Wednesday Marks 20 Years Since Cal Poly Student Kristin Smart Went Missing
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Department says solving the mystery of Kristin Smart’s disappearance is important. The department says it communicates with the family on a regular basis.
Sheriff Ian Parkinson said it’s important to keep the case going, “First and foremost for Krisitn, and for the family, and lastly for the community. The community has a desire to know, and there is a strong desire on our end to hold the people responsible and bring them to justice.”
“The reality is we’re not waiting on a phone call, we’ve been working on strategy we have a deputy DA assigned.”
Wednesday marked 20 years since the Cal Poly student went missing.
The sheriff’s office has changed dramatically over the last twenty years Parkinson said.The investigator assigned to handle this case now was a Cal Poly student in 1996 himself. “I think it’s personal to the investigator, it’s personal to me,” Parkinson said.
In a statement to the sheriffs department, the smart family writes:
May 25, 1996, the day our daughter Kristin’s life was taken. A college freshman at Cal Poly, she walked home with others from an off campus party, never to be seen again. It seems impossible that twenty years later our journey continues and we are still searching and praying for the recovery of our beautiful daughter.
Our family is eternally grateful and thankful beyond measure for the outreach and support of so many in the community and beyond who have shared their hearts, time and energy to keep Kristin’s memory, story and quest for justice alive. The twenty-year journey to bring Kristin home has been more difficult than anything we could have ever imagined. It is only through your support that our HOPES are still alive.
The fight and quest will not end until she is home, but our family has made the decision that it is time to move forward and focus our efforts on honoring and celebrating Kristin’s life. She was a girl with dreams and visions for the future. We plan to find a way for them to live on. Plans to publicly honor and celebrate her memory and visions during the coming year will be forthcoming.
In that light, our faith and trust to bring Kristin home and prosecute the person responsible continues to lie with Sheriff Parkinson and his department. We are grateful for their unwavering commitment to our family and their efforts to recover our daughter. We are grateful for those who have come forward and continue to encourage those who may hold a piece of the puzzle to contact the Sheriff’s Office.
You can make a difference.
Anticipating this twenty-year mark continues to be a difficult and stressful time for our family. In that light, we are choosing to observe this anniversary privately and will be out of town and communication and will not be taking requests for media interviews.
Thank you for understanding and honoring our request to observe this moment in time privately and for your unwavering support of our family as we continue on this journey to bring our Kristin home.
Stan and Denise Smart and family
