Investigators ended a search at Susan Flores’ Arroyo Grande home on Saturday without recovering Kristin Smart’s body, closing a four-day sweep that had raised hopes of a long-sought breakthrough in one of California’s most closely watched missing-person cases.
San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputies, soil scientists and ground radar experts had searched the property starting Wednesday under a warrant as they tried to determine whether convicted killer Paul Flores hid Smart there after killing her nearly 30 years ago. The sheriff’s office said it did not recover Smart.
The search took on added weight on Friday when Sheriff Ian Parkinson said soil tests were positive for remains. Parkinson said the science indicated human remains had been there at one time, but investigators still could not say the evidence belonged to Smart. “So we can’t call it Kristin, but you know, we think there’s, there’s evidence to support human remains there,” he said. The sheriff’s office also said detectives would evaluate whatever evidence had been recovered and remained committed to finding Smart and bringing her home to her family.
That commitment has stretched across years of searching and failed leads. Investigators have repeatedly examined properties tied to the Flores family, including earlier searches of the backyards owned individually by Paul Flores’ parents. In 2021, deputies used ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs at Ruben Flores’ Arroyo Grande property and found no remains there. A month later, Paul Flores and Ruben Flores were arrested and charged in connection with Smart’s murder.
Authorities believe Smart’s body may have been moved multiple times, a theory that has helped explain why a case built on forensic traces has remained so difficult to close. Three years ago, scientists working from neighbors’ backyard near Susan Flores’ home detected volatile organic compounds that they said may be associated with decomposing human remains. That finding helped guide the later search, but it still ended without a body.
Smart disappeared after a 1996 Memorial Day weekend party near Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, when Paul Flores was the last person seen with her as they walked toward her dormitory. He was arrested in 2021 after a renewed investigation and later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after a lengthy trial. The case drew fresh attention in 2019, when Chris Lambert launched the podcast “Your Own Backyard,” which put the decades-old disappearance back in the public eye.
On the forensic side, the search reflected a narrower but stubborn truth: scientists and deputies had found signs that something had once been there, but not enough to end the case the way Smart’s family has long hoped. Tim Nelligan, a soil engineer who began studying how bodies decompose in soil in November 2019 and later recruited Steve Hoyt to help with sample testing, said, “We’re rooting around for answers,” and added, “We all want to bring [parents] Denise and Stan Smart some peace after all these years.”
For now, the clearest answer is also the hardest one for Smart’s family: investigators found evidence, but not Kristin. What remains next is whether the materials collected this week can finally point them to where her body was moved.
