Prosecution, defense lay out case as Paul Flores trial opens in death of Kristin Smart

Opening statements began Monday in the trial of the man charged with the murder of Kristin Smart, the Stockton student who went missing more than 25 years ago, and his father who is charged as an accessory in her death.

Prosecutors painted a picture of the now 45-year-old Paul Flores hovering around Kristin Smart in the run-up to her disappearance at a 1996 college party and as having engaged in a pattern of non-consensual encounters with women.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys said Monday afternoon that their experts would contradict the prosecution's arguments about forensic findings.

Flores is charged with the murder of Smart, who was a 19-year-old student at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo when she went missing May 25, 1996. His father, Ruben Flores, is charged as an accessory. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

The trial before Monterey County Superior Court Judge Jennifer O'Keefe began about 8:30 a.m. Monday. The trial was moved from San Luis Obispo County after a judge held that widespread local knowledge of the case could bias potential jurors.

Prosecutors allege that Paul Flores killed Smart during an attempted rape in his dorm room at Cal Poly, where both were first-year students. They also allege Ruben Flores, now 81, helped bury the slain student behind his home in the nearby community of Arroyo Grande and later dug up the remains and moved them.

Paul Flores was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party where she reportedly became intoxicated.

Witnesses: Flores showed interest in Smart before disappearance

In his opening statement Monday, San Luis Obispo Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle described witness testimony that Flores spent time in and around Smart's dorm.

Prosecution witnesses said Flores asked about Smart multiple times at the party before her disappearance and spent time several minutes with her at a bar area, before approaching her outside the party as two students walked an incapacitated Smart home, according to Peuvrelle.

Previous coverage: Prosecutors try to prove 1996 killing of Kristin Smart with body missing

"Once Kristin was gone, his hunt was over," Peuvrelle said.

In subsequent interviews with investigators, Flores was inconsistent about some details of the walk home from the party with Smart, Peuvrelle said, including whether she was sober enough to walk.

The prosecution further described allegations by three women who claim Flores drugged and sexually assaulted them after they attended bars in Los Angeles County in 2007 and 2008.

Most expansive account yet: Prosecutors lay out expansive account of the case against Paul Flores

Paul Flores' attorney Robert Marshall Sanger began his opening statement at about 1:15 p.m.

"There is no evidence of what happened to her after Paul Flores left her at the dorm," Sanger, said. "There is a lot of sort-of evidence that has been referred to."

Sanger said an animal behavior expert would testify for the defense that signals by cadaver-sniffing dogs in Flores' dorm room — and a change in the dogs' behavior near the deck of Ruben Flores' home where prosecutors say Smart was buried — do not indicate that Smart's body was ever located there.

Who was Kristin Smart?: The missing Cal Poly student was happy, energetic and always smiling

Defense says authorities tried to entrap Flores

"There is nothing here to suggest this is a burial site," Sanger said of the corner beneath Ruben Flores' deck where prosecutors allege Smart's body was once buried.

Sanger claimed law enforcement officers went out of their way to entrap Flores, including allegedly placing an informant in his jail cell during his arrest for a probation violation years after Smart's disappearance.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson previously acknowledged missteps by detectives over the years and he credited a popular podcast about Smart's disappearance called "Your Own Backyard" for helping unearth new information and inspiring witnesses to speak with investigators.

Kristin Smart's family on previous court ruling: ‘We are now one step closer to justice’

Investigators have conducted dozens of searches over two decades, but turned their attention in the past two years to Ruben Flores' home about 12 miles south of Cal Poly.

Behind lattice work beneath the deck of his large house on a dead end street off Tally Ho Road, archaeologists working for police in March 2021 found a soil disturbance about the size of a casket and the presence of human blood, prosecutors said. The blood was too degraded to extract a DNA sample.

Opening statements for Ruben Flores began after completion of the opening statements in his son's trial. Those statements were scheduled to be completed Tuesday.

Smart's remains have not been found, but she was presumed dead in 2002.

The trial is expected to last about four months.

'Primary suspect': Paul Flores arrested in connection with Kristin Smart's disappearance

Kristin Smart timeline: 24 years from the Cal Poly student's disappearance to a suspect's arrest

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Record reporter Aaron Leathley covers public safety. She can be reached at aleathley@recordnet.com or on Twitter @LeathleyAaron. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow. 

This article originally appeared on The Record: Paul, Ruben Flores trial underway in death of Kristin Smart