Who is Paul Flores? What to know about the man found guilty of murdering Kristin Smart

Below, we republish a story from 2020 in which we take a look at Paul Flores, a longtime person of interest in the disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.

On Oct. 18, 2022, a jury found Paul Flores guilty of murdering Smart in 1996.

Story originally published on Feb. 5, 2020:

Paul Flores was called a “person of interest” for more than two decades.

But that changed suddenly In March 2021.

On March 15, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office — for the first time, according to Tribune archives — said in a news release that Flores “remains the prime suspect” in Cal Poly student Kristin Smart’s disappearance in 1996, as the agency announced it was searching the Arroyo Grande property of Flores’ father, Ruben Flores.

Then, two weeks later, Flores, now 44, was arrested in San Pedro on April 13, 2021, and charged with Smart’s murder.

Her body has not been recovered.

San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow said in a news conference on April 14, 2021, that evidence shows Flores killed Smart during the commission of rape.

Dow said his office intends to introduce evidence of “prior sexual acts” and past incidents of “abuse” to support its murder case.

Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, was also taken into custody in Arroyo Grande on the same day and charged with being an accessory to the crime.

Flores was the last person seen with Smart on an early morning in 1996 as he reportedly walked the 19-year-old first-year student back to her dorm room following a house party.

Paul Flores has refused to cooperate with authorities since an initial interview with investigators at the time of Smart’s disappearance.

He did not reveal details in a 1996 appearance before a San Luis Obispo grand jury, nor a 1997 deposition in which he repeatedly cited his right against self-incrimination, according to Tribune archives.

Who was the last person to see Kristin Smart alive?

Kristin Smart was last seen walking back to her dorm from a house party at 135 Crandall Way near the Cal Poly campus about 2 a.m. May 25, 1996, with Paul Flores and Cheryl Anderson.

Each had been drinking at a Memorial Day weekend house party, and Smart and Flores by all accounts appeared in good spirits.

Anderson later told investigators that she left Smart with Flores at the intersection of Perimeter Road and Grand Avenue, and continued to her dorm at Sierra Madre Hall.

Smart was to walk back to her Muir Hall dorm, and Flores later told police the two parted ways near his dorm, Santa Lucia Hall.

On May 27, 1996, Jennifer Phillips, a friend of Smart’s at Muir Hall, reported Smart missing to the Cal Poly University Police Department.

That agency didn’t take a report at the time, and Phillips then contacted the San Luis Obispo Police Department. That agency did take a report, but referred Phillips back to campus police.

Police, DA’s Office question Cal Poly student

Flores was first interviewed by Cal Poly police investigators Ray Barrett and Mike Kennedy on May 30, 1996, the same day the first of several organized searches was conducted on and around the campus.

The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office stepped in with two investigators, Bill Hanley and Larry Hobson, who interviewed Flores at the University Police Department.

It wasn’t until June 5, 1996, that Kennedy searched Smart’s dorm room. Five days later, on June 10, 1996, he searched Flores’ room.

By that time, the academic quarter had ended and Flores had moved all of his belongings out of the room.

More than two weeks had passed since Smart disappeared.

On June 19, Hanley and Hobson again interviewed Flores at the Arroyo Grande Police Department.

In the taped interview, Flores admitted to previously lying to investigators when he told them he received a black eye playing basketball. He reportedly told investigators he received the injury while fixing his truck, then abruptly ended the interview and refused to answer any more questions.

After a month of investigation and amid criticism from the Smart family and their supporters, University Police Chief Tom Mitchell formally requested the help of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office. Then-Sheriff Ed Williams agreed and took over the case.

Over the weekend of June 29, 1996, about 400 volunteers turned out for a large-scale search of the campus.

Dogs used to search for human remains were also brought in, with four of those independently alerting investigators to Flores’ dorm room — specifically to his stripped mattress.

Investigators then searched Flores’ parents’ Arroyo Grande home, which yielded no clues.

In an unusual move, District Attorney’s Office in October 1996 issued subpoenas for eight people to testify before the county grand jury in Smart’s disappearance. Paul Flores was among those called to testify, as were his parents, Susan and Ruben Flores.

Paul Flores’ confidential testimony lasted about five minutes before he exited the chambers, according to Tribune archives.

Paul Flores sued by Kristin Smart’s family

The Smarts filed a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit against Flores in November 1996, alleging that Flores murdered Kristin on the Cal Poly campus. The Smarts later added Cal Poly to the lawsuit, alleging the university failed to keep their daughter safe.

During a 1997 deposition for that lawsuit, Paul Flores repeatedly cited the Fifth Amendment when declining to comment.

That lawsuit remains in legal limbo. Subpoenas filed by the Smart family’s Arroyo Grande civil attorney, Jim Murphy, have sought the entire Sheriff’s Office investigative report in the criminal case, including interviews with witnesses and Flores, physical evidence, all internal memos and forensic reports.

But those records, necessary to prove the case, remain confidential as the criminal investigation continues.

In response to the Smart family’s lawsuit, Flores’ attorneys in previous filings argued that Smart’s own negligence contributed to her disappearance and that the Smarts “had no facts in support of their contention (that the) defendant caused the death of their daughter,” according to court records.

Murphy, representing the Smart family in their lawsuit, says proof of Flores’ civil liability is contained within the Sheriff’s Office records but he and his clients can’t access them, he told The Tribune days before the 20th anniversary of Kristin Smart’s disappearance in May 2016.

Each year, a court hearing in the civil case is held in which a representative from the county tell the judge that the criminal case remains ongoing, and records requested by the family must remain confidential.

“I would hope there would be a break in the criminal case, but I would like to hold (Flores) accountable civilly,” Murphy said in 2016. “In civil law it’s what’s reasonable based on a preponderance of the evidence, not within a reasonable doubt as in criminal cases. Here, I believe there’s enough circumstantial evidence to prove to a civil jury that Flores is responsible for Kristin’s death.”

Smart was declared presumed dead in 2002.

Search warrant served at homes tied to Flores family

In February 2020, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office announced that it and other law enforcement agencies served search warrants at two locations in San Luis Obispo County, one in Los Angeles County, and another location in Washington state.

Representatives of the Sheriff’s Office and the FBI searched the home of Flores’ mother, Susan Flores, on East Branch Street in Arroyo Grande. Investigators were seen loading various items, including what appeared to be a computer, into a van.

The same day, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies served a search warrant at Paul Flores’ San Pedro home in the 900 block of West Upland Avenue, where public records show he has lived since 2010.

Deputies also searched two “vintage vehicles,” the Associated Press reported, and several electronic items were taken from the San Pedro home.

Flores was briefly detained by authorities while the warrant was served, according to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Cipolla.

A KNX1070 Radio reporter captured video of Flores speaking with sheriff’s deputies outside of a cruiser and going over what appears to be the warrant to search the San Pedro home.

Flores was released to re-enter the home following the search, according to news reports.

It was unclear what, if anything, was found.

The searches were the latest in a string of new or newly announced developments in the case that has mystified San Luis Obispo County for more than two decades.

Officials with the Sheriff’s Office had historically been tight-lipped about progress in the case.

But a podcast created by Orcutt resident Chris Lambert, “Your Own Backyard,” sparked newfound widespread interest in Smart’s disappearance when it was released in September 2019.

Over the past couple of years, the Sheriff’s Office has disclosed new details “in response to the large number of recent public inquiries.”

In January 2020, the agency announced it had taken into evidence two trucks that belonged to members of the family of Paul Flores in 1996.

As of February 2020, the Sheriff’s Office said, it had served 18 search warrants, conducted physical evidence searches at nine locations, submitted 37 evidence items from the early days of the case for modern DNA testing, recovered 140 new items of evidence, conducted 91 in-person interviews and written 364 supplemental reports, since Parkinson ordered a review upon his election in 2011.

SLO County sheriff searches Arroyo Grande home of Ruben Flores

On March 15 and 16, 2021, the Sheriff’s Office searched the home of Ruben Flores, confiscating a Volkswagen Cabriolet from the driveway and using cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar under a porch and in a backyard.

Officials have not said what if anything was found during that search.

The search of Ruben Flores’ home took place about a month after Paul Flores was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

That arrest “originated as a result of information obtained” during the service of the searches in 2020, including one at Paul Flores’ home in San Pedro, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman said then.

Suspect and father arrested and charged

On Tuesday, April 13, 2021, Paul and Ruben Flores were arrested in connection with the investigation.

Lambert, the podcaster, announced the arrest on his Instagram account early that morning.

Photos posted online showed Paul Flores being taken into custody outside his San Pedro home and Ruben Flores being arrested at his home in Arroyo Grande.

The Smart family released a statement, saying that “over 24 years, we have waited for this bittersweet day.”

“It is impossible to put into words what this day means for our family; we pray it is the first step to bringing our daughter home,” the statement reads. “The knowledge that a father and son, despite our desperate pleas for help, could have withheld this horrible secret for nearly 25 years, denying us the chance to lay our daughter to rest, is an unrelenting and unforgiving pain. We now put our faith in the justice system and move forward, comforted in the knowledge that Kristin has been held in the hearts of so many and that she has not been forgotten.”

Did Paul Flores sexually assault women?

As part of the criminal case, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office asked for the public’s help in identifying any potential victims of sexual assault or abuse from Paul Flores, who Dow said was known to frequent bars in the San Pedro area.

Dow encouraged potential victims, or “anybody that may have had an experience with (Flores) that they have questions about,” to contact San Luis Obispo County Crime Stoppers at 805-549-7867 or slotips.org.

A Los Angeles Times report on April 27 revealed details about Paul Flores’ criminal history, including that Paul Flores was the subject of two ongoing sexual assault investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department, and had been linked by DNA evidence to an alleged 2007 rape investigated by the Redondo Police Department.

No charges were filed in the latter case due to a lack of evidence, the newspaper reported.

On April 19, San Luis Obispo County probation report filed in court in opposition to bail for either defendant, obtained by The Tribune, revealed for the first time that prosecutors say “dozens of women have recounted Paul Flores’ sexual assaults and predatory behavior that document his 25 years as a serial rapist.”

The documents also quotes Peuvrelle, who wrote: “The excavation below (Ruben Flores’) deck at 710 White Court showed damning evidence that a body had been buried in that location and then recently moved.”

The Smart family attorney Jim Murphy filed a lawsuit in San Luis Obispo Superior Court against Ruben Flores, alleging the elder Flores intentionally inflicted emotional stress on the family by hiding Smart’s remains for nearly 25 years. That case remains ongoing in civil court.

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, here are many ways to get help. If you’re a Cal Poly student, you can get help and find resources through Cal Poly Safer at safer.calpoly.edu. All San Luis Obispo County residents can reach out to RISE SLO at riseslo.org or 805-226-5400. National organizations that support sexual assault victims include the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or rainn.org, the Anti-Violence Project hotline at 212-714-1141 and the Safe Horizon hotline at 1-800-621-4673.

This story was originally published October 18, 2022 at 5:48 PM with the headline "Who is Paul Flores? What to know about the man found guilty of murdering Kristin Smart."