California, United States
Latin suspected of murdering and disappearing a 19-year-old student in California in 1996 he killed her in his bedroom while raping her or trying to do so, the Sant Lluís Bisbe County Prosecutor’s Office said on Wednesday.
Details were provided today by county prosecutors in filing charges against him Paul Flores, Who was arrested as responsible for the disappearance on May 25, 1996 of the student Kristin Smart, Who was studying at Cal Poly University in California San Luis Obispo.
Flores, who was also a university student at the time and was the last person to be seen in Smart’s company the night the young woman disappeared, was arrested on Tuesday in the city of San Pedro, county of Los Angeles.
Dan Dow, county attorney for San Luis Obispo, Revealed that authorities are investigating whether Flowers sexually assaulted other women in the St. Peter area, in the county where Flores has lived since about 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The prosecutor’s office intends to present evidence of “previous sexual acts” and “other alleged incidents of abuse” to prove that Flores committed the murder, says the criminal complaint, cited by the newspaper.
Dow explained that researchers have obtained “significant new information” over the past two years, including “very important information” last month, which has led them to conduct the arrest of Flowers, Who has always denied responsibility for the facts.
This Wednesday also saw charges against Rubén Flores, 80, and Paul’s father, on charges of complicity in the crime in which, although the body was never found, the young woman was pronounced dead on May 25. of 2002.
crime
In February 2020 both housing Paul Flores in St. Peter’s as his father and sister were recorded the same day and a few weeks later the home of the now main suspect was again inspected.
Last March, authorities conducted a search of the home of Rubén Flowers and this Tuesday again investigators entered the property after the arrest.
The young woman, who was studying her first year of university, would have turned 44 last February. Smart was born in Germany but moved to the United States as a child and grew up in Stockton, California’s St. Joachim Valley.
Both Paul and Rubén Flores will appear in the Superior Court of Sant Lluís Bisbe this Thursday to respond to the accusations.