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Legally Brunette: The Disappearance of Kristin Smart · Legally Brunette

0:01
Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Welcome to an episode Illegally Brunette. I'll be
0:05
Speaker 1: your host today, Emily Simpson with Shane Shane. All right, Shane,
0:11
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about a case that just
0:15
Speaker 1: now reached its thirtieth anniversary over Memorial Day weekend. I
0:20
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember it because you are from California,
0:23
Speaker 1: but back in nineteen ninety six.
0:26
Speaker 2: Wait, well, okay, now I don't know. Well, I haven't
0:29
Speaker 2: even said what it is yet.
0:30
Speaker 3: I didn't live in the country in ninety six, so
0:31
Speaker 3: I have no idea what's going on and going.
0:33
Speaker 1: Oh you mean you weren't around in nineteen ninety six, Well,
0:35
Speaker 1: you still might remember it. So the case is Kristen Smart,
0:39
Speaker 1: who was a nineteen year old college freshman at cal
0:41
Speaker 1: Poly San Louis Obispo. Now you know that school because
0:45
Speaker 1: your niece enough you both went there and graduated from there,
0:47
Speaker 1: right right.
0:49
Speaker 3: Also referred to as slow and they're the Mustangs.
0:52
Speaker 2: They're slow and they're the Mustangs. I've actually that was
0:54
Speaker 2: l slow sl Right. I've been on the campus. Oh
0:57
Speaker 2: that's right, you went there, Yeah, a few.
0:59
Speaker 1: Years ago, and my niece first started going to cal Poly,
1:03
Speaker 1: and I remembered the Kristen Smart case, and I remembered
1:07
Speaker 1: that she was in the dorm called Mirror Hall, and
1:09
Speaker 1: so I made sure to check it out to take
1:13
Speaker 1: a little look at it while I was on campus.
1:16
Speaker 1: Kristin Smart disappeared on Memorial Day weekend in nineteen ninety six.
1:20
Speaker 1: She was last seen by cal Poly's student Paul Flores,
1:24
Speaker 1: who walked her home that night from a college party.
1:26
Speaker 1: After relentless searching, her body has never been discovered. Even
1:30
Speaker 1: though we'll talk about in a little bit, this case
1:33
Speaker 1: has been. Why it came up in my mind again
1:35
Speaker 1: was because there's been renewed attention on this case because
1:39
Speaker 1: recently the police had been investigating because her body's ever
1:45
Speaker 1: been found, so they had been they had gotten police
1:48
Speaker 1: warrants to search Paul Flores's mother's home, Susan Flores. After
1:53
Speaker 1: relentless searching, her body was never found and the case
1:56
Speaker 1: went cold for over two decades. In twenty twenty one,
1:59
Speaker 1: the case took a turn when investigators were finally able
2:02
Speaker 1: to narrow in on two suspects and arrest them for
2:05
Speaker 1: Kristen's murder, which ends up being Paul Flores and his father,
2:10
Speaker 1: Reuben Flores. All right, let's just go through the background
2:14
Speaker 1: a little bit and give a little early life in
2:17
Speaker 1: college years on Kristen so we can learn a little
2:19
Speaker 1: bit about her. So on February twentieth, the nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 1: Kristin Denise Smart was born in Augsburg, Germany, to Stan
2:27
Speaker 1: and Denise Smart, who were both teachers working on a
2:30
Speaker 1: US military base. She later grew up in Stockton, California.
2:34
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Stockton?
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Speaker 4: No?
2:37
Speaker 2: You? Yeah.
2:38
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was as lovely as where we
2:42
Speaker 1: currently live, but it's northern California, and is this judgment
2:46
Speaker 1: has no judgment, and is described by friends and family
2:49
Speaker 1: as outgoing, friendly, and athletic. Kristin eventually enrolls in cal
2:54
Speaker 1: Poly San Luis Obispo in nineteen ninety five as a freshman,
2:58
Speaker 1: majoring in architecture. All right, so, the way I understand
3:02
Speaker 1: it is she loved to travel the world. I think
3:06
Speaker 1: she'd spent like a summer camp in Hawaii. She'd also
3:08
Speaker 1: been a foreign exchange student, I believe in Venezuela or
3:11
Speaker 1: something like that. So she was quite the traveler at
3:13
Speaker 1: such a young age. Then she starts cal Poly San
3:18
Speaker 1: Louis Obispo, and I believe that she was having a
3:21
Speaker 1: hard time, wanted to come home, wasn't really making friends,
3:26
Speaker 1: and felt kind of isolated and alone. So we get
3:30
Speaker 1: to May of nineteen ninety six. This is a Memorial
3:33
Speaker 1: Day weekend, thirty years ago. So on May twenty fourth,
3:36
Speaker 1: Kristen attends an off campus birthday party near cal Poly.
3:40
Speaker 1: This is Memorial Day weekend, so most of the students
3:42
Speaker 1: are gone.
3:43
Speaker 2: She didn't go home.
3:45
Speaker 1: She talks it's not her roommate, but it's a neighbor
3:48
Speaker 1: in her hall in mirror hall, into going out with
3:50
Speaker 1: her to a party because she knows that she needs
3:54
Speaker 1: to try to acclimate more.
3:56
Speaker 2: Okay, just making an effort, she's making an ef to
3:59
Speaker 2: be social.
4:00
Speaker 1: So she talks to Margarita into going to a party
4:02
Speaker 1: with her. They end up going to a party, and
4:04
Speaker 1: I believe the first place they go to isn't really
4:07
Speaker 1: much of a party. It's just like a couple of
4:09
Speaker 1: students and they're playing video games or something.
4:11
Speaker 3: So in retrospect, yeah, she probably should have been better.
4:15
Speaker 3: Doesn't always have to be a big, raging party.
4:17
Speaker 1: So then she goes from that party to another party
4:21
Speaker 1: with her friend Margarita, Okay. The next party she goes
4:25
Speaker 1: to is where I don't know if she drank or
4:27
Speaker 1: if she took a drug, or if someone slipped something
4:29
Speaker 1: into her drink. But this next stop that she makes,
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Speaker 1: Margarita doesn't go with her. Margarita wants to go back
4:35
Speaker 1: to the dorm rooms and tries to talk her into
4:37
Speaker 1: going back to the dorms.
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Speaker 3: So they both leave one party to go to another,
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Speaker 3: but Marguerite says, no, Let's go to the dorms, and
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Speaker 3: then they separate.
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Speaker 2: They separate, and Margeriti goes back to the dorms.
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Speaker 1: Margarita goes back to the dorms and she says, the
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Speaker 1: last thing she saw was Kristen standing against the wall
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Speaker 1: outside I don't know these other dorms and saying come on,
4:55
Speaker 1: come on, just come with me, come with me, And
4:56
Speaker 1: she's like, no, I don't really want to, I'm tired,
4:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to the dorm end up separating.
5:01
Speaker 1: Then Kristin goes to a second party where she becomes
5:04
Speaker 1: extremely drunk, almost so drunk that she's having trouble.
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Speaker 3: Does she do we know if she was a drinker
5:10
Speaker 3: or is this like out of her element?
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Speaker 1: I don't know if she drank a lot because she
5:13
Speaker 1: was uncomfortable, or she's trying to make friends, or she's
5:15
Speaker 1: trying to fit in, so she goes to the second
5:17
Speaker 1: party and she drinks a lot, or if she was
5:19
Speaker 1: slipped some type of drug and her alcohol I don't know,
5:24
Speaker 1: but she's so inebriated that they end up some other
5:27
Speaker 1: students end up finding her face down laying in a
5:30
Speaker 1: yard like out front of this party. So friends later
5:34
Speaker 1: say that she had been drinking heavily and appeared extremely
5:36
Speaker 1: intoxicated by the end of the night. Multiple students at
5:40
Speaker 1: the second party later report noticing another student, Paul Flores,
5:43
Speaker 1: paying attention to Kristen throughout the night. So then we
5:47
Speaker 1: get to about two am. This is on May twenty fifth,
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Speaker 1: Kristin is found passed out on a nearby lawn by
5:53
Speaker 1: students Cheryl Anderson and Tim Davis after leaving this party.
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Speaker 3: I can't fathom saying out till two am.
6:01
Speaker 2: Well, in college, you didn't stay out, Oh probably, But
6:04
Speaker 2: I'm talking about today. Oh today.
6:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, as a fifty year old with five children,
6:08
Speaker 1: you can't imaginate out.
6:09
Speaker 2: Last night at two am.
6:10
Speaker 3: I was upset. I couldn't fall asleep past right. I
6:14
Speaker 3: was like, must have more sleep.
6:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely different between nineteen and fifty. Yes, two
6:23
Speaker 1: students help Kristen start to walk back towards her dorm
6:27
Speaker 1: because she is struggling to stand and she's struggling to
6:30
Speaker 1: walk on her own. So this is a male and
6:33
Speaker 1: a female. Those are the two people that found her.
6:35
Speaker 1: So it's they're holding her arms. The way I understand
6:38
Speaker 1: it is like they have her by the arms and
6:40
Speaker 1: they're helping her walk back.
6:42
Speaker 2: To her dorm. Okay.
6:44
Speaker 1: Then as they're walking her back to her dorm, they
6:47
Speaker 1: pass Paul Flores and he says to them, hey, don't
6:52
Speaker 1: worry about it.
6:53
Speaker 2: I got her. I'll take her back to her dorm.
6:56
Speaker 1: That never works out, no, So they say okay, and
6:59
Speaker 1: then a girl says basically, it.
7:01
Speaker 3: Was like, is that a drunk female? Let me let
7:05
Speaker 3: me take her?
7:05
Speaker 2: Yes?
7:06
Speaker 1: Is that a drunkenee bread and female who is unable
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Speaker 1: to walk on her own.
7:09
Speaker 2: You guys can leave. I will now take over and
7:13
Speaker 2: take her back to her dorm room. And they knew
7:14
Speaker 2: who Flores was they, Yeah, they were familiar with I.
7:18
Speaker 1: Believe that they knew who he was, and I believe
7:19
Speaker 1: the girl said made him promise that he was going
7:22
Speaker 1: to take her back to the dorm.
7:23
Speaker 3: And also then well if he made her if he
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Speaker 3: made promise right, exactly, So she's relieved of all responsibilities
7:32
Speaker 3: at that point.
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Speaker 1: Yes, So he takes her himself and heads back towards
7:37
Speaker 1: the dorm.
7:39
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, he's a student, right, he is a student? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Okay, Cheryl Anderson, that is a girl leaves when they
7:45
Speaker 1: approach her dormhall, and Paul Flores assures Cheryl that he
7:48
Speaker 1: will quote get Kristen home safely.
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Speaker 3: So you know that's like has has anyone ever said, oh,
7:54
Speaker 3: you're right, I planned on assaulting and killing her. I
7:59
Speaker 3: cannot take her off your hands. No, I have been caught.
8:02
Speaker 3: I cannot keep that promise.
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Speaker 1: This is where you know, when I study this this story,
8:07
Speaker 1: there's two instances. And I don't want to blame these
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Speaker 1: other girls, but there's two. There's versus Margarito that leaves
8:14
Speaker 1: her alone, and I know she wanted to go back
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Speaker 1: to the dorm. She's the one that ends up giving
8:18
Speaker 1: the dorm room keys, or not the dorm room, but
8:21
Speaker 1: the dorm, you know, the outside dorm to get into it.
8:23
Speaker 2: There's a key.
8:24
Speaker 1: This is probably to open the building. She gives her
8:27
Speaker 1: keys to Kristen so that Kristen can come back whenever
8:30
Speaker 1: she wants. But that is mistake number one. Never split up.
8:33
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before. If you're even like remember
8:37
Speaker 1: like Natalie Holloway, when she's.
8:38
Speaker 2: Out with friends, she met a guy and went off
8:41
Speaker 2: on her own. Rule number one.
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Speaker 1: And I can't instill this enough in our own children,
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Speaker 1: daughters especially, don't ever split up ever, Just don't do it.
8:51
Speaker 2: Just stay together. There's safety in numbers. There's two critical.
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Speaker 1: Mistakes here where Kristin Smart could still be alive. Either
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Speaker 1: Margarita doesn't leave her, in stays with her, or Marguerita
9:01
Speaker 1: talks her into going back to the dorm. Or the
9:04
Speaker 1: next two people that find her in the front yard,
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Speaker 1: Cheryl and Tim, they don't leave her. They make sure
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Speaker 1: she gets back to the door. I wouldn't fault Margarita
9:11
Speaker 1: for leaving.
9:12
Speaker 2: I don't.
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Speaker 3: I wouldn't say she should have stayed. It would have
9:15
Speaker 3: been better had she stayed. Possibly, but you know, maybe
9:19
Speaker 3: she would have gotten herself in trouble. I mean, she
9:20
Speaker 3: made the choice. If I want to go home, I'm
9:22
Speaker 3: not comfortable being out anymore.
9:24
Speaker 2: I want to go home.
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Speaker 3: So she had every right to try to go to
9:28
Speaker 3: leave and go home despite her friend not wanting to leave, unfortunately,
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Speaker 3: But her friend is the one that the lesson should
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Speaker 3: have been taught of stinging together, right, So the lesson
9:39
Speaker 3: to be taught is even if it means leaving the
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Speaker 3: party yourself because your friends want to go home and
9:44
Speaker 3: not stay, that you should go exactly.
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Speaker 1: I don't care you still want to stay and party
9:48
Speaker 1: too bad, go home with your friends. Dividing up is
9:52
Speaker 1: that this is where people that there's just when you
9:55
Speaker 1: watch that, when you look at this case, there's just
9:57
Speaker 1: specific time periods where you know that the case could
10:01
Speaker 1: have been different, and that's one of them.
10:10
Speaker 2: All right.
10:10
Speaker 1: So the night that Paul Flores takes over and takes her, well,
10:16
Speaker 1: we don't know where she went.
10:17
Speaker 2: I'll take sure what not to her dorm room. Not
10:19
Speaker 2: to her dorm room.
10:19
Speaker 1: But that is the last confirmed sighting of Kristin smart Alive.
10:24
Speaker 1: So no one has ever seen her since on the
10:25
Speaker 1: morning of May twenty fifth, So this is now the
10:27
Speaker 1: next morning Kristin never returns to her dorm room at
10:30
Speaker 1: Mirror Hall, her belongings, including her purse, ID and other
10:34
Speaker 1: personal items, are later found inside her dorm room and
10:37
Speaker 1: they're untouched.
10:37
Speaker 3: Wow, way her stuff was in her dorm room.
10:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't really understand.
10:41
Speaker 1: But that night she went out, she went out on campus,
10:44
Speaker 1: so I assume that she didn't feel like she needed.
10:46
Speaker 3: To take Maybe it was there all along, they were
10:49
Speaker 3: always return No, she.
10:50
Speaker 2: Didn't have them when she went out that night, which
10:52
Speaker 2: also means.
10:53
Speaker 3: She couldn't leave them anywhere as breadcrumbs for detectives to
10:57
Speaker 3: find her.
10:57
Speaker 1: Right, she had nothing on her. I assume because she
11:00
Speaker 1: was going out on campus, she thought, I don't need
11:02
Speaker 1: my ID, I don't need my purse, I don't need money.
11:04
Speaker 1: I'm just going to like these local campus parties. Friends
11:08
Speaker 1: initially assumed that she may have stayed elsewhere for the
11:10
Speaker 1: night because it is Memorial Day weekend on May twenty seventh.
11:14
Speaker 1: Now we're at two days later. Kristen is officially reported
11:17
Speaker 1: missing after she didn't attend her planned activities and she
11:21
Speaker 1: does not contact her family. I believe she normally contacts
11:24
Speaker 1: her mom on Sundays. She always calls home on Sundays,
11:27
Speaker 1: and she doesn't call home campus police and local law
11:30
Speaker 1: enforcement began searching the poll area. It's actually not local
11:35
Speaker 1: law on diforcement at first, it's just the campus.
11:38
Speaker 3: Police, you know, in nineteen ninety six, right, yeah, nineteen
11:42
Speaker 3: ninety twenty years ago.
11:43
Speaker 2: Wow, no, actually thirty ago. Thirty years ago.
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Speaker 3: Does that mean I graduated over thirty years?
11:48
Speaker 2: Yes, I graduated.
11:49
Speaker 3: You.
11:49
Speaker 1: I graduated in nineteen ninety four from high school. So yeah,
11:52
Speaker 1: we're talking about over thirty years.
11:54
Speaker 2: You know.
11:54
Speaker 3: Had it been obviously twenty twenty six and the same
11:57
Speaker 3: set of circumstances, would she have had.
12:00
Speaker 2: With her or she would have had a cell phone, right,
12:03
Speaker 2: and then they could track they could they find her
12:06
Speaker 2: cell phone, right.
12:06
Speaker 3: There'd be more well you might be able to triangulate
12:09
Speaker 3: and all that stuff.
12:10
Speaker 2: But there would have been more.
12:11
Speaker 3: Whether there would have been text messages possibly, there just
12:14
Speaker 3: would have been more.
12:16
Speaker 1: A digital print, more of a footprint, yeah right, yeah,
12:19
Speaker 1: footprint and fingerprint, digital footprint, don't you think digital prints? Okay,
12:25
Speaker 1: digital prints. There would have been digital But this is
12:27
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, so I'm telling you, she it's like
12:29
Speaker 1: she disappeared off the face of the earth.
12:30
Speaker 2: There is no analog ages.
12:32
Speaker 1: There's there is nothing. We don't know what happened at
12:36
Speaker 1: that point. Obviously we can assume what happened, but to
12:40
Speaker 1: this day, we don't know exactly what happened.
12:43
Speaker 3: Well, let's keep going. Let's find out what happened to Flores.
12:45
Speaker 2: All right.
12:45
Speaker 1: First of all, campus police botched this. This is one
12:48
Speaker 1: of the biggest problems with this case. The campus police
12:52
Speaker 1: didn't take when they when she was reported missing, they
12:54
Speaker 1: did not take it seriously.
12:56
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a stab at it.
12:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably because they haven't faced murder crime scenes in
13:02
Speaker 3: a very long time, or if at all, because I
13:05
Speaker 3: haven't been there, but you've been there, and it's kind
13:08
Speaker 3: of a boutique, charming little town, right. They don't even
13:12
Speaker 3: have franchises there, I remember. They just want mom and
13:15
Speaker 3: pop places, So they probably don't really come across a
13:19
Speaker 3: lot of crime like that. So now you have a
13:20
Speaker 3: crime scene, Well, what is a murder? And the campus
13:24
Speaker 3: police probably don't even recognize as.
13:25
Speaker 2: A murder or treat it like a murder. No, they don't.
13:28
Speaker 2: They don't take it seriously at all.
13:29
Speaker 3: Right, because I've seen cases where they don't know if
13:32
Speaker 3: it's a murder or if it's an accident. But they
13:33
Speaker 3: treat it like a crime scene until they determine I
13:37
Speaker 3: just saw that last night when I was watching some
13:39
Speaker 3: true crime.
13:39
Speaker 1: Well, what happens here is the campus police don't take
13:42
Speaker 1: it seriously. They don't even contact her parents initially. I
13:45
Speaker 1: think they contact them days later. They don't search, they
13:49
Speaker 1: don't do anything. They just think, what do they do?
13:51
Speaker 2: How about? What did they do? Nothing?
13:52
Speaker 1: They just assume that she probably went camping or something.
13:55
Speaker 1: I think that's what they said. So nothing really happens.
13:59
Speaker 2: Then what then? The problem is it's the end of
14:02
Speaker 2: the school year.
14:03
Speaker 3: Right, Wait, so what would they do something for if,
14:06
Speaker 3: I mean, if someone's missing and doesn't come home, and
14:09
Speaker 3: then they just treat it like, oh, well, s she
14:11
Speaker 3: probably went camping.
14:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's how they treat it the first few days.
14:14
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a critical time period when like
14:16
Speaker 1: his dorm room should be searched, right yeah, But what
14:19
Speaker 1: happens is it's the end of the school year. They
14:21
Speaker 1: don't take it seriously and the dorms end up being
14:25
Speaker 1: completely cleaned and sanitized and everyone moves out. So his
14:31
Speaker 1: dorm room is never searched. It isn't until I believe
14:35
Speaker 1: weeks later, weeks later that the sand Luis Obispo Police
14:41
Speaker 1: Department becomes involved in the investigation.
14:44
Speaker 3: So it's a couple of weeks for them to say, well, okay,
14:46
Speaker 3: maybe she didn't go camping.
14:47
Speaker 2: Right, that's exactly right. Wow.
14:51
Speaker 1: So initially investigators zone in on Paul Flores because he
14:54
Speaker 1: is the last known person to be seen with Kristen.
14:57
Speaker 1: When Paul is brought in for questioning, police notice that
15:00
Speaker 1: he has a black eye. Paul again, this is a
15:03
Speaker 1: couple weeks later.
15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the scratches, other things that could have
15:09
Speaker 3: healed in a couple of weeks.
15:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if this is a couple weeks
15:12
Speaker 1: or a couple of days.
15:14
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly. Evernetheless, it wasn't the next day. No.
15:18
Speaker 1: It took a while for them to interview people, to
15:21
Speaker 1: get Paul Flores's name, to figure.
15:23
Speaker 3: Out training classes, and learn how to investigate a crime scene.
15:28
Speaker 1: Paul gives different explanations for the injury, initially claiming he
15:31
Speaker 1: got it while playing basketball, then later saying he got
15:34
Speaker 1: it while working on his truck. Paul agrees to do
15:37
Speaker 1: a polygraph test. Then we get to June of nineteen
15:41
Speaker 1: ninety six, after school has ended in the dorm rooms
15:44
Speaker 1: have been cleaned out. Police use cadaver dogs to sniff
15:47
Speaker 1: out Paul Flores's dorm. Multiple dogs head straight towards his
15:52
Speaker 1: room and go right to where his bed was. Search
15:56
Speaker 1: teams conduct large scale searches of surrounding areas, including what
16:00
Speaker 1: regions and campus land, but Kristen is never found. They
16:03
Speaker 1: show lots of video and images of this college campus,
16:08
Speaker 1: and it is really beautiful and it is kind of
16:10
Speaker 1: just tucked away, and it's just valleys and mountains and
16:13
Speaker 1: valleys and mountains. This is kind of tucked in like
16:15
Speaker 1: a valley. So I don't know.
16:18
Speaker 2: The question is, since we know that she didn't.
16:22
Speaker 1: Make it to her dorm room, we can only assume
16:25
Speaker 1: that he took her into his dorm room.
16:27
Speaker 3: Wait, I'm sorry, okay, you might have said this, but
16:29
Speaker 3: when the transfer took place to mister Flores, yeah, where
16:34
Speaker 3: was that they were out?
16:36
Speaker 1: They were heading towards their dorms. His dorm was right
16:39
Speaker 1: next to hers. Way to understand that to each other.
16:42
Speaker 2: On the same path.
16:44
Speaker 1: So I assume that Paul Flora is kind of intervened.
16:47
Speaker 1: Before they were coming up to those dorms. He said,
16:50
Speaker 1: I'll take her from here.
16:51
Speaker 2: And then is his dorm in the same building. No,
16:54
Speaker 2: it's different buildings, but they're next to each other.
16:56
Speaker 3: Okay, so his his dorm rooms in a completely different building.
16:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe I mean.
17:01
Speaker 3: My video cameras for the entryway.
17:04
Speaker 1: There's no security cameras on zero nothing, because you don't
17:10
Speaker 1: know what happened to her. I would assume now, I
17:12
Speaker 1: would like to know this if anyone goes to the school.
17:14
Speaker 1: Are there security cameras out there now?
17:16
Speaker 3: Because one, they're cheaper technology, they're more common, insurance might
17:22
Speaker 3: require it, you know, for protection, and then this crime.
17:26
Speaker 2: You know, right, so the least the reasons why.
17:29
Speaker 1: I assume now they're security cameras that show who's going
17:31
Speaker 1: in and out at all times. So the dogs, the
17:36
Speaker 1: cadver dogs head straight to his room and to where
17:38
Speaker 1: his bed is. Search teams conduct large scales, large scale
17:42
Speaker 1: searches of surrounding areas, and but Kristen's body has never
17:46
Speaker 1: been found. Paul Flores is now refusing to fully cooperate
17:49
Speaker 1: with investigators and frequently invokes his right to remain silent.
17:53
Speaker 1: This is when they don't have enough evidence to charge
17:56
Speaker 1: him with murder, so they can't charge him, but he's
17:59
Speaker 1: definitely it all like them the prime society.
18:02
Speaker 2: Is a suspect or a person of interest, whatever you
18:04
Speaker 2: want to call it. But there's no one else on
18:06
Speaker 2: the radar. Guilty.
18:07
Speaker 3: I'll call him guilty. Guilty, you call him a predicting
18:10
Speaker 3: this one.
18:10
Speaker 1: So they can't charge him, So what the smarts? Christen
18:15
Speaker 1: Smart's family, mom and dad. They hire an attorney who
18:19
Speaker 1: ends up suing him for wrongful death in a civil action.
18:23
Speaker 2: So they take a deposition or whatever it.
18:25
Speaker 3: Was that strategy to pursue something criminally, like maybe they
18:29
Speaker 3: would get evidence.
18:29
Speaker 1: And probably I just feel like they didn't. They just
18:32
Speaker 1: felt lost in all of this.
18:34
Speaker 2: They don't know what that was a way to dig
18:36
Speaker 2: and figure out what's going on? Right, right, So they
18:38
Speaker 2: do it.
18:39
Speaker 1: The their attorney representing them does a deposition to Paul
18:43
Speaker 1: Flores and he invokes his right to the Fifth Amendment
18:45
Speaker 1: like twenty seven times. He never he never answers any questions.
18:49
Speaker 3: Wait, he pled the Fifth pled the Fifth on that
18:51
Speaker 3: on a civil case. It's a civil case, it's not
18:53
Speaker 3: a criminal case.
18:54
Speaker 2: I don't know.
18:55
Speaker 3: The Fifth Amendment protects you from self incrimination, not civil suits.
19:02
Speaker 2: I don't know.
19:02
Speaker 1: They sue him civilly for wrongful death because they cannot
19:06
Speaker 1: charge him criminally because they don't have anything I understand.
19:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just saying, is the guy's played in the
19:11
Speaker 3: fifth That makes no.
19:13
Speaker 2: It has no binding. I don't know.
19:17
Speaker 1: Kristen's disappearance receives major media attention throughout California, and many
19:21
Speaker 1: students and community members start to believe Paul Flores knows
19:24
Speaker 1: more than.
19:25
Speaker 2: He is admitting.
19:26
Speaker 1: Despite widespread suspicion, investigators do not yet have enough physical
19:30
Speaker 1: evidence to arrest him. Investigators continue periodically searching properties connected
19:36
Speaker 1: to the Flores family. There are let me just say this,
19:39
Speaker 1: there are three different properties. So Paul Flores's mother and
19:44
Speaker 1: father are divorced. There is Susan Flores who is the mother,
19:47
Speaker 1: and there is Reuben Flores, who is the father. They
19:50
Speaker 1: each have their own property and their properties are both
19:54
Speaker 1: searched because investigators believe that there's no way that Paul
19:58
Speaker 1: Flores could have have abducted her, taken her to his
20:02
Speaker 1: dorm room, sexually assaulted her, and murdered her, and then
20:08
Speaker 1: gotten her out of the dorm room without being seen
20:11
Speaker 1: unless he had some type of help.
20:14
Speaker 3: Right because usually just transferring like the body to the
20:17
Speaker 3: back of the car and the driveway is a challenge
20:20
Speaker 3: and people might see it or there'll be some type
20:22
Speaker 3: of evidence. Right, this is like, I assume he's not
20:25
Speaker 3: even on the first floor, you know multiple I think
20:29
Speaker 3: the first floor. Okay, fine, Still he has to pass people, well,
20:35
Speaker 3: potentially run into people.
20:36
Speaker 2: People see him.
20:37
Speaker 3: Again, where are the security cameras a body?
20:40
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry there's no security cameras, but you know,
20:43
Speaker 1: I still keep thinking. I understand that it's Memorial Day weekend,
20:46
Speaker 1: so they're not a lot of kids on this campus,
20:48
Speaker 1: But how does someone get a body out of their
20:51
Speaker 1: dorm room, down the hallway, out the door, and then
20:55
Speaker 1: where and then what you got to You've got to
20:57
Speaker 1: drag it or take it to a parking lot to
20:59
Speaker 1: put it into a truck to then transport it somewhere.
21:03
Speaker 1: So this guy, she's also over six foot tall. Really yeah,
21:08
Speaker 1: so how does he where is the body? How does
21:11
Speaker 1: no one see it? No one notices? I mean, it
21:13
Speaker 1: is crazy, that's the thing. You're assuming no one saw.
21:16
Speaker 1: Sometimes people seen, they don't want to say anything. All
21:18
Speaker 1: I know is it's been thirty years and there has
21:20
Speaker 1: never been any witness that's come forward that has seen anything.
21:23
Speaker 2: That's why they don't know where the body is.
21:24
Speaker 1: And it is crazy to me whether maybe I'm wrong,
21:27
Speaker 1: Maybe it didn't happen in his dorm room. Maybe he
21:29
Speaker 1: drug her behind the dorms and did.
21:32
Speaker 3: Say it's like he committed the perfect crime. Oh except
21:36
Speaker 3: the fact that we know he did it. But he
21:38
Speaker 3: almost committed the perfect crime, except the circumstances were just
21:42
Speaker 3: in his favor, like cleaning of the dorm room, the
21:44
Speaker 3: campus police not doing any Yeah.
21:47
Speaker 1: So rumors circulate throughout San Luis Obispo County that Kristen's
21:50
Speaker 1: body may have been buried and moved multiple times. Kristin's
21:54
Speaker 1: family continues publicly advocating for answers and keeping attention on
21:57
Speaker 1: the case. On May twenty fifth of two thousand and two,
22:00
Speaker 1: this is the sixth anniversary of her disappearance. Kristin Smart
22:04
Speaker 1: is declared legally dead now between two thousand and twenty ten.
22:10
Speaker 1: The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office continues investigating the
22:13
Speaker 1: case for years. Detectives repeatedly revisit evidence and conduct additional
22:18
Speaker 1: searches connected to the Flores family Kristen's parents remain outspoken
22:23
Speaker 1: and continue pressuring authorities not to let the case go cold.
22:26
Speaker 1: I also know the attorney that was representing the Smart
22:29
Speaker 1: family in the civil suit. He has a huge sign
22:33
Speaker 1: outside of his law office that has Kristen's picture on
22:36
Speaker 1: it if you have a phone number, and he said
22:39
Speaker 1: he will leave it up until she is found. Now
22:44
Speaker 1: we get to twenty nineteen. Now this case goes cold
22:48
Speaker 1: obviously for many many years because the body is never
22:51
Speaker 1: found and they don't have enough evidence to charge Paul Flores. However,
22:56
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, this is a catalyst for bringing more
23:00
Speaker 1: attention to this case and actually getting it to the
23:02
Speaker 1: point where Paul Flores is eventually charged. But it's because
23:06
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen there was a local musician and a
23:09
Speaker 1: podcaster named Chris Lambert who comes out with a podcast
23:13
Speaker 1: called Your Own Backyard which focuses only on the Kristen
23:17
Speaker 1: Smart disappearance. So this guy's name is Chris Lambert. He
23:20
Speaker 1: grew up in sam Luis Obispo. He had heard about
23:23
Speaker 1: the Kristin Smart case.
23:25
Speaker 2: He knew about it, but he was young.
23:26
Speaker 1: I think he was like eight when she disappeared or
23:28
Speaker 1: something like that, but he like when but he would
23:31
Speaker 1: see I think he would probably come across some of
23:34
Speaker 1: the signs there, you know, saying like if you have
23:36
Speaker 1: information about Kristen Smart, and he was thinking.
23:38
Speaker 2: Whatever happened with stop right?
23:41
Speaker 1: So then he decided to quit his job and just
23:44
Speaker 1: do a podcast full time on just the Kristen Smart case.
23:48
Speaker 1: And I'd have to say he did such a great job.
23:51
Speaker 1: It really went wide. His podcast was really well received.
23:54
Speaker 1: I believe it was like globally. It it was a
23:57
Speaker 1: catalyst of having renewed interests in this case. A lot
24:00
Speaker 1: of people were listening to it, and people started coming
24:03
Speaker 1: forward and giving him evidence and and statements and things,
24:08
Speaker 1: and then he was passing along evidence to THEE How
24:11
Speaker 1: he how he.
24:12
Speaker 3: Got everyone's attention because the NY signed didn't do anything.
24:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I just think he was I think
24:18
Speaker 1: he was very thorough. I think he went back to
24:20
Speaker 1: the beginning. I think he just to reach out to people.
24:22
Speaker 1: I guess if you can investigate, I don't know. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: maybe local news areas kind of picked up his story.
24:27
Speaker 2: I don't know how he got it out there, but
24:29
Speaker 2: I think he just did did.
24:31
Speaker 1: Obviously, the podcast becomes massively popular and introduces the case
24:34
Speaker 1: to a whole new generation of listeners. New witnesses reportedly
24:39
Speaker 1: come forward after hearing the podcast. Now there's also a
24:42
Speaker 1: new sheriff.
24:43
Speaker 2: I like this.
24:44
Speaker 1: It's like a new sheriff in town. There's a new
24:46
Speaker 1: sheriff in town. His name's Ian Parkinson, who later acknowledges
24:49
Speaker 1: that the podcast helped generate new leads. Then we get
24:54
Speaker 1: to February of twenty twenty. In February twenty twenty, investigators
24:58
Speaker 1: executed his search warrant at Paul Flores's home in San Pedro, California.
25:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what instigated their ability to get a
25:08
Speaker 1: search warrant, because you know, you have to have probable
25:10
Speaker 1: cause in order to get a search warrant. So I
25:13
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what new evidence came forward that gave
25:17
Speaker 1: them the probable cause to search his property.
25:20
Speaker 2: I think they keep that under wraps.
25:21
Speaker 1: Because I couldn't really find a lot of information about that. Also,
25:24
Speaker 1: there are so many different searches of all these different
25:28
Speaker 1: Flores properties that it's hard to keep track of all
25:32
Speaker 1: the different searches. But the first one I believe is
25:34
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty February. It's Paul Flores' home. Authorities reportedly
25:40
Speaker 1: sees electronics, vehicles, possible biological evidence, digital material, and other
25:46
Speaker 1: items of interest. Later court records reveal investigators allegedly discovered
25:50
Speaker 1: evidence suggesting Paul had a long history of predatory behavior
25:54
Speaker 1: towards women. That was another thing that when we talked
25:57
Speaker 1: about earlier about the campus police not investigating it thoroughly,
26:01
Speaker 1: I read that there were other women that had come
26:04
Speaker 1: forward on the campus and had complained about Paul Flores,
26:09
Speaker 1: saying that he had, you know, touched them inappropriately or
26:13
Speaker 1: harassed them or followed them like stalking type of behavior. Also,
26:18
Speaker 1: he had a nickname that people called him Chester the Molester.
26:23
Speaker 1: That's how weird and off and inappropriate he was towards
26:27
Speaker 1: women that.
26:28
Speaker 3: They changed his name to Chester that they could rhyme.
26:31
Speaker 2: So that they could rhyme it with molester.
26:33
Speaker 1: They referred to him as Chester the Molester, and they
26:35
Speaker 1: said he was creepy. Now, my question is when those
26:39
Speaker 1: two people handed him handed Kristen off to Paul Flores
26:46
Speaker 1: and he was Chester the Molester, and that he had
26:49
Speaker 1: a history of harassing and stalking women and being inappropriate
26:53
Speaker 1: with women when they gladly or just willingly handed Kristin
26:56
Speaker 1: smart Off.
26:57
Speaker 2: Inside it was Flores. They didn't know.
27:00
Speaker 3: I probably thought Chester was named Chester, so they're like,
27:02
Speaker 3: this is not Chester, this is mister Paul Flores.
27:06
Speaker 1: Also, this podcast was the catalyst for several other women
27:10
Speaker 1: coming forward and contacting Chris Lambert, who does this in
27:14
Speaker 1: your Own Backyard podcast. They came forward and gave accounts
27:18
Speaker 1: of later in life dating Paul Flores and saying that
27:22
Speaker 1: he was violent towards women, that he was harassing and inappropriate,
27:28
Speaker 1: and so there's many instances.
27:31
Speaker 2: Then we get to.
27:31
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty one and they search under Now
27:35
Speaker 1: they have a warrant to search under Reuben Flores's deck. Now,
27:39
Speaker 1: Ruben Flores, remember is the dad, and investigators and police
27:43
Speaker 1: have always believed that the dad was an accessory. They
27:46
Speaker 1: always believed that Paul had help. So investigators searched the
27:50
Speaker 1: Arroyo ground de home of Paul's father, Ruben Flores, using
27:53
Speaker 1: cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar. That ground penetrating radar
27:58
Speaker 1: is really interesting. Do you understand that works? Do they
28:01
Speaker 1: shoot I guess they shoot radar into the.
28:04
Speaker 2: Ground and then if it if it was on the.
28:06
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park, remember, no, I don't remember, you know, and
28:10
Speaker 1: the original Jurassic Park, I don't remember that.
28:12
Speaker 2: They dig down a little bit and they like shoot.
28:16
Speaker 3: Some waves out and then they run to the computer
28:20
Speaker 3: and they go look at the screen and it tells
28:21
Speaker 3: them where like the.
28:22
Speaker 2: T rexes and stuff, because the ground is like.
28:25
Speaker 3: My guess is back then it was not really okay, yeah, yeah.
28:29
Speaker 2: But now it is. Now.
28:30
Speaker 1: They use the radar and I assume they're looking for
28:33
Speaker 1: anomalies or something underground, right, like like hitting something strange,
28:38
Speaker 1: like a casket or something.
28:39
Speaker 2: Right, is that?
28:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably something that's not natural, right, And it's a
28:43
Speaker 3: Royal Grande is fifteen to.
28:44
Speaker 2: Twenty miles away from San Luis, bit okay.
28:46
Speaker 1: So we're all still like in the same area, all right.
28:48
Speaker 1: Authorities using this ground penetrating radar discover a six foot
28:54
Speaker 1: by four foot anomaly beneath the deck area. So that's
28:59
Speaker 1: an size six feet by a four feet. Prosecutors later
29:05
Speaker 1: claimed that evidence suggests that Kristen's body had once been
29:08
Speaker 1: buried there before being moved. They've always believed that that
29:12
Speaker 1: she was buried there and then they ended up moving
29:14
Speaker 1: the body.
29:15
Speaker 2: When investigators were.
29:16
Speaker 3: You know, I get frustrated when like I do something
29:18
Speaker 3: then I have to redo it. Yeah, I can't imagine
29:20
Speaker 3: bearing a body and then you have to rebury it.
29:22
Speaker 1: Right, soil samples allegedly contain evidence of human blood decomposition.
29:29
Speaker 2: They couldn't, they said it. They couldn't get DNA. It
29:31
Speaker 2: wasn't testable. It wasn't testable for DNA today it might be,
29:34
Speaker 2: but no, this is recently that they did this.
29:36
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, It wasn't ninety six. Yeah, this is
29:38
Speaker 1: we're talking about DNA from ninety six. Is DNA from
29:41
Speaker 1: ninety six possibly technology They couldn't There isn't enough DNA wative.
29:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, really made the difference. All right.
29:56
Speaker 1: Now we get to April thirteenth of twenty twenty one.
29:59
Speaker 1: This is nearly twenty five years after Kristen's first disappearance.
30:02
Speaker 1: Paul Flores is arrested and charged with her murder, and
30:05
Speaker 1: Reuben Flores, his father, is arrested in charged as an
30:08
Speaker 1: accessory after the fact for allegedly helping conceal Kristen's body
30:13
Speaker 1: I assume helping him remove it, conceal it, bury it.
30:17
Speaker 1: Prosecutors announced that they believe Kristen was killed during the
30:19
Speaker 1: commission or attempted commission of rape. Because of California's Statute
30:24
Speaker 1: of Limitations, Paul cannot be separately charged with rape. However,
30:28
Speaker 1: prosecutors use the attempted rape allegation as the basis for
30:31
Speaker 1: a first degree felony murder charge. You understand that, right,
30:36
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations ran out on rape, so he
30:38
Speaker 1: can't be charged with rape. However, he committed murder.
30:42
Speaker 2: There's no statute, no.
30:43
Speaker 1: Statute of limitations on murder, and they're claiming that he
30:46
Speaker 1: murdered her in the commission of trying to rape her.
30:49
Speaker 1: Therefore it's a felony murder charge. He goes to trial
30:54
Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty twenty two, and due to
30:57
Speaker 1: extensive publicity surrounding the case, the trial is from San
31:00
Speaker 1: Luis Obispo County to Monterey County, separate juries. Simultaneously, hear
31:05
Speaker 1: the cases against Paul Flores and his father, Reuben Flores.
31:09
Speaker 1: Prosecutors argue that Paul Flores attempted to rape Kristin after
31:13
Speaker 1: walking her home that night, that he killed her, and
31:17
Speaker 1: members of the Flores family later helped him hide and
31:20
Speaker 1: move her body. All right, so the prosecutor's key evidence
31:24
Speaker 1: that they had during the trial. There was witness testimony
31:27
Speaker 1: placing Paul as the last person with Kristin, cadaver dog
31:32
Speaker 1: dogs alerted in Paul's dorm room and near his mattress,
31:36
Speaker 1: testimony about Paul's suspicious behavior and changing stories after Kristen disappeared.
31:41
Speaker 1: Soil evidence beneath Reuben Flores's deck suggested that a body
31:46
Speaker 1: had once decomposed. There evidence that Kristin's remains may have
31:50
Speaker 1: later been moved from the burial location, and additional testimony
31:54
Speaker 1: from women alleging that Paul Flores had engaged in predatory
31:59
Speaker 1: or sexually aggressive behavior over many years. So obviously they're
32:02
Speaker 1: establishing a pattern of behavior. There's also this is another
32:10
Speaker 1: just an indication of how this isn't the campus police,
32:14
Speaker 1: but another indication of how this case is got botched
32:17
Speaker 1: and there were so many opportunities that were failed. There
32:21
Speaker 1: was also an earring that was found lost. Well, there
32:27
Speaker 1: was an earring that was found on Susan Flores, that's
32:30
Speaker 1: the mother, that's Paul's mother driveway, and.
32:34
Speaker 2: It was given to police.
32:36
Speaker 1: It had like a red stain on the back of
32:37
Speaker 1: it that supposedly or allegedly could have been blood. It
32:40
Speaker 1: was found in her driveway, and then it was said
32:43
Speaker 1: to have matched a necklace that she's wearing and a photo,
32:46
Speaker 1: so like the ear rings, and the next it was
32:48
Speaker 1: like a set. The problem is they gave it to
32:51
Speaker 1: investigators and what happened lost They lost it.
32:54
Speaker 2: I think I saw that somewhere.
32:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, can you imagine what a critical piece of evidence?
32:58
Speaker 2: Now? Where did I put that? That's shellcasing, that's somewhere
33:02
Speaker 2: over here. I mean, if you're telling you.
33:04
Speaker 1: About an earring with blood on it that owned in
33:08
Speaker 1: a driveway, it's likely.
33:10
Speaker 2: That blood was hers in his on their property.
33:14
Speaker 1: And her parents never had the opportunity to look at
33:17
Speaker 1: it and determine whether it was hers, or test the
33:21
Speaker 1: DNA and the blood on the back of it, or
33:24
Speaker 1: see if it matched the necklace that she has, or
33:27
Speaker 1: it's a critical piece of evidence. It puts that her
33:31
Speaker 1: body at Susan Flores's home, and it's lost, not to
33:36
Speaker 1: be recovered. No idea where it is, what happened to it?
33:39
Speaker 1: Craigslist Craigslist in ninety sixty six. Probably there was no
33:46
Speaker 1: Craigslist in nineteen ninety six. I don't think so.
33:49
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was AOL. Yeah, AOL shopper, all right.
33:53
Speaker 1: The defense claims that Paul Flores's argument, So the defense's
33:58
Speaker 1: argument is that there is no there is no murder weapon,
34:02
Speaker 1: or any direct forensic evidence conclusively proving that Kristen was killed.
34:06
Speaker 1: The defense repeatedly emphasizes that no one witnessed Kristin's death
34:11
Speaker 1: and that Reuben Flores's attorneys deny that he helped conceal
34:14
Speaker 1: a body or commit any crime. On October eighteenth of
34:18
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, the verdict comes out. After decades of
34:22
Speaker 1: speculation and investigation, Paul Flores is finally found guilty of
34:26
Speaker 1: first degree murder in Kristen Smart's death. Reuben Flores, his father,
34:31
Speaker 1: is found not guilty of being an accessory. After the fact,
34:35
Speaker 1: Kristen's family releases emotional statements thanking investigators and supporters who
34:40
Speaker 1: never gave up on the case. Here's I don't like
34:43
Speaker 1: the sentencing though. He is sentenced on March tenth of
34:46
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Well, he's sentenced to twenty five years
34:50
Speaker 1: to life in prison. Okay, it just twenty five just
34:52
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like a lot to me.
34:55
Speaker 3: Well, it's twenty five to life right, which means he's
34:57
Speaker 3: eligible at twenty five.
34:59
Speaker 2: Right, which I don't know. I don't like it.
35:02
Speaker 1: What if he's on good behavior and he does all
35:04
Speaker 1: the things he's supposed to do in prison for twenty
35:05
Speaker 1: five years and then he gets out on parole in
35:07
Speaker 1: twenty five years. I don't feel like that's very long
35:09
Speaker 1: to have spend.
35:10
Speaker 4: No.
35:10
Speaker 3: I think if you murder someone, that's the end of it.
35:12
Speaker 3: You should just go to jail forever. I don't understand
35:14
Speaker 3: why this life and these circumstances are seventeen years and
35:18
Speaker 3: these ones are, you know, two sentences of twelve years consecutive,
35:22
Speaker 3: and this one's concurrent. It's just a life for a
35:26
Speaker 3: life man.
35:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
35:27
Speaker 1: Prosecutors state that although Kristen's body has never been recovered,
35:30
Speaker 1: the evidence clearly showed that she was murdered, and authorities
35:33
Speaker 1: continue actively searching for Kristen's remains even after Paul has
35:37
Speaker 1: been convicted. Investigators believe her body was moved multiple times
35:41
Speaker 1: over the years.
35:42
Speaker 2: Multiple times multiple Why would it be multiple.
35:45
Speaker 3: Times or do they mean just moved like when he
35:49
Speaker 3: first got her, then he took.
35:50
Speaker 2: Her to the dorm room, then he took her to
35:51
Speaker 2: the barrier, they reburied or sure.
35:54
Speaker 1: This is a little bit I learned when I was
35:57
Speaker 1: doing more research trying to understand all these different search
36:01
Speaker 1: So in February fifth, at twenty twenty, the FBI get
36:03
Speaker 1: to search warrant for Reuben Flores's home. We talked about that. However,
36:08
Speaker 1: after that search, so here's what I think. I think
36:11
Speaker 1: they searched his home in February of twenty twenty, and
36:15
Speaker 1: the family becomes very scared that they know that they're
36:19
Speaker 1: searching for the body again. It's been renewed, right, so
36:22
Speaker 1: they're on notice. Right. Then after they search, on February
36:26
Speaker 1: fifth of twenty twenty, two key witnesses come forward. One
36:30
Speaker 1: is David Stone, who is Reuben Flores's ex roommate of
36:36
Speaker 1: ten years, so he used to live with Reuben Flores.
36:39
Speaker 2: Rubin is the dad. He claims that.
36:43
Speaker 1: No one was allowed to go near the deck of
36:46
Speaker 1: this house, even plumber like, even if there was any
36:49
Speaker 1: work that needed to be done, that no one was
36:51
Speaker 1: allowed near this deck on the back of the house.
36:53
Speaker 1: That's why investigators think that she's buried under this deck
36:57
Speaker 1: right right, I'd be like, you.
36:59
Speaker 3: Want to go in your kid's room and they're like,
37:01
Speaker 3: you can look everywhere, but don't look in this drawer, right,
37:04
Speaker 3: You cannot look in this drawer, right, So no reason,
37:07
Speaker 3: just don't look in this drawer, in.
37:09
Speaker 2: That drawer, right, I'm going to look in the drawer.
37:11
Speaker 1: Then there's also a second witness that came forward named
37:14
Speaker 1: Jamelin Holman, who is a neighbor of Reuben Flores, and
37:18
Speaker 1: she claims she gave a statement that a few days
37:22
Speaker 1: after this February fifth, twenty twenty search of his property,
37:26
Speaker 1: that right after that that they she saw in the
37:33
Speaker 1: middle of the night a trailer pull up and people
37:36
Speaker 1: out in the yard by the deck in the middle
37:38
Speaker 1: of the night arguing, and there was a trailer off
37:41
Speaker 1: to the side. So these statements that these people gave
37:45
Speaker 1: after the fact, after that first initial search in twenty twenty,
37:50
Speaker 1: allowed them to get another search warrant, because now they
37:54
Speaker 1: have more evidence that there's a body. So I guess
37:58
Speaker 1: you can only assume that whenever they're in the middle
37:59
Speaker 1: of who has a trailer out by your deck in
38:01
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. I mean to me, murderers
38:04
Speaker 1: do right, they're moving the body, And I guess the
38:07
Speaker 1: people that were there was the dad room and flores,
38:11
Speaker 1: but also the mother and her boyfriend that's allegiate.
38:14
Speaker 3: What kind of household is it where the dad's like, okay, let.
38:17
Speaker 2: Me help you hide the body.
38:18
Speaker 3: I know, because you always say that the dad doesn't
38:21
Speaker 3: isn't like a historically like you know, known murder or
38:25
Speaker 3: something like. Let's say he's he's just a regular too
38:27
Speaker 3: that might commit little crimes here and there, right like
38:29
Speaker 3: cheat the system or whatever, so he's kind of shady,
38:31
Speaker 3: but murder. Let's say he's not a murder, he's not violent.
38:35
Speaker 3: What kind of household is it where you're just gonna help?
38:39
Speaker 2: I don't get that. I don't know, but you know
38:40
Speaker 2: that we've done several cases. Want to have to help
38:42
Speaker 2: my kids clean their room like you clean it? Yeah,
38:45
Speaker 2: and now it's like there's a dead body.
38:46
Speaker 1: And we know Shane as a father is never going
38:49
Speaker 1: to help any of our children hide a body.
38:51
Speaker 2: He will be, yes, he will. He is a moral man.
38:56
Speaker 3: Like I need to sign up get a public defender place.
38:58
Speaker 3: I'm not even paying for this else public defender for you.
39:02
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you know we have done several cases where
39:06
Speaker 1: the parents are a real problem. I mean, we talked
39:07
Speaker 1: about Mackenzie Charilla, and we talked about what a problem
39:10
Speaker 1: her parents were with the no accountability.
39:13
Speaker 2: You know another do you remember this mother? She was
39:15
Speaker 2: a real real peach. It was the Gabby Patito case.
39:19
Speaker 2: Remember Brian the.
39:20
Speaker 1: Boyfriend, boyfriend's mom, boyfriend's mom and dad. Remember they wouldn't cooperate,
39:25
Speaker 1: they wouldn't open the door.
39:26
Speaker 3: Well didn't you even suspect that that the mom was
39:32
Speaker 3: might have like wrote the letter or something, right, or
39:35
Speaker 3: she was or she was a part of like his
39:38
Speaker 3: running away and then you know, ultimately killing himself.
39:41
Speaker 2: Right was she?
39:42
Speaker 1: You remember she wrote him a letter? She wrote Brian
39:44
Speaker 1: a letter and said, I'll help you hide a body.
39:47
Speaker 1: I'll give you like a knife in a cake if
39:49
Speaker 1: you go to prison like something.
39:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, not that you committed murder, but if you did
39:56
Speaker 3: really she said all that.
39:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, she wrote a letter to him and said all that.
40:00
Speaker 3: Well, what kind of childhood do these kids have? If
40:04
Speaker 3: the parent is willing to hide the body for them,
40:07
Speaker 3: what else do they do? I mean, these kids might
40:10
Speaker 3: have to lift a finger ever, I know, but.
40:12
Speaker 1: My kids don't really lift much of a finger. I
40:14
Speaker 1: got to get on them more. They have to start
40:16
Speaker 1: doing their own laundry.
40:17
Speaker 2: That's my take away. You're not going to hide the body.
40:19
Speaker 1: I'm not hiding any bodies, and Shane definitely isn't. And
40:22
Speaker 1: Shane's giving them a public defender. He's not even going
40:24
Speaker 1: to pay for the defense. So yeah, I'm going to
40:25
Speaker 1: look for evidence. Yeah, Shane's going to help the investigator. Yes,
40:29
Speaker 1: that's the kind of Shane.
40:30
Speaker 2: Is this justice? All right?
40:33
Speaker 1: This case most recently came back in the news. This
40:36
Speaker 1: was during May six, twenty twenty six, so this was
40:38
Speaker 1: just recently a couple of weeks ago that they searched.
40:41
Speaker 1: Investigators search Susan Flores's home. They did a soil extraction,
40:46
Speaker 1: which is soil vapor testing. I believe they were looking
40:50
Speaker 1: for I don't know, decomposition, DNA something in the soil.
40:56
Speaker 1: They're also they did a four day search, but they
40:59
Speaker 1: didn't come up with any conclusive evidence that they could
41:01
Speaker 1: charge you know, the mom or the dad or anything with.
41:04
Speaker 1: And they didn't find a body, so we're still back.
41:06
Speaker 1: They said they found like evidence of decomposition, so they
41:09
Speaker 1: do believe that there was a body there at some point.
41:12
Speaker 1: But again, here we are, thirty years later, they're still
41:15
Speaker 1: searching the Flores's properties, and we still have no body.
41:20
Speaker 2: Because they may not be on the property. I don't know,
41:22
Speaker 2: I do.
41:23
Speaker 1: I do believe that they've probably moved it at least once, maybe.
41:27
Speaker 2: More, probably to put it with the other bodies. The
41:29
Speaker 2: other bodies. Yeah, all right, So here's my takeaway from
41:33
Speaker 2: this really. First of all, I.
41:35
Speaker 1: Think it's just a very good life lesson again to
41:38
Speaker 1: talk about how not to separate, especially in college. You know,
41:40
Speaker 1: you have you have a daughter in college. Do you
41:42
Speaker 1: talk to her about not separating?
41:45
Speaker 2: Well, she's doing a remote school.
41:47
Speaker 4: She's at home, all right, Well, so she's getting your master's.
41:51
Speaker 4: But it's I'm not talking about Shelby. I'm talking about Snell.
41:53
Speaker 4: She's on yeah, oh yeah, absolutely yecause she's on campus.
41:57
Speaker 4: You know what I tell the kids too. You go
41:58
Speaker 4: to target, one of your kids want to steal, you
42:01
Speaker 4: ask them not to.
42:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if they're going to do it anyway, because
42:04
Speaker 3: they probably will, they say, Okay, I'm going to go
42:06
Speaker 3: wait outside, and you separate yourself from that person immediately
42:10
Speaker 3: because when they walk out, and if you walk out
42:12
Speaker 3: with them, they will nab you just the same.
42:15
Speaker 2: Oh where do you went from? You went? I went?
42:18
Speaker 1: You went from walking in pairs and groups. Now we're
42:21
Speaker 1: at target.
42:21
Speaker 3: Still because I'm saying, like, you have to separate yourself
42:24
Speaker 3: from you have to recognize scenarios that you're going to
42:27
Speaker 3: get in trouble, and that's one of them because I've seen.
42:30
Speaker 2: That happen because I was a target investigator. Yes, I know.
42:32
Speaker 3: And then some of the target investigators think, well, I'll
42:34
Speaker 3: get two for the price of one because they know
42:36
Speaker 3: that both of them were crooked, so they nab them both.
42:39
Speaker 2: Okay, So your rules for children or teens or.
42:44
Speaker 1: Young adults hang out with criminals, not to hang right,
42:46
Speaker 1: not to hang out with criminals, stick together, and to
42:49
Speaker 1: stick together on college campus parties and things like that.
42:52
Speaker 3: Many times they call me and then I say, is
42:55
Speaker 3: everything okay, Like at ten o'clock a night or whatever,
42:57
Speaker 3: leven or whatever, and they say, yeah, I'm just walking
42:59
Speaker 3: to my car alone and I just wanted to talk
43:01
Speaker 3: to someone while I walk. And then the worst part
43:04
Speaker 3: is when I wake up in the morning it says
43:06
Speaker 3: miss call, and I'm like oh, And then I call
43:08
Speaker 3: it next sdaying like oh, I just needed to talk
43:10
Speaker 3: to someone, and I feel terrible.
43:11
Speaker 2: But then they'll be like, oh, I called so and so,
43:13
Speaker 2: and they picked up and so all right, yeah that's important. Yeah,
43:17
Speaker 2: all right.
43:17
Speaker 1: Again, here's what my hope is, because I spent a
43:20
Speaker 1: lot of time researching Kristin Smart and at you know,
43:23
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of like John Benet, where
43:25
Speaker 1: we just don't have the answers. And I would hope
43:28
Speaker 1: that in my lifetime, at some point that they do
43:30
Speaker 1: recover Kristen Smart's body. I would hope for the family's sake,
43:34
Speaker 1: that they do have some final closure, even though.
43:37
Speaker 3: Something to end the story, something.
43:39
Speaker 1: To know that, like they found her remains, they can
43:42
Speaker 1: bury her and be done with it. And so I
43:44
Speaker 1: really hope that happens at.
43:46
Speaker 2: Some point, you know.
43:47
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about John Beney too. I wonder
43:50
Speaker 1: if that will ever get solved. I hope that's become
43:52
Speaker 1: solved in my lifetime as well.
43:53
Speaker 2: I really need to know answers. We've talked about that
43:55
Speaker 2: ever since I've known you, John Benney, Yeah, that is
43:58
Speaker 2: that on your tour list? Oh yeah, that's definitely on
44:01
Speaker 2: the tour.
44:02
Speaker 1: I have not done the Jompinay case yet because it
44:06
Speaker 1: is so complex. It's its own podcast. It's its own podcast.
44:09
Speaker 1: I don't even think I could do it in one episode.
44:11
Speaker 1: I think it would have to be like a three
44:12
Speaker 1: parter and it would take me weeks and weeks. I
44:14
Speaker 1: know a lot about it, but it would take weeks
44:16
Speaker 1: and weeks to like nail down the details and really
44:19
Speaker 1: understand it and have a thorough, you know, grasp on it.
44:22
Speaker 2: That's why.
44:22
Speaker 1: And the same with Scott Peterson. I want to do
44:24
Speaker 1: Scott Peterson too, but I have to have time to
44:26
Speaker 1: really because we'd have to go into the innocence project
44:30
Speaker 1: and why they took up his case and the new
44:32
Speaker 1: evidence in all of those things. So anyway, those will
44:35
Speaker 1: be coming eventually. I just have to have the time
44:38
Speaker 1: to do the research on those. But anyway, Chris and Smart,
44:42
Speaker 1: if anyone has any information out.
44:44
Speaker 2: There, anyone went to p yeah at that time.
44:47
Speaker 1: And has anything or has anything to add, please dm me.
44:50
Speaker 1: I love to hear from you, guys. Thank you so
44:52
Speaker 1: much for listening to Legally Brunette. As always, you can
44:54
Speaker 1: follow us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Make sure you
44:57
Speaker 1: tell your friends and family, and if you have any
45:00
Speaker 1: cases that you would like to recommend, please reach out
45:02
Speaker 1: to me on Instagram. I love to hear from you guys.
45:04
Speaker 1: And again, if you went to cal Poly or you
45:06
Speaker 1: know anything about the Kristen smart case, or you were
45:08
Speaker 1: on campus in nineteen ninety six, or if you're there
45:11
Speaker 1: currently and you know there're security cameras, now let us know.
45:15
Speaker 1: We love to hear from you guys, so thank you,