Jannah Theme License is not validated, Go to the theme options page to validate the license, You need a single license for each domain name.
USA

Christine Smart: Classmate Convicted of Killing Missing California Woman Since 1996 | California

The last man spotted with Kristin Smart was convicted of murdering a college freshman on Tuesday. California Campus 25 years ago.

The jury unanimously found Paul Flores guilty of first-degree murder. San Luis Obispo Tribune report. Flores was one of Smart’s college classmates at the time.

His father, Ruben Flores, was charged with aiding in a separate trial for allegedly helping cover up a crime, but was found not guilty by a different jury, the Tribune reported. .

Christine’s father, Stan Smart, said at a press conference after the verdict was announced, “It’s been a long road full of ups and downs and pain.” There is none.”

Smart disappeared from California Polytechnic State University over Memorial Day weekend in 1996. Her body was never found.

2019 true crime podcast Interest in the case has been revived over Smart’s disappearance, which has been fabricated by a local reporter. Paul Flores was interviewed by investigators shortly after the murder, but was not initially arrested or charged.

In 2020, officials will Search warrants enforced Property associated with Paul Flores and his family. In 2021, after Paul was named the “prime suspect” in the case, Both Flores and his father Arrested and charged with Smart’s murder.

Prosecutors are now alleging that 45-year-old Paul Flores murdered 19-year-old Paul Flores on May 25, 1996 in an attempted rape. He was the last person she saw with her smart when he took her to her house from her drunken off-campus party.

His father, now 81, was accused of helping bury Smart behind his home in the nearby community of Arroyo Grande and later exhuming the bodies and moving them. acquitted him of the charges. Conflicting verdicts were read minutes apart in the same courtroom.

Paul Flores was long considered a suspect in the murder. He had black eyes when investigators interviewed him. He later told them he had played basketball with a friend who denied his account, according to court records.

Investigators searched in vain dozens of times for Smart’s body over 20 years, but for the past two years they have been searching for Ruben Flores’ home in Arroyo Grande, about 12 miles (20 km) south of Cal Poly. turned attention to

Behind the trellis under the deck of his large house on a dead-end street, in March 2021, an archaeologist working for the police discovered the size of the coffin and the presence of human blood in the soil. Prosecutors said they found disturbances. The blood was too degraded for him to extract a DNA sample.

His son’s attorney, Robert Sanger, said Scott Peterson, who was later convicted in a sensational trial of murdering his pregnant wife and the fetus she was carrying, was also a student at California State Polypoli University. Attempted to connect the killings to someone else, pointing out that… time.

In his closing arguments, Sanger told jurors that there was no attempted rape and questioned testimony from witnesses, including a student in Smart’s dorm who testified that he saw Paul Flores in Smart’s room. also called the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution “junk science.”

After a judge granted a defense request to move it, the trial was held in Salinas, 110 miles north of San Luis Obispo. The defense argued that the notorious Flores man in a city of about 47,000 was unlikely to get a fair trial.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/18/kristin-smart-missing-murder-paul-flores-found-guilty Christine Smart: Classmate Convicted of Killing Missing California Woman Since 1996 | California

Back to top button