“20/20” Reports on the Notorious Disappearance of Kristin Smart

This week, ABC’s 20/20 reports on the notorious disappearance of Kristin Smart, whose killer has finally been brought to justice after a decades-long investigation.

What’s Happening:

  • An all-new 20/20 reports on the notorious case of Kristin Smart, a first-year student at Cal Poly University whose disappearance from a fraternity party one night in 1996 captured national attention for over two decades.
  • 20/20 revisits the events surrounding the case, the decades-long investigation into Smart’s disappearance, and explains how police finally captured her killer — who was sentenced to prison in March of this year.

  • Chief national correspondent Matt Gutman unpacks how law enforcement officials were finally able to bring the killer to justice, using cutting-edge investigative techniques and groundbreaking forensic research.
  • The two-hour program features interviews with an unlikely witness that turned out to be the key to a conviction, friends and family of Smart, those involved in the case, and investigators who refused to let the case go cold in search of the truth.
  • The program also includes interrogation and deposition tapes of the suspect, ABC News’ archival footage of the 1996 disappearance, and comments from the jurors themselves on what it was that put her killer away more than 25 years after Kristin Smart vanished.
  • 20/20 airs on Friday, June 23rd (9:01-11:00 p.m. EDT) on ABC, streaming the next day on Hulu.
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Luke Manning
Luke is a fan of all things theme parks and self-proclaimed #1 fan of Joffrey’s Coffee, who lives in Kissimmee, FL