BREAKING NEWS: Paul Flores sentenced to 25 years to life without parole in 1996 murder of Kristin Smart: Judge calls him ‘cancer of society’.
- Kristin Smart, a student at California Polytech University in San Luis Obispo, disappeared in 1996
- On Friday, a fellow student, Paul Flores, now 46, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for her murder
Kristin Smart’s killer Paul Flores was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday — more than 25 years after her murder.
Smart and Flores were both students at California Polytech University in San Luis Obispo when she disappeared in 1996. The case remained unsolved for decades, but a 2020 true crime podcast rocked local police.
Flores, now 46, was subsequently arrested. Though police never found her remains, they believe Flores raped and then murdered her in his dormitory.
Judge Jennifer O’Keefe told him, “Mr. Flores, you have been a cancer to society.”
Smart’s brother Matthew told the court that Flores was “a threat to society”.
“Paul has chosen to take a life, my sister Kristin’s life, a beautiful life,” he said.
‘And now he has to pay.’
He and his father Ruben have both been charged in connection with her death. Prosecutors say Ruben helped his son by hiding Smart’s body under their backyard patio for years.
Paul Flores will appear in court in Salinas, California on Friday for his conviction
Flores is seen in an independent arrest photo from 1996 when he was 19. He was convicted of Smart’s murder in 2022 and his hearing was held on Friday
Flores is seen in court in the Monterey County courtroom in Salinas in July 2022
The couple are suspected of moving their remains when suspicions began to grow in 2020.
Flores was found guilty of murder in October last year.
The trial took place in Salinas, Monterey County, about 110 miles north of San Luis Obispo, after the defense argued that Flores and his father would not receive a fair trial in their own county due to the high profile of the case.
A jury found Flores guilty of first-degree murder in October. A separate jury acquitted 81-year-old Ruben Flores of complicity.
Freshman Kristin Smart disappeared after a college party in California in 1996 – and the prime suspect was found guilty after a crime podcast helped solve the case
At the trial of Paul Flores, defense attorney Robert Sanger tried to pin the murder on someone else.
Sanger noted that Scott Peterson, who was later convicted in a sensational trial of murdering his pregnant wife and the fetus she was carrying, was also a student on the campus about 200 miles offshore Los Angeles.
Sanger filed a motion in Monterey County Superior Court on February 24, asking that the charges be dismissed and his client acquitted. An application also calls for a new process.
Sanger denied forensic evidence offered by prosecutors. He claimed that Flores’ right to a fair trial had been violated due to mistakes in law enforcement and “the admission of junk science as evidence”.
“There’s a reason a case against Paul Flores hasn’t been instituted in 25 years,” the filing reads.
“There was no evidence of murder or that Paul Flores committed it.”
The San Luis Obispo County Attorney’s Office petitioned the court to deny those motions, arguing that “claims of wrongdoing are baseless and allegations of miscarriage of justice are false.”