Justice for Kristin Smart
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Hi everyone at the nab sh hagger from today with hoda in china reminding you to check out my podcast open book with jena and this week's episode, I sit down with comedian, podcasting and actor matt Rogers. He tells me all about his journey from prompting to pop culture pod caster and is role in the new netlik series no good deed you can listen to the full conversation now by searching open book with ena wherever you .

get your podcasts deny on the Young.

viBrant nineteen year old women don't just vanished to thin error. That just doesn't happen.

The mystery has lingered for decades.

Economic consumes you. Yes, is a mother. My missions always be to bring Christ home.

What happened to college student Christian smart?

I told authorities back then. There is no way to took off.

By the time investigators started, the solid evidence was gone.

Now, dramatic new details from inside the investigation.

I get haunts everybody that's involved in this. He had planned this. He had structure.

This skill was a one man crime with he was.

i'm retracing Christian smart last long step s this podcast, sort of raise this case to a national level.

I was like, holy smokes, this is 这个。 I.

he was free to consult you. And other.

when they do, yes.

does not belong on the street. We need to get this done.

That was terrifying to have to face them. I just kept thinking.

you have to do this for Christian twenty six years of secrets. Now here the whole story, i'm letter hold, and this is deadline.

Here's josh maker with with justice for .

Christian smart.

Time does not heal all wounds. That's a lie we like to tell ourselves.

They took twenty six years of our life where we have been having to fight.

For the smart family, time has been torture. Their daughter Christian was just nineteen when he vanished. That was more than a quarter century ago.

You don't give up.

You don't give up. No.

can't. Tonight.

for the first time.

you'll hear the inside story of a decades long investigation. As we explain IT is the story of justice denied for more than just one family.

What surprised me was the volume of women. I think that my worst kym's was that there was a lot of victims.

Christian smart, also known as roxy.

nine, nine year old .

Christian smart, never made IT home. It's a mystery that leaves the smart family haunted.

For those of us above a certain age, ninety ninety six doesn't sound like that long ago, of course, IT was a different time, a simpler time. There was no instagram, tiktok or texting. Friendships were made and cultivated in person. Her freshman year at california polytechnic state university in san Lewis, a bis bal veness shield, started a great friendship.

SHE was two doorways down for me.

and we just bunch of us girls all became friends and kind of came separable.

SHE was Christian smart from stocked in gala forna and also a freshman at gal bali.

SHE inspired me by her independence, and that's why we be friends each other.

Margaret campos lived in the room next door to Christian.

At that time I was, I was much more solter than he was. So SHE was fascinating to be, and different .

and curious. We were .

study to rooms.

listen music, going to parties, going to eat, going to work out a lot of silly stuff, just hang out talking.

That's a school. You can always find the party.

And even on a holiday weekend.

including that memorial day weekend on friday, may twenty fourth, one thousand nine hundred ninety six flood of students headed out of town for the holiday. The nesa went home for the weekend. Christian and margarita state. The two women with some other friends to an off campus party.

this is just a really mellow, like chill party, wasn't very, very vicious in any sort of way. And that was a great disagreement to Christian because, like, that was just too low energy for her. SHE thought party lively.

So they left Christan. Margarita were dropped off in neighborhood where a lot of students lived on the outskirts of campus. They walked for a bit. Christian wanted to find another party. Margaret did not .

SHE just was standing .

with the arms cross. And was I come on, you have to come with me and I just IT was like, I really don't want to go and then he was like, come on and I was at the pushing pool of of two independent women.

Christian had gone out without her keys, her purse or even a jacket. SHE wore A T shirt, surf shorts and ten issues. Marga gave Christian herky so he could get back in the door.

I think SHE put in her shoe because he didn't really SHE didn't .

have any pockets in her borchers SHE watched Christian walk.

walk toward the houses on crane that's when I lost left her.

The next day, margarita was surprised when Christian didn't stop by to taller how the evening went.

I knocked up in her dollar, thought he was maybe still sleeping to see her for gosh the whole day .

when Christian's roommate return saturday of memorial day weekend, SHE and other women on the floor realized something was wrong. All of Christian's belongings were in the room. Her backpack, I D makeup, they called campus police right away.

And then the campus police were like, more, are you sure he didn't go on a trip over the weekend because of the moral weekend camping? We're like, no, all her stuff is here and they were like, well, she's over eighteen, so we have to wait for twenty four hours.

Veness shields returned monday evening to her panic dorm, tes, and a missing friend. I think i'm like.

where is Christian .

Christian's? France notified the resident advisor in the dorm and again spoke with campus police.

They just thought he just talk off. He thought he was were on a fun trip and that's what I was frustrating because we knew SHE wouldn't just take off.

We knew SHE wouldn't do that if SHE we're playing to take a mini vacation or go home or run off anywhere you .

don't know about IT myself, no law. The other girls would. yeah. Christian was very vocal about what he was doing and where he was going.

And then the phone ring at the stocked in home of standard denney smart IT was cow poli campus police.

They said, your daughter is not .

at school.

Think he has gone camping and that's the first time we ever heard that. And they didn't know where he was.

And I was immediately fearful because that just not her.

she's not going to leave on a last minute campaigns.

P no, stay in smart gotten his car and drove the four and a half hours to Sandy was a bis. Bo, her friends in the dorm waited and hoped for answers.

Even though we had this feeling, something was wrong. I don't think we could grasp at that moment how bad IT could be.

SHE was right. No one knew how bad IT could be or how long IT would take for .

the amount of time that i've invested into telling the story. It's a fraction of a fraction .

of living through IT.

This is an of most people would fold under.

Your children are part of who you are, so you're fighting for them. You're fighting for justice .

and fighting against time. Years lost and no idea yet what a terrible Price would be paid because .

he wasn't locked up from early on. He had the opportunity to do other things.

Absolutely correct. I think that haunts everybody that involved in this case.

Stand smart race to son luis, a bis ba, when he learned his oldest daughter Christian had not been seen on her college campus for days.

You're thing in what during that when I get there should artie back?

Well, hopefully I that I just talked her sam.

disappointed that did not happen.

They were saying, oh, well, you should probably went away and she's disappeared and and SHE ever ran away before and .

so and forth backroom stocked in california, Christian's mob. Denise kept out by the phone, waiting for updates.

My hopes have been that the nightmare would be over once he got there and he would be there. But I was, I just knew something wasn't right.

Christian had struggled a bit at galpy. SHE was less than completely happy with her decision to enrolled there.

One of the things that we shared with each other was our decent chain with copy.

Dane's responded that some of her daughters complaints in a letter he wrote just a few weeks before Christian disappeared. Wake up and smell the rose as he wrote, you have a world of opportunities at your fingertips.

your kind of talented, stuck IT up, Better cut time. Just start anything like .

a growing up, right?

SHE had no doubt krystian would get through this rough patch. SHE was never one to shy away from a chAllenge or an adventure.

When SHE loved travel, SHE loved .

expLoring. SHE was always .

instrumental in helping us plan of vacation, writing IT all up going to triple a because, you know, there was no google at that time.

SHE spent summers in london, van ezela and hawaii. Matt smart is Christian's Younger brother to you.

SHE was like a star. Well, you SHE. SHE was an artist. He was an adventure. He was an individual who was just full of life.

Get out and get IT done.

SHE arrived at copy in the fall of one thousand ninety five, excited to start college life, and the camp has certainly seemed a safe place.

You feel like your in a kind of shelter red community, because, you know, it's really kind of away from town.

IT was still hard for her little brother to say goodbye.

It's like, so we just leave her here. It's a lot of trust that you're putting .

on that trust that sh'll make the right choices and that those around her will, particularly because at eight or nineteen college freshman are just on the cusp of adult wood for Christian. That brought a time of reinvention. And he began going by other names like roxy. What was the deal with? They're calling yourself oxy.

Those in ick name he gave herself. I think it's just kind of this alter ego SHE kind of just .

wanted to have fun and play with IT as much as Christian was expLoring her new independence self retied the .

home remained strong SHE called you guys .

every sunday, every sunday Christian .

left a message on her parents answering machine. The friday of memorial day weekend, they worked home.

You know, you know your children's voice and there were so much laughter and levity and IT that he was so happy that you know that that's the last comment.

No call that sunday IT .

was tuesday.

three days after sh'd been last seen that campus police took an official missing person's report.

IT was clear that they weren't really concerned. They still thought he could have been to run away. They thought they could just know, been out having fun soon.

co. Poli was buzzing about the missing freshman and what happened at an off cab's party.

I didn't want him near her. I just didn't want him near her. I didn't. I didn't like that. I don't really want him near anybody you about.

really.

IT is probably not terribly surprising that a search for a missing college student might lead investigators to a party.

One of my girlfriends was like, let's go out tonight, and we just ended up there .

long ago, kendra code was herself and eighteen year old college student who happened to end up at an off cables party here on the evening of friday, may twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six.

IT was just a party I remember going, and IT was boring, I guess, was just mean, my friend, sort of sitting out in the back .

talking camera.

said he was walking around asking if anyone had a piece of gum. Remember, he was eighteen.

No, that's not so silly. But I was looking for gunmen. Then I ran into a guy who said, yes, i've got some gum. And we started talking.

And then at one point, we're sort of in the sort of in the center of the room, and he grabbed me, he starts to kiss me, and I was very weird. And I take a minute, I step back and I pushed him away. But not before somebody. I was like yelling in the background, get a room. And I was, so you ever seen .

this guy before?

No, we never seen him before.

Still, he was determined to get some gone. He said he had some in his car, and I walked .

around to the side of the house, and then he grabs me again and started kiss me again. And I pushed him back this time.

And I said.

do no, no by i'm leaving. And I walked back to where my friends were and I was like that I was so weird, just, he's weird.

Trever bolter had a weird experience of his own that night at the crumble away party. He was a soft Moore at kalpi at the time.

this very tall, very tractive girl wearing shorts and A T shirt walks up to me and says, hi, i'm rocky, okay? And I go, hi.

He didn't know IT, but that was krystian smart. The newly minted adult now road testing her new nickname, or oxi. This was the party Christian found after leaving her friend margarita to driver, SHE seemed confident, fluid.

SHE grabs my hand and SHE takes me to the bathroom. Okay, so my head spinning .

a little bit inside the bathroom.

They talked a bit and he goes, okay, I have to use bathroom now, like OK. So I walk out of the bathroom.

And that's when he says he had another strange encounter.

this guy that i've never seen before like is right, my face. And he's like, what i'd like to know is what you did with in the bathroom. And I was like, oh, is that boy? I'm like, what if I got myself in to you? I like, like my heads, and I go, nothing, man, absolutely nothing. And then he goes, last goes, cool .

kinda. Koa did not know Christian smart, but SHE definitely noticed the tall Young woman walk into the party. And he also remembers the moment, less than an hour later, when SHE saw her .

fell .

to the floor.

For whatever the reason, i'm not even sure why I did. I didn't know her, but I stood up and I walked across the room and he was on the ground. And the guy that IT kiss me was sort of hovering over her.

SHE learned that guy was named paul. He was also the same person who had confronted driver outside of the bathroom.

And I was like snow away, and me, in a couple other people, help pick her up. And I took her outside. SHE added a cup in her hand. So her, when I went outside, we know at the front and side on the porch, and I just sort of sight with her for a few minutes. And is that, are you OK stay .

away from that guy?

Did you seem drunk? He did seem very out of .

IT SHE smelling alcohol.

I don't call, but I do know that when I saw her walk in, SHE seemed okay. And by the time that SHE fell down and I picked up and take her outside, SHE did not seem OK anymore.

By the early morning hours, Christian was in bad shape. SHE was in the front yard and seemingly unable to stand up.

and I recognized her, obviously, as the girl that I had tried to help earlier. And I asked her if he .

needed someone .

to walk her home down. And SHE says, and he says.

no, i've got a red and .

i'm sure I said, are you sure? And eventually we walked away.

No way kendra could know, of course, but she'd be thinking about that moment for a long time.

I should have dragged up and walked her home. I just wish i'd done something different, thing kinds.

right.

Stories about that party would be told again and again. The question was, who was telling the truth?

How are with with? I don't know, you know.

Memorial day weekend was over. Students at copley were back on campus and back to class. Word was spreading about a Young woman who hadn't been seen since the early morning hours of saturday made twenty fifth Christian smart. IT was about two A M.

Saturday morning when Christian smart, also known as roxy, said, good night friends, no one has seen the nineteen year old cents.

I think I saw IT on the news where this girl, Christian, was missing and I saw her face and I was like, oh my god.

that's the girl. Ever since that party, kenda a had been thinking about her interactions with the Young woman SHE only knew as roxy and the guy he knew as paul .

SHE .

called campus police. Tell me about that goal. Just I read the whole story .

was at the party. I had this encounter with poll at the beginning. I had this encounter with Christian in the driveway and, you know, on the porch and stop holding over. Hear on I everything you .

to police the pausing creepy, yes. And that he tried to kissing you, yes, a couple of times, yes. And that he shown some interest in her. Yes, the response was okay.

We'll be in touch.

And how long until they were in touch?

never.

Maybe he didn't hear back because campus police had spoken with other students from the party. Turns out Christian did not have a ride home as he had told kenda a apparently she'd walked back to campus with some other party goers. One of them was paul, full name paul florus, a cow paly freshman major in food science heat, grown up in nearby a royal .

grand day.

Calli police asked ball florus to come in.

So drink. So you were drinking in the ozon tools.

pal. Police, the evening began for him with a few beers in the dorm. Before the party.

you get to the party. I walked that feeling in the alcohol. Yeah.

but it's pretty good.

Paul said that at the party, Christian A K. A. Roxi approached him at .

one time party, and SHE says, hi on roxy, you know, no, how do you like from my that?

Did you find the roxy attractive?

no. SHE tell to me what investigators .

that after the party, he and another female student walked most of the way back to the dorms with Christian. Other students said, that was around two A M.

And how do you you end up with with rocket? I don't even know, can I just we were just all living at the same time. That is, when you were walking, when you have her basically walk home.

No, he was going SHE walking. Just find what ever when he said he was called, said he, he said anything. The paul .

lived in the building right across this walkway from Christian. The other Young woman left to go home, and paul said he and Christian sped off here a few steps away from her dorm.

Where is SHE going? What was SHE walking? Was SHE standing still? Was SHE lying down.

She's walking.

He said he returned to his rule, throw up from too much drinking, then took a shower around five A M.

So it's very important that you realize, you know how important this investigation yeah, you're grasp this. SHE has an surfaced. We have to had any sightings over at this point. You're the last person they are.

As they spoke, something caught the investigators attention.

Take you here up for.

Play paul floor .

has had a black eye, a shiner, he said he got a memorial day, the monday after the party.

honey. OK as far as your injuries, yeah that sort of thing.

And that was that paul Flora was sent on his way.

We don't .

know what campus .

police made of paul floor is a story. We do know that the next time he SAT down with investigators, paul florus was saying something different.

June one thousand eight, ninety six, copeland students were packing up for summer break and lingering over those last days of the semester was a huge unanswered question. What had happened to missing freshman Christian smart?

We've gone to origin out around the campus talking to people.

Her father stand was still there in sand Lewis, a bis bo, every day walking the campus and the surrounding community. He wasn't leaving without his daughter.

People really nice. Nobody ever turned me away. If there was a lot gate, they look and say, you go here and look now, you .

feel for.

have any information that's right.

give us. Police were talking with people too, with some help from sanluis a bisco da detective, bill handy. Nearly one month after Christian disappear, handley and his partner asked paul florus to come in for a second interview.

What you think .

happened you best you best.

yes, is to what happened. My best guess is maybe, you know, because her done was by the Parker over there so then I would figure my went up with some .

IT was clear that he possibly was the last one to see her. Stranger.

I could be just someone you knows. So you know he he's going to talk about or something.

Once again, he told them about his walk back to the dorms with Christian.

I went up to my home because walk way goes that way towards done that. She's our walk that way.

Now, investigators have been asking around about paul florus. Remember, he said he gotten that black guy at a basketball game monday. Well, a friend told police. He noticed earlier that weekend.

last time we talked to you like, and what did you tell us? I told you I got to play basketball.

Investigators knew he was lying, and now came a different story.

Where did you get in my car? Because I was uninstalling my radio, because i'm sell in my truck. 还有 the 这个 why you tell， because he does the sound of a very likely thing.

like.

I guess you can call IT. No White, light White. yeah.

So what's going on here? This is a guy covering his tracks. Yes, not very effectively. You smell that.

He showed visible science of being nervous. Yet a White t shirt on, he gonna put his arms inside of the shirt sleeves.

SHE A T shirt that, no, like, he's protecting himself.

That's correct.

suspicious? Yes, enough for an arrest. Not close. Well, we know he's not being truthful, that we're positive ove.

And that was the frustrating thing. In fact, one day after this interview, the campus newspaper the mustang put IT blunt ly. Investigators parents remain clues about missing poli student. The newspaper even quoted campus police as saying there is no evidence of any criminal activity. IT doesn't look like he was the victim of a crime. A strange comment, given that copy pd then handed over the case to the son Lewis, a baseball county sheriff department, for further investigation that was nearly one month after Christian disappeared.

I find IT unfortunate that they didn't reach out for some additional help. The investigation definitely got off to a slow start.

Pan hedge was a commander in the share f's patrol division back in ninety ninety six. He was not a sign of the case at the time. He is familiar with the investigation conducted by calling pd and the criticisms that followed IT.

When we assume the investigation thirty days later, we weren't able to just start IT at square, square one. We were like in a negative number.

cpus. Police did look around paul floris dorm room early on. What they didn't do was take any photos, seize any evidence, nothing that could be tested for blood or DNA or some trace that Christian had ever been there. And by the time the share of department took over the case, students had moved out for the summer, and the dorm had been thorough cleaned.

All the dorm rooms had been sanitized. So we were a bit, bit of a disadvantage or on that .

because that might be your friends say.

most likely everything indicated that, that was at least a significant scene. There may have been others, but that would have been a .

place to start. Christian's family says campus police never should have been in charge of such a serious investigation to begin with.

They had background. And if you're a double party.

drinking and under age, or you're bicycle against no one, right?

And there was something else from the start. Some of those interviewed, including Christian's friend marga remembred, came us police focusing on what Christian war and what you drink.

So campus police were asking us, like, how much did you drink? Did you drink every night? You know, sort of personality profiling her.

They also wanted to know about Christian's sex life.

The type of questions that they would ask me were like really explicit and relation to sex.

We looked at the first audio interview with paul florus just a few days into the investigation. The unreduced anscor pt shows campus police calling Christian promises or massively promised us three times. An interrogation technique maybe, but there's no reason to talk that way to Christ's friend.

I remember one of the campus police was like, oh, well.

he was section the cow. Poli police took me inside and said, you know, your daughter was doing some things that would put her at risk and that she's gone to a party and sh'd drank alcohol like that was unusual for college kids to go to a party and drink alcohol. And that SHE was scarano ally dressed. And I listened all this and was portraying to me that our daughter disappeared. And if he was dead, SHE had brought IT under herself, was totally wrong when .

you think you think they would have worked on IT differently if she'd, you know, been coming back from the library and never, and any boyfriends and, you know.

was wearing a has math suit. Finites been different because IT was a different era, and there was a lot of victim shaming and its like women get with you know what they're asking for.

Now, one month in the case was in new hands, and with some new sniffing, they were about to discover something huge.

These dogs indicated that there been a deceased person in that room.

When as a shield ds went home for the summer, heart broken over her missing friend and dorm mate Christian smart, SHE was replying memories when he hit her. That party on cradle away was not the first time Crystal ever met paul florus.

We at a party, and I just remember looking over and seeing this guy I behind staring, starring Christian. I was just a kind of very serious of intense and direct discuss staring.

Now he says .

that memory gave her child.

then you on again.

another party out. But a few weeks later, he can actually came up to us, and that's when he introduced himself and talk to her.

what I say, what did you guys you going to say?

He was a kind of nervous, but yet he had this little confidence to come up to her was kind of surprise. He thought I had a chance of thick as he was a really beautiful girl. And, you know, he just wasn't her type.

The share of office was now playing serious catch up on an investigation they'd inherited from cpus. Police, are you Operating the presumption that she's no longer alive?

I would say that would be a safe assumption.

Even though paul floris had moved out, his dorm room cleaned. Detectives decided to go back in this time with kids.

ever dogs out of the hundred .

thirteen rooms in seattle, Lucia hall, all four dogs detected human decomposition in the same place, the now vacant room of paul florus. That was progress, just not enough that internet .

itself is not that's not enough to go forward. You can't arrest anybody on the basis of that.

Well, no, i'm not really IT indicated that there had been situation there at some point time IT doesn't give enough for the prosecutors .

to prosecutor case IT was all quite provocative.

but where was Christian and place?

Hundreds of volunteers searched the copy campus and its surrounding hillsides.

Keep your eyes on the ground. You're looking for anything that looks out.

place. The smart family met with local politicians asking for more to be done. And at one of those meetings, someone tried to offer Denny smart some advice.

He said, this smart, he said, this perpetrator took your daughters' life. Don't let them take another life. Don't let them take your husband.

Don't let them take your children. Be present for your children in your husband. I was so infuriated with how dare he tells that my daughter had died.

right? We're still looking .

for yeah where thirty days in and we've not given up. We're going to find her and I so mad at him and upset .

by this time paul Flora had stopped talking with police, he ended up dropping out of kal poli and moving back home. Danny smart new flourish was the last person seen with her daughter. Now her desperation LED her to do something unusual. SHE decided to reach out to paul s. Mothers, Susan, mom to mom, with a campaign to present the story of her daughter er's life.

I need to send their family. This is a Christian is so I made several pages of pictures of Christian that this is who were missing and that we would love to have. Could they please help us?

And so you send all this to the Flora's family?

yes. And I was returned. SHE sent IT back. SHE said, we have our own pictures, which tells me SHE opened IT and then sealed IT and then sent IT back.

Stand smart drove .

to the florist home in a royal grand day to try to speak with paul's father.

rubin. So I drove up there, and there is a fell out in the front. I remembers, stepped out of my truck and introducing how I was, and he didn't want to talk. That was Robin. That was Robin.

And you said i'm staying in small and looking for my daughter.

Yeah, yeah. I'd like to talk. He did not want to talk.

He indicated that I should leave or someone's have to get shot. Well, that's silly talk, amateur talk. So I got back my vehicle.

I left rubin floor is denied that, saying that to stand, stand. And denis say the attitude of the florist family was all about protecting their son. And then IT was memorial day weekend again, one year had done by.

So by main one thousand and ninety seven, they really had IT made a lot of progress in the investigation.

Chloe Jones is the courts and crime reporter for the sand Lewis, a bis bo tribune.

All they had at the time where the cadaver dog lts and evidence that paul floor is lied about .

having a black eye on the anniversary of her disappearance, the sheriffe showed his hand and IT looked like a losing one.

Ed Williams, the sheriffe at the time, told the tribune that they had no other suspects in the case and that all roads lead to paul florea, and they needed paw florus to tell them what happened.

It's pretty like a memo to poll for is saying, if you keep your mind shut, you logne about is like.

what are you think you understand? What are saying .

that was in the .

newspapers are telling us that he is the suspect. And if the suspect doesn't talk, then the case isn't.

So paul floors continued .

to keep quiet. The smart, however, were figuring out ways to get him to talk.

Could you provide me with the names of the persons with whom you have discussed the Christian smart case?

By the fall of one thousand nine hundred ninety seven, Christian smart had been missing for nearly a year and a half. SHE has been seen walking off into the night with her classmate paul florus, the smart family. Initially frustrated by cb as police, we're now losing faith in the next team of investigators.

IT went to the share department. We were very hopeful that IT was going to be moving forward and that, that we would have answers, but that was short lived.

Once again, the smart family took matters into their own hands. Why do you find the wrongful that last to .

solicit information? Because we weren't getting at the .

information in a civil case, their attorney could do what detectives could not question. Paul florus, not in an interrogation, but in a video taped deposition.

Could you provide me with the names of the persons with whom you have discussed the Christian smart case?

Well, sort of I .

fused to answer that question based on the fifth, the moment fit the moment. The fifth, the moment fit .

the moment that how we answered nearly every question taking the fifth, perhaps knowing this civil deposition could later be used by criminal prosecutors.

constitution went .

back to the house.

The atterley for the smarts also deposed paul Flora is father rubin.

Has your son ever told you that he did not kill Christian smart?

We ever asked that question.

Paul dad was questioned .

because investigators believed Christian's murder happened in paul's dorm room and her body was moved. After that, was there a long enforcement .

theory of how he got her body out of the door and and what he might have done with that.

there were .

several theories, one that he had held, taken her from the college.

Paul did not have a car on campus. And the morning after that party, he made one phone call to his parents house investigators and the sort suspected his family was involved in helping paul cover up the murder.

Do you have any information whatsoever? Has toward Christian smart body? maybe?

no.

The depositions provided a lot to interpret, but not hard evidence. The family decided to put their lawsuit on hold. They tried something else about a mile from the floors home. The smart lawyer put up a billboard offering a reward for the missing copy student, and then years will buy. And with them, the answers the smart family sought seem to slip away.

I have seen couples driven apart by something like this. IT can rule in a marriage. IT can read a family that didn't happen with you when we .

had two children and that I think we were .

with the glue to keep us together.

Remember that unsolicited advice about being present, the advice which so infuriated Dennis back when Christian was just thirty days gone, IT kept ringing in her ears and IT helped. I remember .

that conversation to this day, and I did try to be present. I went to their swim ts and basketball games and soccer games, and I and I SAT there, you know, for them. And I thought, you know, Christians, not here. I need to be here for both of us.

So the smart family tried to live their lives without her. Christian's friend vanesa did the same.

I graduated, move back down the Sandy ago and was a medical research. And then I A got mary, got the force.

All the up and downs of life that Christan never got to have.

I was always thinking about special memorial day weekend. There's a part you can lose hope that maybe we never solve this.

Since leaving co poli, margarita has struggled knowing SHE didn't stay with Christian that night.

I had a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and humiliation. My friend disappeared because I left her alone. The way I got over my guilt and shame was Christine's mom. SHE told me that if I would stay with Christine that night, I might have been two girls and not one.

Over the next decade, paul florus finished school at community college. The smart saw him as the only suspect. And so in law enforcement, except standard, denis say they heard less and less from the share of department.

You get the impression after a while that not much is going on, but we knew and they had told us I couldn't share everything with us. You know, after a while.

he gets a little draining. I I can tell you how many times I wrote watters and I said, just call us once a week and say we're working on something this week. I need to know that you are doing something to help Christ OK and use her name. I had to tell them to use her name.

The smarts are complaining about the sand Lewis of bis pocket sherif department under pad hedges. He had taken over the top job in one thousand and ninety eight.

The smart family has this strong sense that there was a period during the sun that you were share of when no work was being done, in this case, in which law enforcement eyes were essentially off of paul Floras.

are they right about that?

No, no, they won't write. We conducted both covered and over surveilLance on him.

Detectives had obtained warrants for wiretaps on the flourish.

Family phones. Perhaps we could get family talking about the case.

They didn't overhear anything unusual. Share of hedges is also brought an undercover FBI agents to coy up the pole and get him talking about his past. They're hoping he says, well, I did kill this girl but .

he didn't do IT. He was one of the tougher .

nuts to crack.

if you will, share of hedge left office in two thousand, and no closer to solving with Christian's smart case than investigators .

before him.

Do you think you did a good enough job of keeping the smart family inform? Because they don't think so.

Yeah, in retrospect, CT, we probably could have done a Better job.

Then someone else started investigating the Christian smart case, someone who'd been intrigued that face on that board after all of the years. And his interest would change everything.

I've driven by a thousand times, and I was suddenly hooked and needed to know more.

Chris lAmbert grew up more than a half an hour south of sand leu, U. S. A bishop when Christian smart disappeared in one thousand nine ninety sex. Chris was eight years old over the years. He drove past those billboards and the fading photos of Christian smart.

I would see this big billboard that said Christian smart missing seventy five thousand dollar reward. And each time I would pass that, I would go that curl. Still missing.

More than two decades later, those billboards were still up. And he says, IT jarred something in him.

I started .

asking friends and family members, do you remember the Christian smart story? And what came out was that a lot of people didn't know the details or were confused about who he was.

Chris had never investigated any crime. He was a musician, not a journalist. He wasn't even a friend of the smart family. He did, however, have an idea.

Everything hit me in a very personal way because it's my home. I wonder if this is the kind of story that I could put together in a way that people would consume in podcast form.

In two thousand and eighteen, he began cold calling anyone connected to the Christian smart case. And people talked.

I don't have a background in this, and I don't have the ability to arrest them. I do think people open up to me and still open up to me more than they have to the shares department, the FBI or other people investigating.

He started putting together the first episodes of a podcast. Not sure what would happen.

One of my biggest spheres early on is when I reach out to Christmas. Smart parents, they might say, we don't want you to tell the story.

Chris attended a memorial the following year for what would have been Christian's forty second birthday, and he approached the knee. smart.

Hi, i'm here to learn about your daughter. And I think that they could see early on that I wasn't like anybody else that had approach them up to this point.

We've had people who wanted write books, people who wanted write stories .

and and you've turned them down.

they didn't feel right and very calmly as Crystal, he just sort of told me about an idea for a podcast.

IT was an idea of a smart family liked IT happened .

in my own backyard, which is why I named the podcast you're own backyard. I'm retracing missing col. Police student Christian smart last known .

steps IT is how many around here either learned of or remembered the story of the Young woman on the biller board and the story of the man suspected of taking her away. What Chris did not see coming was that the podcast made more people want to talk with him.

How many people contact to you and said, I have some personal knowledge of this case.

I think hundreds, if not thousands, by this point.

The same comfort that we had with him, apparently, was the same comfort that those who came forward to talk with him had .

who's heard stories from people who knew paul florea as a little kid. Some of them not very flattering.

There's an incident where he's swimming in the family pool. At some point, there's a girl that he gets into a fight with and suddenly he's holding her down under the pool so he can't breathe. Finally, an adult has to pull him off.

Chris learned that in the years after Christian disappeared, paul Flora had moved south the last Angeles county. He worked for a while at a coca cola bottling plant and was a regular at the local bars. He was also arrested multiple times for drunk driving. Chris interviewed one of paul's girlfriends. During that time.

there was something always odd about him and his family. There was always lots of lots of secrets. He didn't have very many friends.

At first, Chris expected only locals would listen to his podcast.

I thought, if I can just get a couple thousand local people listening to this.

that'll be worth .

IT that was in no IT blew up.

Not in the thousands. Your own backyard podcast gained millions of listeners.

It's different when someone goes missing in your own backyard.

I've caught the attention of the latest sheriffe in town, parkinson.

Chris told the story that people didn't know, and he opened the eyes across the country to Christian share .

of parkinson had been in office for eight years. By then he had run on a promise to make cold cases like Christians a priority.

I promise that I would do everything I could to find Christian and prosecute those that were responsible.

He just really cared. We felt movement, we felt progress, and there was communication.

the smart, say parkinson and his cold case investigator, clinked coal, stayed in regular touch, return their calls and ran down tips that still struggled into the family. None of that LED to immediate answers. IT did make the smart feel. They had two real allies, a podcasting and a detective, working together in an unorthodox relationship.

Chris, a good guy. He gave us some valuable information.

Share information .

with the pod caster.

That's a that's not .

the manual is IT.

No, what's not? It's a risk, but we met with him and we got a good vibe from him.

Detective.

clean coal was now focusing on the florio's family. He got warrants for new wire taps and started monitoring their phone calls.

I heard you ordered some cookies. Yeah, but I had mild. yeah.

The floor's families very cautious.

They're very careful. As coal listened, he heard something interesting.

Yeah, the thing I need to to do this to start .

listen to the podcast and paul mom says, I need you to start listening .

to the podcast. I sten to everything and .

so control IT wherever .

we can patrols, maybe we can you you're the one I can .

tell me that told me that is involved wales, would he be able to pull holes in in the podcast? And he doesn't respond that question, doesn't say why. I don't know why I didn't do anything.

Detective cal found that very suspicious investigators also discovered the floor er's family had started secretly communicating using encysted messaging applications. Together, IT was enough to get new search warrants on properties owned by the florida s family, including the home paul floris owned in los Angeles.

That was a total horter house, filthy black mold. There was such a mass.

Amid the mass, investigator sees paul floris electronic equipment, computers, phones, hard drives.

We were looking for any correspondence, text messages, any, any evidence that could be related to the crime.

And those devices had stories to tell stories about what paul Floras had been doing in the years since Christian smart vanished at the time. Did you suspect that you might be drug?

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listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy add free listening by subscribing the date line premium on apple podcasts, spotify, or deadline premium dot com. I'm keys Morrison for deadline c. If you're not already hooked on p ox dark comedy called based on a true story now is the perfect time to dive a new season is out now and it's an unbelievable unpredictable ride based on a true story starts Kelly, coco and Christmas.

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From the beginning, investigators heard paul Floras had a reputation. He was awkward, made some women uncomfortable, and there was more. Chris lAmbert spoke with women who knew him in the years before Christian smart vanished. They described him as frightening.

Well, his nickname was scary.

Paul, you wouldn't want .

to be learned in the room with them when let a new year friends be drunk .

around him in two thousand twenty. Investigators say they confirm that, and more when they scoured red, those computers and hard drive seized from paul floors as home in san pedro, a waterfront.

neither hood of the los Angeles, we found polls, search history, and we found downloads of pornography film about raping drunk college students that is saved.

And in a file labeled practice, they discovered paul Floras had stored some videos staring himself.

They show paul Floras having sex with girls that our passed out.

They're clearly none in any state to give consent.

No, not at all.

I watched too of imparting, and IT was enough to make me sick that somebody can do that to somebody.

This is date rape. That he is video taping. absolutely.

Investigators learned florus would approach women at bars in his neighborhood around closing time. That's where this woman says he met him in two thousand and fifteen.

He notice you.

I guess. So yes.

we agreed to call her sam and conceal her identity. IT was late, sam says, and he was tipsy and waiting for a ride outside a bar. When florida approach her.

he asked if he could take me home, like, I could take you home. It's, you know, it's fine. And he was very persistent, describe he was awkward and he seemed, mek, that's how I felt like all he just, you know, it's one in the morning and he just wants to hang out and he's been awwad about IT, but let's go get something to eat.

SHE says. SHE got into florrie's car and they drove to a restaurant, after which SHE agreed to go back .

to his place. And when he opens the door, IT was just a hurting mess. And I thought, what in the world did you get yourself into?

SHE says that on his couch, he tried to think of an exit strategy.

He offer me water, and we still .

talk he's .

not yeah .

he's not aggressive .

or anything. But I know that I wanted to leave and I don't know why I didn't muster up the energy or voice I want to go.

which no trouble saying that.

no, never. I am very and fisty. If I don't like something.

you will know .

what happens next.

We go to his bedroom, and then we have relations that I am not participating in.

Forcing him. M not .

forcing is i'm just laying there and just thinking to myself, I wanted to be over, I want to go home, but I never vocally said IT.

Afterward, sam says he passed out, woke up a few hours later and went home feeling groggy, all of which was weird, he says, because he hadn't had any alcohol for several hours.

This was about one. And when I had my last drink and then just had water at the restaurant and at his house.

sam was not one of the women in paul Floras videos. However, when investigators saw those videos, they suspected floris was drugging and raping women from the search warrant. They found mads in his house.

We found flexible and tremendous. Speaking to a local doctor, he said that and flexible mixed together with alcohol could produce the native state of mind for someone who entrusted them as the .

native state of mind, similar to what you see on those videos with those women.

correct?

Years after her encounter with paul flours, sam, listen to Chris s. Podcast and started connecting the dots.

Oh my gosh. Now what all makes sense, why everything happened the way I did.

Sam flashed back to that glass of water. Paul florus handed her at his place.

He went to the kitchen and grab my glass of water that I did not see.

So he was alone with your lack of water for just a few seconds.

as well as when I was at the restaurant with him, I did get up to go to the restaurant room twice.

That brings us back to a detail. On the night Christian went missing, despite all the talk about her being indexed, people didn't report seeing her drink much.

I left her, her and like ten, thirty, eleven and dead over her. By the way.

I never saw her actually drinking. But SHE was definitely under the influence of something.

All these years later, a clear picture was starting to emerge for investigators. They believe, in all likelihood, paul drug Christian the night he disappeared and went on to do IT to other women again and again and again. If paul laws .

is guilty of Christian smart murder, then he wasn't prosecuted for IT back what had happened, and he was free. Then.

yes.

to assault you chemically and literally. And other women do. Yeah, all because of the inaction of law enforcement back then.

Yeah.

they dropped the ball .

when you see paul floors essentially assaulting women who cannot resist, you got to know that's the Price of not .

arresting him up here. And that told us that we we need to get this done right. He doesn't belong on the street.

Investigators hoped this would be their shot to finally lock up paul florus, if not for Christian's, Better than maybe on rape charges.

So we involved L, P, D to help to identify these women. We had crimes that we are witnessing. We had many, many conversations with L, A, P, D and los Angeles D, S. office.

Those attempts to build a rape prosecution against floria in la, or unsuccessful, he was still out there free to walk the streets or go to any bar. And twenty four years later, the smart still had no answers. What investigators really needed was to dig up some new evidence. And in two thousand and twenty one they quite literally .

did I was sitting right, their hard pounding thinking we were gone, find her.

More than two decades after Christian smart disappearance, paul florea was still a free man. Then in two thousand twenty one, a tip came in, relayed by pod caster Chris lAmbert, Crystal detectives, that a guy who read a room on rubin Flora as property had moved out. And he was now talking.

He told us that no one was allowed underneath the deck of the house for any reason.

And to the make an eye what wasn't to the deck.

just yard tools. Nothing really.

But that was off limits.

IT was off limits, according to this renter who lived there for ten years.

On march fifteen, two thousand twenty one calls teams served another search ward at rubin Floras as home. This time they came equipped with cute ver dogs, a couple of archaeologists and some ground penetrating radar. The search lasted two days.

They found a very suspicious location underneath the deck, six foot by four feet deep.

Even to the uneducated, you could tell that that was A A hole that had recently been dug.

Yes, you could see actual solo Marks in some of the areas. And then as we got down about eighteen to twenty four inches, we started seeing very suspicious staining. The archaeologist who was happiness said was consistent with human decomposition fluid.

They kept digging.

I was sitting right at the whole heart pounding, thinking we were gone final. This is the.

this is IT. Except IT wasn't. If Christian smart had been buried under that deck, SHE was there no longer before they left. Investigators took samples of those stains.

R.

and then paul Flora's mothers, Susan, agreed to talk on camera with a reporter from N, B, C. A, fillip. K, S, B, Y.

But they keep trying to find the answers with us, and they keep fAiling because the answers aren't here.

Yeah, was surprising. They've always been very quiet, not wanting to discuss things. So when I saw that tape, I I was shocked.

This is ridiculous. What happened here today? They took his life away from him, too.

Susan Flora said he had no idea what happened to Christian smart and that her family was being targeted unfairly.

And where you guys anticipating this, where you go surprised at all?

No, i'm not supposed to anything they do. They are arrested.

Mini x.

it's not gonna change the fact that we can help this family find their child.

The woman Denny smart had once tried to reach mother to mother, still had nothing to offer.

Is two families that your family done everything you can to find some answers, and they've .

done everything they can to.

Investigators rushed those stained samples from the dig to the lab, and finally .

a break.

They tested .

IT positive for human blood four feet down.

That blood was too degraded.

For a DNA test, yes, IT was too degraded. But who has blood in their soil four feet down with human d contains and a previously g area.

If that's that Christ, more than who is that?

Who else did you have buried in your backyard?

That's what finally get here with the arrest.

turtle. Yes, that finally got us to a point where we've felt the case was chargeable. And vinyl.

on April .

thirteenth, two thousand and one, almost twenty five years after Christian smart disappeared, detectives made the more than two hundred mile track from sand is a bis o. To paul Flora as home and sand pedro, and finally put him in cuffs.

When IT finally happened, IT was that surreal moment as I, they really arrested him. They really arrested him.

I didn't really know how I should feel or how to process IT, but of course, if IT seem like a fantastic outcome.

I was so happy and relieved to know that a day that I had hoped, what happened for years, finally came. So I was just read that someone I felt was violent was, yeah, all of the streets.

the charge against paw florus murder during the commission, or attempted commission of rape. And that same day, the share of office made a second arrest. Rubin floris was charged as an accessory after the accused of helping his son can seal Christian smart body.

Then we found a, they arrested rubin, and site was a good day. That was a good day.

Rubin floors, as attorney, said his arrest was simply a tactic to try to prior confession out of his sunball. So would paul florus finally talk, or maybe he already had?

He just works this out? Yes.

no smart, no smile. No, i'm screwing with you.

He just says.

IT strake face.

For twenty six years, the smart family waited and waited and hoped for this day, july eighteenth, two thousand and twenty two, the criminal trials of paul flourish and rubin flourish began. Paul was forty five, the same age Christian would have been. During the trial, the judge allowed still photography, but no audio or video. Father and son would be tried in the same courtroom at the same time, but with separate juries. Prosecutor crisp of rail.

Young, viBrant nineteen year old women don't just vanished into thin air and leave all of their earthly possession ons and belongings behind. That just doesn't happen.

The case against paul Flora was almost entirely circumstantial. No DNA, no eyewitnesses and of course, nobody.

This was the first nobody case that I tried. It's extremely difficult .

and i'm trying to build that circumstantial events to show. There's just no other explanation for what happened to Christian.

The prosecutors span a decades long narrative from the night Christian disappeared all the way to those searches at the florist home. Party goers and Christian's friends like veness shields took the stand, was IT like to walk in the court room, and he's there.

That was terrifying. I had to stare at him. He still had that same really intense stare that just kind of give you the crews. And I was anxious, I was nervous. But then I just kept thinking, you know, you have to do .

this for Christian. The jars watched that nineteen ninety .

six interview with paul. Flu is hard. Tell.

did you got that black hand? I didn't really Better.

They listen to his changing explanations of his black, and they saw what investigators believed was telling body language. The backbone of the prosecution case was the forensics, starting with the canada dogs are learning at the door. And then decades later, the discovery under run floris deck, the prosecution brought in a scientist to explain something called a can direct test that determined the samples were human blood. Were you worried .

at all the jurors weren't going to really grasp the the technical stuff?

I feel like people today, we're really pretty heavy.

Thanks to shows like yours. I people understand that .

if you test for human blood.

it's human blood. The state's theory was that floris murdered Christ while rapping her part of a pattern of sexual assault that continued for years. Prosecutors documented numerous rapes they believe paul floris committed by drugging and assaulting women and then recording IT on video. The judge allowed two of those women to testify. Anonymous ly.

they said they met, pull out a bar and they went home with them. They were given a drink, and then they don't remember anything besides bits and pieces of being assaulted. They gave very emotional, very, very powerful testimonies to the point that even some .

jurors cried during IT. Prosecutor pareil saved one witness until the last days of his case. This woman, her name is Jennifer hudson. SHE says he met paul florist in nineteen, nineteen ninety six, just weeks after Christian disappeared.

we were at escape board ramp, someone else college teus.

Jennifer was just nineteen, them hanging out with friends.

This guy comes up and sits across from a buddy and myself.

Someone had the radio playing.

and after a few songs, a but public outreach commercial came on looking for Christian.

Christian.

marked by name.

SHE says that guy had a dramatic reaction to hearing the name Christian smart and says.

debate was a, and i'm sick of dealing with us. So I put her under a ramp at his place in wasa.

Wsa is a rural area not far from where the floris family lived. The implication being that Crystal was buried there near a skate rap.

You believe in a thousand percent, you know, when a person has a soul, he did not. And that that's what made me believe him.

SHE says SHE later saw a story on the Christian smart case and recognized paul Flora is. However, he did not go to police back then because he says he was scared, and SHE didn't think that would do any good .

had I gone to the law on my own and said at any point I ran under this guy, and this is what he said, would that have been enough to arrest them? no.

And you would have .

filled in danger.

absolutely.

The one person that I did tell in two thousand and two was a roommate of mine.

That roommate later left a tip on a website dedicated to finding Christian. Years later, Chris lAmberth t saw that post and track down Jennifer, and he passed her name to detective clint coal, which is how Jennifer ended up telling her story in court more than twenty five years later. SHE wants to apologize to the smart for not speaking .

up soon on me.

If I didn't bug me, i'd be as evil as Paulas.

Over three months, the prosecution built its case, while the defense argued the whole thing was shaky.

I mean.

IT was hook s pocus. The verdict is passed up to the judge. Your heart starts pounding out of your chest.

The trials of rubin and paul floor has lasted months. At the defense table, father and son SAT side by side. The two defendants were represented by separate attorneys. Robert singer defended paul florus. Rubins attorney was harrd music.

What was your strategy going .

in a trial attack? The prosecutions, lack of evidence. Prosecution was very depth in this case. They took what little they had, and they spun quite a story.

His central focus was on the forensics, the evidence dug up on the florist property.

I mean, IT was hooke's pocus.

What was buried done to there? For one Christian smart.

nothing was buried done to there. IT was just disturbed soil from a tree being pulled out.

So when the prosecution says they have tests confirming human blood in the soil, what they are line .

about that they missed use the same direct test IT was specifically not approved or validated for use to discover soil in blood .

to hear the defense telling if the case against paul flowers was weak, the case against his father was virtually non existent.

Certainly, rubin would do anything for his son, but rubin didn't have to do anything for his son. There was never a body in rubin's yark ever.

As for Jennifer hudson and her story.

Jennifer hudson's testimony, I think he was suspect. I think the way I was brought to light by the podcast and the possibility of seventy five thousand reward, I just did not find her credible at all.

also not credible to the defense, the prevAiling notion that over the years, the floris family protected paw.

there are sweet family. They've been totally mischaracterize in the press.

Why do you think the florist family, this sweet kind family, would be so and tagish and so unwilling to help the smart family? When they reached out for help for their missing daughter.

they were approached in a way that they were this evil crime family that caused the disappearance of a Young girl. And that's just not true.

In court massic echo to theory, campus police had pursued more than a quarter century earlier. Maybe Christian just took off.

What I said was without a body, we can't be sure she's dead. And I know that's hurtful maybe to hear the smart family, but ruby is not a part of this. We don't know where Christian is.

You're a smart guy. I don't even think you believe Christian smart alive somewhere.

I do believe with all my heart that he may be alive and may be a slim chance, but there's a chance that's why we need a body. Then let let me ask you the question. Why do you believe she's dead because she's missing? No.

she's not just that she's missing. SHE didn't contact with her family. SHE didn't contact any other friends. SHE wasn't sort of person to just up and disappear. If SHE had disappeared, SHE would have taken her stuff with her and he was last scene in the company of a guy who previously had a history of weird sexual behavior towards women, and later was accused of a number of rapes and of drugging women and having the insects with them. And he was the last person to see her alive.

That's why I don't think she's around. The defense concedes none of that.

The evidence in this case, again, is weak, insufficient. And I get a lot of heat for that. But i'm a defensive turney, so I get a lot of .

heat on october teeth, the juries were back in the courtroom, this time with verdicts paul florus guilty of first degree murder.

I mean, I just kind of doubled up, even though I wanted IT IT was just so unreal that this jury had actually listened.

Rubin flour jury found him not guilty.

We got the elephant. We didn't get the mouse.

Can you live without?

Do we have an object, a choice? This is a parent's worst nightmare.

At paul flower is sentencing hearing earlier this month, the smart came one by .

one to the podium to .

address the judge and floors each for back tears. Dennis was last to speak with one final appeal to paul florea return Christian to her family.

This is clearly too late for us, but paul is not too late for you to tell the truth to free your soul in your heart from the wait that must be Carrying. You are, after all, human being.

During that, paul floors didn't do as much as turn his head.

He's is just so less the south creature.

The judge agreed what .

the sentencing will provide is accountability. mr. Floris .

unit.

a cancer to society. You are committed to the maximum, certainly, that I can impose by the law and indeterminate term of twenty five years to life.

If IT were up to the smart paul flower, a sentence would be longer. My next .

mission in life is to ensure that there is an enhancement ment for those who murder someone and harper their body.

How would that help you?

That would help us because there would be an incentive for him to come forward and tell us where Christine is if they added ten years to his sentence, is probable that he might give this a second thought.

Another mission, in the wake of their frustration with kalpi capus police, the smart took action. They help pass the Christian smart safety act in california, require in campus police to coordinate with local law enforcement. Now they want that expanded.

Well, what should be nationwide? We are not training campus police officers to deal with hommat des or kidnappings.

In response to our requests for an interview, the copy administration pointed out that the initial investigation into Christian's case took place under a different leadership. The administration called her case and Normally and said, terrible things can and do still happen in safe places. In response to our specific question about how campus police raised questions about Christian sex life and other personal details, the university said that this situation should have been handled much differently. IT is never appropriate to describe a victim as promised us, and IT runs completely counter to our practices and procedures and .

says deputy Chris lAmbert .

is working on the final episode of his bad guest, very much aware of what his curiosity helped bring. Any.

i've been absolutely devastated by the loss of somebody I never even got to meet, and I can't imagine had had been my own file member.

Time has not dulled the smart memories of Christian .

SHE just always believed in her future. SHE just knew what he wanted to do. SHE had .

wonderful hugs and smiles and to cheerleader for other two children.

Long ago, the smart found a way to navigate their loss, to take that advice to be present for one another.

I'm glad you listen to that.

Well, I was unhappy at the time, but in .

retrospect.

IT was the right thing, right thing to here.

a strong family, a happy one that love fuels the smarts, even though they still don't have a daughter to bury.

You know, there's this feeling out there in the world by people who don't know you that now worth the end. You know, he's been locked up. You should be OK now it's .

not the end.

no. And this done, go.

Why does IT? no?

You know, as a mother, I feel like I have a piece of her within me. So it's it's a death that is never going to go away.

That's all for this edition of deadline. We will see you again sunday at seven six central. And of course, i'll see you which weeknight for nbc nightly news. I'm lester holt for all of us at nbc news. Good night.

Friday night on deadline.

did you sexually assault anyone? Did you do fraud?

Anyone, the international .

delight .

friday at nine, eight central only on N, B, C.