaming up with the POW-MIA group History Flight.
Buster prowled the almost 300-acre islandâs crushed coral turf and had several alerts in a straight line indicating the possibility of a trench burial carved out by a bulldozer.
The site was excavated in 2015 after Buster found Bonnyman and 47 of his fellow missing-in-action comrades who were recovered and brought home to American soil.
Busterâs nose also found six airmen who went missing after their B-26 bomber was shot down in Allmuthen, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge.
The men were returned to the United States for identification and burial.
Buster and Dostie also found Lynsie Ekelund, who was buried deep in a Santa Clarita, California, construction site by her confessed killer, Christopher McAmis.
In summer 2014, Buster signaled twice that he had found someone while sniffing around the fence line separating a neighborâs home from Susan Floresâs property.

Buster by this time was hobbling alongâhaving lost his right hind leg to cancerâand going through the backyard of Floresâs neighbor, along the wooden fence line on top of a 5-foot-high cinder block retaining wall. Smartâs remains are believed to be buried in close proximity to that retaining wall, Dostie told David Smallwood, editor and publisher of independent newspaper The California Register, who tagged along to document the search and photograph the moment Buster alerted.
âThereâs human decomposition in that backyard,â Dostie announced.
âOld Buster turned around and locked up like an old bird dogâjust froze in his tracks,â Smallwood, a resident of nearby Grover Beach, remembers.
Dostieâs associate Dr. Arpad Vass is confident that Busterâs nose is right.
âI did soil analysis from that site,â Vass said. âSo we have soil analysis to back up Buster.â
Vass is a forensic anthropologist at the University of Tennesseeâs Law Enforcement Innovation Center (who was brought in to give expert testimony in the Casey Anthony trial).
Of the 10 grams of soil samples they collected after two different visits to neighboring homes around the block and analyzing them through gas chromatography mass spectrometry, Vass said he is confident in his findings.
âWe collected the soil samples and ran them and Iâm sure we found evidence of human decomposition,â he said, referring to chemical compounds such as carbon tetrachloride, benzene, and pentanal emitted by human decomposition.
âI want to make it very clearâIâm not saying Kristin is there,â Dotsie insisted. âBut itâs never been resolved by the sheriffâs office and theyâve completely ignored it through three sheriffs including this one.
âWhen Buster alerted there why didnât they get their dogs and run them to see if they obtained the same result? Why didnât the FBI do the same?â
The San Luis Obispo Sheriffâs Office initially spoke to The Daily Beast about some of these precise questions about the viability of the motherâs backyard and to answer about their current and past investigation efforts.
On why they havenât returned to Susan Floresâs property, sheriffâs spokesman Tony Cipolla said the search has run dry there.
âThat area has been searched several times,â he said. âWeâve used infrared radar technology in order to search plus we had deputies there as well. And so that has been searched a couple of times and we did notâthere was nothing of an evidentiary nature that we were able to discover there.
âAnybody can say âOh, yeah, we think itâs there.â That canât be admitted in a court of law.â
Cipolla discounted Busterâs findings by saying the dog wasnât certified.
But Buster has been certified in years past with the California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA), both as an avalanche and cadaver dog. Cipollaâs dismissive statement says nothing of Busterâs success in finding Marines and airmen lost 70 years ago.
âHeâs been certified before,â Dostie said. âThe only certification in California is search and rescue: finding a dead guy on the surface. There is no certification for grave detection. If there was Dr. Vass and I would be the only ones qualified to give such a certification.â
At least they could have before the 12-year-old cadaver dog passed away this February.
âWe were playing in the front yard and he just collapsed,â Dostie said through tears, remembering how he held his head till he took his final breath.
To know once and for all whether Smart was buried beneath the concrete doesnât require a jackhammer.
If Dostie and Vass could get a chance to return to Susan Floresâs backyard they could accomplish all they need to do by drilling a few holes.
âYou donât have to tear out of the entire concrete,â Vass said. âAll you need to do is drill a hole down to the concrete, down to the ground below and plant it and take a soil sample.
âItâs hardly any cost,â Vass continued. âItâs very simple to do and itâs relatively nondestructive. Why no one does that is beyond me. Itâs so frustrating.â
In the end it shouldnât be about showmanship or who gets the credit.
âAs law enforcement our primary job is the victims,â Dostie said. âWe can speak for the dead by finding them. We are advocates for the victims and their families. Thatâs what we are and thatâs how we view ourselves. That should be our primary goal and politics should not enter. But unfortunately it always does.â