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2 Men Arrested successful Kristin Smart's Disappearance 25 Years Later
Content warning: This communicative discusses intersexual assault.
After much than 26 years since Kristin Smart's disappearance, a verdict has been reached successful her execution case.
A assemblage recovered Paul Flores guilty of first-degree execution in connection to the 1996 disappearance of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student. In July, Paul went connected proceedings aft prosecutors accused him of sidesplitting the 19-year-old portion attempting to sexually battle her during the aboriginal hours of May 25, 1996. He had pleaded not guilty.
Paul's father, Ruben Flores, was recovered not guilty of being an accessory to Kristin's execution aft authorities accused him of helping Paul hide Kristin's assemblage successful the backyard of his Arroyo Grande, Calif. home. He had pleaded not guilty.
In court, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle said Kristin was "too nice" to basal up to Paul, alleging, "What we would spot arsenic kindness, helium would spot arsenic a d-ck tease. In his predatory, vile, rapist mind, that's what helium saw her as," per broadcast presumption KRON4.
Paul did not attest astatine the trial, according to KRON4, and his Defense Attorney Robert Sanger said during the proceedings that prosecutors had "no grounds of a murder" and that Peuvrelle's statement was riddled with "conspiracy theories."
Though Kristin's assemblage has not been found, Paul and Ruben were arrested and charged successful April 2021 aft a county probation study seen by The San Luis Obispo Tribune revealed that authorities said they had "damning grounds that a assemblage had been buried successful that determination and past precocious moved." During the trial, prosecutors utilized grounds of Kristin's alleged burial determination to usher their argument.
"For crimes that hap successful a bedroom, determination are nary witnesses. But ground-penetrating radar, a forensic archeologist, and a laboratory supervisor archer america what Kristin could not. We don't person a afloat intact assemblage successful this case, but we person her blood," Peuvrelle told the assemblage successful his Oct. 4 closing argument. "A mates grains of bloody sand. That's each the Smart household has near of their daughter."
FBI via AP
The decision successful the lawsuit comes aft 26 years of unresolved questions of what happened to the free-spirited Kristin—who was a freshman successful assemblage astatine the time—on the nighttime of May 24, 1996 erstwhile she did not instrumentality to her dorm country aft going retired for a enactment Friday night.
According to KRON4, astatine the trial, Cheryl Anderson said during her grounds that she and different pupil joined Kristin and Paul arsenic they walked location from the party. Cheryl said she past saw Kristin with Paul, arsenic they headed successful the absorption of Paul's dorm Santa Lucia Hall, and not Kristin's Muir Hall dorm.
Kristin's roommate Crystal Calvin said during her grounds that she contacted instrumentality enforcement after not proceeding from Kristin and seeing that Kristin had near down each her idiosyncratic belongings, per broadcast presumption KSBY6. Calvin said that instrumentality enforcement didn't initially instrumentality her concerns seriously.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mounting vexation followed Kristin's disappearance arsenic years went by and her household inactive had nary reply arsenic to what happened to their daughter. The assemblage student was legally declared dead in 2002 astatine 25 years old.
Upon Paul's apprehension successful 2021, nearing Kristin's 25th day of her disappearance, her family issued a statement.
"We present enactment our religion successful the justness strategy and determination forward," the connection read, "comforted successful the cognition that Kristin has been held successful the hearts of truthful galore and that she has not been forgotten."
For free, confidential help, telephone the National Sexual Assault Hotline astatine 1-800-656-4673 oregon sojourn rainn.org.
