Kristin Smart — The Missing Case That Made American Campuses Safer
The unsolved case that led to legislation, and much media attention
Kristin Smart, a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, disappeared in the early morning hours of May 25, 1996, while walking back to her dorm after a party. She was reported missing to the Cal Poly Police Department two days later — but the police were extremely slow to investigate, making assumptions that the student may have taken a trip for the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
It was quickly learned that a male student living in a Cal Poly dorm accompanied Kristin back to her dorm that night and may have been the last person to ever see her.
Despite the suspicious circumstances around Kristin’s disappearance, the university police kept the investigation under their primary responsibility. Their slowness and lack of rigor in the investigation are believed to have caused the loss of potential critical evidence.
By the time the case was handed over to the county police weeks later, the university dorms had been vacated and cleaned for the summer, potentially owing to the destruction of evidence, that could have helped in the case.
Exactly six years later, on May 25, 2002, Kristin was legally “presumed dead” but the case…
