Kristin Smart murder: Suspect Paul Flores' dad Ruben allegedly hid student's body under deck
The trial for the unsolved murder case of Kristin Smart, a 19-year-old girl who vanished from California Polytechnic State University's San Luis Obispo campus in 1996, began on Monday, July 18. Smart was declared dead in 2002. But her body has never been found. Ruben Flores, 81, father of Paul Flores, the man accused of killing Smart never searched for the vanished California college student, tore down missing posters and called her a ''dirty sl**'' after he allegedly helped his son move her body, a court heard on Monday.
Paul, now 45, sat in Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas, California, as prosecutors laid out the timeline of Smart's disappearance more than 26 years ago. Paul Flores is on trial more than a year after being arrested on a murder charge alongside his father, Ruben Flores, now 81, who is accused of assisting his son in disposing of her body. Prosecutors claim the two were not involved in the search for Smart "while her corpse was decomposing under his deck."
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Robert Sanger, Paul Flores' defense attorney, began his opening statement Monday afternoon by claiming that "there is no evidence what happened to her" and that she "engaged in at-risk behavior." In this case, both the father and son have pleaded not guilty. Two juries will deliberate on two verdicts: one for Paul Flores and one for Ruben Flores. The trial is scheduled to last until the end of October.
According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, on the first day of the trial Monday, San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle told the court that evidence would be presented that would prove Smart was murdered by Paul Flores and that both he and Ruben Flores buried her under the elder Flores' deck. ''And while the entire community banded together to search for Kristin desperately, Paul and Ruben Flores did not join in,'' Peuvrelle added. ''You will hear Ruben Flores would tear down missing posters of Kristin — tore down her smiling beautiful face —called her a 'dirty sl**,' all while her corpse was decomposing underneath his deck.''
Peuvrelle then described the Smart family and their final contact with Kristin, saying that she called and left a voicemail for her mother 'ecstatic with some news' just before she vanished. "They'll never know what that good news was,'' said Peuvrelle. Prosecutors claim Paul Flores murdered the 19-year-old during an attempted rape on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at Cal Poly, where they were both first-year students.
Ruben allegedly helped bury the slain student behind his home in the nearby community of Arroyo Grande and later dug up the remains and moved them. Paul had long been considered a suspect in the killing, but prosecutors only arrested him and his father in 2021 after the investigation was revived. Sheriff Ian Parkinson acknowledged detectives' mistakes over the years, and he credited a popular podcast about Smart's disappearance, ''Your Own Backyard,'' with helping unearth new information and inspiring witnesses to speak with investigators.
Smart's body was never found, and the mystery of how she vanished from the picturesque campus nestled against a verdant coastal mountain range is likely to be central to the trial. Investigators have conducted dozens of searches over the last two decades, but they have focused their efforts in the last two years on Ruben's home in Arroyo Grande, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) south of Cal Poly. Archaeologists working for police discovered a soil disturbance the size of a casket and the presence of human blood behind lattice work beneath the deck of his large house on a dead end street off Tally Ho Road in March 2021, prosecutors said.
The blood was too degraded to extract a DNA sample. While a blood expert said it was human blood, the test used did not rule out the possibility it was from a ferret or ape, though court records said no remains of such an animal were found there. Attorney James Murphy Jr., who has sued the father and son on behalf of Smart's parents, scoffed at the idea that it was anything other than human blood.
"The size of the area in which the blood was found would make it a prehistoric ferret that would be in Jurassic Park," Murphy said. "When was the last time you drove down Tally Ho Road in Arroyo Grande and saw a primate?'' On Monday, July 18, the prosecutor laid out evidence of the soil analysis from beneath the deck that shows a presence of blood and a recorded conversation between Paul Flores and his mother Susan Flores. Peuvrelle concluded his opening statements by outlining the timeline that led to the two men's arrest in 2021 and stating that the court will hear details that aided their investigation, including testimonies from three women who are expected to testify that Paul drugged and raped them.
San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig Van Rooyen ordered the pair to trial after a 22-day preliminary hearing in which he found a 'strong suspicion' the father and son committed the crimes they were charged with, that a grave existed under Ruben's deck and it once held Smart's remains. Prosecutors, defense lawyers, and San Luis Obispo sheriff´s deputies are constrained by a court order prohibiting them from discussing the case.
Previously, defense attorney Sanger stated that the evidence remained the same as it did in the 1990s when Paul was the prime suspect but was never charged with a crime. In court documents, Sanger stated, "The evidence then and now is based on speculation and not proof of facts."
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Sanger has attempted to blame someone else for the killing, noting that Scott Peterson, who was later convicted in a sensational trial of killing his pregnant wife and the fetus she was carrying, was also a Cal Poly student at the time. However, trial judge Jennifer O'Keefe, who is a year younger than Smart, has barred suggestions of alternate suspects unless Sanger can provide evidence of their direct involvement. Separate juries were chosen to consider the evidence presented against each defendant. The trial is scheduled to last four months.