Kristin Smart case: Paul Flores’ ex-girlfriend says she was barred from his father’s backyard
A former girlfriend of the man accused of murdering Cal Poly student Kristin Smart says she remembers being shooed away from a backyard where investigators say Smart’s remains were buried at the time.
The woman, identified as Angie Doe, testified in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Tuesday that she attempted to pick an avocado from the backyard of the Arroyo Grande home of Paul Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, and was abruptly told by both Flores men to get out.
Also on Tuesday, the defense served a subpoena to testify on Chris Lambert, the creator of the widely popular “Your Own Backyard” podcast focusing on the case, and requested Lambert be barred from the courtroom for the remainder of the preliminary hearing so as to not bias his potential testimony.
The judge in the case, however, declined to remove a member of the media for doing their job, he said.
Witness testimony continued Tuesday in the month-long preliminary hearing in the case against Paul Flores and his father, Ruben Flores.
Prosecutors allege Smart was murdered by Paul Flores during a rape attempt in his residence hall room more than 25 years ago.
Paul Flores, 44, is the last person known to have seen the 19-year-old freshman alive after walking her back from the party toward the Cal Poly campus residence halls on May 24, 1996.
Smart’s body has never been found but investigators believe her remains were buried at the Arroyo Grande home of 80-year-old Ruben Flores, and recently moved.
Tuesday marks the sixth day of testimony in the evidentiary hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores, which was originally expected to last about 12 days. Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen said last week that it’s likely to proceed through August.
The preliminary hearing is not being live-streamed and media in attendance are under strict rules prohibiting the use of electronic devices and photographing or recording witnesses in the courtroom.
At the conclusion of the hearing, van Rooyen will rule whether prosecutors established probable cause — a lesser standard of proof than guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — to proceed the case toward trial.
Here’s what happened during Tuesday’s hearing.
Former friend of Paul Flores testifies
One of Paul Flores’ former friends, Jeromy Moon, who is a year younger that the San Pedro man, was attending Arroyo Grande High School when Smart went missing on May 24, 1996.
Moon testified on the stand Tuesday that he did not remember much about the days following Smart’s disappearance.
However, he testified that on May 26, 1996, he met with Flores at about 8 p.m. and noticed the black eye.
When Moon asked Flores about the injury, “His response was he woke up with it,” Moon said.
The next day, Moon recalled, he, Flores and two other people played a game of basketball at a local elementary school.
Moon said he didn’t remember whether Flores was hit in the face during the game, as Flores would tell investigators looking for evidence in the Smart missing person case.
After being provided a copy of his statement to a San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office investigator from the time, Moon said, “No, he did not get hit in the face.”
Under cross examination, Moon was asked by defense attorney Robert Sanger whether anyone was “throwing elbows” during the game.
“Elbows get thrown up, and people get hit, right?” Sanger asked. “How do you know he didn’t get hit in the face?”
“I don’t remember him getting hit in the face,” Moon replied.
“Exactly,” Sanger said.
The attorney asked Moon about his cooperation with investigators, including as recently as June in preparation for his testimony.
“If I knew there was wrongdoing ... I had zero problems telling the truth,” Moon said.
Former girlfriend recalls incident in Ruben Flores’ backyard
On Monday, attorneys for both sides had discussed the expected testimony of Angie Doe — her full name was not published in court documents or mentioned in court — who was Paul Flores’ girlfriend for approximately two years from 2003 to 2005, according to an unsealed prosecution statement of the case.
She was expected to take the stand Monday afternoon, but did not take the stand until Tuesday.
The woman previously told investigators she moved in with Flores in Lawndale after they met at a bar when she was 21 years old and he was 28, according to the unsealed court documents.
The woman told investigators of one incident where she and Flores were “rough-housing” and he took it too far and “snapped,” according to the unsealed documents. In that incident, he held a butter knife to her throat, she told investigators.
The woman had also told investigators of a time when the couple passed a Kristin Smart billboard in Arroyo Grande and she asked Flores about the sign. He responded, “Oh, just some girl who went missing,” she said, and never mentioned any involvement.
Following attorney arguments on Monday, van Rooyen said he would allow Angie Doe to testify but would limit her testimony to her experience in Ruben Flores’ backyard.
Van Rooyen said that the other information she told investigators would only speak to Flores’ character and not be useful for the purposes of a preliminary hearing.
Angie Doe took the stand roughly an hour before the lunch recess Tuesday, and recounted staying with Paul Flores at the home of his mother, Susan Flores, in the Village of Arroyo Grande. During the two-day visit, the couple also visited Ruben Flores’ house at 710 White Court in Arroyo Grande.
She said that, at some point, she took a stroll through the backyard “just to look around.”
When she was standing just a couple feet away from the avocado trees, she testified, both Paul and Ruben Flores began telling her to leave the backyard.
“I don’t remember if it was Mr. Flores or Ruben, but they redirected me away from the avocado trees,” Angie Doe said. “They told me to come around (the house) and get away from that area.”
Asked for elaboration on Paul Flores’ reaction, she said, “He just wanted me to get away from the (avocado) trees.”
Under cross examination, Angie Doe told Sanger that she spoke to Chris Lambert, whose podcast “Your Own Backyard” explores the Smart case, as well as Dennis Mahon, a longtime Smart family advocate who ran a website called Son of Susan.
Angie Doe said that after Paul Flores and she broke up and she learned of the Smart case, she emailed the Son of Susan website and was contacted by Mahon about a year later.
She said she was first interviewed by law enforcement in February.
Asked if she was aware of Kristin Smart while dating Paul Flores, she said, “No.”
Defense motions to recuse SLO County DA over purple ties
Before the beginning of testimony Tuesday, Sanger asked Cole, the lead investigator in the Smart case, to explain why he was wearing a purple tie, as Cole has every day of the preliminary hearing.
Sanger asked whether the purple tie — deputy district attorney Christopher Peuvrelle has also been wearing ties containing purple —was meant to show solidarity with the Smart family.
“It’s more for Kristin Smart,” Cole said. “I believe it was her favorite color.”
Some members of the Smart family have also worn purple shirts and several have been wearing pinkish purple face masks in the audience.
But Cole denied that the color coordination was the part of some larger effort.
Van Rooyen noted that he happened to be wearing a purple tie Tuesday morning.
Later in the morning session, Sanger made an oral motion to recuse the county District Attorney’s Office from continuing to prosecute the case, arguing it was “absolutely inappropriate” for investigators and prosecutors to side with the Smart family in that way given they’re supposed to be independent fact-finders.
“I can’t believe that they’d do that in this case,” Sanger said, noting that “this kind of prejudice (against Paul Flores) is what brought us here.”
“This is just what we’re not supposed to have ... (prosecutors) on a mission to convict somebody,” Sanger said.
Citing a recent case involving Black Lives Matter protesters in which the District Attorney’s Office was disqualified from prosecuting, Sanger said the biased conduct by prosecutors against his client is similar.
Van Rooyen ruled that a hearing would not be held until Sanger submits a formal written motion.
‘Your Own Backyard’ podcast creator served subpoena
The creator of the podcast “Your Own Backyard” — credited with renewing interest in Smart’s disappearance — could be called to testify in the preliminary hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores.
During the lunch recess, defense investigator Ramona Messina served podcaster Lambert with a subpoena to serve as a witness in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Aug. 30, as of now expected to be the final day of the hearing.
Sanger said Lambert could be called as a witness in the hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores due to his interviews with several witnesses before they spoke to law enforcement.
During recess, Messina told Lambert he would not be allowed back inside the courtroom, where he has been covering the hearing every day for his podcast, because he is a potential witness.
Most witnesses in the hearing have been barred from the courtroom until their testimony to prevent bias, but van Rooyen said Tuesday that there are exceptions to this rule.
For example, J.T. Camp, lead investigator for the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, could testify in the hearing but has also been allowed in the courtroom.
”Just because (Lambert’s) been served does not necessarily mean he should be excluded,” van Rooyen said. “I’m not going to exclude a member of the media (for doing their job).”
Lambert told The Tribune the defense move did not come as a surprise.
“I suspected it could happen,” Lambert said.
Retired detective recalls forensic sweep of Paul Flores’ dorm room
After lunch, Gary Neufeld, a retired Sheriff’s Office deputy who was a detective assigned to forensics in 1996, testified that he was brought into the Smart missing persons case on June 24, 1996.
His job, he said, was to process Paul Flores’ former Santa Lucia Hall dorm room for any evidence.
Neufeld said he photographed the room, collected fibers around the desk, located a possible semen stain on the bed mattress and located hairs under the mattress.
No fingerprints were located in Flores’ former room, which Neufeld testified was cleaned by the university’s housing services prior to his search.
Neufeld said he returned to Room 128 on June 29, 1996, after being told that a dog trained in locating human remains — commonly known as a cadaver dog — had alerted to Flores’ bed mattress.
Neufeld said he ultimately took the mattress and a canvas box-spring cover to a forensic lab.
During cross examination, Sanger questioned Neufeld about crime scene integrity and the cleaning of Flores’ dorm room.
Neufeld said he never interviewed the campus employees who cleaned the room nor did he know what the cleaning crew specifically did, prior to Neufeld’s search.
Though Neufeld had testified that he first learned of the missing persons case on June 24, 1996, the day of the first room search, Sanger produced a record from a Cal Poly detective that showed Neufeld was alerted to the case on June 11, 1996.
“June 11 probably would have been a better time to (process) the room?” Sanger asked.
“A better time would have been before they (Cal Poly) cleaned the room,” Neufeld said.
The date the room was cleaned by Cal Poly staff was not revealed in court.
According to a Cal Poly spokesman, the university continues to rent out Room 128 of Santa Lucia Hall.
The court also heard briefly late Tuesday afternoon from Adela Morris, one of four cadaver dog handlers who examined the dorm room. Her testimony was cut short by the evening recess; she’s expected to resume testimony Wednesday.
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Kristin Smart case: Paul Flores’ ex-girlfriend says she was barred from his father’s backyard."
