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Paul Flores has been found guilty of the murder of Kristin Smart, a 19-year-old college student who disappeared in 1996 and whose death remained unsolved for decades until a podcast reconsidered the case in 2019.
Paul, 45, was convicted of murdering Kristin while attempting to rape her in 1996 after the couple attended a party at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. They were both 19 at the time. He now faces a minimum of 25 years in prison, but could spend the rest of his life behind bars. His sentencing is scheduled for December 9.
He was charged with murder, while his 81-year-old father Ruben was charged with complicity. Ruben was later found not guilty of complicity. Prosecutors had argued that Paul killed Kristin and then hid her body in his father’s yard. They suggested the couple move the body years later.
The jury rejected that theory and acquitted Ruben on Tuesday. Paul is sentenced on December 9.
As Paul Flores’ conviction was read aloud in court, Kristin’s father smiled and put an arm around her mother, who was silently crying. The stand reported.
Kristin was a Cal Poly student who disappeared after a night of partying in the college town in 1996. Paul Flores, right, seen on Tuesday, was found guilty of her murder today
Paul Flores is seen standing to receive verdict in Monterey County Superior Court, California, on Tuesday
Attorney Harold Mesick responds Tuesday after the jury acquitted Ruben Flores of helping his son, Paul Flores, cover up the murder of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart
Judge Jennifer O’Keefe reads the verdict to the court on Tuesday
Paul Flores is led out of court after the verdict was handed down
NOT GUILTY: Ruben Flores was acquitted of complicity in his son’s crime. The 81-year-old had been jailed for three years
Paul Flores is shown in an unrelated 1996 arrest photo when he was 19. He was never charged for Kristin’s death at the time
The case remained cold for decades until a podcast sparked new public interest in the case.
Titled Your Own Backyard, the host was a local man who said he felt compelled to investigate the matter. The podcast was first launched in 2019.
By 2020, it had gathered thousands of listeners and, police suspect, terrified the Flores family.
Neighbors testified at trial that Ruben Flores worked in the garden that year, after the podcast aroused his family’s suspicions.
Police searched the family’s home and yard. They found no body, but expert witnesses testified in court that the ground beneath the deck had been disturbed.
They also testified that soil samples indicated that it was entirely possible that a tarpaulin-wrapped body was once stored there. Kristin’s remains were never found.
In 2002 she was pronounced dead.
The jury in the Ruben case reached a decision yesterday, but were told they could not announce the decision until Paul’s case was closed.
His lawyers filed a petition seeking a mistrial, claiming it was inappropriate for a family member of the victim to be seen by the jury while hugging someone from the prosecution.
The judge rejected the request.
The Flores defense teams argued at trial that they are the scapegoats of a police department and prosecution that would rather satisfy the public’s hunger for conviction than find the real killer.
Ruben (left) and Paul (right) were arrested in April 2021. The jury finally came to a verdict after two weeks of deliberation
Kristin was a Cal Poly student who was last seen alive in May 1996. She disappeared on her way back to her dorm after a night of drinking at a local party.
Kristin was last seen alive on May 26 at 2 a.m. She was walking home from a party with Paul Flores, on her way to the area where their dorm rooms were. He told police she was walking back to her room, but cadaver dogs detected the smell of a corpse from his room when they searched it after Kristin’s disappearance.
“Conspiracy theories can be fun. We’d love to hear them.
“We like to watch shows and you think, ‘I bet I know what happened.’ “But you’re here as jurors.
“You have sworn to abide by the rule of law,” Paul’s lawyer pleaded at the closing plea.
Kristin was last seen alive walking into her dorm room with Paul Flores on May 25, 1996.
They had attended the off-campus fraternity party with other friends, and their dorms were close together.
Towards the end of the night, schoolchildren who had seen Kristin approaching sober said she was drunk and passed out on the lawn.
At the trial, several other women testified that Paul Flores spiked their drinks and then sexually assaulted them in the years following Kristin’s disappearance.
They called him “Chester the molester” and “psycho Paul,” they said.
Prosecutors suggested this was how he attacked Kristin, a popular blonde he’d admired but could never win.
When first questioned in 1996, Paul Flores told police that Kristin had walked all the way to her own dorm after the party.
He had a black eye when questioned, but he told police it was from a basketball injury.
He later said it was the result of a head-on collision with his car.
He was not arrested, despite the fact that four cadaver dogs picked his dormitory like a smell of death as they searched the entire 120-room dormitory.
Paul then stopped answering questions and invoked his right to the Fifth Amendment.
He was charged by Kristin’s family as part of a civil homicide lawsuit, but was not charged until April 2021.
The trials began in July this year in Monterey, California.
They were evicted from the town where Kristin disappeared to give the Flores men a fair trial.
Kristin’s family was among the first to testify at the trial.
Chris Lambert, the host of the popular podcast Your Own Backyard, is credited with finally solving the decades-old cold case