Almost 30 years after her disappearance, the family of murder victim Kristin Smart has filed a lawsuit against the college where she attended school.
The suit, filed against California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, lists three complaints about the school: negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful death.
The family alleges that those close to Smart quickly reported her missing when she disappeared after an off-campus party in May 1996, but that campus police wanted to wait until after Memorial Day weekend to take a missing persons report.
“Cal Poly’s breaches of its legal duty include but are not limited to the following: it did not pursue a missing person case promptly, did not interview witnesses timely, did not seal the primary suspect’s dorm room as a crime scene, allowed the suspect’s room to be sanitized and cleaned before it was searched, and did not search the suspect’s room until 16 days after Kristin disappeared,” the family stated in the lawsuit, according to NBC.
Paul Flores was arrested in 2021 in connection with the death and was convicted of first-degree murder in October of 2022. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Flores and Smart were both students at the school and prosecutors said he was the last person seen with a very intoxicated Smart when he walked her home from the party.
Smart’s body has never been found. In 2002, investigators declared her legally dead.
Smart’s family alleges that the university received other reports about Flores “on the basis of his threatening, stalking and harassing behaviour” before Smart was murdered, but failed to investigate them properly.
In one case, Flores allegedly tried to break into a student’s apartment, according to the lawsuit.
“If Cal Poly had properly acted on those reports, conducted an investigation, and appropriately disciplined the student, he would not have been on campus, and therefore would not have been able to murder Kristin,” the lawsuit states.
In an email, Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier told NBC the university had no comment because “this is a pending legal matter.”
Last May, however, university president Jeffrey Armstrong issued a public apology to the Smart family.
“While it is a different administration now than was in place in 1996, we recognize that things should had been done differently — and I personally wish that they had,” he said.
According to the lawsuit, it was Armstrong’s apology that tipped the Smart family off to the school’s alleged negligence. They realized they were never given access to the university’s investigative file.
“Even now, the Smart family still does not know what information, in the possession of Cal Poly’s president, and uniquely available to him and or Cal Poly, led him to make the apology,” the suit said.
Smart’s family is seeking monetary damages from the school.
— With files from The Associated Press