NEW YORK — On Saturday, May 25, 1996, Kristin Smart, a freshman at Cal Poly State University, walked home from a party at 2 a.m. and was never seen again. She was 19 years old.
"20/20" takes a fresh look this Friday, June 23 into why the investigation into Smart’s disappearance began slowly, with interviews from investigators and family members. But not all unsolved cases involving college students end in arrest – ABC News features five such cases below.
As campus police continued their investigation, they spoke several times with Cal Poly freshman Paul Flores, who walked Smart home after the party on May 25. Even though he was the last person to see her alive, Sheriff Parkinson said there was still"a lack of physical evidence," tying Flores to the case.
Although Cole said the case"was always active," it was 27 years before a resolution. In March 2023, Paul Flores was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Kristin Smart. The deep puncture wound initially produced little blood, leading students and library employees who found her to assume she was suffering a seizure.
Her body was found partially unclothed by two campers on September 20, 1986 – 20 feet away from her equipment, as reported by The Washington Post at the time. In an interview with"20/20" in March 2000, Van de Velde maintained his innocence and blamed both Yale and the New Haven Police Department for rushing to presume his guilt.
In 2002, ABC News reported on the similarity between Guimond's disappearance and that of two other missing college-aged men – Christopher Jenkins and Michael Noll – who all went missing within 10 days and 170 miles of one another. Jenkins' body was found in a river and the Minneapolis Police reclassified it as a homicide in 2006, according to Minnesota Public Radio News.
He pled not guilty and due to insufficient evidence, a judge dismissed the charges. Two years later, a criminal grand jury decided against indicting Zoellner also due to a lack of evidence.
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