Prosecutor: Missing student killed during rape attempt
LOS ANGELES — Missing California college student Kristin Smart was killed in 1996 during an attempted rape by a fellow student and the suspect’s father helped hide her body, the San Luis Obispo County district attorney said Wednesday.
Prosecutors filed a first-degree murder charge against Paul Flores and an accessory after murder charge against his father, Ruben Flores, for helping him conceal Smart’s body, which has never been found, District Attorney Dan Dow said.
The two were arrested Tuesday after years of investigations and searches that recently led to evidence connected to Smart’s killing.
Smart, 19, of Stockton, was last seen May 25, 1996, while returning to her dorm at California Polytechnic State University campus in San Luis Obispo after an off-campus party. She was inebriated at the time and Flores, a fellow freshman at the school, had offered to walk her home.
Flores killed Smart in his dorm room, Dow said. Investigators, who launched a renewed search Tuesday at his father’s property in nearby Arroyo Grande, believe they know where the body was buried but have not yet located it or disclosed the location.
Dow urged the public to come forward with any information they may have about the killing or other crimes Paul Flores may have committed.
In more recent years, Paul Flores frequented bars around his home in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles area and may have committed other sexual assaults, Dow said. He didn’t disclose what investigators found, but said they are seeking other crime victims.
“We have evidence that we do believe there were other people not yet identified that have had some kind of a criminal act perpetrated on them by Mr. Flores,” Dow said. “We’re concerned about sexual assault.”
Prosecutors filed a notice in court that they would seek to introduce evidence of other sex crimes to show Flores attempted to rape Smart.
Flores has been under suspicion from the earliest days of Smart’s disappearance. He has gone from being a “person of interest” to a “suspect” to “the prime suspect” — and, now, defendant.
He and his father are in jail and scheduled to be arraigned today.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said the arrests came after a search of the elder Flores’ home last month using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs turned up new evidence linked to Smart’s killing.
Smart’s family issued a statement saying it was a bittersweet day they had long waited for and a first step toward bringing their daughter home.
“While Kristin’s loving spirit will always live in our hearts, our life without her hugs, laughs and smiles is a heartache that never abates,” they said. “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.”
Flores, 44, was arrested at his home in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles and taken to a police car in handcuffs wearing pajama bottoms and a surf T-shirt. His father, Ruben Flores, 80, was arrested at his Arroyo Grande home — about 15 miles south of the university.