Kristin Smart investigator: FBI tried sting operation to get Paul Flores to confess
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Kristin Smart murder trial
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Two detectives who investigated Kristin Smart’s disappearance took the stand Tuesday in Monterey County Superior Court as the defense continued its attempts to poke holes in the integrity of the investigation.
Former San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office Det. Henry Stewart took the stand first.
He investigated the case from 1996 through 1999, then on and off until he retired.
Stewart testified he worked with the FBI in an undercover operation between 2000 and 2001 that was designed to elicit a confession from Paul Flores, who is currently on trial for Smart’s murder along with his father, Ruben Flores, who is charged with helping conceal the crime.
No confession came from the sting operation, he said.
Paul Flores’ defense attorney, Robert Sanger, read a stipulation, or statement that all parties agreed to be fact, that stated retired FBI agent Victor Guerrero would also testify the undercover operation did not elicit a confession if asked to take the stand.
According to court documents unsealed as a result of legal action by The Tribune, agents befriended Flores and took him to Las Vegas to get him drunk and took him to Oklahoma “under the pretense of giving him a job.”
Investigator: Party attendee talked about seeing Kristin Smart
Sanger also asked Stewart about his interview with Tim Davis, who was at the off-campus house party Smart attended before she vanished in 1996.
The investigator said Davis told him he found Smart lying in the front yard of the house next door and helped her to her feet when Cheryl Anderson and Davis’ friend, Tosh Makagtawa, came outside.
Davis reportedly told Anderson he would walk Smart home, but a group from another house was walking outside, Stewart said, adding that one of the people in that group was Flores.
That’s when Flores walked up and offered to help get Smart home, Davis told Stewart.
After walking part of the way home with Smart, Flores and Anderson, Davis broke off from the group, he allegedly told the investigator.
During cross examination, San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Chris Peuvrelle asked Stewart about parts of Davis’ interview that Sanger omitted.
Stewart confirmed that Davis told him he saw Smart and Flores talking near the bar at the party, observed Flores to be drunk and said Smart was stumbling despite not walking fast.
Searches for human remains turn up nothing, detective says
Sheriff’s Office Det. Clint Cole took the stand next Tuesday.
Cole, who is currently the agency’s lead investigator on the Smart case, has testified numerous times for the prosecution and attended every day of the murder trial.
Cole said he read the entire case file when he was assigned to the Smart case in 2017, including reports from the Cal Poly Police Department, the FBI and some materials from Jim Murphy, who represented the Smart family in civil litigation against the Flores family.
The case file has at least 200,000 pages of documents, Cole said.
Cole said the Sheriff’s Office received several tips from people regarding the case — including Justin Goodwin, who testified earlier in the trial about his former roommate telling him that Paul Flores admitted to the crime.
Cole said he was aware Goodwin would talk about the $75,000 reward available for tips that help close the Smart case, but added Cole never took any action to attempt to receive it.
The detective testified that he asked Goodwin to remove a Facebook post and to “tone down” his social media posts to avoid jeopardizing the Smart case.
Cole confirmed that searches for evidence of human remains or burial sites in Huasna and the Arroyo Grande house of Susan Flores — Paul Flores’ mother and Ruben Flores’ ex-wife — came up empty. Susan Flores was in court on Tuesday after sitting out much of the trial.
That included where a cadaver dog alerted in Huasna, Cole confirmed.
Investigators says Paul Flores’ sister offered immunity during wiretap
Before court broke for lunch, Cole also testified about a wiretap of the Flores family conducted by the Sheriff’s Office in 2020.
Cole said it was common for law enforcement to release information to the press or conduct interviews to “stimulate the wire” in order to get those who are subjects of the wiretap to talk.
Cole said he called the ex-husband of Ermelinda Thomas, Paul Flores’ sister, as a stimulation strategy.
Cole also confirmed that the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office offered Thomas immunity during the wiretap if she cooperated with the investigation — something previously that came to light in documents unsealed due to the Tribune’s efforts.
Another simulation strategy, Cole testified, was telling Chris Lambert, whose podcast “Your Own Backyard” explores the investigation into Smart’s disappearance, that the Sheriff’s Office had trucks in custody that once belonged to the Flores family.
Gregory Smith, a deputy and Major Crimes Unit detective with the Sheriff’s Office, testified about the 2020 information leak earlier in the trial.
Cole’s strategy was “stimulation, then ... leak truck to media,” Sanger said, reading aloud from the detective’s notes written in October 2019.
Cole’s testimony was scheduled to continue when court resumes at 1:30 p.m.
This story was originally published September 27, 2022 at 1:55 PM.
