Paul Flores Case: Conviction, Appeal, and Prison Attacks

The Paul Flores case ended in a first-degree murder conviction on October 18, 2022, for the 1996 killing of Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart, with a jury finding that Flores killed her while attempting to commit rape. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison on March 10, 2023. The California Supreme Court denied his petition for review on January 14, 2026, exhausting his direct appeals.¹

What Flores Was Convicted Of

Kristin Smart, 19, disappeared during Memorial Day weekend in 1996 after attending an off-campus party near California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Flores, a fellow student, volunteered to walk her home and was the last person seen with her. He told investigators he walked her partway back toward her dormitory and returned alone to his room in Santa Lucia Hall. Smart was never seen again. Her body has never been recovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2002.²

The jury in Salinas convicted Flores of first-degree murder with the special finding that he killed Smart “while engaged in the commission of, or attempting to commit, the crime of rape.”³ Judge Jennifer O’Keefe sentenced him to 25 years to life. He is ineligible for probation and becomes eligible for a parole board hearing in 2037.⁴

His father, Ruben Flores, was tried at the same time on a charge of being an accessory after the fact for allegedly helping conceal Smart’s body. A separate jury acquitted him.⁵

How a 25-Year Cold Case Broke Open

Flores was the primary suspect from the start. Two days after Smart vanished, he appeared at the Arroyo Grande Police Department on an outstanding DUI warrant with a visible black eye and scratches on his hands and knees. He gave three different explanations for the black eye: playing basketball, waking up with it, and hitting his eye on his steering wheel while changing his car stereo.⁶

The early investigation was hobbled. Cal Poly campus police did not take a missing person report until four days after Smart vanished. They did not formally interview Flores for six days. His dorm room was not sealed or inspected until 16 days after her disappearance, by which point it had been cleaned. A single earring potentially matching one Smart had worn was found in 1996 at a home rented by Flores’s mother but was lost before it could be logged as evidence.⁷

Cadaver dogs alerted to human remains in Flores’s dorm room after the sheriff’s office took over the case, but investigators lacked the physical evidence to charge him. In a 1997 interview with the district attorney’s office, Flores curled into a fetal position and asked, “If you are so smart, then tell me where the body is,” before invoking his Fifth Amendment rights. That same year, Sheriff Ed Williams publicly acknowledged the case could not be completed without a confession.⁸ During a 1997 deposition in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Smart family, Flores invoked the Fifth Amendment 27 times, refusing even basic questions about where he lived.⁶

The case sat until 2019, when musician and filmmaker Chris Lambert launched “Your Own Backyard,” a podcast that re-examined the disappearance in painstaking detail. The series reached two million downloads and, according to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson, served as a “conduit” for witnesses who had been afraid to contact law enforcement directly.⁹ Tips generated by the podcast produced key witnesses, including David Stone, a former roommate of Ruben Flores, and Jamilyn Holman, a neighbor.¹⁰

In March 2021, investigators served a search warrant at the Arroyo Grande home of Ruben Flores. Using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs, they identified what they described as a “clandestine grave” beneath his deck, with soil staining consistent with the size of a human burial, soil that tested positive for human blood, and fibers matching clothing Smart had worn.¹⁰ On April 13, 2021, Paul Flores was arrested at his home in San Pedro and charged with murder.¹¹

The Evidence at Trial

Judge Craig van Rooyen moved the trial to Monterey County in April 2022, finding the defendants could not receive a fair trial locally given extensive pretrial publicity. It was only the fourth criminal trial moved out of San Luis Obispo County in 50 years.¹² Paul and Ruben Flores were tried together in Salinas starting July 18, 2022, with separate juries hearing separate opening and closing arguments.⁵

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle built a circumstantial case that prosecutors compared to a “giant jigsaw puzzle.” The theory was that Flores killed Smart in his dorm room during an attempted rape.¹³ Peuvrelle called Flores’s 1996 videotaped interview the “best evidence in the case.”¹⁴

The forensic evidence centered on Ruben Flores’s Arroyo Grande property. Ground-penetrating radar detected an anomaly matching the size of a human grave beneath the deck. Soil samples tested positive for human blood, and the disturbed soil measured roughly four by six feet. David Stone testified that Ruben Flores was protective of the area beneath the deck and prevented anyone from accessing it. Neighbor Jamilyn Holman testified that shortly after an FBI search in February 2020, she saw the Flores family backing a large trailer into the yard near the deck and yelling at each other.¹⁰

Two women identified as “Jane Does” testified that Flores had raped them while they were incapacitated, one in Redondo Beach in 2008 and another in San Pedro in 2011. Prosecutors used their testimony to establish a pattern of predatory behavior and characterized Flores as a “serial rapist.”¹⁵ No criminal charges were filed for those alleged assaults; the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had reviewed the allegations and declined to prosecute, citing insufficient evidence.¹⁶

Defense attorney Robert Sanger attacked the prosecution’s case as built on “conspiracy theories” and emotional appeals. He dismissed the cadaver dog evidence and the soil findings as “junk science” and argued that podcast-driven publicity had shaped witness accounts. “There is no evidence here,” he told jurors, urging them not to let sympathy override reasonable doubt.¹⁷

The Appeal and Its Outcome

In February 2023, Sanger filed motions for a new trial and for dismissal, arguing no reasonable jury could have found Flores guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge O’Keefe denied both motions on March 10, 2023, ruling there was “sufficient evidence to support the conviction,” and sentenced Flores the same day.¹⁸

Flores appealed to the Second District Court of Appeal. At oral argument on October 9, 2025, appellate attorney Solomon Wollack argued three main points: that Judge O’Keefe should have removed a juror who had an emotional breakdown during graphic testimony and allegedly discussed aspects of the case with coworkers; that the “Jane Doe” sexual assault testimony was improperly admitted under Evidence Code 1108 because there was no evidence a sexual assault had actually occurred against Smart; and that jury instructions on attempted rape used an incorrect legal standard.¹⁹

The Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction in a written opinion in October 2025. Flores then petitioned the California Supreme Court for review. On January 14, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the petition. District Attorney Dan Dow said the denial “brings a stronger sense of finality” to the case.¹ The denial effectively ended his direct appeals.²⁰

Two Prison Attacks

Flores was initially housed at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga. On August 23, 2023, inmate Jason Richard Budrow used a handmade weapon to slash Flores in the neck. Flores was hospitalized for two days. Budrow was charged with four felonies, including attempted murder and assault by an inmate serving a life sentence, and pleaded not guilty in Fresno County Superior Court.²¹

On April 10, 2024, a second inmate stabbed Flores on the recreation yard at the same facility. Staff witnessed the attack and recovered two inmate-manufactured weapons. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation investigated it as an attempted homicide. Flores was hospitalized and returned to the prison in fair condition.²² He was then transferred to California State Prison, Corcoran, in Kings County, where he remains incarcerated.²³

Restitution to the Smart Family

On June 17, 2024, Judge O’Keefe ordered Flores to pay just over $350,000 in restitution to the Smart family. The family had requested approximately $361,000 to cover costs incurred over the 28 years since their daughter’s disappearance, including travel, a private investigator, billboards seeking information, lost wages, and a celebration of life gathering. With simple interest accruing from the date of the crime, the total owed was estimated at roughly $1.3 million.²⁴

Under California law, restitution is mandatory regardless of a defendant’s ability to pay. The corrections department is required to collect 50 percent of Flores’s prison wages and 50 percent of any money deposited into his account until the balance is paid. If he is ever released on parole with an outstanding balance, the debt will be referred to the California Franchise Tax Board for collection.²⁵

Kristin Smart’s Remains Are Still Missing

Despite the conviction, Smart’s body has never been recovered. In May 2026, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, Paul Flores’s mother. This property is separate from Ruben Flores’s home, which was searched in 2021.²⁶

Investigators used ground-penetrating radar and collected soil vapor samples to test for volatile organic compounds associated with human decomposition. At a May 8, 2026, news conference, Sheriff Parkinson said early soil testing revealed “compounds that were consistent with decomposed human remains” and that investigators believe human remains were at the site “at one time, or still there.” He cautioned that the compounds had not been linked to any specific person, saying, “We can’t call it Kristin.”²⁷

The Family’s Civil Suit Against Cal Poly

On January 18, 2024, Kristin Smart’s parents, brother, and sister filed a civil lawsuit against Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, alleging negligence, wrongful death, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The suit claims the university failed to investigate Smart’s disappearance in a timely manner, failed to seal Flores’s dorm room, and failed to act on at least four prior reports of threatening and harassing behavior by Flores. The family alleged they were unaware of the full extent of the university’s failures until May 2023, when Cal Poly’s president publicly apologized, saying, “We recognize that things should have been done differently, and I personally wish that they had.”²⁸

The family had filed an earlier wrongful death lawsuit in 1996, which a judge dismissed in 1997 on the ground that the university had immunity because the crime was deemed not foreseeable. Cal Poly has contested the 2024 suit, with the California Attorney General’s Office filing a demurrer arguing the claims are time-barred and otherwise procedurally defective. The parties attempted mediation on November 6, 2024, without reaching agreement, though court records indicate they identified “potential resolution points.”²⁹

1
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney. Paul Flores’ Petition for Review of His Conviction Denied by California Supreme Court
2
CNN. Kristin Smart Cal Poly Lawsuit
3
ABC News. Paul Flores Sentenced to 25 Years to Life for Murder of Kristin Smart
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San Luis Obispo County District Attorney. Paul Flores Has Been Sentenced to 25 Years to Life
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KSBY. Jurors Reach Verdicts in Kristin Smart Murder Trial
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CBS News. Kristin Smart Verdict: Paul Flores Guilty
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CBS News. Kristin Smart Disappearance Photos
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Los Angeles Times. Kristin Smart Disappearance Timeline
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ABC News. Inside Decadeslong Search for Justice in Kristin Smart Disappearance
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San Luis Obispo Tribune. Kristin Smart Case Key Trial Evidence
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KCBX. Paul Flores Arrested, Charged With Murder in Kristin Smart Case
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KCRA. Kristin Smart Murder Trial Moved to Monterey County
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NPR. Kristin Smart Murder Paul Flores Sentencing
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KSBY. Prosecutor, DA Investigator Reflect on Kristin Smart Case Key Trial Evidence
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San Luis Obispo Tribune. Paul Flores Sexual Assault Allegations at Trial
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NBC News. Suspect in Kristin Smart Killing Previously Suspected in Rape Allegation
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San Luis Obispo Tribune. Paul Flores Defense Closing Arguments
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Court TV. Judge Denies Motion Seeking New Trial for Paul Flores
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Noozhawk. Paul Flores Makes Case to Overturn Kristin Smart Murder Conviction
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KSBW. California Denies Paul Flores Appeal in Kristin Smart Murder
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Fresno County District Attorney. Inmate Charged With Attempted Murder of Paul Ruben Flores
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Los Angeles Times. Paul Flores Attacked and Stabbed in Prison Again
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KCRA. Paul Flores Moved to Corcoran After Second Attack
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San Luis Obispo Tribune. Paul Flores Ordered to Pay Restitution to Kristin Smart’s Family
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KCRA. Paul Flores Convicted Killer of Kristin Smart Ordered to Pay Restitution
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WSLS. Authorities to Update Public on Search of Home Tied to Man Convicted of Killing Kristin Smart
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New York Times. Kristin Smart Investigation San Luis Obispo
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KCRA. Kristin Smart Family Sues Cal Poly for Negligence and Wrongful Death
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San Luis Obispo Tribune. Smart Family Lawsuit Against Cal Poly