Investigators ended a search for Kristin Smart’s body at the home of her killer’s mother on Saturday without recovering a body, a day after Sheriff Ian Parkinson said soil testing detected the presence of human remains.
San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputies joined by soil scientists and ground radar experts and armed with a search warrant have been at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores since Wednesday. Investigators are trying to determine if convicted killer Paul Flores concealed his victim’s body at the home after killing her nearly 30 years ago.
“We did not recover Kristin Smart,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement Saturday after the search in the 500 block of East Branch Street concluded. “Detectives will be evaluating any evidence we have recovered to aid in the investigation.”
Parkinson’s office reiterated a refrain heard since Paul Flores’ sentencing to life in prison three years ago. “The Sheriff’s Office remains fully committed to finding Kristin and bringing her home to her family. No further information is available.”
Parkinson on Friday revealed that the soil tests were positive for remains.
“We believe that, based on what we’re looking at, evidence, wise scientific evidence, that human remains were there at one time,” he said. “So we can’t call it Kristin, but you know, we think there’s, there’s evidence to support human remains there.”
Investigators believe Smart’s body may have been moved multiple times.
People familiar with the investigation told The Times that a vast amount of data was gathered and needs to be analyzed.
Paul Flores was the last person seen with Smart as the two walked toward her dormitory at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo after a 1996 Memorial Day weekend party.
The public’s on-again, off-again interest kept Smart’s disappearance in the news sporadically, but a podcast called “Your Own Backyard,” begun in 2019 by Chris Lambert, shined a new spotlight on the cold case.
Paul Flores was arrested in 2021 after a renewed investigation into the killing. After a lengthy trial, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Three years ago, a group of scientists working from Susan Flores’ neighbors’ backyard using soil vapor sampling detected the presence of volatile organic compounds that they say may be associated with decomposing human remains.
The work being done there this week was similar, but more advanced.
In November 2019, soil engineer Tim Neiligan, a former FBI chemist, began researching how bodies decompose in soil. Two months later, he recruited Steve Hoyt, another Cal Poly grad with a doctorate in environmental science, who has built a business on the Central Coast testing soil samples. Brian Eckenrode, a retired FBI forensic scientist and expert in human decomposition, joined them in 2021.
“We’re rooting around for answers,” Nelligan told The Times this week. “We all want to bring [parents] Denise and Stan Smart some peace after all these years.”
Authorities had repeatedly searched the backyards of homes owned individually by the parents of Paul Flores. Sheriff’s deputies even used ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs to search the property of his father, Ruben Flores, in Arroyo Grande in 2021. No remains were uncovered, but a month later, both Flores men were arrested and charged in connection with Smart’s murder.
Ruben Flores, who was accused of helping to dispose of Smart’s remains, was found not guilty of being an accessory to the crime.
