Search of property linked to Kristin Smart’s 1996 disappearance hasn’t found her remains yet, sheriff says

Authorities investigating a property in connection with the 1996 disappearance and murder of California college student Kristin Smart have so far not discovered her remains, the sheriff leading the search said in an update Friday.

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“I think it’s safe to say that we have not recovered Kristin yet,” San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson told reporters.

“But our search goes on, and I don’t know how long we’re going to be there,” Parkinson added.

Sheriff’s investigators have spent two days executing a search warrant at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, the mother of the man convicted in Smart’s death four years ago.

It isn’t clear what prompted the search.

On Thursday, investigators collected soil samples from the property and took ground-penetrating radar equipment to the backyard, NBC affiliate KSBY of San Luis Obispo reported.

They could also be seen searching at a neighbor’s home, according to the station.

Although Paul Flores was found guilty of first-degree murder, Smart’s body has never been found, and authorities said they were searching the property in an effort to “bring Kristin home.”

Smart, who vanished May 25, 1996, at age 19, was declared legally dead in 2002.

Paul Flores listens during his murder trial in Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas, Calif., on July 18, 2022.Daniel Dreifuss / Monterey County Weekly via AP file

Smart and Flores were students at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, on California’s Central Coast. Prosecutors said he killed her during an attempted rape and possibly buried her under a deck at his father’s home in Arroyo Grande, roughly 16 miles south of the college town.

Kristin Smart.via FBI

Archaeologists who previously searched the home of Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, found what prosecutors described as a soil disturbance that was roughly the size of a casket and the presence of human blood. The blood was too degraded to obtain usable DNA from.

Prosecutors accused Ruben Flores of helping his son bury Smart and later move her remains. He was charged with accessory after the fact and acquitted by a jury in 2022.

A man who answered the phone Thursday at a number listed for Susan Flores said she was not immediately available and declined to comment. She has not been accused of any crimes in connection with Smart’s murder.