It’s been 30 years since Kristin Smart’s household final noticed her smile light up a room.
The faculty freshman vanished from California Polytechnic State University’s San Luis Obispo campus over Memorial Day weekend in 1996, sparking a decades-long investigation that led to the trial and conviction in 2022 of Paul Flores for her homicide.
But even after years of looking, authorities have by no means recovered Smart’s physique and he or she was declared dead in 2002.
Smart’s household stated they really feel Flores continues “to stand in the way of our daughter being returned to us.”
“We continue to pray for the day when we can finally lay her to rest in the presence of those who love her,” the household stated in an open letter on their web site.
A new search warrant served Wednesday at the Arroyo Grande, California, dwelling of Flores’ mom is the newest signal investigators stay dedicated to discovering solutions, even after securing a conviction for Smart’s homicide.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson stated his workplace has been “continually working the case.”
“I said when Paul Flores got convicted that the case wasn’t over, and it’s never going to be over until we return Kristin to her family,” Parkinson stated in an interview on the Up + Adam podcast recorded Wednesday.
Parkinson is anticipated to maintain a press convention Friday morning about the newest search, in accordance to the sheriff’s workplace.
Here’s what we know and the way Smart’s case has unfolded over the years.
Investigators swarmed Flores’ mom’s dwelling on Wednesday and Thursday, scouring the packed garage and examining the deck.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office confirmed in a statement the dwelling belonged to Susan Flores. NCS reached out to attorneys who beforehand represented the household and to Susan Flores however didn’t instantly hear again. She has not been accused of wrongdoing by prosecutors in the case.
Tim Nelligan, an professional in soil vapor testing, informed The Associated Press on Thursday he was on the premises, gathering samples in Susan Flores’ yard in addition to a neighbor’s yard.
Nelligan declined to focus on the investigation however stated his “team has, in general, ‘come up with a methodology to assess soil vapor’ and its relation to ‘human cadaver decomposition.’”
The search goes to be “extremely thorough” and will take two or three days, Parkinson informed podcast host Adam Montiel.
“We’ve proven already that Paul did it. We believe that Kristin, at one time, was on Paul Flores’ father’s property. We know she’s been moved, so where she moved to … we’re hunting that down,” he stated.
Flores and his household have been at the middle of the search for Smart since the earliest days of the investigation into her disappearance.
Officials have stated Flores, who was a 19-year-old freshman at the time, was the last person to see Smart alive after they walked again to their dorms from a celebration.
But it might take many years for authorities to collect sufficient proof to cost him with Smart’s homicide.
The college’s police initially led the investigation into Smart’s disappearance. Her dad and mom, Stan and Denise, additionally spent weeks trying to find their daughter on their very own. Her father posted flyers with a photograph of Kirstin, who was tall and blonde, all through city. He additionally gathered his personal search celebration to comb close by hillsides and lakes and even enlisted the assist of a psychic to help in his search, according to local news reports.
Then, two months after Kristin Smart vanished, investigators zeroed in on a person they’d later establish as Flores.
Flores’ account of the evening Smart disappeared had modified, Cal Poly Police Chief Tom Mitchell told reporters at the time, and when the faculty pupil was interviewed by police, he’d had a black eye and scrapes and bruises on his knee.
Shortly after their preliminary interviews with Flores, the freshman retained a lawyer and stopped cooperating with investigators.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office assumed the lead investigative role in the case a month after she disappeared.
During a Okay-9 search of campus in the weeks following Smart’s disappearance, a number of cadaver canines alerted in Flores’ dorm room, the sheriff informed the San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune in August 1996.
The alerts, coupled with Flores’ shifting narrative and accidents, led authorities to declare Smart’s disappearance a felony case – and so they named Flores as a person of interest.
But they have been nonetheless lacking a key piece of proof: Kristin Smart’s physique.
Flores and his household have been subpoenaed to testify earlier than a grand jury to get statements on the file. But with out bodily proof, investigators didn’t imagine they’d sufficient to cost him with Smart’s homicide.
In an interview with NCS three years after their daughter went lacking, Stan and Denise Smart stated they hoped they’d someday have the opportunity to lay their daughter to relaxation.
And they shared a message for Paul Flores.
“We will have a resolution and he will wish that he’d come forward much sooner,” Denise Smart stated.
“We believe he’s definitely involved,” her husband added. “The best outcome would be that we’d be able to find our daughter’s remains and we’d be able to have some justice.”
For many years, Flores remained an individual of curiosity in Smart’s disappearance.
And for many years, billboards with Smart’s smiling face stood like sentinels alongside Highway 101, silently urging anybody with data to come ahead.
Driving previous the billboard would function a periodic reminder: After many years, authorities nonetheless hadn’t discovered Kristin, Chris Lambert, a podcaster who grew up in the space, stated in the first episode of his present, “Your Own Backyard.”
Years later, after studying a Los Angeles Times article on Smart’s disappearance, Lambert stated he was surprised to notice he lived close to lots of the places in the case. So, he started retracing Smart’s remaining steps, interviewing her household, and even talking with investigators who’d labored on her case for years.
With every episode, his podcast gained traction, and Kristin’s identify – and the particulars surrounding her disappearance – drew renewed consideration.
Meanwhile, investigators continued to work the case. After many years with few indicators of outward progress, authorities had their first public breakthrough in 2020.
The sheriff’s workplace obtained a warrant to monitor then-43-year-old Paul Flores’s cellphone and messages. In February 2020, detectives served a search warrant at his dwelling, in addition to the houses of his sister, mom and father, in accordance to a information launch from the sheriff’s office.
They additionally recovered bodily proof from Flores’ dwelling in April that 12 months, the workplace stated.
Then a 12 months later, in March 2021, detectives served a warrant at the Arroyo Grande dwelling of Flores’ father, Ruben. Detectives used ground-penetrating radar and dug the property utilizing hand instruments, the sheriff’s office told NCS at the time.
“Additional evidence related to the murder of Kristin Smart is discovered at the site,” the sheriff’s division stated in a statement.
Prosecutors would later allege Ruben helped his son conceal Smart’s physique underneath the household’s deck earlier than relocating her stays.
On April 13, 2021 – virtually precisely 25 years since Kristin Smart disappeared – authorities arrested Paul Flores and charged him together with her homicide.
Ruben Flores was additionally arrested and charged with allegedly aiding Flores in hiding Smart’s physique – a physique investigators had nonetheless not recovered.
But they now believed their case was sturdy sufficient to deliver earlier than a jury.
The trial of Paul and Ruben Flores
Paul and Ruben Flores’ trials started in July 2022 and would final for practically three months.
Prosecutors argued Paul Flores raped or attempted to rape Smart and killed her in his dorm room earlier than enlisting his father to allegedly assist him conceal her physique underneath the deck of his dwelling.
“Dozens of women have recounted Paul Flores’ sexual assaults and predatory behavior that document his twenty-five years as a serial rapist,” Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle wrote in documents filed in the case.
Peuvrelle later informed jurors throughout Ruben Flores’ trial that searches of his dwelling turned up soil samples that examined constructive for human blood, NCS affiliate KSBY reported.
Throughout the trials the attorneys representing the Flores household vehemently asserted their shoppers’ innocence, repeatedly citing a scarcity of eyewitnesses and proof.
But in October 2022, two separate juries reached their verdicts. Paul Flores was discovered guilty of first-degree murder and later sentenced to 25 years to life in jail.
But his father, Ruben, was acquitted of the costs towards him. Outside the courtroom, Ruben Flores informed reporters, “It’s too bad the system works that way, on feelings instead of facts.”
He added he felt unhealthy for Smart’s household as a result of they by no means acquired a real reply as to what occurred to their daughter.
Wednesday’s search of Susan Flores’ dwelling renewed the hope for these solutions in the small city of San Luis Obispo, which had been rattled by Smart’s disappearance for many years.
Parkinson stated all through his time as sheriff, he’s repeatedly cautioned the Smart household to handle their expectations and never get their hopes up.
Still, he acknowledged, “There is no closure. There’s justice and there’s some form of peace that they have their daughter back, and … that’s all you can do.”
After many years, Smart’s household and the investigators working to deliver her dwelling stay cautiously optimistic.
“For thirty years, we have lived with a pain no family should have to endure, as heartache, frustration, and setbacks have woven themselves into our everyday lives,” her household stated in a statement posted on their web site.
And, they said, they may proceed to be uplifted by the instance Kristin Smart set: “She was not one to give up.”