When I was still just a kid, a young college student went missing at the university in my home town of San Luis Obispo California. It was a sensational story. San Luis Obispo has a year round population of about 30-40 thousand people, and when Cal Poly is in session that increases by at least ten or twenty thousand. The university is a vast, sprawling campus nestled against rolling hills with seemingly innumerable buildings, lawns, dorms and beyond them the off-campus housing provided in the old neighborhoods that surround the site.
Its an easy place to get lost in, purposely or accidentally, but for Kristin Smart the details around her disappearance were steeped in the worst kind of circumstance. She’d gone to a party with some friends, and incidentally, one of those friends was allegedly the last person seen with her. As the days turned into a week and months though it became clear Kristin Smart was not coming back. The idea that this young woman with so much of her life to come might have been murdered cast a heavy pall over my small town.
For years afterward, the Smart family has continued to search for answers regarding the disappearance of their daughter. They offered a reward, and her picture (seen above) graced the front of a business in Arroyo Grande begging for any information. Now, several decades later, the Smarts may start to have a resolution with the arrest of the discovery of rather gruesome details that may or may not indicate murder. It will be up to a jury to decide when presented with the evidence. Once again, Kristin’s story permeates halls of Cal Poly casting its visage over the town of San Luis Obispo. Students and citizens who might have never heard of her will do so this coming fall.
The Writer's Hemisphere 