It’s been a little more than three months since Paul Flores was sentenced to 15 years-to-life for the 1996 murder of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. When it comes to his conviction after more than 25 years, there is plenty of credit to go around, from the tenacity of her family to the dedication of prosecutors and a local podcaster with an international following.
But perhaps the largest portion of that credit goes to now retired San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Detective Clint Cole, who focused solely on cold cases and unsolved homicides, like Smart’s case.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson had the idea for this specific position. He wanted to identify a detective who could focus all of their attention on unsolved cases.
“The Board of Supervisors gave me that position probably four or five years ago. I specifically wanted a detective that was only going to work. Those cases, they weren't going to get called out and majority of the cases in the middle of the night for a murder or a serious crime. Their focus was reading, investigating cases that we just ran out of time to do or were determined to be cold cases because they ran out of leads,” Parkinson said.
In 2017, Det. Cole was the first investigator assigned to the newly-created position of cold case/unsolved homicide detective. In 2019, he became the lead investigator on the Kristin Smart case.
During that time, he not only helped convict Flores for Smart’s murder but solved two other cold cases as well, but the work and especially Smart’s case took its toll and Cole retired on March 10 of this year, the same day Flores was sentenced.
His replacement, Detective Greg Smith, has already started.
He says taking over does make him a little nervous at times, saying it’s “some pretty big shoes to fill, so I’m hoping that I can accomplish at least as much as he (Cole) did in my time in this spot.”
Det. Smith is certainly not a new face to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office. He’s spent his entire career here, starting as a patrol deputy, working his way up to detective and now stepping into the Cold Case role.
“What intrigued me about it just being able to, to solve cases that that were committed like 30, 40 years ago. It's just got to bring a lot of closure to the families. And then it’s just, it gives you a big sense of accomplishment. If you could do something like that, knowing that other detectives have been working on that case for years and not being able to solve it and then giving me being able to get that opportunity to, to solve a case that others couldn't.”
Det. Smith says new techniques and technologies are being developed all the time.
“So I initially started my investigations on a John Doe that washed up on Pismo Beach. We didn't know who he was, so we decided to try and identify him through the forensic genealogy and it's a long process and it's hard, but eventually you will be able to identify somebody. It may take weeks, it may take several years, but eventually, as people, like, get comfortable with uploading their DNA to these databases, the DNA databases are just exploding with new people and you will find a relative and at some point, it will lead you to that person or the suspect,” he said.
The notoriety of the Smart case is helping with other unsolved cases in the county, especially as the public learns about the cold case division.
“Yeah, I've been inundated with a lot of calls, which obviously is overall hopeful, right? I mean, it's very helpful when people want to come forward and provide information and even family members, if they know something or have heard something about their case and they're unsure whether or not we're working on it, we're working on it, and when they call in, we investigate it,” Det. Smith said.
As he settles into his new job, he’s hopeful more big cases will break.
“So, I mean, if your viewers are out there and they have a loved one that is the victim of one of these homicides, that all I can say is be patient because it takes time and you never know when that one piece of evidence is going to come forward that is going to get that case rolling. Just like the Smart case, we had a tip. We investigated that tip and it turned into a snowball effect to where we were able to write warrants and get a lot more information and it resulted in a conviction,” Det. Smith said.
There are currently 30 unsolved cases in San Luis Obispo County that have been assigned to Smith. He says his goal is to solve as many as he can before he retires.
