SLO County sheriff serves search warrant in Kristin Smart disappearance
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office has served another search warrant related to the disappearance of Kristin Smart, the agency announced Wednesday.
The Sheriff’s Office said the search warrant was for specific items of evidence at the Los Angeles County home of longtime person-of-interest Paul Flores.
The warrant was served at around 7 a.m. Wednesday with the help of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, according to a news release.
Smart was a Cal Poly freshman when she was last seen on May 25, 1996, walking home from a party with Flores toward the San Luis Obispo university’s dorms.
Flores has continued to be a person of interest throughout the 23-year investigation but has never been charged for a crime related to the case.
So far in 2020, five search warrants have been served in the investigation into Smart’s disappearance.
In February, the Sheriff’s Office served search warrants at four locations — two in San Luis Obispo County, one in Los Angeles County and one in the state of Washington.
One of those warrants was served at the home of Flores’ mother in Arroyo Grande. Another was served in the Los Angeles neighborhood where Flores has lived since 2010, according to public records.
And in January, the Sheriff’s Office announced it had taken two trucks into evidence that belonged to members of Flores’ family in 1996.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the warrant served Wednesday only involved Flores’ home.
The warrant is sealed by the court, and the Sheriff’s Office cannot release any further details, including information on what they were looking for and what they found, according tot he release.
In total, there have been 19 search warrants involving the investigation for Smart since 2011.
The Sheriff’s Office previously told The Tribune it has also conducted physical evidence searches at nine locations, submitted 37 evidence items from the early days of the case for modern DNA testing, recovered 140 new items of evidence, conducted 91 in-person interviews and written 364 supplemental reports.
The investigation is still active and ongoing, the release said.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 8:38 AM.
