Kristin Smart’s family speaks during murder trial: ‘I spent 3 months looking for my daughter’
When Cal Poly student Kristin Smart went missing more than 26 years ago, her mother called her residence hall advisor, the university president’s office and two law enforcement agencies in search of answers.
No one could help her, Denise Smart said.
“It felt like the life of my daughter was of no value to anyone except our family,” Smart testified Thursday in Monterey County Superior Court.
She was speaking on the stand during the trial of Paul and Ruben Flores, who are accused of killing Kristin Smart and hiding her body.
Opening statements in the Kristin Smart murder trial were followed Thursday with testimony from Smart’s mother and other members of her family, NBC Dateline reported.
The trial against Paul and Ruben Flores kicked off Monday in Monterey County Superior Court.
San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Chris Peuvrelle and Paul Flores’ defense attorney, Robert Sanger, completed their opening statements on Monday.
Ruben Flores’ attorney, Harold Mesick wrapped up his statements to jurors on Thursday morning as the trial resumed after a two-day delay.
Ruben Flores, 81, is alleged to have helped his son, 45-year-old Paul Flores, hide Smart’s body after Paul Flores allegedly killed her. The two men were arrested on suspicion of the crimes in April 2021.
Their trial moved to Salinas after San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen ruled they were unlikely to receive a fair trial in San Luis Obispo.
Monterey County Superior Court Judge Jennifer O’Keefe is presiding over the case.
Defense in murder trial tells jury to ‘be skeptical’
Harold Mesick, Ruben Flores’ lawyer, said in his opening statements Thursday that the time that has passed since Smart vanished has been “26 years of hell” for his client, podcast host Chris Lambert reported. His podcast “Your Own Backyard” explores Smart’s disappearance.
Mesick noted that the investigation into the case has lasted for decades.
The result is, we still don’t know what happened,” the attorney said.
Mesick told the jury the prosecution will “attempt to flip-flop evidence” when there’s “no evidence of even a crime.” The defense attorney alleged that Peuvrelle’s story “requires several leaps of logic.”
Speaking to allegations that Ruben Flores helped his son bury Smart’s body under the deck of his Arroyo Grande home, Mesick said that the spot is the most inaccessible spot to bury a body on the property.
The attorney said that evidence of decomposition reportedly found there by investigators could be from avocado tree roots.
Witnesses that the prosecution is bringing in “aren’t coming here to tell you the truth,” Mesick said.
“They’re coming here to make sure someone is convicted,” he said, asserting that the case is based on entirely circumstantial evidence.
“Don’t be fooled, be skeptical,” Mesick said as he concluded his remarks to the jury. “At the end (of the trial), Kristin Smart will still be missing, and we’re not going to know what happened.”
Kristin Smart’s mom takes the stand in Salinas
Denise Smart, Kristin Smart’s mother, was the first witness to testify for the prosecution on Thursday, NBC Dateline reported. She and her family live in Stockton.
The last time Smart saw her daughter was during a family visit to San Luis Obispo over Easter break in 1996, and they parted ways on good terms, she said on the stand.
Kristin Smart was her sibling’s “biggest cheerleader,” Denise Smart said, and always attended her sibling’s swim meets.
Peuvrelle showed the jury a letter Denise Smart wrote to her daughter on May 5, 1996 — which Denise Smart called a “buckle up, buttercup letter” — in which she tried to push her daughter to take action to correct problems she was experiencing at Cal Poly rather than complain about them.
When her daughter went missing, Denise Smart said, she called the resident advisor at her daughter’s residence hall, but the person who refused to answer questions because of privacy concerns.
Next, Denise Smart said she called the Cal Poly president’s office, who directed her to call the residence hall advisor.
Then she called the San Luis Obispo Police Department and the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, which both told her they did not have jurisdiction over Cal Poly’s campus, Smart said.
Smart then contacted the FBI, who had an agent call the Cal Poly Police Department. The agent reportedly told Denise Smart that Cal Poly police said they did not need help locating her daughter.
“It felt like the life of my daughter was of no value to anyone except our family,” Denise Smart said.
During cross examination, Paul Flores’ attorney, Robert Sanger, alleged that everything was not rosy before Kristin Smart moved to San Luis Obispo, and asked Smart if her daughter had ever gone “off without permission to any place” while working in Hawaii the summer before she went missing.
Denise Smart said she wasn’t in Hawaii with her daughter, so she did not know, Lambert reported.
Sanger asked if the Smart family sued the Flores family for money, and Denise Smart told him the intention of the civil suit was to compel information about what happened to her daughter.
Sanger then went through the May 1996 letter line by line, Lambert reported, and asked Smart to elaborate on the difficulties her daughter was facing. Denise Smart said she did not recall the specifics.
“I didn’t expect to be talking about this letter 26 years later,” she said.
Mesick’s cross examination also focused on the letter. “It’s a good letter. Excellent penmanship. Only a few spelling errors. That’s okay,” he told her.
One juror audibly gasped in response, and several spectators looked at each other uncomfortably, Lambert reported.
Mesick told Denise Smart that the defense is “trying to get the truth from you. It’s like pulling out teeth.”
Sanger asked if Kristin Smart weighed 160 pounds rather than 145 pounds, the weight that was listed on missing posters. Denise Smart said she wasn’t sure.
Sanger tried to ask about Kristin Smart’s Ritalin prescription, but Peuvrelle objected to the line of questioning and O’Keefe agreed.
Brother testifies in sister’s murder case
Matt Smart was 16 when his sister went missing in 1996.
He said his sister was always there for him throughout his sporting events, Lambert reported.
“She was always there to cheer you on. It was sisterly love,” Matt Smart said.
Asked how the family dynamic shifted when his older sister left for college, he said, “We found ways to cheer each other on from afar.”
The Smart family went on countless searches for his sister, Matt Smart testified, and two years ago, he joined a sheriff’s search and rescue team “to give back to the types of people who helped to look for my sister.”
Mesick asked Matt Smart if the family had used dowsers, an unscientific technique used to locate objects or materials underground, to search for his sister’s body. Smart replied that he remembered one instance.
“When you need information, you’re willing to take whatever help you can get,” Smart said.
Matt Smart told Mesick he had no direct knowledge of what happened to his sister, only that he hasn’t seen or heard from her since 1996.
Kristin Smart’s father describes search for daughter
Stan Smart, Kristin Smart’s father, said he spent several months looking for his daughter in San Luis Obispo the summer she went missing, Lambert reported.
“I spent about 3 months down there looking for my daughter’s remains,” Stan Smart testified. “Crawled through culverts. Walked along the highway. Looked many, many places. I could’ve been a tour guide.”.
Stan Smart never saw Paul or Ruben Flores searching for his daughter, he said, despite the thousands of community members who came out to help.
He testified the first time he visited Ruben Flores’ home in 1996, asking to speak to him, “(Ruben Flores) told me I better leave or someone might get shot.”
Sanger asked if Stan Smart knew if his daughter weighed 160 pounds when she went missing, and Stan Smart said he didn’t know.
“I don’t keep track of my children by weight,” he said.
He said he visited Ruben Flores at home because he was aware that Flores was the parent of “the youngster my daughter walked home with.”
Stan Smart testified he was on campus at the same time cadaver dogs were searching Paul Flores’ room, but not in the same area. ‘
When asked why, he said “You’ll recall I was on campus searching for my daughter’s body that whole summer.”
Sanger and Mesick were expected to finish their cross examination of Stan Smart on Friday, with Lindsey Smart expected to testify next.
The trial is expected to last through October.
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 1:33 PM.
