What Happened to Young Tech Entrepreneur After His Emails Abruptly Stopped?

What Happened to Young Tech Entrepreneur After His Emails Abruptly Stopped?

In the summer of 2011, young tech entrepreneur Chris Smith had been missing for almost a year.

At first, his family believed the 31-year-old former professional wakeboarder had sold his lucrative debt-consolidation business, 800Xchange, to set off on an epic, around-the-world travel adventure.

But his family soon became concerned when his emails abruptly stopped.

Their concern turned to fear when they reached out to the U.S. State Department and discovered there was no indication that he had ever even left America.

The family shared their worries — and Smith’s emails — with California private investigator Joe Dalu.

“You could hear the desperation and pain in [Smith’s father] Steve’s voice,” says Dalu in Monday’s episode of People Magazine Investigates on Investigation Discovery, airing tonight at 10 p.m. (An exclusive clip is shown above.)

Dalu says he became suspicious immediately upon reading the emails — as were Smith’s family members.

“What I picked up on was this email about [Smith’s father] Steve questioning Chris, ‘Hey, if this is you, son, tell me what boat pulled you skiing and what lake you grew up on.”

Dalu says that in a follow-up email, Smith laughed off his father’s email as “testing him,” and then told his father that the lake he grew up on was called Kelly Lake.

But, says Dalu, “he never answered the boat question.”

Chris Smith | Orange County Sheriff's Department
Chris Smith | Orange County Sheriff's Department

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A few weeks later, Dalu says, Smith’s brother Paul received an email from Smith asking him the name of the boat that had pulled them when they went skiing.

The case took a darker turn when Dalu discovered what looked like smudges of human blood on the light switch, baseboard, ceiling and door casing in Smith’s old San Juan Capistrano office. Dalu contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and soon investigators confirmed — the office was a crime scene.

“Every bit of the blood found in 800Xchange was identified as Chris,” says Dalu.

People Magazine Investigates: Vanished airs tonight at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery.