Update 5:47 p.m. Tues., Sept. 13
Remains were found at the Kristin Smart excavation site at the hillside near the “P” last week, according to San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tony Cipolla.
The Sheriff’s Office is waiting for the anthropologist to analyze the remains before they make a determination.
“They have found remains at the excavation site,” Cipolla said. “We won’t know what the remains are until the anthropologist analyzes them, which can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.”
Update 2:37 p.m. Fri., Sept. 9
The San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office and FBI found three items of interest while digging at the excavation site at the Cal Poly “P” where they are looking for the remains of Kristin Smart. One item was found Wednesday, another on Thursday and the last on Friday.
They are not disclosing what those items are at this time.
“If they are related, that opens up a whole new avenue in this investigation,” Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tony Cipolla said. “If they are not related, we will continue on. We have developed leads in other locations.”
The next step is to have these items analyzed by the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office on-site forensic anthropologist and then at the FBI headquarters in Virginia. If both parties agree that the items are human, they will be sent off to a DNA lab for further analysis.
The FBI will wrap up their evidence recovery process late Friday afternoon. While the FBI and San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office are waiting for analysis, there will most likely not be any more digging at the Cal Poly “P.”
Original story:
According to a campus-wide email sent from the Office of the President, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and FBI began an excavation project near the Cal Poly “P” on Sept. 6 to determine if the remains of Kristin Smart, a Cal Poly student who went missing in May 1996, are near the area.
After reviewing the Kristin Smart case, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office has reason to believe that Kristin Smart’s remains could be buried on the hillside near the Cal Poly “P,” according to a press release from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office. There are specifically three areas of interest near the “P”, according to Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tony Cipolla, and the digging has begun just to the left of the “P” itself.
Human Remains Detection dogs were brought in from FBI headquarters in January and they independently pointed to the three locations of interest near the “P,” according to the Sheriff’s Office press release.
The “P” is just one of the locations being looked at. The Sheriff’s Office will not disclose the other locations at this time.
Though there is no concrete timeline for how long the excavation and investigation of the “P” area will take, Cipolla approximated around a week. The top levels of the K1 parking lot will be closed off during that time for the investigation.
The lead that directed law enforcement to the “P” area has been developing for the past two years, the Sheriff’s Office press release said.
The Sheriff’s Office will publish press releases as information on the investigation develops.
“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh you found Kristen.’ Well, no, we haven’t. Not yet. But we are hopeful that this will lead us to some answers,” Cipolla said.