Unsealed court documents in the Kristin Smart murder case include allegations of a discovery of human blood and witnesses who claim to have seen suspicious activity at the family home of the suspects.
Smart hasn't been seen since disappearing on the walk from a party to her dorm on Memorial Day weekend 1996. The lone suspect for more than two decades was Paul Flores, a fellow Cal Poly student who walked back with her that night. Flores and his father, Ruben Flores, were arrested on April 13, marking the first time anyone has been arrested in connection with Smart's disappearance.
According to investigators, Paul Flores killed Smart during an attempted sexual assault and his father helped hide the body under their family home in Arroyo Grande.
Many of the unsealed documents detail interviews police conducted shortly after Smart was reported missing. Witnesses who were at the party the night she disappeared told police they thought Flores was behaving oddly. The fraternity member who organized the party told investigators Flores was "bugging people" and "a little weird and everybody realized it."
"People repeatedly told him, 'Dude, we hate you,'" the court filing reads. Smart's friend, who walked back with Smart and Flores before parting ways to get to her residence, also told investigators Flores had the nickname "Chester the Molester" due to the way he behaved around women.
There have long been suspicions Smart's body was buried on the property of Ruben Flores' Arroyo Grande home, an approximately 20-minute drive from the Cal Poly campus. A number of search warrants have been executed on the property in recent years, including two in the past year that permitted investigators to dig up the backyard. Photos showed investigators focusing on the back deck, bringing in cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar to aid in the search.
Deputies from the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office searched the home of Ruben Flores, father of Paul Flores, in Arroyo Grande, Calif., on March 15, 2021. Paul Flores is the prime suspect in the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.
San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office/Handout"The excavation below his deck at 710 White Court showed damning evidence that a body had been buried in that location and then recently moved," prosecutor Christopher Peuvrelle said in a court filing earlier this year.
"Due to evidence gleaned from the excavation, it is reasonable to believe Ruben Flores currently knows the location of Kristin Smart's remains," Peuvrelle continued.
Wednesday's unsealed records claim that excavation found a "large approximately 4-foot-by-6-foot anomaly" under the deck, as though "someone dug the soil out and put it back," Peuvrelle said. Soil within the area was tested and came back as a likely match for human blood, prosecutors claim. Red, blue and black fibers were also found by a forensic expert from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, allegedly consistent with the color of the clothing Smart was reportedly wearing the night she disappeared.
Deputies from the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office searched the home of Ruben Flores, father of Paul Flores, in Arroyo Grande, Calif., on March 15, 2021. Paul Flores is the prime suspect in the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.
San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office/HandoutA neighbor on White Court told investigators she noticed unusual activity at the Flores home in February 2020. According to the neighbor, she saw Paul's mother and Ruben's ex-wife Susan Flores and her boyfriend Mike McConville. The witness said Ruben Flores, Susan Flores and McConville attemped to "back an enclosed travel trailer to the back of the house near the deck."
"She had never seen trailers at Ruben’s house before and yet on this night there were two trailers brought to the house,” Peuvrelle wrote in the filing. “She has not seen Susan Flores or Mike McConvile spend the night at 710 White Court since.”
In addition, court documents detail an interview investigators conducted with a longtime tenant of the Flores home. That man said Ruben Flores never allowed people to access the area below the home, which was always padlocked. When a plumber came by to address a kitchen leak, the tenant says Flores told him he would "take care of the problem himself" after learning the plumber would need to go below the home.
Paul Flores, 44, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges. Ruben Flores, 80, has pleaded not guilty to accessory after a murder. Ruben Flores was released on bail in late April; Paul Flores remains incarcerated without bail at the San Luis Obispo County Jail.
Defendants Paul Flores, top left, and his father Ruben Flores, bottom center, appear via video conference during their arraignment in the Kristin Smart case, April 15, 2021, in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.
Nic Coury/APThe San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office previously said they believe Paul Flores has been committing violent crimes for the past two decades. At a Wednesday hearing, prosecutors said a 2020 raid of Flores' home in San Pedro turned up videos that allegedly showed him raping an intoxicated woman. They claimed investigators also found "rape fantasy" pornography on his computer in a file labeled "Practice."
Last week, Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen denied prosecutors' request to add additional rape charges to the Smart case; prosecutors hoped it would show Flores' alleged pattern of sexual violence, but the judge ruled that evidence Smart was raped before her death was "weak."
The preliminary hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores is scheduled to begin on Aug. 2 and last for at least 12 days.
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