How a True-Crime Podcast Led to an Arrest in a 25-Year-Old Cold Case (pressdemocrat.com) 41
"A true-crime podcast has been credited with providing valuable information in a missing person case from the 1990s after two men were arrested," reports Newsweek:
Kristin Smart, 19, of Stockton, California, went missing in May 1996 after returning to her dorm at California Polytechnic State University campus in San Luis Obispo. The case received widespread attention from Chris Lambert's Your Own Backyard podcast dedicated to investigating Smart's disappearance, which he began in September 2019.
The last person who was thought to have seen Smart alive was Paul Flores, 44, who was also a freshman at the time, when he offered to walk Smart back to her dorm. Since Smart's disappearance, Flores has been a person of interest, suspect, and prime suspect. Now, District Attorney Dan Dow alleges that Flores killed her in his dorm room following an attempted rape. On Tuesday, April 13, Flores was arrested for her murder, and his father Ruben Flores, 80, was arrested as an accessory to murder for allegedly helping his son conceal Smart's body, which has never been found.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said that they arrested the father and son on Tuesday after a search at Ruben Flores' home using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs last month resulted in new evidence linked to Smart's disappearance... Parkinson also credited the Your Own Backyard podcast with raising awareness of the case which resulted in "valuable information" after a key witness came forward.
The Associated Press calls it "the latest in a line of true-crime podcasts credited with producing results in court," noting investigations by the Up and Vanished podcast also "led a man to confess to killing a Georgia beauty queen."
And they list some of the "compelling clues" uncovered by the podcaster investigating Kristin Smart's disappearance: A former colleague of Paul Flores' mother, Susan Flores, told him Mrs. Flores came into work after Memorial Day weekend 1996 — when Smart went missing — saying she didn't sleep well because her husband had gotten a phone call in the middle of the night and left in his car. "The speculation has been all along that Paul called his dad in the middle of the night and his dad came up and helped him get rid of Kristin's body," Lambert said.
A tenant who lived for a year at Susan Flores' home told him she heard a watch alarm every morning at 4:20 a.m. Smart had worked as a lifeguard at 5 a.m. at the Cal Poly pool, so it's possible she set her watch to wake up at that early hour.
The last person who was thought to have seen Smart alive was Paul Flores, 44, who was also a freshman at the time, when he offered to walk Smart back to her dorm. Since Smart's disappearance, Flores has been a person of interest, suspect, and prime suspect. Now, District Attorney Dan Dow alleges that Flores killed her in his dorm room following an attempted rape. On Tuesday, April 13, Flores was arrested for her murder, and his father Ruben Flores, 80, was arrested as an accessory to murder for allegedly helping his son conceal Smart's body, which has never been found.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said that they arrested the father and son on Tuesday after a search at Ruben Flores' home using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs last month resulted in new evidence linked to Smart's disappearance... Parkinson also credited the Your Own Backyard podcast with raising awareness of the case which resulted in "valuable information" after a key witness came forward.
The Associated Press calls it "the latest in a line of true-crime podcasts credited with producing results in court," noting investigations by the Up and Vanished podcast also "led a man to confess to killing a Georgia beauty queen."
And they list some of the "compelling clues" uncovered by the podcaster investigating Kristin Smart's disappearance: A former colleague of Paul Flores' mother, Susan Flores, told him Mrs. Flores came into work after Memorial Day weekend 1996 — when Smart went missing — saying she didn't sleep well because her husband had gotten a phone call in the middle of the night and left in his car. "The speculation has been all along that Paul called his dad in the middle of the night and his dad came up and helped him get rid of Kristin's body," Lambert said.
A tenant who lived for a year at Susan Flores' home told him she heard a watch alarm every morning at 4:20 a.m. Smart had worked as a lifeguard at 5 a.m. at the Cal Poly pool, so it's possible she set her watch to wake up at that early hour.
Demonstrates police failure. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, this only shows how poorly many cases are investigated. I know there are lots of different reasons cases go cold but far too many are just a lack of actual inquiry. Meanwhile, when some cases get undue attention to the detriment of other cases.
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How long has ground-penetrating radar been available to local law enforcement?
Ground-penetrating radar is needed because the body was buried 25 years ago.
At the time, noticing the loose soil or the smell of the decomposing body would have been sufficient.
Pro-tip: If you need to get rid of a body, don't bury it in your own backyard.
Re:Demonstrates police failure. (Score:4, Funny)
Pro-tip: If you need to get rid of a body, don't bury it in your own backyard.
Don't worry - I was planning to bury it in yours.
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Ground-penetrating radar is needed because the body was buried 25 years ago.
Cadaver Dogs [wikipedia.org]
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How long has ground-penetrating radar been available to local law enforcement?
Ground-penetrating radar is needed because the body was buried 25 years ago.
At the time, noticing the loose soil or the smell of the decomposing body would have been sufficient.
Pro-tip: If you need to get rid of a body, don't bury it in your own backyard.
What makes you think the body was buried in the Flores' backyard? The article clearly states that her body has never been found, regardless of the name of Lambert's blog, and even though the authorities claim they now know where her body is "buried."
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If anything, this only shows how poorly many cases are investigated.
No it does not. Maybe your generalizations are true, but this case certainly did not provide the necessary supporting evidence for them. And even if you had a significant sample rather than n=1, the result of a case itself is insufficient to show the case was poorly investigated or managed -- the police could well have conducted their duties optimally given the evidence and information available.
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If I go outside and see only one crow, I don't think "oh, that's just a sample of n=1, we can only say there is one crow around these parts until further evidence". I'm going to go right ahead and REASONABLY assume there's more than one crow in the area base
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If anything, this only shows how poorly many cases are investigated. I know there are lots of different reasons cases go cold but far too many are just a lack of actual inquiry. Meanwhile, when some cases get undue attention to the detriment of other cases.
Yep. The smaller the town, the worse the police are. And I believe in this particular case the local Sheriff's Department handled it and it has become painfully obvious to me over the years that even small town "Andy and Barney" type cops are geniuses compared to pretty much everybody who works for a Sheriff's Department.
Re: Demonstrates police failure. (Score:2)
Well. Depends on if the 25 year old case witness is reliable. People aren't infallible.
Its really hard to mount a defense and find out if the witness was where they say they were to the hour and such after 25 years. The key will be on why the witness didn't come forward before.
The 4th estate. (Score:2)
Podcasts: the new press. [wikipedia.org]
Watch alarm and who done it (Score:4, Interesting)
"A tenant who lived for a year at Susan Flores' home told him she heard a watch alarm every morning at 4:20 a.m. Smart had worked as a lifeguard at 5 a.m. at the Cal Poly pool, so it's possible she set her watch to wake up at that early hour."
Trying to understand how this fits in as evidence. Are they speculating that Paul Flores was stalking Smart by getting up early. Setting an alarm isn't really an odd thing to do. At any rate, I hope the guilty parties are found guilty.
Buried with her watch? (Score:5, Interesting)
"A tenant who lived for a year at Susan Flores' home told him she heard a watch alarm every morning at 4:20 a.m. Smart had worked as a lifeguard at 5 a.m. at the Cal Poly pool, so it's possible she set her watch to wake up at that early hour."
Trying to understand how this fits in as evidence. Are they speculating that Paul Flores was stalking Smart by getting up early. Setting an alarm isn't really an odd thing to do. At any rate, I hope the guilty parties are found guilty.
Was the watch was buried with her, and kept beeping at 4:20 AM for months after the murder?
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The Tell-tale Watch.
- by E. A. Poe
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Lots of people here deep on the spectrum.
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So it was a Smart watch?
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It just means he's a committed stoner.
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Here's my question (Score:2)
Why would Flores, after all this time, still have anything of hers at his house? Maybe for the first few years keep things hidden, but after that, start to slowly dispose of any evidence. Burn clothes, or at least cut it up in small pieces and put it out with the trash. Better yet, dump it in city trash bins so it can't be connected to you.
Anything used to kill her should likewise be removed from the residence. Cut up the baseball bat (or burn it). Throw out the knife, but only after washing it and puttin
And clothing (Score:2)
Why would Flores, after all this time, still have anything of hers at his house? Maybe for the first few years keep things hidden, but after that, start to slowly dispose of any evidence. Burn clothes, or at least cut it up in small pieces and put it out with the trash. Better yet, dump it in city trash bins so it can't be connected to you.
Anything used to kill her should likewise be removed from the residence. Cut up the baseball bat (or burn it). Throw out the knife, but only after washing it and putting it in a bleach bath. Etc.
The body is one thing. Burying it on your own property is severely stupid. But everything else should have been gotten rid of long ago.
No, I don't think about these things. Why do you ask?
Don't forget the clothing you were wearing. Right after you sort out the body, take off all your clothes, put them in a trash bag, and dispose of them. Including the shoes (especially the shoes).
To be really careful, grab a handful of hair from some animal (use a brush on a cat or dog that you don't own, grab the hair from the brush) and sprinkle it all around the murder scene.
Leave your phone at home when you do it. If possible, set it up to automatically call (or text) the victim right after the murder, s
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set it up to automatically call (or text) the victim right after the murder
Only if there is some pre-existing reason for you to be contacting them. Otherwise, maybe they look familiar from someplace. But you just can't recall the name.
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All good points. From what statistics I can find, about 60% of murders in the US are solved (or allegedly solved). The vast majority of those seem to involve close relationships. Murders involving organized crime (gang/drug related), random targets, etc., are very hard to solve.
Amongst serial murderers there seems to be a very common desire to keep a memento or trophy from victims.
If you are dealing with someone who targets randomly (or at least unrelated people), someone who is smart and not openly or visi
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The thing about random murders is most people aren't willing to go to a lot of trouble for no real point. Lucky, that.
We do love talking methodology though. I dunno if it gets worse among tech types. I think it's a compulsion to correct a botched bank robbery or murder. "You're doing it wrong".
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Well, trying a rape and then escalating to murder is seriously stupid (if you ignore the moral angle) in the first place. I would speculate they got very lucky initially (or the investigation was seriously messed up) to have pulled it off at all. So the answer to your question would be "incompetence".
They don't have any phsyical evidence in this case (Score:1)
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[Citation needed] for any of this.
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Googled "Kristin Smart" and "Virgin Islands" and this was one of the top hits:
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-a-cold-case-a-haunting-mystery-20160907-snap-story.html [latimes.com]
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Let me guess. These are insights into the case you picked up in Incel chat rooms where the dudes fantasize about how women who disappear were sluts who deserved whatever happened to them, and how the guy who offed them shouldn't be punished.
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I think there’s a few bodies under that guy’s deck.
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I googled "Kristin Smart" and "Virgin Islands" and this link was near the top. I didn't know anything about this case. The only detail not in the article is specifically the "french kissing" part, and I honestly don't care to google that further.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-a-cold-case-a-haunting-mystery-20160907-snap-story.html [latimes.com]
When I read a post like yours, I really wonder what the heck is wrong with humanity. I can't understand what would make you respond in such a hate-filled way.
If you
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The podcast was very insightful and very popular. Soon after a particularly interesting episode, with some new clues about recently recovered property, police served simultaneous search warrents and recovered all the communication devices of all the family members (who were certainly aware of the podcast.) The seized family communications very likely could have contained clues or confirmations that allowed the police to finally make the murder charge.
Re: They don't have any phsyical evidence in this (Score:2)
spooky.. i looked at the clock after reading this and it was... 4:20am!
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