New Kristin Smart billboards go up at 2 SLO County locations. Who’s behind them?
A pair of new billboards urging justice for missing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart recently appeared alongside roadways in at least two San Luis Obispo County locations.
The billboards each feature a photo of Smart — who disappeared after an off-campus house party on Memorial Day weekend in 1996 — along with the words “Justice for Kristin” and “KristinSmart.org.”
One of the billboards can be seen in San Luis Obispo at the intersection of South Higuera Street and Elks Lane next to an advertisement for the city’s French Hospital Medical Center.
Drivers traveling southbound on Highway 101 on the Cuesta Grade can see the other “Justice for Kristin” billboard, KSBY reported.
Sandee Hunt-Burns, a Smart family advocate, told The Tribune that the people who funded the new San Luis Obispo and Cuesta Grade billboard do not want to be identified, but they are “friends of the scholarship fund” known as Justice for Kristin.
Those people independently raised money for the billboards, and Kristin Smart Scholarship funds were not used, Hunt-Burns said.
The new billboards went up just weeks after the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office named Paul Flores — who was the last person seen with Smart before her disappearance — the “prime suspect” in the case and searched his father’s house in Arroyo Grande.
Two different billboards offering a $75,000 reward for information about Smart’s disappearance are also on display in the South County. The original sign is in the Village of Arroyo Grande in front of attorney James Murphy’s office on Branch Street.
In 2020, South County resident Scott Millar paid for an additional billboard with a similar advertisement to be placed at the intersection of Highway 1 and Halcyon Road in Oceano, near his home.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 12:18 PM.
CORRECTION: This story was updated to correct the organization that paid for the new “Justice for Kristin” billboards. Private funders who prefer to remain anonymous raised money to pay for the signs.
