In 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home. The searches for her made national headlines; her rescue nine months later was celebrated nationwide.

Six years earlier, nineteen-year-old California Polytechnic University student Kristin Smart, unrelated to Elizabeth, disappeared after an evening of partying. As with Elizabeth, Kristin’s disappearance made national news. Although a prime suspect was quickly identified, Kristin, unlike Elizabeth, has not been found.

Over the ensuing years, lawsuits have been filed by Kristin’s family against the suspect and vice versa, and several excavations to find her remains have been undertaken. In April 2021, nearly twenty-five years after her disappearance, the suspect was charged with her murder. He was convicted in October 2022, but the case is still not resolved as Kristin’s remains have not been found.

The search for Elizabeth Smart ended in cheers, but the search for Kristin Smart will almost certainly end in tears.

Kristin Smart

Kristin Smart was a freshman architecture major at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, one-hundred-ninety miles northwest of Los Angeles. On May 24, 1996, she attended a birthday party for her friend Ryan Fell at his on-campus dorm room. In the course of the evening, she became egregiously inebriated.

Fellow Cal-Poly students and party attendees Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson saw Kristin passed out on a neighbor’s lawn shortly after leaving the party between 1:30-2:00 a.m. on May 25. They both casually knew her and began escorting her to her room in the nearby Muir Hall dormitory.

Definitively Drunk

Tim and Cheryl were soon assisted by another student from the party, nineteen-year-old Paul Flores. He lived in the Santa Lucia Hall dormitory not far from Muir Hall. Tim and Cheryl both lived off campus and each had driven to the party.

As they neared Muir Hall, Tim left the group. Cheryl departed shortly thereafter as Paul assured her he would get Kristin to her dorm. Cheryl saw Paul, approximately two-hundred yards from Muir Hall, escorting the incapacitated Kristin toward the dorm, but she did not see them enter the building.

When Kristin’s friends went to check on her later that morning, her roommate, Kristin Calvin, told them she had not come home. She was asleep at the time the party ended, but Kristin Calvin is certain she would have heard Kristin Smart, especially as she was in a drunken state, entering the dorm room.

Muir Hall

Cheryl did not know Paul Flores and Tim only vaguely knew him. Kristin is not believed to have known him, and if she did, it was probably only in passing. Tim said he saw Paul hit on several girls at the party, including Kristin. All, including Kristin, rebuffed him.

Paul Flores became the primary person of interest in the disappearance of Kristin Smart.

Paul Flores

Flores told police he and Kristin each headed for their respective dorms after she assured him she could proceed on her own. He claimed he last saw Kristin as he was walking to his dorm shortly after Cheryl departed.

Proximity Of The Dorms

May 25, 1996, was the Saturday before Memorial Day, on which there were no summer classes at Cal Poly. Campus police initially believed Kristin, as many students did during the three-day weekend, had taken an impromptu trip. Consequently, they waited four days before contacting the San Luis Obispo Police. Campus officials admit the delayed reporting was a mistake as potential evidence was lost during those four days.

Kristin had not taken any money or identification to the party. When the San Luis Obispo police searched her dorm room four days after she was last seen, they found her cash and credit cards, along with her personal items, including her clothing, cosmetics, medicine, and toiletries, all undisturbed.

Not only did it appear unlikely that Kristin had taken a trip, it seemed certain she had not returned to her dorm room following the party. Even if she had, it seems unlikely a hungover Kristin would have awakened before her roommate and left the dorm.

Kristin Is Missing

The police, along with hundreds of volunteers, searched the campus for any sign of Kristin Smart. Cadaver dogs, specially trained to recognize the odor of a dead human body, were taken through the campus dorms. The dogs hit on nearby Santa Lucia Hall. Specifically, they zeroed in on room 128 . . . occupied by Paul Flores.

During the four days before Kristin’s disappearance was reported to the San Luis Obispo Police, Flores had removed many belongings from his dorm room.

Santa Lucia Hall

Cadaver dogs seemed to pick up Kristin’s scent on the mattress in Flores’ dorm, but no additional evidence connected to her was found.

Flores’ Mattress 

Flores had incurred a noticeable black eye following Kristin’s disappearance. He first told police he had taken an elbow to the head during a pickup basketball game. When friends told police he already had the bruise prior to the game, Flores suddenly remembered his mistake, saying he had hurt his eye while working on his father’s truck. He told another friend, however, he did not know how he had acquired the black eye, saying he “just woke up with it.”

Flores’ black eye lies were huge black marks against him. Along with no proof of his claim that Kristin made it back to her dorm room and evidence suggesting she was instead in his dorm room, he was upgraded from the primary person of interest to the prime suspect in her disappearance.

When police tried to further question Paul Flores, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent.

Suspicion Falls On Flores . . .

Hoping to spook Flores, prosecutors said they were bringing murder charges against him and offered him a plea deal: a guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter and revealing the location of Kristin’s body in exchange for a six-year prison term. Flores, however, called their bluff, rejecting the offer, saying he knew nothing of Kristin’s disappearance.

Prosecutors believed Paul Flores is responsible for Kristin’s disappearance and that he probably killed her in his dorm room. Without a body, however, they did not believe they had enough evidence to charge him.

. . . But He Won’t Fold

Two days after Kirstin Smart’s disappearance, Flores was arrested for driving while intoxicated. As a result, he lost his driver’s license. Already close to flunking out of Cal Poly Tech, he soon dropped out.

Further Problems For Flores

Since Kristin Smart’s disappearance in 1996, Paul Flores has been convicted five times for drunk driving and once for public intoxication. He has been accused of sexually assaulting four women, one before Kristin’s disappearance and three afterwards. One of those who accused him after Kristin’s disappearance was his cousin. All four women alleged he slipped them a “date rape” drug before sexually assaulting them. No charges, however, were filed against him for the alleged sexual assaults because prosecutors say it is impossible to prove the sex was not consensual.

Overall, twenty-four women have accused Flores of various forms of physical or sexual misconduct.

In 1998, Flores was arrested, but never prosecuted, for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm.

Flores Keeps Finding Himself In Trouble

Several excavations around the Cal Poly Tech campus were conducted from 1996 through 2007, but all failed to turn up any trace of Kristin Smart.

On June 2 and August 1, 2014, in an effort to see if any scent of human remains could be found, the next-door neighbors of Ruben and Susan Flores, Paul’s parents, allowed a cadaver dog to search the backyard of their Arroyo Grande home, fifteen miles south of San Luis Obispo.  The Flores’ did not allow the dogs to search their yard, but in searching the neighbors’ yard, the dog led police to the fence that separated the two homes. The dog indicated human remains could have been buried in the back yard. A soil sample taken at the boundary between the two homes supported the dog’s detection, indicating evidence of human remains in the ground at one time, although they were likely no longer there.

California courts are generally skeptical of the reliability of search dogs, and in this instance they held firm. A judge ruled the cadaver dog’s indications were not enough for probable cause and refused to issue a warrant authorizing police to dig in the backyard of the Flores home.

Neighbors’ Home Is Searched

On September 6, 2016, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department received another tip regarding the remains of Kristin Smart. After three days of digging on the Cal Poly campus, officials stated they had found remains, but further tests were needed to determine if they were human, let along those of Kristin.

After a year of no further updates, the Sheriff’s Office announced the dig was “beneficial” and they recovered “items of interest” related to Kristen’s disappearance. They declined further comment on the bones found the previous year.

Bones Found On The Cal-Poly Campus

On January 29, 2020, the San Luis Obispo Police Department confirmed that two vehicles owned by Paul Flores had been confiscated as potential evidence in Kristin Smart’s disappearance. On February 5, search warrants were served for “specific items of evidence” at four different locations – two in San Luis Obispo, another at a home in Los Angeles County, and the fourth in Washington State. Policemen were seen leaving the Arroyo Grande home of Ruben Flores with a computer, a brown paper bag, a storage bin and other items presumed to be pieces of evidence. Paul Flores was briefly detained during the search.

On April 22, another search warrant was served on Flores’ San Pedro home in southern Los Angeles. Police found rape-themed pornography, homemade videos showing him having sex with women who appeared to be drifting in and out of consciousness, and two prescription medications often used as date rape drugs.

Flores Is Again Questioned

On March 15, 2021, a search warrant was again served at the home of Ruben Flores, Paul’s father. Cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar were used, and a Volkswagen Cabriolet was seized.

Vehicle Confiscated

Less than one month later, on April 13, forty-four-year-old Paul Flores was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Kristin Smart, even though her remains had still not been found. Paul’s eighty-year-old father Ruben was arrested and charged as an accessory after the fact. Paul was denied bail; Ruben was released on $50,000 bail. Both men pled not guilty and were given separate juries to decide their fates.

A judge ruled the trials be moved to Monterrey County, one-hundred-fifty miles north of San Luis Obispo County.  The trial began three months later.

Several witnesses testified that both men tried to keep them away from the deck area of Ruben’s home. One witness also testified that Paul had confessed to killing Kristin.

Son And Father Arrested

Investigators believe Paul Flores killed an inebriated Kristin Smart while raping or  attempting to rape her in his dorm room in the early morning hours of May 25, 1996, and that his father helped him bury her remains in his backyard.

Following the arrests, another search warrant was granted on Reuben Flores’ home. After dismantling a deck leading beneath the house, authorities found human blood and a large patch of soil disturbance, suggesting a body had, at one time, been buried there and had likely only recently been removed. The blood was too degraded for DNA testing. Also found in the soil were fibers of multiple colors, all of which were in the clothing Kristin was wearing when she was last seen.

It is believed the men had moved Kristin’s remains to multiple other locales before they were arrested.

Ruben Flores’ Deck Is Dismantled

A former tenant who had rented a room in Ruben Flores’ home for a decade in the years after Kristin’s disappearance told investigators that he always had a padlock on an access door leading to under the home and that he never saw him unlock it. He also said Ruben refused to let a plumber go under the deck to repair a kitchen leak in 2014.

A neighbor says she saw Ruben and his ex-wife Susan (Paul’s mother) and her boyfriend, Mike McConville, trying to back an enclosed travel trailer to the back of Ruben’s house near the deck in February 2020.

Kristin Smart Was Likely Buried, For A Time, Beneath Ruben Flores’ Home

On October 18, 2022, Paul Flores was convicted of the first-degree murder of the still unaccounted for Kristin Smart. Ruben Flores was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact.

Ruben Cleared, Paul Convicted

On March 10, 2023, Paul Flores was sentenced to twenty-five years-to-life in prison, but he could become eligible for parole after serving approximately fifteen years. The case, however, is not closed as Kristin’s remains have still not been found.

But Still No Body

Since his conviction, Paul Flores has not had a pleasant stay at his new home, the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. On August 23, 2023, he was attacked in the facility’s prison yard. Prison officials say inmate Jason Budrow used a “manufactured weapon” to cut Flores in the neck. Flores was taken to Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center for treatment and returned to prison two days later.

Budrow, a self-avowed Satanist and a registered sex offender, has pled not guilty in the attack on Paul Flores.

                                         Flores                           Jason Budrow

                                      Attacked                    The Alleged Culprit

Budrow is serving two life sentences for murder, the first for the 2010 strangulation of his girlfriend Margaret Dalton.  On February 28, 2021, while he was incarcerated at the Mule State Prison in Ione, California, Budrow strangled fellow convicted murderer Roger Kibbe to death.

The eighty-one-year-old Kibbe was a serial killer and rapist convicted of murdering seven women from 1977-87 and suspected of murdering many more. He was dubbed the I-5 Strangler after all but one of his known victims was found on freeways around Sacramento.

Roger Kibbe

AKA The I-5 Strangler

Kristin Denise Smart was declared legally dead on May 25, 2002, six years after her disappearance. Paul Flores has been convicted of her murder, but her remains have not been found.  The FBI is offering a $75,000 reward, and her family and friends have raised a separate $100,000 reward for information leading to her remains.

If you have information relating to the disappearance of Kristin Smart, please contact either of the below departments.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department
805-781-4500

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Los Angeles Office
805-934-2444

Where Are Kristin’s Remains?

Where Are Kristin’s Remains?

Police investigated the possibility of a link between Kristin Smart’s disappearance and the murder of Laci Peterson who disappeared on December 24, 2002, six-and-a-half years after Kristin. Laci’s body was found in the Pacific Ocean in May 2003. Her husband, Scott, was convicted of her murder in November 2004, and was sentenced to death. In August 2020, his sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Laci was also a student at Cal Poly Tech when Kristin disappeared, but police found no evidence connecting Scott Peterson to Kristin’s disappearance and have ruled him out as a suspect.

Laci And Scott Peterson

The delayed reporting of Kristin Smart’s disappearance by the Cal Poly campus police led to California passing the Kristin Smart Campus Security Act in 1999.

The act requires all California public colleges and publicly funded educational institutions to have their campus police and other security services make agreements with local police departments on the reporting of cases involving possible violence against students.

Kristin’s Disappearance Spurred Legislation . . .

In November 1996, Kristin Smart’s parents, Stan and Denise, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Flores and another civil suit against his parents, contending they helped hide Kristin’s remains. Following the Flores’ divorce, the lawsuit was amended to include Susan’s boyfriend, Mike McConville.

In 2005, Susan Flores and Mike McConville countersued the Smarts for harassment, severe emotional distress, and lost income as a result of their actions.  Neither lawsuit is likely to be resolved until Kristin’s remains are found.

In January 2024, the Smart family filed a lawsuit against California Polytechnic State University for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and Kristin’s wrongful death. The lawsuit contends a series of harassment complaints against Flores had been made to university officials who failed to properly investigate them or to discipline Flores. Had they done so, the lawsuit proclaims, Kristin’s disappearance and presumed murder could have been prevented.

. . . And Lawsuits

SOURCES:
• The California Register
• Daily Beast
• Los Angeles Times
• San Francisco Chronicle
• The Tribune
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Washington Post