Missing California student Kristin Smart was killed in 1996 during an attempted rape by a fellow student and the suspect’s father helped hide her body, San Luis Obispo County prosecutor said Wednesday. Prosecutors have filed a first-class murder charge against Paul Flores and filed an action after the murder of his father, Ruben Flores, for helping him hide Smart’s body, which has never been found, Dan Dow said.
The two were arrested Tuesday after years of investigations and searches that recently led to evidence related to the murder of Smart.
Smart (19) from Stockton was last seen on May 25, 1996 when she returned to her residence on the California Polytechnic State University campus in San Luis Obispo after a party off campus. She was drunk at the time and Flores, a first-year student at the school, offered to walk home.
Flores killed Smart in his dormitory, Dow said. Investigators, who are searching for his father’s property in nearby Arroyo Grande on Tuesday, believe they know where the body was buried, but have not yet located or disclosed it.
Handout via Carla Hoffman
Dow urged the public to come forward with any information they may have about the murder or other crimes committed by Paul Flores.
In recent years, Paul Flores has visited bars in his home in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles and possibly committed other sexual assaults, Dow said. He did not disclose what investigators found, but said they were looking for other crime victims.
“We have evidence that we believe there were still people who have not yet been identified, who committed a criminal act by Mr Flores,” Dow said. “We are concerned about sexual assault.”
Prosecutors have filed a notice with the court that they are trying to bring evidence of other sex crimes to indicate that Flores is trying to rape Smart.
Flores has been under suspicion since the earliest days of Smart’s disappearance. He went from a “person of interest” to a “suspect” to “the main suspect” – and now the accused.
He and his father are in jail and are due to be arrested on Thursday.
Ian Parkinson, sheriff of San Luis Obispo province, said the arrests came after a search of the older Flores’ home last month with ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs found new evidence related to the murder of Smart.
Smart’s family issued a statement saying it was a bittersweet day they had been waiting for and a first step in bringing their daughter home.
“While Kristin’s loving spirit will always live in our hearts, our life without her hugs, laughter and smiles is a sadness that never subsides,” they said. “Knowing that a father and son, despite our desperate pleas for help, could withhold this awful secret for nearly 25 years, and deny us the chance to rest our daughter, is a relentless and unforgivable pain.”
Flores, 44, was arrested at his home in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles and handcuffed to a police car wearing pajamas and a surf T-shirt. His father, Ruben Flores, 80, was arrested at his home in Arroyo Grande – about 15 miles[25 km]south of the university.
New witnesses have been found over the past few years and warrants have allowed investigators to intercept and monitor Paul Flores’ phone and text messages and search his own home, along with those of his mother, father and sister seeking new evidence. gained, Parkinson said. He refused to provide more details because search rights were sealed.
Parkinson also attributed the podcast “Your Own Backyard” for giving the case renewed attention that led to the appearance of an important witness.
The creator of the podcast, Chris Lambert, grew up in the area and was intrigued by a billboard that offered a $ 75,000 reward for information that led to Smart.
“Driving past that billboard was a periodic reminder that, oh yes, they still hadn’t found that girl,” Lambert said in the podcast’s opening episode. “It’s different when someone goes missing in your own backyard.”
Parkinson, who held his news conference near where Smart was last seen alive with Flores, admitted that wrongdoing by law enforcement officers hampered the investigation.
Smart was only reported missing three days after she was last seen. A sleeper at the time said police were initially reluctant to report a report of missing persons because it was the weekend of Memorial Day and she may have left campus.
Smart’s family said in their statement that an indifference and lack of determination that we experienced early on gave the course many years. ‘
The Smart family filed a $ 40 million lawsuit against Paul Flores in 1996, adding to the university for allegedly failing to protect their daughter. The case was adjourned until the outcome of the criminal case, a family spokesman said.
“There’s actually no hiding place for the fact that mistakes were made early on, and that made it a lot harder,” Parkinson said. “You know the first 48 hours are pretty critical for a missing person or a homicide.”
Parkinson compared the case to a puzzle where missing pieces were found, leading to new evidence and places to search that then revealed other information.
“It’s a very slow process to locate each of those little pieces,” he said.
Over the years, they have served more than 40 search warrants at 16 locations, gathering nearly 200 new pieces of evidence and using modern DNA techniques to test more than three dozen older pieces of evidence. There was so much evidence compiled that it would fill three terabytes on a computer’s hard drive, he said.
Sheriff’s Office in San Luis Obispo
Paul Flores has remained a mum over the years, invoking his fifth right of amendment not to answer questions before a grand jury and to serve as a deposit for the lawsuit against him.
Flores had nothing to say when he was arrested, Parkinson said.
He was detained without bail. His lawyer, Robert Sanger, declined to comment.
Ruben Flores was detained on $ 250,000 bail. His attorney, Harold Mesick, did not immediately return an email to comment on The Associated Press, but he told the Los Angeles Times that his client was “absolutely innocent.”