Cal Poly fixes failing grades given to Kristin Smart after she went missing
Update: Will new Kristin Smart billboard help solve her case? This SLO County resident hopes so
Kristin Smart never took her finals at the end of her freshman year at Cal Poly.
She went missing days before those tests were held on campus in 1996.
Smart was last seen leaving a party in San Luis Obispo in the early morning hours of May 25, 1996, to return to her dormitory. She was later declared legally dead.
A petition started two weeks ago by a group of Smart’s supporters called for the university to change her transcript grades, which reflected failing grades, including “all F’s and one incomplete for the quarter, after not showing up for her finals.”
Cal Poly announced Friday that Smart’s final transcripts have been changed to “W’s” to reflect “withdrawn.”
Cal Poly’s policy on changing student transcripts
The university’s policy states changes to a student’s transcript may be adjusted after receiving official notice of a student’s death.
In the year’s after her death, the Registrar’s Office never received an official notice, and her transcripts remained unchanged, and, “as such, the university took no action with her final transcripts,” said Matt Lazier, university’s spokesman.
“Even after she was declared legally dead, the (Cal Poly) Registrar’s Office never received an official notice,” Lazier said. “Therefore, her final transcripts remained unchanged.”
As of Friday evening, the Change.org petition to change Smart’s grades had been signed by more than 4,000 people.
The petition asked for Cal Poly to “amend her transcripts to reflect her legacy honorably.”
News of the Smart transcript changes comes just days after the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office served four search warrants in connection to the missing woman’s case.
One warrant was served at the San Pedro home of Paul Flores, the last person to be seen with Smart.
Two search warrants were served in San Luis Obispo County — one at the Arroyo Grande home of Paul Flores’ mother, Susan Flores, and another at an undisclosed location. The final warrant was served at an unknown spot in Washington state.
Flores has never been charged with a crime in connection with the case.
The disappearance of Kristin Smart
Kristin Smart was last seen leaving a house party at 135 Crandall Way near the Cal Poly campus about 2 a.m. May 25, 1996, with Flores and friend Cheryl Anderson.
Anderson later told investigators that she left Smart with Flores at the intersection of Perimeter Road and Grand Avenue, and continued to her dorm at Sierra Madre Hall.
Smart was to supposed to walk back to her Muir Hall dorm room, and Paul Flores later told police he and Kristin Smart parted ways near his own room at Santa Lucia Hall.
Two days later, a friend of Smart’s called the Cal Poly University Police Department to report her missing. But due to a jurisdictional fumble between that agency and the San Luis Obispo Police Department, a search didn’t begin until May 30, 1996.
Organized searches were conducted on and around the campus, and Cal Poly police and county District Attorney’s Office investigators interviewed Flores.
But it wasn’t until June 5, 1996, that police searched Kristin Smart’s dorm room and Flores’ room on June 10, 1996.
By then, the academic quarter had ended and Flores had moved all of his belongings out of the room.
In a taped interview, Flores admitted to previously lying to investigators when he told them he received a black eye playing basketball. He reportedly told investigators he received the injury while fixing his truck, then abruptly ended the interview and refused to answer any more questions.
After a month went by and criticism from the Smart family and their supporters grew, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office took over the case.
Over the weekend of June 29, 1996, about 400 volunteers turned out for a large-scale search of the campus. Investigators also searched Flores’ parents’ Arroyo Grande home, which did not yield any clues.
The Smarts filed a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Flores in November 1996, alleging that Flores murdered Kristin at Cal Poly. The Smarts would later add Cal Poly to the lawsuit, alleging the university failed to keep their daughter safe.
That lawsuit remains in legal limbo due to the Sheriff’s Office’s ongoing criminal investigation. The Smart family’s attorneys have requested Sheriff’s Office records necessary to prove their civil case, but those records remain confidential.
Former San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ed Williams previously said “there are no other suspects” than Paul Flores in Kristin Smart’s disappearance.
In September 2016, the Sheriff’s Office and the FBI conducted a joint excavation of a hillside on the Cal Poly campus after announcing new information strongly suggested that Smart’s remains could be buried in an area near the Cal Poly “P” that had been searched by about 400 volunteers in June 1996.
Between Sept. 6-10, 2016, the agencies sifted through approximately 20,000 cubic feet of dirt, taking away bones and a possible “item of interest” to a facility out of the county for analysis.
Though the Sheriff’s Office called the dig “beneficial,” it has not said what, if anything, the effort revealed.
Chris Lambert’s podcast, Your Own Backyard, was launched in September 2019 and has brought renewed public interest in the case.
Lambert, who lives in Orcutt, has interviewed dozens of people associated with the investigation, and looked at potential locations for Smart’s whereabouts — speculating whether her body could have been buried in Flores’ mother’s backyard in Arroyo Grande.
Cadaver dogs were alerted to Smart’s scent when brought near Susan Flores’ property, according to the podcast.
Lambert also spoke to women who have come into contact with Flores since Smart’s disappearance, including a former coworker who said that years ago Flores scared her after she entered his home and he repeatedly tried to kiss her and didn’t want her leave until he did.
In November 2019, hundreds of people gathered in the Arroyo Grande Village in a candlelight vigil in Kristin Smart’s memory.
Interest around the case has been growing even more in recent weeks, after the Stockton Record broke a story Jan. 18 stating the Smart family was contacted by the FBI, and told to be ready for “a development.”
The family later clarified that that information came from “a former FBI agent,” not the FBI as reported.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 5:29 PM.
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