‘Prime suspect’ arrested in 1996 disappearance of college student Kristin Smart
The “prime suspect” in the 25-year-old disappearance and murder of a California college student was arrested on Tuesday.
Paul Flores, 44, was the last person seen with Kristin Smart on the California Polytechnic State University campus in San Luis Obispo before she vanished in 1996.
Flores was taken into custody in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday. He had been seen with Smart, a 19-year-old student from Stockton, before she vanished in May 1996 while returning to her dorm at Cal Poly after a party.
Flores’s father, Ruben Flores, 80, was arrested as an accessory at his Arroyo Grande home.
Ian Parkinson, the San Luis Obispo county sheriff, said search warrants were sealed and so he could not disclose what evidence led to the arrests, but he said Smart’s remains had not been found.
“We have not recovered Kristin,” he told a news conference. “We will continue to focus on finding her remains regardless of any court action.”
San Luis Obispo jail records showed Paul Flores was booked on a murder charge. His defense attorney Robert Sanger declined to comment, though he confirmed Flores was arrested.
Ruben Flores was booked on suspicion of accessory after a felony, according to jail records.
A spokesman for the Smart family said “this is an extremely emotional day” and they would issue a statement later in the afternoon.
The news comes about a month after the sheriff named Flores as the “prime suspect” in the case and investigators searched his father’s home and property using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs. The large home on a hill has been the subject of many searches.
Investigators executed another search warrant on Tuesday at the home of Ruben Flores, about 15 miles south of the university on California’s Central Coast, KSBY-TV reported. They appeared to be disassembling a deck outside the home and the sound of power saws and drills could be heard whining in the background.
Search warrants were served last year on Paul Flores’s home in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles and at other locations in California and Washington state. Investigators conducted digs on the campus in 2016.
Paul Flores has remained mum through the years, invoking his fifth amendment right not to answer questions before a grand jury and in a deposition for a lawsuit that was brought against him.
He was arrested in February on a weapons charge and released on bond. He has drunken driving convictions on his record in Los Angeles county.