Without a body to show in the 1996 San Luis Obispo cold case, the prosecution concluded its presentation in the Kristin Smart murder trial with a sexually explicit screenshot of another woman with a red ball gag in her mouth on the accused killer Paul Flores’ San Pedro bed.
The image came from Paul Flores’ computer, experts testified.
Judge Jennifer O’Keefe on Tuesday instructed Monterey County jurors that it was only to be considered as corroborating evidence to a single detail from the testimonies of two women who told the panel they were raped by Flores and that he owned a red ball gag.
Jurors had already heard those women testify that the man last seen walking with Kristin Smart on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus on May 25, 1996, before she vanished, sexually assaulted them in Los Angeles separately in 2008 and 2011. The judge called the video that the image came from shocking and said she picked the least inflammatory still image. Robert Sanger, Flores’ attorney, outside the panel’s presence, called it unduly prejudicial.
San Luis Obispo County Dist. Atty. Chris Peuvrelle, for over two months, has sought to show jurors that Paul Flores raped and killed 19-year-old Smart before, with the help of his father, Ruben Flores, hiding Smart’s remains. The older Flores is being tried at the same time for accessory, accused of helping dispose of the Cal Poly student’s body. Separate jurors hearing the case together will decide each man’s fate.
The judge denied a motion from Paul and Ruben Flores to dismiss the case. Sanger, Flores’ attorney, told the judge there was “no evidence of a murder case, no evidence of a rape and no evidence in this case.”
Ruben Flores went even further. Harold Mesick told the judge, “We don’t even know if Kristin Smart is dead.”
Those attorneys Wednesday began to chip away at the prosecution theory, knowing that without a body and DNA connecting Flores and Smart, despite the days of testimony, they need only convince jurors that there is reasonable doubt of the crimes.
Smart’s disappearance and the murder investigation have haunted the Central Coast college community for decades, with billboards appealing for evidence to convict her killer. Her body has never been found, but she was legally declared dead in 2002.
San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s detectives arrested Paul Flores, 44, at his San Pedro home in April 2021. His father, Ruben, was taken into custody last year at his home in Arroyo Grande, Calif. He is charged with being an accessory to the crime after prosecutors say he moved Smart’s body.
Smart was last seen walking with Paul Flores near residence halls after attending a party. Both were Cal Poly students at the time.
A San Luis Obispo County judge ordered the trial be moved 126 miles north to Monterey County to ensure a fair trial.
During the trial, which began July 18, a prosecutor solicited testimony from witness Jennifer Hudson that Paul Flores admitted the crime to her in 1996.
“I’m done playing with her, and I put her out underneath my ramp,” said Hudson in testimony, indicating his Flores’ words seemed to reference a local skateboarding ramp. But she didn’t tell anyone of those words for years and informed the lead investigator in the case in 2019. She also admitted on the witness stand to using methamphetamines during that period but not on the day she heard Flores’ alleged statement.
In other key testimony, neighbors, a former girlfriend of Paul Flores, and a renter at Ruben Flores’ home all testified about an area below the deck of the older Flores’ Arroyo Grande home. The prosecutor elicited testimony to attempt to show Smart’s body was concealed there for years and eventually moved. A March 2021 search of the Arroyo Grande home led investigators to find an area of disturbed soil.
An archeologist, Cindy Arrington, testified she and a colleague found stains in the soil consistent with human decomposition and a disturbance that the soil had been removed and put back.
Jurors also heard from the two women who have accused Paul Flores of sexual assaults in L.A. Rhonda Doe, a court-assigned alias, testified that she met him in the Thirsty bar in Redondo Beach and walked to his house in 2008, drank a glass of water and blacked out.
She said she awoke to find him having sex with her without her consent and that she recalled repeatedly lapsing in and out of consciousness and recalled a ball gag in her mouth. She testified she cried as she regained consciousness and demanded he drive her home, which he did. The woman testified she came forward after seeing his image on the news and recognizing him.
A second woman, known in court as Sarah Doe, testified that Paul Flores raped her in 2011 after meeting him in a San Pedro bar where she had four or five alcoholic drinks. Once at his home, he offered her a nonalcoholic drink, then she said she remembered going in and out of consciousness as he raped her on his bed and in the shower and tried to shove a red ball gag in her mouth.
She testified that she tried to report the incident to the police a few years later but didn’t finish the report after being questioned. But she testified that she did tell two friends about it.
The true-crime podcast “Your Own Backyard” has been credited by authorities with reviving interest in the Smart case and helping identify potential new witnesses and avenues of investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.