SLO County lets out a collective sigh of relief. At last, Paul Flores is found guilty

Hallelujah is not a word we often use, but it came to mind when the news arrived: Paul Flores was found guilty of the murder of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.

It was not a hallelujah of joy, but rather of relief, because as Kristin’s father, Stan Smart said, “Without Kristin, there is no joy or happiness in this verdict.”

Still, the verdict — delivered 26 years after Smart, 19, went missing from the Cal Poly campus — ensures a predator accused of multiple sexual assaults will no longer be free.

That would not have been possible without the dogged work of the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office.

And let’s not overlook the contributions of freelance podcaster Chris Lambert, whose pursuit of new leads helped, in the words of Sheriff Ian Parkinson, supply missing pieces of the puzzle.

Or the determination of the Smart family and their supporters, who have waited 26 long years for justice.

A guilty verdict was never guaranteed.

Some naysayers said the case was weak.

The evidence was circumstantial. Too much time had passed. Kristin Smart’s body was never found.

Yet prosecuting attorney Christopher Peuvrelle did a masterful job of weaving the pieces together.

As we learned during the 12-week trial, there was plenty of evidence pointing to Flores: Cadaver dogs who alerted to his room at Cal Poly. Shifting explanations he gave for a black eye he got around the time Smart went missing. Blood stains found in the soil under a deck at the home of Paul Flores’ father, Ruben Flores. Testimony from two women who said they had been drugged and raped by Paul Flores. Testimony from another witness who said she heard Flores admit to the killing.

There also was evidence the jury was not allowed to learn about, including child pornography and homemade rape videos investigators said they found on Flores’ computer.

It was hard to refute all those pieces of the puzzle.

Even the defense acknowledged that something sad had happened to Kristin Smart, though attorney Robert Sanger tried his best to raise doubts in the minds of jurors by attacking Smart’s character.

The jurors saw through the defense’s efforts to explain away the evidence. Good for them.

After all, no other reasonable explanation was ever offered.

The earth did not swallow up Kristin Smart as she walked back to her dorm following a house party.

She did not suddenly decide, in the middle of the night, to leave her friends and family, never to contact them again.

Nor was this a case of “vigilantism” by a community hell-bent on finding someone to blame for the disappearance of a young woman from a town that would come to be known as the happiest place in America.

Or an overzealous media railroad of Paul Flores and his father, Ruben, who was charged but found not guilty of helping his son conceal Smart’s body.

The facts — including those presented to the jury and those that were not — revealed that Paul Flores was responsible for Smart’s death and that he is an extremely dangerous man.

Documents unsealed by the court last year revealed that 29 women had reported incidents of sexual misconduct to investigators.

In light of that information, it’s hard not to dwell on the fact that, if not for mistakes made by Cal Poly police in the first few days after Smart’s disappearance, Flores could have been arrested years ago, sparing who knows how many women from assaults.

Since then, changes have been made in the way public universities handle assaults, but the fact remains that what happened to Kristin Smart could happen again — something District Attorney Dan Dow acknowledged in a post-verdict news conference.

“The hard work to end sexual violence will go on. It will continue,” he said. “My office will be committed to continuing to work with all of the allies in San Luis Obispo County to prevent sexual violence through education and awareness. We support the victims by providing services to them, by continuing to fully investigate .... and to never give up prosecuting and holding offenders accountable.”

Hallelujah to that.