In 1980, the tiny town of San Miguel, California, was shaken when two kindergarten girls vanished in broad daylight from a main street. Despite a long list of local child predators and bizarre clues, the trail went cold in a matter of years. But now, nearly 5 decades later, the very detective who solved the Kristin Smart case has come out of retirement to take another look, and he’s closer than ever before to a solve.
Duration
1h 6m
Broadcast on
10 Nov 2025
Audio Format
other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
In 1980, the tiny town of San Miguel, California, was shaken when two kindergarten girls vanished in broad daylight from a main street. Despite a long list of local child predators and bizarre clues, the trail went cold in a matter of years. But now, nearly 5 decades later, the very detective who solved the Kristin Smart case has come out of retirement to take another look, and he’s closer than ever before to a solve.
Terry’s family is currently trying to raise $10,000 for a billboard on Highway 101 and $25,000 to create a reward for information. If you’d like to help her out with that we’ve included the link here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-mezo-flores-murder-case
Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.
Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Hi, crime junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is one of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office most enduring mysteries. And it's not the one you're probably thinking of. I mean, for most crime junkies, when you hear San Luis Obispo, one case comes to mind. Yeah, Kristen Smart. Exactly. But her case now solved was never the most baffling one, far from it. The strangest case the Sheriff's Office is tasked with solving is from 16 years before Kristen Smart went missing. When two little girls vanished off the street in broad daylight in the middle of San Miguel, a town with only 800-ish residents, everyone is a suspect, and every theory is still on the table, even after their bodies were discovered, and there were plenty of strange clues and physical evidence. Now, the only reason you don't know about this case is because it's never been told in full before, not until today. And this is one that you're going to want to pay attention to, because even though this case is 45 years old, big things are about to happen. The currently detective on this case literally came out of retirement just to solve it, and he just so happens to be the same guy who solved Kristen Smart's case in 2022. But in this one, he has fresh leads and DNA evidence on his side, so this case is closer than ever before to being solved, but now it's a race against time to make sure justice comes while these girls' families are still alive to witness it. This is the story of Teresa Flores and Martha Meso. Saturday, May 17, 1980, would be the start to a mystery that has endured for the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office for 45 years. What is the day that four-year-old Martha Meso and five-year-old Teresa Flores known to their families as Marty and Terry just vanished off the face of the earth? And I know people say that a lot when it comes to missing-person cases, but this time it is not an exaggeration, it's really the only way to describe it. Over the course of the investigation, Sheriff's deputies put together a detailed timeline of Marty and Terry's movements that morning, basically a minute-by-minute record of what they did, where they were, who they were with, up until around 11.30am, when then all of a sudden they're just gone. So here's what we know. According to Detective Clint Cole, the current detective on the case, the night before both girls had to sleep over at Terry's house, and then the next morning at around 10.45am, Terry's aunt Virginia took them into town to run some errands. Now Marty and Terry had a birthday party to go to later that day, so they wanted to go to the market, pick up some flowers, a card, a gift. And when I say go into town, I really mean Mission Street, this one block in San Miguel where everything is. We're talking about kind of an unincorporate, not kind of, it is an unincorporated community with one main road, one school, one post office. Everything is pretty much within walking distance. So Virginia, Terry, and Marty walk to Mission Street. But before the market, Virginia has to stop at the post office, which as you can imagine, the kindergartners were not exactly thrilled about. They have plans to do in the post office is boring AF.
Transcription truncated.
In 1980, the tiny town of San Miguel, California, was shaken when two kindergarten girls vanished in broad daylight from a main street. Despite a long list of local child predators and bizarre clues, the trail went cold in a matter of years. But now, nearly 5 decades later, the very detective who solved the Kristin Smart case has come out of retirement to take another look, and he’s closer than ever before to a solve.
