Kristin Smart murder trial is moving to Monterey County. How does it compare to SLO?

A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge moved the Kristin Smart murder trial to Monterey County on Wednesday morning after he previously ruled a San Luis Obispo County jury could not give Paul and Ruben Flores a fair trial.

Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen made his decision in March based on two key factors: the nature and extent of news coverage and the size of the community.

“I don’t think this case is discussed around dinner tables in other counties like it is in this county,” van Rooyen said during the March hearing.

Paul Flores, 45, is alleged to have killed missing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart after an off-campus party in May 1996.

His 80-year-old father, Ruben Flores, is accused of helping hide the 19-year-old’s body, which still has not been found. The two were arrested in April 2021 — 25 years after Smart’s disappearance.

The Flores trial is the fourth San Luis Obispo County criminal trial in the past five decades to move locations, with the most recent being the 2001 trial of serial killer Rex Krebs. He was tried in Monterey County.

So how does Monterey County compare to San Luis Obispo County?

Monterey County has more people, less news saturation

According to the most recent U.S. Census data, Monterey County has a population about one and half times the population size of its southern neighbor.

San Luis Obispo County has an estimated population of 283,159 people while Monterey County has an estimated population of 437,235 people.

With more people in Monterey County, it’s less likely for the county to be saturated with news about the Kristin Smart case.

When The Tribune searched the Web for both “Kristin Smart” and “Paul Flores” on news websites in Monterey County, it found significantly less coverage than similar sites in San Luis Obispo County.

For example, only one article about the Smart case appeared in a search for both terms in The Californian, a newspaper in Salinas that covers Monterey County.

KION-TV, a CBS affiliate television station that covers Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, had more coverage of the case, but picked up many of its stories from KEYT-TV, a news station in Santa Barbara County, and The Associated Press.

KSBW-TV, a Hearst affiliate station in Monterey County, had also covered the Smart case, but a search of its website yielded just 19 results.

In comparison, a similar search of the Tribune’s website found 367 results, and 151 results appeared in a search of KSBY-TV’s website.

Dr. Christine Ruva, a psychology professor at the University of Florida whose research focuses on pretrial publicity and jury bias, previously told the Tribune that moving a trial even just one county away from where the alleged crime occurred has showed to decrease potential jury bias.

Previous SLO County criminal cases tried in Monterey County

Two San Luis Obispo County criminal trials have moved to Monterey County in recent decades.

Rex Krebs was charged with and ultimately convicted of the 1998 murder of 21-year-old Cal Poly student Rachel Newhouse and the 1999 murder of 20-year-old Cuesta College student Aundria Crawford. The killings shocked the SLO County community, which was still coping with Smart’s disappearance just two years prior.

A Monterey County Jury found Krebs guilty of both murders and sentenced him to the death penalty. Because of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 moratorium on the death penalty, Krebs is effectively serving a life sentence at San Quentin State Prison.

John Trice, the prosecutor on the case and a retired Superior Court judge, previously told the Tribune that Monterey County Superior Court is well-equipped for high-profile cases — noting there was a press room at the time of the Krebs trial.

The other local case to move to Monterey County involved the 1979 murder of 10-year-old Tami Carpenter. All four of the people who played a part in her death had their trials moved to the county.

Carpenter was set to testify against her alleged molester, William Record, according to Tribune archives.

Record paid Randy Cook, BranDee Sisemore (formerly BranDee Tripp) and Hilton Tripp to prevent Carpenter from testifying. The three kidnapped and killed the child near Avila Hot Springs.

A Monterey County jury found Tripp and Cook guilty of first-degree murder and Record and Sisemore guilty of second-degree murder.