Search for Kristin Smart: The remains have been found and the search will continue, the sheriff said

SAN LUIS OBISPO – Investigators at the home of the mother of Kristin Smart’s killer found human remains but have yet to find the body, authorities said Friday.

Authorities were at Susan Flores’ Arroyo Grande home in San Luis Obispo County this week, checking the ground for any signs of human decay. Their results were “positive,” meaning remains have been found, but so far, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said Friday.

Parkinson said, “We believe, based on what we’re looking at, the evidence, the scientific evidence, that human remains were there at one time,” he said. “So we’re not going to call it Kristin but you know, we think there’s, there’s evidence to support human remains there.”

But, Parkinson added, investigators won’t leave until they’re sure they’ve done everything they can.

“Our investigation is ongoing, and I don’t know how long it will be,” he said at a press conference updating the public on this week’s search efforts. “The warrant that we received … says that the people who live in this area, once we fix it, they have to leave and they can’t come back to the residence. It’s not common.”

If something is finally found, authorities will go back to digging, which would require another permit, which means “you’re going to see some delays,” he said.

Earlier this week, sheriff’s investigators and forensic experts descended on the home of the mother of Paul Flores, who was convicted of murdering Smart after his 1996 disappearance.

Parkinson said he did not know when the search would be conducted with soil testing and ground-penetrating radar.

“We don’t know if it will end today, as I said, it’s a successive step each time we find something, we go in a different direction.

Paul Flores was the last person seen with Smart as the two went to his apartment at Cal State San Luis Obispo after a party on Memorial Day weekend in 1996. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison three years ago for killing Smart. But his body was never found.

Three years ago, a team of scientists working in the backyard of Susan Flores’ neighbors using soil vapor samples discovered the presence of volatile organic compounds that they said could be associated with decaying human remains.

The public’s interest is there again, no longer and kept Smart’s disappearance from the news from time to time, but a podcast called “Your Yard,” started in 2019 by Chris Lambert, illuminated a new area in the cold case.

In November 2019, he began researching how bodies decompose in soil. Two months later, he hired Steve Hoyt, another Cal Poly grad with a doctorate in environmental science, who had built a soil sampling business for the Central Coast. Brian Eckenrode, a retired FBI scientist and human decomposition expert, joined them in 2021.

Authorities had repeatedly searched the grounds of Paul Flores’ parents’ homes. Sheriff’s deputies even used radar and ground-penetrating cadaver dogs to search Ruben Flores’ property in Arroyo Grande in 2021. No remains were found, but a month later, both Flores men were arrested and charged in connection with Smart’s murder.

Smart, then 19, of Stockton, disappeared over Memorial Day weekend in 1996.

At about 8:30 pm on May 24, he and his three friends left their dormitories, a row of brick and concrete buildings located on a steep hill known as Poly Hill.

They rode a truck to a party in an illegal house near the center. His friends didn’t want to go to the party, so they dropped Smart off at a friend’s place.

Tim Davis, an officer who helped organize the event, told investigators that he was evacuating the last people around 02:00 when he saw a tall girl, later identified as Smart, lying on the grass near the house, apparently unconscious. He woke her up. He was in no mood to walk home alone.

Davis and Cheryl Anderson were about to walk home when Flores, a 19-year-old from the nearby town of Arroyo Grande, volunteered to help. Smart was last seen walking home with him, authorities said.

Busloads of volunteers, horses and ground penetrating radar were called in to search after Smart went missing.