{"id":633500,"date":"2026-05-09T20:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633500\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:37:16","slug":"soil-testing-at-california-house-turns-up-evidence-of-human-remains-in-kirstin-smart-case-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633500\/","title":{"rendered":"Soil testing at California house turns up evidence of human remains in Kirstin Smart case | California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Soil testing at a property linked to the man convicted in the murder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/california\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">California<\/a> college student Kristin Smart, who disappeared in 1996, turned up evidence of human remains, a state sheriff announced on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWe can\u2019t call it Kristin, but there\u2019s evidence to support human remains \u2013 there at one time,\u201d the San Luis Obispo county sheriff, Ian Parkinson, said at a news conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Smart went missing from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/california\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">California<\/a> Polytechnic State University in May 1996 after returning from an off-campus party. Prosecutors alleged she was killed during an attempted rape and that the last person she was seen with was Paul Flores, a fellow student.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Flores and his father, Ruben Flores, were arrested in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Prosecutors alleged Smart\u2019s remains were buried on Ruben Flores\u2019s property and later moved. He was acquitted of accessory charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The younger Flores was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2022\/oct\/18\/kristin-smart-missing-murder-paul-flores-found-guilty\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">convicted in October 2022<\/a> and ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In 2024, a judge ruled that he must pay just over $350,000 to Smart\u2019s family for costs they incurred after her death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Smart\u2019s remains have never been found. She was declared legally dead in 2002.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">This week, law enforcement officers searched a home in the central coast town of Arroyo Grande occupied by Flores\u2019s mother, Susan Flores, according to public records and reporting by a podcast that has closely followed the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Your Own Backyard podcast, which helped investigators crack the case by bringing forward additional witnesses, first reported the search and said the home belonged to Flores\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Parkinson said on Friday: \u201cUntil we have Kristin, everything is still wide open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cEven if we\u2019ve searched it once, we might have missed an area 10ft away from it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He urged the public for patience amid the investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt will continue until we absolutely have no where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Associated Press contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soil testing at a property linked to the man convicted in the murder of California college student Kristin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-633500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}