The Kristin Smart Story | Solving a Decade-Old Disappearance
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In the summer of 1996, Joseph and Mary Lasseter moved into their new rental home at 529 East Branch Street in Arroyo Grande, California. The spacious pastel blue house was lined by a picket fence and situated in a charming suburban neighborhood. The couple thought it would be the perfect place to raise their son. They were wrong. Joseph and Mary soon realized it was not your average rental home. Shortly after moving in,

The couple began receiving hate mail from strangers. The scathing postcards weren't meant for them though. They were addressed to their landlady. The anonymous writers pleaded with her to cooperate with the police and demanded that her son come forward. This was how Joseph and Mary uncovered her unsettling secret. Kristen Smart, a freshman at a local college, had gone missing under suspicious circumstances weeks earlier.

and their landlady's son was the prime suspect. Over the next three months, the Lasseters would make several disturbing discoveries that linked their so-called dream home to the case and incriminated the family who owned it. Their findings would eventually become part of a decades-long investigation into the disappearance and presumed murder of Kristen Smart. Over a quarter of a century later, their evidence helped convict those responsible. Part one,

The Disappearance of Kristen Smart Kristen Smart was born on February 20th, 1977 in Augsburg, Germany to Stan and Denise Smart. She was the eldest of her two siblings, Matthew and Lindsey, and the apple of her parents' eye. When Kristen was a child, her family moved to Stockton, California, where she discovered her love for the ocean.

Kristen grew into an adventurous, athletic woman with high ambitions. In 1996, she enrolled at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo as an architecture student before switching to communications. While her fellow students slept, the 19-year-old freshman would wake up hours before classes began for her 5 a.m. shifts as a local lifeguard.

Despite her busy schedule, Kristen was no stranger to socializing. Her welcoming smile and warm nature saw her making several close friends in the Muir Hall Dormitory. On May 24th, 1996, Kristen was hanging out in her room with one of those friends, Margarita Campos, her next door neighbor. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and the girls were eager to get out. A group of girls who lived down the hall were itching to party too.

They invited Kristen and Margarita to a get together at an off-campus house later that night. The two friends didn't have cars of their own, so they hitched a ride with the girls. Before the group left, Kristen tried to call her mother, Denise. She left an excited voicemail saying she had a bunch of good news to tell everyone back home. Kristen promised that she would call them on Sunday as she always did to explain everything.

However, she never called. That was the last time Denise would ever hear her daughter's voice. The get together ended earlier than expected, leaving Kristen and Margarita sober, bored, and craving some excitement. So they hopped into a friend's truck and drove around the area looking for house parties. After a while, their friend gave up and dropped the girls off on the corner of Foothill and California Boulevards.

Margarita was tired and ready to walk back to campus. Kristen, on the other hand, wasn't. The friends found themselves at a stalemate as they stood in an empty, dimly lit parking lot. Kristen begged Margarita not to go and tried to convince her to stay out instead, but she wouldn't budge. Margarita had made up her mind and decided to go back to their dorm. Unfortunately, she would regret this decision for the rest of her life.

Before the pair split up, Margarita gave Kristen her key. The entrance to Muir Hall would be locked by midnight, and she wanted to make sure her friend could get in safely. They said their goodbyes, and Margarita watched Kristen disappear into the darkness around 10:30 p.m., dragging her feet in disappointment. The next morning on May 25th, Margarita went next door to check on Kristen and find out how her night out had gone.

She knocked on her door several times, but there was no answer. Margarita assumed that Kristen was probably hungover and exhausted from staying out late, so she left her friend to sleep in. Kristen's roommate, Crystal Calvin, got back to their dorm later that afternoon. Margarita headed over, eager to see her friend. What she saw instead made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Kristen's side of the room was exactly how she had left it the night before. Her bed was made, her clothing undisturbed, and her purse hadn't moved. It was alarmingly clear that Kristen had never made it back to her room. Part two, the search for Kristen Smart. Saturday night came and went, but Kristen never showed up. There was no sign of her on Sunday morning either. Margarita and Crystal began to worry.

She had no money, no extra clothing or toiletries, and her house keys and ID were still in her room. They knew that something was very wrong. Back in Stockton, Kristen's parents had also begun to worry. She called them every Sunday religiously and seemed so excited to share her good news with them. Despite this, Stan and Denise decided not to bother her.

It was a long weekend, and they knew that Kristen was likely enjoying her newfound freedom as a college freshman with her friends. Unbeknownst to them, however, the situation at Cal Poly was becoming serious. Margarita and Crystal had spent the day asking people around campus if they had seen or heard from Kristen, but no one had. The girls headed back to Muir Hall and gathered their dorm mates to figure out what they should do.

The group eventually agreed that they needed to alert the authorities. So, they called the Cal Poly campus police to report her missing on Sunday, May 26th. To the girls' dismay, the campus police dismissed their concerns and refused to file a report. The officers argued that Kristen had probably gone on a spontaneous trip away for Memorial Day and would be back soon, despite this being completely out of character for her.

Kristen's friends decided to call the San Luis Obispo Police Department, thinking that they would understand the gravity of the situation. Shockingly, they were just as indifferent. The officers assumed that Kristen was just another irresponsible college kid, ignoring the fact that her essential personal belongings had been untouched since Friday night. By Monday, May 27th, Kristen was still missing and the clock was ticking.

Margarita refused to let the Cal Poly campus police ignore her friend's disappearance any longer. Her persistence paid off. The officers gave in and called Denise Smart later that day. They explained that her friends were concerned for Kristen's safety and asked if she had come home for the weekend. Denise went ice cold as her mother's instinct kicked in. She knew her daughter was in danger. The Cal Poly officers tried reassuring her,

explaining that students often disappear without checking in, only to reappear a few days later with friends. Denise, however, was not convinced. She insisted that Kristen would never do that voluntarily and demanded that the officers take action. Finally, on May 28th, 1996, the Cal Poly campus police officially declared Kristen Smart missing, a shocking four days after she was last seen.

The crucial first 48 hours of her disappearance had been wasted and the likelihood of finding her was dwindling by the hour, feeling alone and frustrated. Stan Smart made the four-hour drive down to San Luis Obispo to make sure that Kristen's case got the attention it deserved. He plastered missing persons flyers across the college and spoke to Cal Poly authorities himself.

With the Smart family's presence now palpable on campus, the officers finally started investigating Kristen's disappearance. Part 3: The Party and the Prime Suspect The Cal Poly Police were not equipped to handle a case of this magnitude. However, they kept the investigation under their control anyway. The officers interviewed several witnesses who saw Kristen over Memorial Day weekend and began to build a timeline of what happened.

On Friday, May 24th, after Margarita and Kristen had split up for the night, Kristen kept walking through the residential area in search of a party. Finally, she stumbled upon a birthday party happening at an unofficial fraternity house off campus. Kristen wasn't a big drinker, but she also didn't like going out alone. Out of her comfort zone, she apparently drank more than her tolerance could handle. Kristen was hammered by the time the party ended.

She left the frat house around 2:00 AM on Saturday morning, but didn't make it very far. Fellow Cal Poly students, Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson, were walking home from the party when they found Kristen passed out on a neighboring lawn. She couldn't walk on her own, so the pair helped her to her feet and walked the barely conscious freshmen towards her Muir Hall dorm. Suddenly, another student, Paul Flores, emerged from the darkness and joined them.

He seemed eager to help, acting as if he knew Kristen, and wrapped his arms around her waist when she complained of the cold. Once they reached the campus health center, Tim split off from the group as his destination was in the opposite direction. He tried to pass Kristen to Cheryl, but Paul quickly intervened. While the remaining three students walked towards Muir Hall, Paul held Kristen close to him and kept trying to get Cheryl to walk ahead.

His dorm, Santa Lucia Hall, was next door to Kristen's, and he insisted that he could handle her himself. Cheryl found this concerning, but her dorm was just a little further down the street, and she was ready for bed. As she said her goodbyes, Paul allegedly asked her for a kiss, which she immediately declined. He then asked her for a hug, and she declined again.

Wary of his behavior, Cheryl asked him if he would get Kristen back to her dorm safely. Paul promised he would without hesitation. So Cheryl made her way home. That was the last time anyone other than Paul Flores would see Kristen Smart again. It was now clear to Cal Poly investigators that Kristen had disappeared under incredibly suspicious circumstances just a few yards from her dorm.

It was also clear that they had found their prime suspect, Paul Flores. Part 4: Chester the Molester Paul Flores was not the knight in shining armor he pretended to be that fateful morning. The 19-year-old had a sick obsession with harassing women.

He was often seen skulking around dormitories, including Kristen's, and was accused of making unwanted advances on women at parties. One incident happened just five months before Kristen's disappearance. Paul had climbed onto a woman's balcony in a drunken stupor at 1:00 AM and refused to leave, forcing her to call the police.

He had also been accused of stalking another student on campus. But little is known about this incident, as she didn't press charges. Paul's predatory behavior quickly earned him several unsavory nicknames on campus, such as "Creepy Paul" and "Chester the Molester." In late May 1996, Cal Poly Police Department investigator Lawrence Kennedy made his way to the Santa Lucia Hall residence to interview Paul Flores.

His dodgy reputation with women, coupled with the fact that he was the last known person to see Kristen before she vanished, was especially concerning. Paul, who had a black eye at the time, became visibly nervous the moment Kennedy stepped into his room. When Kennedy asked Paul about his bruised eye, he claimed that he had been elbowed by his friend, Jeremy Moon, during a basketball game after Memorial Day weekend.

Sensing that he had caught Paul off guard, Kennedy pressed him about the night of the frat party. Paul's description of the walk to campus was similar to those of Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson. However, he downplayed his eagerness to get Kristen alone. Paul said that he half carried Kristen back to her dorm after Tim and Cheryl had left. Once they got to the intersection of the walkways leading to their dorms, he claimed that he left her to walk the rest of the way.

Paul was adamant that that was the last time he saw Kristen smart. Kennedy asked if he had been close with Kristen, but Paul swore that he didn't even know who she was before he helped her. The investigator probed a little deeper. He mentioned that other students had seen Paul getting handsy with Kristen while they walked, and asked if he was attracted to her. Paul seemed offended by the idea that he would ever take advantage of a drunk girl.

He denied having any interest in Kristen and justified his behavior by saying that it was necessary. Paul claimed that he had to hold Kristen's hips to steady her because she could barely walk straight and that he only hugged her because she was freezing. He insisted that his intentions were pure. He just wanted to help. Officer Kennedy knew that Paul was lying. He had already interviewed several other witnesses who had no reason to implicate Paul.

and their statements directly contradicted his. Matthew Toomey, a senior who was also at the frat party, claimed that Paul had approached him that night and explicitly asked about Kristen. Paul wanted to know if his friend was dating Kristen. When Matthew said no, Paul allegedly confessed that he thought she was hot that same night. Tim Davis and other witnesses claimed to see Kristen fall to the ground with Paul Flores lying on top of her.

However, Kristen wasn't Paul's only target that night. Several girls at the party had accused Paul of being inappropriate. They claimed that he was relentlessly hitting on the female students and refusing to take no for an answer. Some of the girls alleged that he tried to kiss and grope them even after they had physically pushed him off. Officer Kennedy was certain that Paul was somehow involved in Kristen Smart's disappearance.

Whether the freshman had caused it or been a witness to it, he didn't know. What he did know was that summer break was closing in fast and Paul would be moving out of his dorm when the semester ended. Kennedy allegedly asked for Paul's room to be closed off. Unfortunately, however, he didn't follow up on his request. Paul vacated his dorm at the start of June, taking all of his possessions with him.

His room was cleaned soon after, and any evidence that may have been there was lost in the process. Unbelievably, the Cal Poly police never thought to organize a forensic examination of the potential crime scene before Paul left. This was the final straw for the Smart family and their supporters. Part 5: Police Pick Up the Pieces, Cadaver Dogs Pick Up the Scent

The campus police were severely criticized for their handling of Kristen Smart's case. Their initial inaction delayed the investigation, and their reluctance to hand it over to local authorities led to the loss of potential evidence that could have been crucial in solving her disappearance early on. Weeks after Kristen vanished, and largely due to public outcry,

the officers at the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department finally took over as the lead investigators on the case. They knew that time was against them, so the investigators threw themselves into picking up the pieces of the botched investigation, starting with Paul Flores. On June 19th, the district attorney's investigators brought Paul in for questioning at the Arroyo Grande Police Department.

They began by bringing up the black eye that he had been sporting just a few days after Kristen's disappearance. Once again, Paul blamed his incriminating injury on the basketball game that happened on the Monday after Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately for Paul, he had just taken the bait.

The investigators had already spoken to his friend, Jeremy Moon, who claimed that Paul already had the black eye on Sunday, May 26th, the day after Kristen disappeared. When Jeremy asked him how he had gotten it, Paul said that he didn't know. He just woke up with it after the party. The investigators confronted him about lying in his initial interview with Cal Poly Police.

Paul countered that he had only lied because the real story seemed unlikely, and he didn't think that they would believe him. Apparently, he had hit his eye on the steering wheel of his truck while installing a radio. The officers found this strange, considering Paul was 5'10", and it was his right eye that had been bruised. Although the teen tried to maintain his composure, he was becoming increasingly agitated.

Investigators took this moment of weakness to grill him about the night of the frat party. Paul fidgeted as he repeated his story, even pulling his arms into his shirt and hunching over into the fetal position. He denied having any involvement in Kristen's disappearance, but the investigators had collected statements that implied otherwise.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, May 25th, just after Paul had allegedly dropped Kristen at Muir Hall, he had been seen pushing a trash can and a utility cart across campus.

His father, Ruben Flores, had allegedly received an urgent phone call around the same time. The following Monday, Paul's mother, Susan Flores, told a colleague that she thought Ruben was hiding something because he left without a word like a bat out of hell. Investigators had also interviewed Paul's roommate, Derek T, who was out of town during Memorial Day weekend.

Derek told the police that he had jokingly asked Paul if he had done something to Kristen. Allegedly, Paul replied that she was at his house in Arroyo Grande having lunch with his mom. Despite this damning evidence, it was only circumstantial. Without a body or physical evidence that proved a crime had been committed and that Paul was responsible, investigators couldn't hold or charge him. So...

When he asked to leave the interrogation early to finish up some concrete work at his mother home in Arroyo Grande, they had to release him. However, the investigators weren't giving up that easily. They knew they needed tangible proof that connected Paul to Kristen's disappearance. They also knew where to look for it: his dorm room, where they hypothesized Kristen may have been killed.

Although the campus police failures made finding any forensic evidence there unlikely, the San Luis Obispo County detectives had the resources needed to dig deeper. On June 29th, the investigators brought in the California Rescue Dog Association, or CARDA. Four cadaver dogs were deployed at different times to search the Cal Poly campus for the scent of human decomposition.

One after the other, each dog led their handlers to room 128 of Santa Lucia Hall, Paul's room. Once inside, the dogs immediately alerted their handlers to the mattress on the left side of the room, Paul's side. The investigators removed the mattress as evidence and, just to be sure, brought the dogs in again. Still, the cadaver dogs alerted to Paul's side of the room,

Adela Morris, a Carta dog handler, explained to the investigators that the dogs' alerts indicated that there was a strong possibility that a dead body had been in that room at some point. She added that her own dogs' alerts were the strongest she had ever seen. Investigators had no doubt that they were on the right track. However, they still didn't have a body or the physical evidence needed to prove their theory.

They mobilized the San Luis Obispo Police Force and combed through the remote areas of the Cal Poly campus on horseback while helicopters searched from above. Meanwhile, the Flores family was getting ready to rent out Paul's mother's house. Part 6: An Ominous Beeping and a Bloody Earring

One afternoon in the summer of 1996, a 21-year-old food prep cook was standing by his kitchen sink when he noticed something strange happening across the road at 529 East Branch Street. He peered out of his window to get a better look and saw something that would haunt him for years to come. His neighbor's son and an unknown man were taking turns shoveling and wheelbarrowing mounds of dirt

Something about this didn't sit right with him, and he would soon realize why. The men seemed to be digging a four feet deep hole in the backyard for no obvious apparent reason. He watched as they disappeared from sight and returned with a rolled up rug. To his surprise, both men struggled to carry the rug to the hole before they dropped it beneath the earth. The food prep cook was perplexed

He had been a floor layer for 15 years and was no stranger to heavy lifting. He was used to rolling up an entire floor's worth of carpeting, throwing it over his shoulder and walking it upstairs. It simply wasn't that hard. However, two men were needed to carry this rug and it was clearly too heavy to be empty. The men then backfilled the hole and poured concrete over it with little skill, forming a warped slab.

One month later, Joseph and Mary Lassiter moved in. They had originally planned to move in weeks earlier. However, their landlady, Susan Flores, had delayed the move because of the unusual concrete project. As the couple settled into their new rental home, they began to notice some peculiar things.

The fresh layer of concrete on the west side of the property, for one, was strange in itself. A cement planter box had been installed over it that was six feet long, three feet wide, and surrounded by a cinder block retaining wall. However, nothing would ever grow in it because of the concrete layer beneath. The Lasseter's discoveries soon went from strange to sinister.

The hate mail had already begun to fill their mailboxes, and the couple was well aware of Susan's son's connection to the disappearance of Kristen Smart. One day, they noticed tiny red droplets sprayed across a section of the shower curtain. Mary, who was a nurse, and Joseph, a hospital worker, instantly realized it was dried blood. Next, it was the beeping.

Every morning at 4:20 a.m., they were woken by a repetitive beeping sound that resembled a digital watch alarm coming from the backyard. After a few weeks, it began to drive Mary crazy. She scoured the backyard for the source of the sound, but couldn't find a watch anywhere. Soon, she realized that the beeping was coming from within the concrete near the planter bed.

It wasn't until the Lasseters heard that Kristen used to get up early for her 5:00 a.m. lifeguard shifts that the truth of what may have happened in their own backyard set in. The battery died after a month or so and the beeping stopped. However, Joseph and Mary's sense of unease didn't. The couple finally reached their breaking point when Mary made one last disturbing discovery.

As she arranged her flower pots in the backyard, she stumbled upon a single bloodied earring. To her dismay, the silver and turquoise earring seemed to pair perfectly with the necklace that Kristen wore in her missing person's billboard. Horrifyingly, she had found the earring in the same spot where an old metal dustbin had been just after Ruben, Paul's father, had insisted on picking it up.

He seemed desperate to get his hands on it at the time and had asked the Lassiters not to use or touch it. Mary decided that enough was enough. It was time to go to the police. The Lassiters handed the earring over to the detectives investigating Kristen Smart's case. It was photographed, bagged, and promptly lost, along with the only photo of it. Part 7: The Search for Kristen Continues

When Susan Flores found out that the Lassiters were working with the police, she evicted the couple three months into their six-month lease and moved back in. However, it was too late. On March 3rd, 1997, Susan's Arroyo Grande home was searched by a cadaver dog. It quickly alerted its handler to the scent of human decomposition coming from the cement planter box in the backyard on the west side of the property.

the same area where Mary thought the beeping sound was coming from. Another search was conducted there the next day. This time, ground-penetrating radar technology was used to examine the earth beneath the concrete. Although the geologist detected anomalies under the slab that suggested the soil had recently been disturbed, the overall results were inconclusive. The San Luis Obispo police were undeterred,

On May 25th, 1997, the one-year anniversary of Kristen Smart's disappearance, Sheriff Ed Williams told a local newspaper that everything pointed to Paul Flores. Countless seasoned detectives had conducted well over 100 interviews, and all the evidence they gathered pointed to him. There was no other suspect. All the investigators needed was a smoking gun.

The Smart family were just as confident that Paul had caused Kristen's disappearance and likely her death too. So they took matters into their own hands. Stan Smart spent months searching for his daughter. He drove the nearly 500 mile round trip from their family home in Stockton to San Luis Obispo almost 100 times. He hiked every trail in sight, looking for remote areas that could be ideal for dumping a body.

even crawling through drainage pipes in his desperation. Stan and Denise were furious that Paul continued to walk free despite the evidence against him. So, in November 1997, their civil attorney, James Murphy, filed a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit against him. Incredibly, Paul managed to avoid being brought to justice once again.

He pleaded the Fifth Amendment during his deposition and refused to answer any questions other than his name and birthdate. Unfortunately, the civil lawsuit was soon stayed by a judge. It couldn't move forward while there was an ongoing criminal investigation in DePaul. By May 25th, 2002, 12 years after Kristen disappeared, she was declared legally dead.

Her case had faded from the headlines and many thought it had long gone cold. Despite the time lapse, San Luis Obispo County investigators and forensic specialists had not given up. By 2020, they had executed 18 search warrants, submitted 37 items for DNA testing, recovered 140 new pieces of evidence, and conducted over 200 interviews. Intriguingly,

public interest was soon renewed by an unlikely source. Chris Lambert, a singer-songwriter, had been fascinated by Kristen's case after driving past her billboard for almost two decades. He started a seven-part podcast investigating her disappearance, which garnered international attention and brought new information to light about the Flores' involvement. Armed with fresh leads,

The police executed search warrants on four locations connected to the Flores family in February 2020. It soon became public that one was of Paul Flores' home in San Pedro, Los Angeles. Another was his sister's home in Washington State. And the final two were his parents' homes in Arroyo Grande, California. The authorities reported that several items of interest were discovered, but released no further information.

Unbeknownst to the public, however, they had found their smoking gun. Part 8: Arrested and Charged 25 Years Later After a quarter of a century of searching for answers, the police finally had enough physical evidence to connect 45-year-old Paul Flores to Kristen Smart's disappearance. He was arrested at his San Pedro home on April 13th, 2021.

Surprisingly, so was his 81-year-old father, Ruben Flores. The father and son were held in custody to await their arraignment. San Luis Obispo District Attorney Dan Dow filed a criminal complaint against Paul and Ruben Flores the following day on behalf of the district attorney's office. He announced their formal charges in a press conference, shedding light on the startling arrest of Paul's elderly father.

Paul Flores was charged with the first-degree murder of Kristen Smart. Ruben Flores, on the other hand, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. Dow stated that the evidence collected over the 25-year investigation proved that Paul caused Kristen's disappearance and presumed death during or while attempting to rape her, and that Ruben had helped his then 19-year-old son hide her remains.

The statute of limitations for the alleged rape had already expired. However, Dow declared that his office had evidence that Paul Flores had a history of sexually assaulting women. On Monday, April 19th, both father and son pleaded not guilty to all charges. Prosecutors determined not to let them get away with it that easily.

provided evidence showing that Paul Flores had sexually assaulted multiple women since 1994 and claimed that he was a danger to the public. Judge Van Ruyen agreed, denied him bail, and ordered that he remain in jail until his trial. The prosecutors also declared that a recent search of Ruben Flores' Arroyo Grande property produced damning evidence that a body had been hidden there and recently moved.

and they had eyewitness accounts to back it up. Despite this, Judge Van Ruyen declared that the 81-year-old was not a public safety risk. Ruben was released on bail and ordered to hand over his passport and submit to electronic monitoring. Stan and Denise Smart were tormented by the thought that Ruben, a father and husband, played a role in their 19-year-old's daughter disappearance.

On April 22nd, 2021, less than 24 hours after Rubin was released on bail, they filed an intentional infliction of emotional distress lawsuit against him. Frustratingly, they were unable to proceed once again due to the ongoing criminal investigation. Paul and Rubin's month-long preliminary hearing began on August 1st, 2021, in the San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

The pair maintained their innocence throughout the proceedings, but the evidence continued to stack up against them. Several witnesses took the stand to make statements about what happened before and after Kristen Smart's disappearance. One witness, Stephen Fleming, also lived in the Muir Hall residence and was a close friend of Kristen's. He stated that Paul Flores did know Kristen before she disappeared and seemed to have an unhealthy attraction to her.

Stephen often saw Paul following her around campus and had even caught him standing in Kristen's room while she sat on her bed, clearly uncomfortable. Ruben Flores' involvement was also scrutinized. Recently, unsealed court documents showed that traces of human blood had been found in the area of disturbed soil beneath his deck.

It also came out that, in February 2020, Ruben, his estranged wife Susan, and her boyfriend Mike McConville were seen working under Ruben's deck in the dark of night. Prosecutors believed that they were in the process of moving Kristen's remains. It was clear to the court that there was enough incriminating evidence against Paul and Ruben Flores to go to trial in 2022.

Judge Van Ruyen moved their trial to Monterey County because of the media frenzy surrounding the case in San Luis Obispo. Part 9: The Trial, The Predator, and Salt in the Wound On July 18, 2022, over 26 years since Kristen Smart's disappearance, Paul and Ruben Flores went to trial in the Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas, California.

Their attorney, Robert Sanger, argued that they were innocent victims of a trial by media speculation. He insisted that, without Kristen's body, there was no proof that a crime had even been committed. However, the evidence said otherwise. San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Povrell made an opening statement that shocked the court and rubbed salt in the wounds of the Smart family.

While the local community searched for Kristen, Paul did nothing, and Ruben was seen tearing down her missing persons posters. Worse still, while Stan and Denise Smart were calling for people to come forward with information about their daughter's disappearance, Ruben was heard calling her a dirty slut. Povrel announced that Paul had a lengthy criminal history and was charged with several DUIs in 1996, 1999, 2000, and 2005.

he added that Paul was a known sexual predator, although police at the time did little about it. Back in 2016, it was discovered that four women had accused Paul Flores of sexually assaulting them between 1994 and 2002, before and after Kristen Smart disappeared. One victim alleged that she had been roofied and raped by Paul and an unidentified friend in 1994, when she was just 15 years old.

However, when she turned to law enforcement for help, the boys claimed that she was drunk and wanted it, and the police believed them. A second victim, who was also a Cal Poly student at the time, accused Paul of groping her at a party in 1995 and trying to rape her in the bathroom at a friend's birthday party some months later. As it stands, Paul and Ruben Flores' trial is still set to continue into at least October 2022.

They will be tried at the same time by two sets of Monterey County Superior Court jurors, each of which will decide the fate of one of these men.