Before Kristin Smart, Paul Flores was caught on a woman’s balcony. Read the transcript
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Kristin Smart murder trial
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Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of stories examining hundreds of improperly sealed documents in the Kristin Smart trial. The Tribune obtained the documents by joining with three other media companies to form a coalition that took the issue to court. The coalition won its argument, and the documents were unsealed.
Before Kristin Smart disappeared on Memorial Day weekend 1996, a woman called the police on Paul Flores after he climbed onto her balcony in San Luis Obispo and banged on her window because he wanted a hug, according to unsealed documents in the case.
The incident came up during the June 1996 interview between Flores and law enforcement — namely San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office investigator Bill Hanley and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office Det. Larry Hobson.
The account was included in a 96-page transcript that was among the documents released after The Tribune and its media partners filed a motion for the court to release thousands of pages of improperly sealed records.
It was also mentioned in the affidavit for probable cause for Ruben Flores’ arrest, which was another of the sealed documents.
Paul Flores is currently on trial for Smart’s murder, along with his father, Ruben Flores, who is accused of helping his son hide Smart’s body.
Why was Flores on a woman’s balcony earlier in 1996?
According to the arrest warrant, Flores showed up at the woman’s residence in the middle of the night on an unspecified date, rang her doorbell and requested a hug. He then climbed to her balcony and “pounded on her sliding door,” the warrant said.
Investigators raised the issue during a line of questioning about possible relevant details of his past that Flores hadn’t mentioned to them.
“Just slipped your mind? Kinda like the black eye?” Hobson asked, according to the transcript, referring to how Flores had changed his story about his injured eye multiple times.
“Yeah, I guess,” Flores replied.
Flores told investigators he was knocking on the woman’s door and she told him she was sleeping, so he went up to knock on her window so he could talk to her, the transcript said.
The woman didn’t want to talk and ended up calling San Luis Obispo police, Flores told investigators. The warrant says police responded and “removed Flores from the property,” but Flores told Hobson police just asked him to leave, so he did.
Flores told investigators that incident was the only time he had to be escorted off of anyone’s balcony.
“How many times you get away with it and nobody caught ya?” Hobson asked.
“Zero,” Flores responded.
“How do we know that?” Hobson asked.
“That was the only time that anything like that’s ever happened,” Flores said.
“Picture yourself in our spot,” Hobson said. “You’re sitting there talking to somebody ... and he doesn’t tell you about being on some girl’s balcony late at night, trying to get in to where she has to call the police ... and then he doesn’t tell you everything about what happened between him and the girl that’s missing, what are you gonna start thinking?”
It is unclear what time in the interview the conversation about the balcony took place, but it occurred 69 pages into the 96-page transcript. The total interview lasted just over two hours.
How investigator ended interview with Flores
Toward the end of the interview, investigators gave Flores multiple hypothetical examples of how someone could have accidentally been killed by another person and asked Flores if something similar had happened between him and Smart.
Flores maintained that he did not know what happened to the missing Cal Poly student.
At the end of the two-hour interview, according to the transcript, Hanley told Flores he had “no doubt” Flores was involved in Smart’s disappearance.
“Now when we put this altogether, you know what happens? Everything goes to the worst,” Hanley told Flores, according the transcript. “We thought that you were a good guy. And is this eating you up? Yeah. Are we gonna go away? No. Not in your wildest dreams.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2022 at 12:37 PM.
