Watch: SLO County sheriff holds Kristin Smart news conference about ‘major developments’
Read the latest updates to this story >> >> Paul Flores arrested on suspicion of murdering Kristin Smart, sheriff says
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office held a news conference Tuesday to announce “major developments in the investigation into the disappearance of Kristin Smart,” a missing Cal Poly student who vanished nearly 25 years ago. Watch a recording of the news conference below.
Sheriff Ian Parkinson started the news conference at 2 p.m. on O’Neill Green, in front of the Orfalea College of Business on the Cal Poly campus in San Luis Obispo.
Arrests made in Kristin Smart missing persons case
Paul Flores, who was the last person seen with Smart before her disappearance in 1996, was arrested in San Pedro on Tuesday, according to several sources.
He was booked into San Luis Obispo County Jail on suspicion of a charge of murder just before noon, booking logs show. Bail had not yet been set as of 12:35 p.m.
His father, Ruben Flores, was taken into custody in Arroyo Grande and booked into San Luis Obispo County Jail on suspicion of being an accessory. Ruben Flores’ bail is set at $250,000.
The arrest come nearly a month after the Sheriff’s Office named Paul Flores — who was the last person seen with Smart before her disappearance — the “prime suspect” in the case and searched his father’s house in Arroyo Grande.
On March 15 and 16, the Sheriff’s Office searched the home of Ruben Flores, confiscating a Volkswagen Cabriolet from the driveway and using cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar under a porch and in a back yard.
Officials have not said what if anything was found during that search.
The search of Ruben Flores’s home took place about a month after Paul Flores was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
That arrested “originated as a result of information obtained” during the service of several search warrants in 2020, including one at Flores’ home in San Pedro, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Cipolla said then.
This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 1:54 PM.
