UPDATE: Oct. 18, 2022
The verdict is in, Paul Ruben (Raul) Flores guilty of murder one. Ruben Flores (daddy), not guilty of accessory to murder after the fact by helping his son Paul dispose of Kristin Smart’s body.
We think that both juries got it wrong. We still think old Ruben was indeed involved, but the prosecution apparently did not provide sufficient evidence to convince the jury to convict old Ruben. It doesn’t mean Ruben had nothing to do with it, it just means the jury didn’t feel the evidence was strong enough to convict Ruben of helping his son dispose of Kristin’s body.
The jury for Paul Flores got it wrong with a murder one verdict. Murder one is murder with premeditation where the perpetrator carefully plans to commit murder. We do not believe that Paul Flores went to Swampy Fells birthday party off campus with the intent of murdering anyone.
Paul just wanted to be cool like the rest of the guys and get laid. His pathetic and sickening method was to drug his victim and have sex with her while she is either unconscious or all resistance to his sexual advances are neutralized.
We discovered this with our own investigation, but this was bolstered when the prosecutor brought in all the Jane Does to tell how Paul Flores had raped them. It seemed to follow a similar pattern… meet, smile, entice, drug, rape and video tape.
OUR THEORY REMAINS, WHICH GOES AS FOLLOWS…
We still believe that Paul doped up Kristin’s drink and targeted her for rape. We believe Paul was raping a semi comatose Kristin Smart or had finished raping her when she suddenly vomited and became fully cognizant of her surroundings and what Paul had done or was doing.
A pushing and shoving match probably occurred with Kristin most likely threatening to report Paul to authorities. Kristin Smart then turned for the door to grab the doorknob and get out of there post haste. A frightened Paul Flores then jumped Kristin from behind placing her in a choke hold. Kristin flailing her arms to get him off her back and to get some air caught Paul’s eye with her elbow giving him a blackeye.
Paul, then used enough force to either break Kristin’s neck or suffocate her and Kristin fell lifeless to the floor. Again, Paul probably did not intend to kill anyone. He just wanted Kristin to calm down and be quiet. When she wouldn’t quiet down to “let him explain,” he used excessive force he knew could potentially kill or injure her badly. This puts Paul at murder two, not murder one.
What happens now? Well, no one really knows, but we also have a theory on that as well. Paul has only one bargaining chip. In exchange for not arresting his mother and father, and receiving a lessor sentence, Paul will offer to show authorities where Kristin’s body is buried.
It’s ironic because the sheriff and DA already know where Kristin’s body is or was. In 2014, BUSTER the finely tuned grave detection dog alerted multiple times near the rear left corner of the house where Paul’s mother lives at 529 E. Branch Street, Arroyo Grande, CA. Then, years later, a team of scientists conducted a forensic search in the adjacent yard next to Kristin’s presumed gravesite. The results were conclusive, a human being is are was buried there.
Kristin Smart’s body is buried in concrete in the rear left corner of Susan’s home. The sheriff knows it, the DA knows it, but for some odd reason, they don’t want to resolve the issue. Instead they went with the crazy theory that Kristin’s body was buried under Ruben’s house deck.
It’s possible the area under his deck was a staging area until they got the hole dug and the concrete mixing unit ready to pour, then moved her body under the cloak of darkness to be entombed in a makeshift grave in Susan’s backyard. The bloody earring and the incessant beeping watch tend to corroborate.
I know, I know… I’m just a crackpot with a ridiculous theory. But, just you wait… the truth will come out sooner or later. I’m sticking with BUSTER’s nose and the scientific evidence that says a human is in Susan’s backyard. Until her body is recovered, there is no closure in the Kristin Smart case.
UPDATE: Sept. 21, 2022
After presenting several women who described how they were raped or assaulted by Paul Flores, the prosecution presented Angela Butler, a senior forensic DNA analyst and laboratory supervisor at Seri Lab. She testified that she performed a HemDirect test, which detects hemoglobin.
Her tests confirmed the presence of human blood in some of the soil samples she received. She also found fibers of various colors in the soil samples. Defense attorney Robert Sanger argued the HemDirect test has never been validated for use in soil, referring to an email from Christian Stadler of SERATEC, the lab that created the HemDirect test.
The theory is that Paul and Ruben Flores moved Kristin’s body from the Cal Poly campus to Ruben’s house on White Court in Arroyo Grande, California and buried her underneath his back porch. The prosecution wants the jury to believe that Kristin’s body had been there for nearly two decades, then suddenly Paul and his father Ruben moved Kristin’s body to a different location.
There are 206 bones in the human body and after twenty years in a makeshift grave, a human body decays to the point there are only bones left. Ever tried to move a human body after twenty years of decaying has occurred? You’re not going to do it without leaving behind some very strong DNA evidence unless the body was hermetically sealed in some sort of container. If that happened, how in the world did Angela Butler discover any human specific hemoglobin?
The point is this, there is a possibility Kristin’s body was temporarily staged there under Rubens back porch, but was moved within a week or so after her death. The California Register still believes and has always believed, that campus authorities and law enforcement had a pretty good idea what happened within a week of Kristin’s disappearance. The body if Kristin Denise Smart is most likely encased in a concrete block in the rear left corner of Paul’s mother’s home on East Branch Street in Arroyo Grande, California.
We know this from multiple alerts from BUSTER the grave detection dog in 2014, scientific evidence from a vapor-well test on the other side of the fence from where Kristin’s body is likely interred.
This whole damn thing has been just one big coverup. The “missing” earring tells us all we need to know about how law enforcement prosecuted the case. And, why in the world the DA’s office decided to prosecute a no-body homicide case when Kristin’s body is highly likely in the mother’s backyard remains a mystery. Is the DA trying to lose this case?
The prosecution has rested and now the defense has taken over. Court observers suspect the case will be concluded sometime in December 2022.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Defense lawyers asked the judge to move the trial feeling Paul and Ruben could not receive a fair trial in San Luis Obispo County. The judge wisely granted the motion so as to not give the defense yet another thing to appeal a conviction on. What the other “things” are, remains to be seen. One big one is the fact the prosecution has yet to discover Kristin’s remains.
Judge Jennifer O’Keefe will now preside in Superior Court in Salinas County, California. Trial has begun and expected to last about three months, but these things take on a life of their own and can end abruptly or go for many more months.
For the newbies, Paul and his father Ruben Flores are accused for their alleged respective involvements in the disappearance of Kristin Smart twenty-six (26) years ago on the campus of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly).
The California Register believes the body of Kristin Denise Smart was and is buried in the rear left corner of the home at 529 E. Branch Street, Arroyo Grande, the home belonging to Paul’s mother Susan Flores. We say this with a high degree of probability because of multiple dog alerts and now scientific evidence through a vapor-well soils test.
The anecdotal evidence suggests that Paul Flores knows a lot more than he’s telling about Kristin’s disappearance. Here are some interesting tidbits that no one is talking about…
- the earring found on Susan’s back patio by the tenant (Maryann Lassiter). It’s possible Kristin’s earring came off as her body was being moved. According to the woman who found the earring (Maryann Lassiter – former married name), there were specks of dried blood on the earring. She worked at a hospital and was very well aware of what blood looked like on clothes and jewelry.
- the sheriff’s office mysteriously “losing” the earring after Kristin’s parents demanded to see it. The earring was received into evidence from the tenants who found it. The detectives who received the earring as evidence have never been questioned or come forward about their involvement in receiving the earring into custody as potential evidence in a missing person’s (now murder) investigation.
- the suspicious loss of the photos taken of the earring by sheriff’s detectives. Tenant Maryann Lassiter said one detective held up the earring while the other took pictures of it. Those pictures were concealed from the parents of Kristin Smart. And, if the earring was actually lost, the detectives who received into custody never described it to the parents in an effort to determine if it was actually an earring that Kristin might have worn or was known to have worn.
- the failure of the sheriff’s office to even tell the parents of Kristin Smart of the existence of the earring. One would think the first thing law enforcement would do is to see if Kristin’s mother recognized the earring raising the specter that Kristin was possibly at the Flores home at sometime. Kristin’s parents serendipitously heard about the earring at a court deposition when the tenant approached her and asked, “Did the earring I found on the patio belong to Kristin?”
- the beeping watch believed to be Kristin’s that kept the tenants (Joe and Maryann Lassiter) up all night. The watch was believed to be buried in the soil next to the home belonging to Susan Flores, Paul’s mother. The beeping noise could be heard in the back bedroom of the home. The alarm was set the time Kristin normally awoke in the morning before going to swim practice.
- the blood on the bathroom wall and shower curtain in 529 E. Branch Street noticed by Maryann Lassiter after renting the property from the Flores family. Never fully investigated by the sheriff’s office.
- the failure of the sheriff to even attempt to obtain the Q-tip used to swab the blood from the shower curtain at 529 E. Branch Street where I personally believe Kristin’s body is encased in concrete in the rear left corner of the backyard. Maryann Lassiter (former tenant) believes she still has the blood-stained Q-tip in one of the storage boxes in the garage of her current residence in Santa Maria, California.
- the frequent attempts by Ruben Flores to obtain the trash can from the rental unit (529 E. Branch St. AG) as described by Joe Lassiter tenant of 529 E. Branch St. Arroyo Grande, CA. After several attempts to retrieve the trash can, Joe told him to take the trash can and leave me alone. He was tired of the harassment. It’s suspected the trash can may have contained blood evidence that could have been bothering Ruben Flores terribly and he felt compelled to retrieve it.
- the multiple alerts by grave-detection dog BUSTER in 2014, who by that point had found hundreds of body all over the world. BUSTER was not a certified cadaver dog because when his owner retired BUSTER retired as well… but his finely tuned nose had never retired.
- the failure of the sheriff to bring in his own cadaver dogs to prove or disprove BUSTER’s alerts, It’s as if the sheriff did not want to find Kristin.
- the failure of the sheriff’s office to fully consult with retired Det. Paul Dostie and Dr. Arpad Vass who have made it their life’s work to find clandestine graves
- the failure of the sheriff’s department to properly investigate the rear left corner of Susan’s backyard, instead they flipped a coin to determine if they would dig up the suspicious concrete planter box which roughly measured about the same size as a coffin and curiously had no drainage normally required of any planter box. Most sheriffs truly interested in finding a missing person would at least listen to any person and decide from there if they are credible. The sheriff decided from the beginning he wanted nothing to do with Detective Paul Dostie and Dr. Arpad Vass. The question is WHY, especially given their long track record of finding hidden graves?
- the failure of the Flores family to allow contractors to dig up that portion of the yard with a promise that if no body was found it would be replaced exactly as it was. Normally, if someone is wrongfully being accused of burying a human body in their backyard, the innocent would want to clear their name and stop all the whispers behind their backs throughout the community. Offers were made to dig up the backyard at 529 E. Branch Street in Arroyo Grande, California, and return it to the same condition for free. The Flores family rejected all those offers.
- the fact a patio was dug and poured in the dead of night by Paul Flores (and an accomplice) very soon after the weekend Kristin disappeared
- the comments by Dr. Brian Ekenrode of the FBI after reading Dr. Arpad Vass’s analysis of the data collected from the vapor-well tests. Dr. Ekenrode purportedly said that based on Dr. Vass’s analysis of the VOCs collected during the vapor-well test in the next door neighbors backyard, he could write a search warrant immediately to excavate the yard in search of human remains.
- the admission from Paul Flores to his roommate Derrick Tse at Cal Poly saying that he killed Kristin and her body is at his mother’s home.
- the blackeye Paul Flores obtained which he lied about how he got it three times, an elbow during a basketball game, fell in the bushes, injured by the steering wheel while allegedly installing a stereo unit in his small pickup truck.
- the detection of Kristin remains by Dr. Arpad new patented QUANTUM OSCILLATOR machine after inserting the fingernail clippings of her mother Denise Smart.
- the hit received on Dr. Vass’s invention (QUANTUM OSCILLATOR) at the Cal Poly campus that pointed directly at Paul Flores’s dorm room.
- the hit received on the QUANTUM OSCILLATOR in front of the sheriff’s office pointing at the evidence locker in the sheriff’s headquarters area.
Scientific evidence involves…
- the result from the vapor-well test conducted February 2020 that detected human-specific volatile organic compounds near the rear left corner of Susan’s backyard.
For some crazy reason the county sheriff is avoiding Susan’s backyard. Or, maybe it’s the DA. Someone has placed a mill-stone around the neck of the prosecutor by forcing him to conduct a difficult no-body homicide case.
Prosecuting a murder case without a body is very difficult because it automatically introduces seeds of doubt in the minds of the jurors. Very few “no-body” homicide cases ever result in a conviction. The criminals normally get off scot free. And, because of the double jeopardy rule, they never having to worry about being tried again even if the body is discovered the following day after walking out of the courtroom.
So, it begs the question. Why in the world would sheriff and/or the DA’s office risk losing their case because the sheriff failed to properly and fully investigate Susan’s backyard? We have no answers for that, but we can tell you that something very politically stinky is going on in this case. Something is interfering with the due process of law and the proper prosecution of this case.
Any rooky cop will tell you after graduating from rooky cop school, Susan’s backyard must be cleared first before prosecuting other leads. That has never properly been completed.
In June 2014, BUSTER the super grave-detection dog, searched around the perimeter of Susan’s home and alerted multiple times. The sheriff was notified of the alerts and inexplicably chose to ignore BUSTER’s alerts.
Sheriff Ian Parkinson didn’t bring in his own “certified” dogs to verify BUSTER’s alerts. He didn’t get a search warrant, he didn’t call in BUSTER’s dog trainer/handler for a conversation or consultation. The sheriff didn’t call up all the neighbors who were more than willing to have the sheriff’s department dig up their yards to determine the presence of human contaminates that may have migrated under the fence into their respective yards.
For some strange reason, the sheriff completely ignored BUSTER’s alerts.
We ask ourselves, why in the world would Sheriff Parkinson ignore dog alerts that had a very strong record of finding clandestine graves? Was he trying to insulate himself? Did he want that coveted “plausible deniability” the politicians use so effectively?
ROLL THE CLOCK FORWARD
Roll the clock forward. On February 5, 2020, Katahdin Environmental conducted what is called “vapor-well tests” in the adjacent yard owned and rented out by owner Ms. Marcia Papich. A vapor-well test is where a pipe with holes in it is driven into the soil then hooked up to a vacuum device. Over an approximate 24-hour period, the vacuum sucks the air out of the soil and concentrates it in an effort to detect and trap volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are human specific.
Dr. Arpad Vass, one of the leading authorities on the detection of clandestine graves, said that when a human or animal dies, the decaying body emits as many as 500 identifiable volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Thirty (30) of those 500 chemicals are human specific. Detection of human-specific VOCs in this method is construed as scientific proof, which could be used to obtain a search warrant.
Dr. Vass notes that VOCs generally migrate through the soil with moisture. Detection of human-specific VOCs could mean the body is close by, or further uphill from the location of the test. Another factor to consider is if the body was buried in concrete which could have interfered with the normal migration of VOC chemicals in the soil.
The vapor-well test was completed and the team that extracted the data approached Dr. Vass to analyze the information collected. Dr. Arpad Vass concluded there was a high degree of probability a human body was buried in close proximity to where the test was conducted. The test was conducted on the other side of the fence from Susan Flores’ home and in the very spot where BUSTER alerted six years prior.
Since Paul Flores was doing “midnight” concrete work in his mother’s backyard immediately following the disappearance of Kristin Smart, it’s logical to believe the detected human remains were most likely that of Kristin Smart. Dr. Arpad Vass, in his analysis of the data collected from the vapor-well tests concluded the following…
“In this particular scenario (given the above assumptions and caveats), it appears as if the concrete did influence the evolution and liberation of some key compounds of the decompositional process. However, a 75%+ match of expected and detected compounds indicates a relatively high probability of a decompositional event.”
Dr. Vass’s QUANTUM OSCILLATOR is so incredible, it can sometimes determine the race of the buried individual and can actually measure the femur bone, the longest and strongest bone in the human body. In other words, Dr. Vass can possibly determine how tall the individual was in life from the femur bone.
Again, the county sheriff was completely disinterested in this incredible new science, or he already knew Kristin Smart’s body is there, and for whatever reason didn’t want to dig up her remains. Nothing is adding up in the Kristin Smart murder case.
So, there you have it. BUSTER the super grave-detection dog alerted multiple times nearly eight years ago, then many years later, scientific proof emerges there is a high degree of probability that a human body is buried in close proximity to the rear left corner of the home belonging to Susan Flores. With this proof, the sheriff could have immediately obtained a search warrant, but he ignored it all.
For some unexplained reason, the sheriff is fixated on Ruben’s home in Arroyo Grande, California. Prosecution is saying Kristin’s body was buried behind or under Ruben’s home but recently removed. Have you ever tried to move a human body that has been decaying for twenty-six years?
The likelihood Kristin was buried on Ruben’s property is highly suspect because moving a body after many years would have left traces of Kristin in the soil that could still be detected. There are 206 bones in the human body.
After a human body decays over two decades the cartilage and tendons that hold all those bones together also decay. Moving skeletal remains would have been virtually impossible without leaving something behind.
PREDICTIONS
As much as it pains us to say so, it’s a good possibility Paul Flores and his father will be found NOT GUILTY and will walk out of the courtroom as free men. (Our prediction only was 50% accurate. Ruben walked, Paul was convicted). No matter what is said in the courtroom, there is generally one juror who believes that unless you find the body, you have no proof Paul Flores killed anyone.
The double jeopardy rule says that Paul Flores can never be tried again, even if he walked out of the courthouse yelling, “I killed her and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He could even take reporters to the exact spot he buried Kristin explaining how he killed her and transported her body to her final resting place. (But now that he’s convicted, Paul will use this issue to reduce the time he’ll spend in prison)
We believe that Paul Flores was telling the truth when he told his college dorm roommate Derrick Tse that Kristin is at his mom’s house.
We believe Paul was telling the truth when he said he got his blackeye from an elbow. It wasn’t a fellow basketball player’s elbow, it was Kristin’s elbow as she struggled for air when Paul Flores placed her in a choke hold from behind.
If the jury finds Paul NOT-GUILTY, there will be no closure for the Smart family or for the community that has been deeply immersed in this horrible tragedy for over a quarter century.
Paul and his father will probably score a book and movie deal entitled, “How I beat the rap and made them all look like fools.” Paul probably still has a major drinking problem will likely die an early death from cirrhosis of the liver or auto accident. The nightmares of the murder will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. He will laugh in the faces of Kristin’s parents and cry on his pillow at night.
Paul’s father Ruben will likely die of a heart attack fairly soon. We are told he’s had multiple heart attacks and is not in good health today. It wouldn’t surprise us if Ruben succumbs to a massive heart attack while he sits at the defendant’s table listening to all of the cascading witnesses revealing exactly what kind of people they really are.
Susan Flores will probably sell her home and move. By now she’s probably pretty tired of people whispering behind her back and may opt to get a new start in a different venue far away from her home in Arroyo Grande that her son and husband converted into a mini mausoleum.
Dr. Vass and Detective Paul Dostie will continue their hunt for other clandestine graves to help give other families in other communities the closure they desperately need. Their expertise was summarily dismissed by San Luis Obispo law enforcement personnel in the Kristin Smart case. For some unknown reason, the so-called law enforcement experts in San Luis Obispo County didn’t want to hear what Det. Dostie and Dr. Vass had to say.
Recently, Dr. Vass and his QUANTUM OSCILLATOR machine helped to locate a skeleton in Alabama which was confirmed by the state archeologist. Dr. Vass is currently working of a case in Mississippi which could be a significant find, but the adipocere is currently being analyzed at the lab.
California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) will go on as if nothing ever happened. The sheriff will retire and probably become an adjunct professor at Cal Poly teaching police science for some enormous salary as payback for not digging up Kristin’s body.
And, one day in the future, the body of Kristin Smart will finally be reclaimed from her cold concrete grave behind the Flores home, closing the final chapter of the Kristin Smart case in San Luis Obispo County.
And sadly, nothing will be learned from any of it. All the people involved will most likely never be held accountable, from the individual who caused the death, to the law enforcement and community members who helped to coverup their crimes.
Nothing to see here folks, just keep moving along.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS and VIDEO:
- Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Arpad Vass: RESUME
- Presentation by Dr. Vass at TEDxYYC in 2012: https://youtu.be/l0Qd2nxMC2Y
- Analysis of vapor-well tests by Dr. Arpad A. Vass: REPORT
AS A SIDE NOTE:
I have interviewed literally hundreds of people on the Kristin Smart case. Those testimonies and my own gut instincts tell me Paul Flores killed Kristin Smart and people of our community helped him to escape justice for now 26 years.
Since Kristin’s disappearance in 1996, Paul has had numerous jobs. In his off hours he allegedly rapes women. At least that’s what prosecutors would have us believe. During a 2020 raid of Paul Flores’ San Pedro home, deputies discovered homemade rape videos the suspect made of himself having sex and sodomizing women, along with two bottles of date rape drugs.
Rape videos were also seized that included titles “Drugged and raped while passed out” and “Blond high school girl in skirt gets raped.” Prosecutors wanted very much to include multiple rapes along with his murder charge, but were denied.
Whether a California jury will convict him and his father remains to be seen. The unknown factor is why. Why in the world did three sheriff’s in a row, protect Paul Flores from being brought to justice? The so-called lost earring tells us all we need to know that the fix was in decades ago.
Obviously, the sheriff has (or should have) enough evidence convict, but without Kristin’s body, it’s a long uphill legal slog that may not have very good odds of success.
The trial will probably continue until September sometime, unless Paul finally capitulates and cuts a deal with prosecutors to let his parents off the hook and he will confess to his crimes. Don’t hold your breath, unless of course, the sheriff saunters over to Susan’s home and exhumes Kristin’s body.
I personally believe that Kristin’s body is where it always has been, in the rear left corner of his mother’s home. I also believe that a select few in law enforcement and administrators of Cal Poly knew exactly what happened within a few days of Kristin’s disappearance. This has always been just one big stinky political and legal coverup.
I believe in BUSTER’s nose and the incredible experience and knowledge of Dr. Arpad Alexander Vass. I believe that within a week of her disappearance, Cal Poly administrators and the DA’s office knew basically what had happened, then started to take action to coverup the crime.
Make no mistake, the remains of Kristin Denise Smart are in the rear left corner of 529 E. Branch Street, Arroyo Grande, California. Parents should think twice before sending their daughters to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.
The missing bloody earring tells us all we need to know about how this case was being handled.
David Smallwood
CaliforniaRegister.com