For the 1996 murder of college student Kristin Smart, Paul Flores was found guilty by a jury
On Tuesday, the last person seen with Kristin Smart, a college student who disappeared from a California campus more than 25 years ago, was found guilty of murder, while his father was found not guilty of aiding his son in covering up the crime.
A jury of his peers has unanimously found Paul Flores guilty of first-degree murder. His father, Ruben Flores, was tried separately and found not guilty of being an accessory to murder by a jury. There was only a short time between the reading of the two different decisions in the same courtroom, but they could not have been more different.
On Memorial Day weekend in 1996, Smart vanished from California Polytechnic State University, located on the state’s beautiful central coast. None of her remains have ever been located. They were not caught until 2021, father and son.
Prosecutors said that on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at Cal Poly, the younger Flores (now 45) murdered the 19-year-old victim during an attempted rape. After Smart got drunk at an off-campus party, he walked her home and was the last person to see her alive.
His now-81-year-old father has been accused of assisting in the burial of the murdered student behind his home in the neighbouring village of Arroyo Grande and then exhuming and relocating the body.
Ruben Flores, the defendant’s father, cried outside the courthouse and insisted that his son is innocent, adding that he felt awful for Smart’s family.
They have no idea what happened to their daughter, he informed the press.
The senior Flores stated that the case was based on emotions rather than evidence.
Robert Sanger, the defense attorney for the son, did not return calls seeking comment on the verdict.
After the guilty decision in the murder case was announced, Judge Jennifer O’Keefe of the Monterey County Superior Court praised the jurors for their service.
She stated, “I wish to express to you the appreciation and that of the parties for your service in this case, You have been very attentive and conscientious throughout this case.”
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 student at the university located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) up the coast from Los Angeles, Sanger attempted to place the blame on Peterson.
In his closing remarks, Sanger informed the jury that there had been no attempted rape and threw doubt on the testimony of witnesses, including a student who had claimed that they had seen Flores in Smart’s dorm room.
Moreover, he called the prosecution’s forensic evidence “junk science.”
According to Sanger, “This case was not prosecuted for all these years because there’s no evidence,” which explains why the matter has not been pursued for so long. “It’s sad Kristin Smart disappeared, and she may have gone out on her own, but who knows?”
