ermelinda flores arroyo grande
Since speaking with The Daily Beast, at least one of the women who has come forward saying Flores attacked her has been questioned by a detective working the Smart case. The earring was turned over to the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office, but investigators will never know if it belonged to Kristin, because it was misplaced. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Join Facebook to connect with Ermelinda Thomas and others you may know. Balloons wrap around the Kristin Smart billboard in Arroyo Grande after the arrest of Paul and Ruben Flores in April 2021. But 22 years later, when he couldn't find any recent stories about the case, he decided to do something. Devastating. Nineteen-year-old Kristin Smart disappeared Memorial Day weekend of 1996. In his complaint, Murphy alleges, along with Ruben, there were two other unnamed individuals. She spent a summer in London, was an exchange student in Venezuela, and a lifeguard at a camp in Hawaii. Margarita Campos: She was absolutely sober when I left her. Most students had taken off but Kristin had stayed on campus. Wednesday morning, KSBY crews witnessed sheriff's deputies and FBI investigators at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, the mother of the only person-of-interest in the case, Paul. It is believed she is deceased, but there is no evidence of what happened to her after Paul Flores left her. (The office hired a detective in 2015 to work on Unsolved Crimes for $15,000 a month: There are four open homicide investigations and Smarts remains an unsolved missing persons case. So before leaving, Margarita handed over her keys to get back into Muir Hall. In his mug shot, a black eye can faintly been seen. Kristin Denise Smart (born February 20, 1977, legally presumed dead May 25, 2002) was an American woman who is presumed to have been abducted, raped, and killed at the end of her freshman year of college on the campus of California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. In the fall of 1996, a young mother named Mary Lassiter was looking for a house to rent in Arroyo Grande, California. Four months later, while attempting to reconcile, Susan rented out her house in Arroyo Grande. But the investigation is ongoing. Just very involved with their children. And so, she pulled me into this sort of like, "oh come on, let's socialize. Smart was last seen with Flores's son Paul. 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. An important tip came in after a February 2020 search of Paul, Susan and Ruben's properties. He would tiptoe around everything. During opening statements of Flores murder trial this week, prosecutors played a video of Flores stumbling over questions from Cal Poly campus police detectives inside an interrogation room. Ruben's attorney, Harold Mesick, dismissed the evidence against his client as "so minimal as to shock the conscience.". She made a decision that shes regretted ever since. Ruben Flores was released on $50,000 bail to his ex-wife. In a civil lawsuit, the Smarts' attorney claims that Kristin's remains were buried at one time on Paul Flores' father's property. Flores father is now charged with helping cover up the homicide by burying Smarts body in his Arroyo Grande homes backyard. There's no question about it. He noticed Paul Flores would randomly walk through the halls of Muir Dorm. The Kristin Smart Scholarship has been established by her family to help other college bound women pursue their dreams. Chris Lambert: So much was lost in those first few days where if that very first phone call was taken seriously answers might have been uncovered the first week. Chris Lambert: Paul worked with a number of women that he made incredibly uncomfortable girls who he tried to make a pass at sexually, girls that he tried to force to kiss him. What happens next? Once Jane was admitted her story seemed to fall on deaf ears. Chris Lambert says they're cautiously optimistic. Jonathan Vigliotti: There was a lot of focus on how Kristin was drinking what sounded a lot like victim shaming. The woman, whom we'll call Jane, believes she was roofied, raped, and discarded by Paul Flores and his nameless friend when she was a 15-year-old high-school sophomore in 1994. We would highly recommend that those people get in contact with us as soon as possible so we could investigate this further, he said. They told her Kristin had not been seen all weekend and asked if Kristin was with them. You can go." Deputies seized a mattress cover from the bed with a blood stain. People are watching Ruben Flores and Susan Flores and Paul Flores. Those were kind of unspoken things. Jane said she took Flores up on carpool offers to and from high school whenever she would be walking solo from her mothers home in Arroyo Grande, California. He grabbed me down there and while Im yelling at him my girlfriend threw a piece of gum at his face and he pushes her down., At this point every male at the party joined in to jump Flores, who fled, she said, adding, Boom, he disappeared., That same year, Sarah said, Flores pursued her again at a friends birthday party. Susan's house was finally searched in March 1997 nine months after Kristin disappeared but nothing was found. The Lassisters say soon after, strange postcards began showing up in their mailbox. And Murphy and Sinclair believe they can prove it. were in the room exactly where she had left them. I drank this drink and I dont know what it was but let me tell you something the next thing you know I was passed out, Jane said. Chris Lambert: I brought them a number of witnesses that they were very interested in. On April 13, 2021, almost 25 years after Kristin Smart went missing, longtime suspect Paul Flores, 44, was arrested at his home in San Pedro, California, and charged with murder. He wouldn't answer a single thing. I was crying.. Some even wondered if she might have been drugged. Denise Pearce: Kristin hasn't come home And we're not sure where she is We don't know anything. I would hear many of my friends tell me Oh he grabbed my butt but I never believed them, Laura said. It's, like, she has nothing on her. He was the last person seen with her. Murphy and his wife, Garin Sinclair, agreed to take the case pro bono promising to go after Paul Flores and put pressure on the sheriff's office. All of Kristin's personal belongings including her purse, her money, her I.D. Chris Lambert: Kristin became incredibly intoxicated, whether she was drugged or whether she just had a lot to drink in a short amount of time She ends up passed out on the lawn next door. D.A. The two girls walked to an area off campus where there were fraternities, sororities and residential housing for students. You wouldn't let any of your friends be drunk around him. Sources tell us investigators discovered videos and photographs on Flores' computer showing him engaged in sexual activity with at least 10 different women, apparently in various states of consciousness. Kristin Smart Murder Trial: Who's who The judge only allowed 1 media pool camera inside the courtroom. Jonathan Vigliotti: Is there any doubt in your mind that Paul Flores is responsible for the disappearance of Kristin Smart? But I've seen it. When he arrived she stayed at home while Janes father hightailed it to Arroyo Grande Community Hospital. Garland testifies before Senate panel amid ongoing special counsel probes, Colon cancer rates rising in younger age group, study finds, Firefighter dies battling blaze in downtown Buffalo, mayor says, Prosecution wraps its case at Alex Murdaugh murder trial, Top McCarthy aide, House Oversight chair each met with Ashli Babbitt's mother, What to know about Shigella bacteria as drug-resistant strain spreads, Ex-Georgia star Jalen Carter was racing in deadly crash, arrest warrants allege, Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students, Bipartisan Senate group unveils rail safety bill in response to Ohio derailment. Chris Lambert's podcast,"Your Own Backyard," has become a big hit attracting millions of listeners eager to hear every detail surrounding this unsolved case of Kriistin Smart. Thats when everyone got involved, she said. James Murphy: Every day. And that's what I've been doing for a long, long time, along with a lot of other people. She regretfully denounced them as cruel rumors at the time. PODCAST EPISODE 2 [LAMBERT READING REPORT] Smart does not have any close friends at Cal Poly. But perhaps Mary Lassiter's most disturbing story was about being awakened very early in the morning by a beeping sound coming from the backyard. I also brought them witnesses that they had no interest in whatsoever. But remarkably, the same thing happened with three more dogs. The Kristin Smart disappearance: After 26 years, Paul Flores is convicted of murder. Susan Flores's backyard has been the focus of widespread speculation. Kristin Smart went missing from Cal Poly in 1996. Chris Lambert's podcast caught the attention of millions of listeners and sparked new interest in the decades-old unsolved case of Kristin Smart. FBI via AP, File. Lambert began looking into what happened to Kristin, collecting articles and documents, chasing down leads and tracking down anyone with information. Murphy immediately filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Flores in civil court. They got to the parking lot of an apartment complex. Neither the ex-boyfriend nor Sarah saw Flores again until they read The Daily Beast story on Kristin Smarts disappearance, where Floress mugshot appeared. I was lying down on my back. At the time, she was a 19-year-old freshman at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, who'd grown up in Stockton, Calif. On the night of her disappearance, she was spotted at a house party, which she left with three people. Alicia Tejada is the field producer and Addison Briley is the associate producer. He invoked the Fifth Amendment 27 times. Even though he'd never investigated anything before, Lambert quit his job to create a podcast about the case. but I knew that I could try to do a small part. And she was growing as an individual. Her younger sister Lindsey says their mother urged Kristin to go there. In the interrogation video played for the jury, detectives can be heard asking Flores, If anybody lies as much as you have, about something as serious as this is, what does that tell you?. This 9-room home sits on 40,000 square feet of land, which was purchased by the Flores family in 1990. James Murphy: There has been no other suspect. Lived In Dublin CA, King Of Prussia PA, Norristown PA. Related To Cooper Flores. He later argued that the biological evidence found under the deck was not conclusively human blood. In April 2021, investigators finally put the pieces of the puzzle together and decided they had enough to charge the then-44-year-old Paul Flores with Kristin's murder, and his then-80-year-old father with being an accessory after the fact. I remember being home watching the news about Kristin Smart and there goes Paul, she recalled. The interrogation was recorded just days after Smarts college friends alerted police that she was missing. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. In the months after Kristin's disappearance, one truck was traded in and the other was reported stolen. Lawyers representing Paul Flores, a man found guilty last year of murdering Kristin Smart in San Luis Obispo in 1996, filed motions last week to dismiss the jury verdict and for a new trial. After they broke up, Laura did a little sleuthing and discovered her ex-boyfriend was accused in Smarts vanishing. Chris Lambert told Jonathan Vigliotti, "It drove [Mary Lassiter] crazy and she went out there many times in the middle of the night to try to find it with sticks, sticking down into the planter boxes down in the soil." In 2011, the Smarts hoped those boulders would become a little lighter when Ian Parkinson became the new sheriff of San Luis Obispo County. He grabbed my butt but I knew that I could try to a. Along with a blood stain Smarts college friends alerted police that she absolutely. James Murphy: there has been no other suspect at a camp Hawaii... 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