PAUL

FLORES
Found Guilty of murdering
California lady missing since
1996 is finally held
accountable after 25years

BY JUDITH M. REID

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Reservation of rights. Except for brief
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certain other noncommercial uses
allowed by copyright law, no part of this
publication may be duplicated,
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without the publisher's prior written
consent. This prohibition includes
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electronic or mechanical methods.

Copyright © Judith M. Reid, 2022.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1
BACKGROUND AND PERSONAL LIFE

Chapter 2
THE DISPICABLE ACT

Chapter 3
COURT PROCEEDINGS

Chapter 4
A THREAT TO THE SOCIETY

Chapter 5
SERVING THE TIME

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 Chapter 1

BACKGROUND AND PERSONAL

LIFE

Susan and Ruben Flores are Paul Flores' parents. In the

Arroyo Grande neighborhood, Ruben and Susan had
lived apart for many years.

At the beginning of 2021, Ruben Flores, Paul's father, is

80 years old.

He lives in San Pedro in the American state of California

Los Angeles.
He has resided in several other Californian cities besides
San Pedro, such as Arroyo Grande, Lawndale, Santa
Barbara, Orange, Irvine, and San Luis Obispo.

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Kristin Smart, who was from Augsburg, Bavaria,
Germany, was 4 months younger than him.

He and Smart enrolled at Cal Poly, a San Luis Obispo

institution, in June 1996.
When Smart was discovered unconscious on a
neighbor's lawn in San Luis Obispo on May 25, 1996, he
and his fellow Cal Poly students Tim Davis and Cheryl
Anderson assisted her in walking safely to her dorm
room.

He was the last person to see Smart alive before she

vanished that day.

Before his dorm building was searched, he abruptly

dropped out of Cal Poly shortly after. The police were
directed to his room, specifically to his mattress, after
the cadaver dogs that searched the premises alerted
them that the space may have formerly smelled of
decaying human flesh.

Flores rebuffed police requests for assistance beyond the

first interviews. When brought before a grand jury, he
wouldn't speak to the deputies again and entered and
exited the chamber in under five minutes. The Smarts
have tried for many years to file a wrongful death lawsuit
against him, which would be a civil case, but the
criminal investigation into Kristin's disappearance is
still going on. The criminal investigation must be closed
before the civil lawsuit can go forward, it was decided.

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SIBLINGS

Paul Flores' sister, Ermelinda Thomas, is the sole family

member named.
Previously given amnesty to Paul Flores' sister,
Ermelinda Thomas, as described in court records that
were just made public.

Guy Galambos, Thomas' lawyer, filed a petition of a

notice on June 18, 2021, in the San Luis Obispo County
Superior Court, seeking to have a subpoena for Thomas'
testimony in the preliminary hearing for Paul and
Ruben's case that July quashed.

The records detail a San Luis Obispo County sheriff's

detective's visit to Thomas' Washington residence in
January 2020.

According to them, the detective wrote Thomas two

letters, one pleading for her cooperation and the other
promising immunity from San Luis Obispo County
District Attorney Dan Dow in exchange for her
cooperation. They claim that the detective also asked
Thomas for an interview while also writing her two
letters.

Four Flores family residences were allegedly examined

by officials one month later, including Thomas' house.

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Galambos claims that Thomas may have been an
accomplice after the fact, destroyed evidence, or even
handled human remains improperly, as referenced in
the letters.

She was not yet summoned as a witness in the murder

trial of her father and brother in Salinas, and Thomas
did not provide a statement during the preliminary
hearing.

Chapter 2

THE DISPICABLE ACT

Kristin (who would have been 45), Matt (who would

have been 42), and Lindsey are Denise and Stan's three
children. They have been married for 50 years (40).

They decided to talk on the phone every Sunday while

Kristin was attending Cal Poly. Easter Sunday in 1996
was the last time Denise saw Kristin. The reunion with
her family made Kristin joyful, but she admitted that she
didn't believe Cal Poly was a good match for her.

Flores was a college friend of Smart at the time.

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On Memorial Day weekend in 1996, Smart vanished
from California Polytechnic State University. She was
never identified.

A local reporter's 2019 true-crime podcast on Smart's

disappearance has rekindled interest in the case. Even
though Paul Flores was questioned by detectives right
away after the murder, he wasn't originally detained or
prosecuted.

According to the prosecution, Paul Flores, now 45,

murdered the 19-year-old on May 25, 1996, during an
attempted rape in the first-year students' dorm room at
Cal Poly. As he took Smart home from an off-campus
party where she grew inebriated, he was the last person
to be seen with her.

In the adjacent village of Arroyo Grande, his father, who

is now 81, was charged with helping bury Smart behind
his house before later excavating and transferring the
body.

Authorities executed search warrants on homes

connected to Paul Flores and his family in 2020. After
Paul was identified as the "primary suspect" in the
investigation in 2021, both Flores and his father were
detained and accused of killing Smart.

Paul Flores has been suspected of the murder for some

time. When detectives spoke with him, he was sporting a
black eye. According to court documents, he claimed

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that he acquired it while playing basketball with pals,
but his friends refuted this claim. Later, he amended his
account to claim that he had hit his head while repairing
his automobile.

For two decades, investigators performed thousands of

futile searches for Smart's remains, but in the last two
years, they have focused on Ruben Flores' house in
Arroyo Grande, which is 12 miles (20 kilometers) south
of Cal Poly.

Archaeologists working for the police discovered a soil

disturbance the size of a coffin and the presence of
human blood in March 2021 under latticework beneath
the deck of his enormous home on a dead-end street,
according to the prosecution. To get a DNA sample from
the blood would have been impossible.

Smart's corpse has never been located by authorities. In

2002, she was formally pronounced deceased.

Susan, the mother of the main suspect, was first

questioned on March 16, 2021.

Susan said throughout the interview that neither she nor

any of her family members are aware of Kristin Smart's
disappearance. She said that throughout the previous 25
years, her home had sometimes been searched.
Recently, her Volkswagen and her yard were both dug
up.

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On behalf of Smart's parents, attorney James Murphy
filed a lawsuit against Ruben Flores, saying that four
days after police searched his home in February 2020,
Flores and unidentified accomplices relocated the
corpse. Digging under the deck was not done by
investigators until more than a year had passed.

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 Chapter 3

COURT PROCEEDINGS

On Thursday, July 21, the Kristin Smart murder trial

finally got started with testimony after a delay caused by
a health issue. Opening remarks had already been
finished.

Kristin Smart, a 19-year-old Cal Poly student, vanished

and was killed in 1996; Paul Flores, 45, is accused of
both crimes. In April 2021, Paul Flores was detained on
suspicion of assisting his son in concealing Kristin's
remains. Ruben Flores was detained on the same day as
Paul Flores.

A Juror on Ruben Flores' case was dropped on Thursday

after he revealed to Monterey County Judge Superior
Court Jennifer O'Keefe that the issue was stressing him
out and he had spoken to his priest about it for just
spiritual counsel.

The juror said that he didn't talk about the particulars of

the case. O'Keefe instructed the jury to "begin

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deliberations afresh" to catch up with the newly
sworn-in alternative juror after the panel was seated.

Following Van Rooyen's March decision to grant a

change of venue motion after concluding the defendants
could not get a fair trial in San Luis Obispo County,
KSBY reported that O'Keefe took over the case. Trials for
the cases took place at Salinas's Monterey County
Superior Court.

Ruben Flores's Introduction

Harold Mesick, the defendant's defense counsel,
concluded Ruben (81)'s opening remarks on Thursday.

In his opening remarks, Mesick told the jury that Ruben

had endured 26 years of misery because he had been
hounded and humiliated for the previous 20 years, but
he also said that the case was terrible for both Ruben
and the Smart family.

Mesick disputes the prosecution's findings, claiming that

the location beneath his deck is the most inaccessible
and that the decompositional material may be from the
avocado trees that had stood there.

He goes on to say that the Flores were always being

watched, thus it would have been difficult for them to
transfer the corpse after Chris Lambert's "Your
Backyard," a podcast that chronicled the Smart case was
released. Mike McConville, Susan Flores' boyfriend, was

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being vandalized where the trailer had previously been
parked, which is why he saw it at Ruben's house.

The evidence found had been described as equivocal by

Ruben Flores' attorney Harold Mesick. According to
him, the area beneath the deck was filled with dirt after
it had been dug out nearby for a foundation.

The arguments between Kristin's father, Stan, and

Ruben after she vanished were mentioned by Mesick,
who also urged the jury to be dubious of the
prosecution's evidence. He also emphasized that Kristin
had chosen to travel to his client's house.

Mesick brought up a letter Denise Smart sent to her

daughter on May 5, 1996; Denise would bring up this
letter several times in her testimony.

After that, Mesick provided a chronology of Ruben's

movements during Memorial Day weekend in 1996 in
response to claims that Ruben was absent during the
same period as Kristin.

According to reports, Mesick concluded his defense of

Ruben by claiming that they may not be aware of
Kristin's whereabouts at the time.

Denise Smart, the first witness

They both sat in the courtroom to hear Denise Smart's
cross-examination although Paul and Ruben are being
tried concurrently and have separate juries.

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Regarding the letter Mesick spoke to in his opening
remarks, Denise said that in the letter, she was
pressuring Kristin to take steps to resolve the issues she
was experiencing at Cal Poly, among them a paper that
her professor had lost.

When Denise claimed it aches her heart knowing it was

the final letter she sent to her daughter, reports claim
she was fighting back tears. But they kept calling one
other on Sundays, and on Friday, May 24, 1996, Kristin
left a message on her mother's phone stating she had
excellent news.

Denise continued by describing how she had become

frustrated with law enforcement at the beginning of her
daughter's disappearance and how no jurisdiction was
taking ownership of the investigation.

She provided the prosecution with confirmation that

Kristin was clear of all debts and problematic
connections.

The cross-examination of Denise by Paul's defense

lawyer Robert Sanger then started.

Sanger first inquired as to whether Denise's lawyer,

James Murphy Jr., had filed a lawsuit against the Flores
family to seek financial compensation. According to
Denise, the purpose of the legal action was to force the
Flores to divulge Kristin's whereabouts.

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He then enquired from Denise whether she was aware
that Kristin sometimes referred to herself as Roxy.
Denise gave her approval.

Additionally, Denise was questioned whether she was

aware of Kristin's desire to become a model.

The cross-examination of Denise was then taken up by

Mesick, who questioned her over the same letter from
May 5, that as Sanger had previously noted, had a
question from Denise to Kristin about her apparent
deception.After then, Denise was excused from testifying
but may yet be summoned back.

Matthew Smart, second witness.

Then Kristin's brother Matt Smart briefly spoke on the
witness stand.

He gave testimony on the tight ties, activities, and

outings his family had before Kristin vanished.

Stan Smart, third witness

Stan Smart, Kristin's father, entered the witness stand
and first spoke about his time in San Luis Obispo County
in the three months that followed Kristin's abduction.

Stan said before the court that he looked for his

daughter or her remains, investigated leads, and talked
with many individuals—roughly 1,000 people, according
to Stan.

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Stan said in court that he did not see the Flores family
searching for Kristin at any point throughout his
searches.

The prosecution then questioned him about why, after

the disappearance of his daughter, he made the trip to
Ruben Flores' house in Arroyo Grande.

Stan testified that he went to Ruben's house after

learning that Paul was the last person seen with Kristin,
but that he remained in his vehicle. Stan said he learned
this information from Ruben. "Someone may be shot,"
Ruben commanded him to go.

Stan admitted to the court that he was on the Cal Poly

campus but was not there during the cadaver dogs'
search of Paul's dorm room during his
cross-examination by Sanger.

Following the judgments on Tuesday, Ruben Flores said

outside the court that neither he nor his son was
indicted.

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 Chapter 4

A THREAT TO THE SOCIETY

Flores commuted to Irvine for work while residing in

San Pedro in 2017. Over the years, even outside of the
missing case, he has had countless encounters with
police authorities.

He was imprisoned in 2000 in the Santa Barbara County

Jail for his many drunk driving charges. He received
further punishment for drinking while on probation. The
Daily Beast stated that some women had come forward
to accuse Flores of sexual assault in 2016, which was
likely the largest development and gave the Smart
family's suspicions that he was to blame for their
daughter's disappearance even more credence.

Before the incident, all four women who shared their

experiences said they knew Flores or had heard of him.
He even had a relative among the women. He knew the
individuals in these tales, just like Kristin knew him.

Numerous witnesses confirmed the accounts published

in the Daily Beast. According to one of the ladies who
spoke forward, she was roofied first.

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One more lady, who claimed to be Flores' ex-girlfriend,
said that he previously threatened her with a butter
knife.

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 Chapter 5

SERVING THE TIME

On October 18, 2022, a jury in Monterey County

convicted Paul Flores guilty of first-degree murder. He
now faces a 25-year to a life sentence.

His father was accused of being an accomplice to murder

after the fact, but the jury in a separate trial found him
not guilty of the accusation.

After the fact accessory charges had been brought

against his father, Ruben Flores.
He might spend up to three years behind bars.

When the guilty judgment was announced, Paul Flores

remained silent, according to NBC station KSBY in San
Luis Obispo. Behind him in the chair stood his father,
who showed no expression.

Many of Smart's family members were present in the

courtroom, and as the findings were announced, her
mother and sister sobbed for a while.

According to KSBY, Paul Flores' sentencing is slated for

December 9, 2022.

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Other such crimes have been committed, and the
offenders could believe that they are now free because of
the passing of time, but this demonstrates once again
that justice delayed is never justice

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