Investigators ended a search for Kristin Smart\u2019s body at the home of her killer\u2019s mother on Saturday without recovering a body, a day after Sheriff Ian Parkinson said soil testing detected the presence of human remains.<\/p>\n
San Luis Obispo County sheriff\u2019s 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\u2019s body at the home after killing her nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not recover Kristin Smart,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement Saturday after the search in the 500 block of East Branch Street concluded. \u201cDetectives will be evaluating any evidence we have recovered to aid in the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s office reiterated a refrain heard since Paul Flores\u2019 sentencing to life in prison three years ago. \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Office remains fully committed to finding Kristin and bringing her home to her family. No further information is available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson on Friday revealed that the soil tests were positive for remains. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that, based on what we\u2019re looking at, evidence, wise scientific evidence, that human remains were there at one time,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we can\u2019t call it Kristin, but you know, we think there\u2019s, there\u2019s evidence to support human remains there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators believe Smart\u2019s body may have been moved multiple times. <\/p>\n
People familiar with the investigation told The Times that a vast amount of data was gathered and needs to be analyzed. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
The public\u2019s on-again, off-again interest kept Smart\u2019s disappearance in the news sporadically, but a podcast called \u201cYour Own Backyard,\u201d begun in 2019 by Chris Lambert, shined a new spotlight on the cold case. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Three years ago, a group of scientists working from Susan Flores\u2019 neighbors\u2019 backyard using soil vapor sampling detected the presence of volatile organic compounds that they say may be associated with decomposing human remains.<\/p>\n
The work being done there this week was similar, but more advanced.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re rooting around for answers,\u201d Nelligan told The Times this week. \u201cWe all want to bring [parents] Denise and Stan Smart some peace after all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities had repeatedly searched the backyards of homes owned individually by the parents of Paul Flores. Sheriff\u2019s 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\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n
Ruben Flores, who was accused of helping to dispose of Smart\u2019s remains, was found not guilty of being an accessory to the crime. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investigators ended a search for Kristin Smart\u2019s body at the home of her killer\u2019s mother on Saturday without…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":782904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[4637,25175,316,5022,18030,321391,321392,50,1812,321393,10284,5812,12498,53059,319626,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-786133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-body","10":"tag-evidence","11":"tag-home","12":"tag-investigation","13":"tag-investigator","14":"tag-killer-paul-flores","15":"tag-kristin-smart","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-office","18":"tag-own-backyard","19":"tag-remain","20":"tag-search","21":"tag-sheriff","22":"tag-smart","23":"tag-susan-flores","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116549329069128947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}