In ‘Dateline NBC’ interview, Kristin Smart’s brother remembers his sister as ‘full of life’

In an interview with ‘Dateline NBC,’ Kristin Smart’s brother reflected on his missing sister and her legacy, remembering her as “full of life.”

Matt Smart, Kristin’s younger brother, described her as “the sort of individual who sought out adventure, the sort of individual who sought out the best that life had to offer.”

On Tuesday, Paul Flores, 44, of San Pedro was arrested on suspicion of killing Kristin Smart in 1996 when the two were students at Cal Poly. Flores walked back to the San Luis Obispo campus with Smart after a party and was the last person to see her alive.

The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday charged Flores with Smart’s murder, but investigators are still searching for Smart’s body.

Matt Smart — now a San Diego pharmaceutical salesman, according to his LinkedIn page — also remembered initially finding out his sister was missing nearly 25 years ago.

“Can’t find her. We don’t know where she is,” he said. “It’s like, what do you mean you can’t find her? It’s like she’s not responding, her college roommate doesn’t know. Your mind starts to ... this isn’t right. There’s got to be something else.”

Smart also recalled watching search-and-rescue teams comb the Central Coast hillsides for clues “in their orange shirts, day after day, day after day, day after day.”

This recently inspired Smart to join the San Diego County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team, which helped him “kind of be able to pay back and pay it forward in a way.”

“I was never allowed, growing up, to be a part of those searches, so I didn’t have the training,” Smart said. “I’d never been to the (search-and-rescue academy). But also, I think I didn’t have the emotional skills to be able to deal with finding things in the field. But now, I think I have the resolve to be able to get out there and help constructively.”

Smart said his mother, Denise Smart, found a “turning point” in setting up the Kristin Smart Scholarship in 2017 as part of an effort to create a legacy for his sister.

“I think it’s really a great way to say, ‘Kristin might not be able to do it, but how do we allow others to live what she wasn’t able to?’”

Smart also called Chris Lambert, the Orcutt resident behind the Your Own Backyard podcast, “an absolute blessing for the family” and praised his ability to “re-energize the case.”

“There’s so much emotion, so much vulnerability built up,” Smart said. “The reality being what it is, it’s simply understanding there’s a methodically slow, like molasses, pace that this has taken. But if that ultimately leads to a prosecution, if that ultimately leads to finding a body, it’ll have all been worthwhile.”

To watch the full interview, visit the Dateline NBC Facebook page at facebook.com/datelinenbc.

This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 6:42 PM.

Lindsey Holden

The Tribune

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Lindsey Holden writes about housing, San Luis Obispo County government and everything in between for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo. She became a staff writer in 2016 after working for the Rockford Register Star in Illinois. Lindsey is a native Californian raised in the Midwest and earned degrees from DePaul and Northwestern universities.