Podcast helps expose a killer after 27 years

Justice at last for student Kristin Smart, 19, who went missing in 1996

- GAIL SHORTLAND

It was around 2am on 25 May 1996 when student Kristin Smart collapsed on the lawn of a front garden, minutes after leaving a birthday party off campus. After the 19-year-old was helped to her feet by fellow students, she was guided back in the direction of her dorm. But the teenager was never seen again.

Kristin was coming to the end of her first year at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Her family back in Stockton described her as a “dreamer” and said she felt “invincible”. She was a surfer and had been a camp counsellor in Hawaii, and at college she was trying to find herself, experimenting with hair colours and fashion and taking the nickname Roxy.

Kristin would call home every Sunday and admitted to her parents that her major in architecture was tough and she was considering dropping out.

When Kristin attended the party in May, many of her friends had already returned home for the summer, so she went alone. Other party-goers said that Kristin seemed intoxicated and when the two students, one female and one male, found her slumped on the grass outside in the early hours, she was unable to walk. They helped her to her feet and offered to get her safely back to her dorm – an 11-minute walk away.

Another student who’d also been to the party offered to help. His name was Paul Flores. As they approached the campus, Flores offered to walk Kristin the final stretch as his dorm was the closest to hers.