LOS ANGELES (KTLA) — A pair of scientists, along with a former analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have joined forces to find the missing remains of Kristin Smart, 27 years after her disappearance and murder.
While Smart’s body has never been located, the case has gained renewed interest from the true-crime podcast, “Your Own Backyard.” Now, in a mission dubbed “Project Homecoming,” two scientists believe the soil in a backyard may be the key to finding the missing Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student’s remains.
Dr. Steve Hoyt is a Cal Poly graduate and an environmental scientist whose business tests soil samples. Timothy Neligan, an environmental engineer who also attended Cal Poly, had an actual run-in with 19-year-old Smart.
“She came knocking at our door a week before she went missing to use the telephone to call somebody,” Neligan explained. “We followed the case ever since and wanted to help the family.”
Paul Flores, the last person to see Smart alive, is serving 25 years to life for killing her.
Along with the former FBI analyst who is an expert in cadavers, the men went to Flores’s mom’s house in Arroyo Grande. Along the backyard fence, they tested soil vapors for compounds consistent with a decomposing body.
“We found many of these compounds present at the site,” Hoyt said.
In 2015, the famously accurate cadaver dog, Buster, detected human decomposition in the same location.
“We know the technique works with the cadaver dog and the instrumentation can measure the same compounds,” Hoyt said. “It’s a matter of nobody really took the extra step to put the scientific information in place.”
“From our analysis, there really isn’t another possibility. So, where we stand, there either is or was a human body in that area,” Neligan added.
The same Environmental Protection Agency-approved testing method is used to find contaminants in soil.
“We’re all experts in our field with decades of experience and we really went firmly on the science and the computer models to show there is a cadaver nearby,” Neligan said.
The hope is that these techniques can eventually lead to closure for the Smart family.
“They cannot rest until they bring Kristin home, and that was the purpose of executing the plan,” Neligan said.
While this is something of a passion project for the Cal Poly grads, it’s completely self-funded. The next step is working with law enforcement to take this a step further, possibly with another search warrant, and then developing the technology to help other families looking for missing loved ones.
