Kristin Smart disappeared 26 years ago. He was 19 years old, a freshman in college. He was wearing what the FBI described as a gray half-shirt, black surfing shorts and red Puma shoes. She attended an off-campus party and never saw it again. The Smart case has remained open and unresolved for a quarter of a century. Then, in April 2021, authorities arrested two men claiming to be responsible for Smart’s disappearance: Paul Flores, 45, who has been charged with killing Smart, and Ruben Flores, 80, his father. who has been charged with accessories after the murder crime because he allegedly helped his son hide Smart’s body. The case is being tried this summer. Paul Flores was an early suspect in the case and was sued for unjust death by the Smart family in the 1990s. He has denied any involvement and the case was dropped after he asked for the Fifth Amendment. In the intervening years, musician Chris Lambert launched a podcast investigating Smart’s disappearance. Your Own Backyard started airing in 2019. Lambert grew up near the point of Smart’s disappearance. he remembered an initial increase in interest in the case, which was followed by relative silence. With his podcast, Lambert wanted to tell the full story of Smart’s disappearance, as well as bring the case to national attention. When officials announced the arrest of the two men in 2021, they attributed to Lambert and his podcast that they brought new “valuable” information, helping to start the biggest development in the case so far. Kristin Smart was born on February 20, 1977 in Augsburg, Germany. Her parents, Stan and Denise Smart, were teachers for children of military personnel in the area. “She came to this world with an adventurous spirit that never left her,” says her biography on the Kristin Smart Scholarship website created in her memory. “She believed in her dreams and always seemed to know the right steps needed to achieve them.” As a high school student, she spent one summer outside London and one as an exchange student in Venezuela. In the summer before college began, he worked as a lifeguard and counselor at a camp in Hawaii, which he called a “dream job.” The story goes on At the time of her disappearance, Smart was a student at California State University (also known as Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California. On May 24, 1996, Smart and her friend Margarita Campos, along with other acquaintances, attended a meeting at someone off-campus home, Campos said in August 2021 during a preliminary hearing on the charges against Paul and Ruben Flores. After that rally, Smart wanted to stay out, but Campos was tired and had to use the bathroom, Campos testified, according to KSBY. Kampos went back. This was the last time she saw her roommate. Smart attended another party organized by members of a fraternity. According to the New York Times, acquaintances told her in later interviews that she was last seen with Paul Flores, a student who attended the same college as her, around 2 in the morning of May 25th. Prosecutors say Paul Flores killed Smart later that night while trying to rape her. Paul Flores denied the charges against him and pleaded not guilty. (His father has also pleaded not guilty.) Prior to his arrest, Paul Flores had been identified as a person of interest in the case. A forensic examination of his dormitory room took place on June 24, 1996, according to the testimony of Rick Neufeld, a retired sheriff detective, during a preliminary hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores, according to the Santa Ynez Valley News. In 1997, the Smart family filed an unjust death lawsuit against Paul Flores. a video of his deposition shows him invoking Thursday and refusing to answer questions, confirming only key details such as his full name, date of birth and social security number. Your Own Backyard turned its attention to Paul Flores starting with its second episode. In the second episode, entitled “The Only Suspect”, people who knew Flores in high school claim that he was known to behave inappropriately around women. A woman tells Lambert that Flores was nicknamed “Scary Paul” by some. Another tells Flores “he was not right with the girls”. “You would not want to be alone in a room with him,” says the last woman in the same episode. “You would not let any of your friends be drunk around him. “It was kind of unspoken.” Lambert tells the story of Paul Flores, who appeared two days after Smart’s disappearance at the Arroyo Grande Police Department over a pending arrest warrant for a traffic report. Paul Flores, Lambert says, was photographed with black eyes – as reflected in the detention photo taken at the time. According to Lambert, Paul Flores gave inconsistent explanations about how he supported the black eye: He told police that he took it the day the ball was shot, a Monday, while playing basketball with a friend. But this friend told the police that he had seen Flores the Sunday before, so Flores already had the black eye and told his friend that he did not know what had caused it. During a subsequent interview, Flores, when asked about the discrepancy, told police he had blackened his eyes early Monday morning, injuring himself as he tried to remove the stereo from his car, Lambert said. Paul Flores (left), 45, and his father Ruben Flores (right), 81. Paul Flores has been charged with first-degree murder and Ruben Flores has been charged with escorting after the murder of San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office) A missing person poster for Kristin Smart provided by the FBI (FBI) For 25 years the investigation remained open, with no arrests. Then came Lambert and Your Own Backyard. Lambert, a singer and songwriter, had never created a true crime podcast before Your Own Backyard started. He says in the first episode, “A Face On A Billboard”, that before the show was made, he periodically reminded Smart of his disappearance through a billboard near Arroyo Grande Creek, “faded by the years of sunlight” and “is “It’s easy to miss it now unless you’re really looking for it,” he said, looking for information on the case. for the case. The original release of Your Own Backyard consisted of eight episodes. From episode four to episode eight, the show opened with this note from the Smart family: “The statute of limitations in this case has expired on all but the murder. “Anyone who leaks information will not be charged with any crime.” When authorities announced the arrests of Paul and Ruben Flores in April 2021, they openly attributed to Lambert and the podcast that they helped bring to light what the Associated Press called “new evidence” and “valuable witnesses.” Kristin Smart was last seen returning to her dorm from an off-campus party on May 25, 1996 (Sacramento Bee / Shutterstock) “What Chris did with the podcast was release it nationally to bring in new information,” Parkinson told the AP, noting that he had not done so. [elaborated on the new evidence]. “It produced some information that I think was valuable.” An online statement from the Smart family also praised Lambert and his work: “Our sincere thanks go to Chris Lambert for keeping Christine’s story relevant through his podcast,” he said. “We owe him our gratitude for informing millions that Kristin is still being ignored and deserves justice.” At a hearing in July 2021, Chris Peurvelle, deputy attorney general in San Luis Obispo, said a search of Paul Flores’s home in 2020 found substances that could be used as drugs to rape dates, as well as a video of Paul Flores making sex with women looking incompetent, on a hard drive called “Practice”, the Atascadero News and the AP reported. The prosecutor in the case of Paul Flores tried to add two charges of rape against him, although a judge rejected the move, saying that there was not enough evidence to suggest that Paul Flores had raped Smart. Defense attorney Robert Sanger denounced the attempt to add the charges as a publicity stunt, the AP reported at the time. As part of the same effort, prosecutors unveiled a summary of the case in which more than two dozen women recounted incidents involving Paul Flores, which the AP described as “embarrassing and dangerous encounters” involving “sexual assaults while she was half-dead.” his senses and he felt drugged “and ranged” from a creepy chase to an unwanted touch to aggressive sexual behavior to, more recently, drugs and rape after meeting him in bars “. Sanger argued for his client’s innocence, saying: “The facts about Kristin Smart’s disappearance are no different than they were in the 1990s. The facts then and now are based on speculation, not evidence.” The selection of jurors in the trial of Paul and Ruben Flores was expected to begin on Monday, June 20, after a week in which the jurors filled out questionnaires. It is now a week late due to health concerns of one of the test participants, the KSBY reported. Father and son will be tried at the same time but by separate jurors. The inaugural statements are scheduled for July.
