Kristin Smart’s convicted killer Paul Flores attacked, stabbed in prison for second time

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Paul Flores, the man convicted of murdering Kristin Smart, was attacked in prison for the second time Wednesday, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed.

Flores, 47, is currently serving 25 years to life at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.

According to CDCR, staff members witnessed another inmate stab Flores in the recreation yard at around 3:27 p.m. Responding officers “quickly quelled” the incident by using “verbal demands,” CDCR said.

Two inmate-manufactured weapons were recovered from the scene.

Flores was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, CDCR said, but has since returned to the prison in “fair condition.”

CDCR said the person who attacked Flores has been placed in restricted housing as the investigation continues. The prison is investigating the incident as an attempted homicide.

A Monterey County jury found Flores guilty of first-degree murder on Oct. 18, 2022, after a three-month trial. He was the last person to see Smart alive when the two were students at Cal Poly in 1996.

Second time Flores has been stabbed in prison

The assailant was not the inmate who attacked Flores on Aug. 23 and sent him to the hospital with serious neck injuries.

That inmate, Jason Budrow, was serving two life terms for two separate murders — one that sent him to prison in 2012 and another while he was already behind bars in 2021. In that case, Budrow killed fellow inmate Roger Kibbe, the serial rapist and killer known as the “I-5 strangler.”

In a letter sent to the San Jose Mercury News, Budrow admitted to killing Kibbe as punishment for the I-5 Strangler’s murders.

Budrow was charged with attempted murder and assault in relation to the August attack on Flores in December.