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The last man seen with Kristen Smart has been convicted of killing a college freshman who disappeared from a California campus 25 years ago.
Jurors unanimously found Paul Flores guilty of first-degree murder, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported.
In a separate trial, a jury found his father, Ruben Flores, convicted of accessory murder for allegedly helping to conceal a crime.
The conflicting verdicts were read separately in the same courtroom.
Ms. Smart disappeared from Cal Poly State University over Memorial Day weekend in 1996. Her remains were never found.
Earlier this year, US police said the podcast’s efforts helped them catch Paul Flores.
Chris Lambert gave up his music career to create “Your Own Backyard,” a podcast about Ms. Smart’s disappearance.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said Mr Lambert’s efforts helped bring forward witnesses who proved to be key to solving the case.
Prosecutors believe Paul Flores, 45, attempted rape and killed the 19-year-old, both first-year students, in his Caltech dorm room on May 25, 1996. He was the last to see Ms Smart when he dropped her home from an off-campus party when she was drunk.
His father, 81, is accused of helping bury the slain student behind his home in the nearby Arroyo Grande community, before exhuming and removing the remains.
Son’s defence lawyer Robert Sanger tries to blame others for killing – Scott Peterson later in sensational trial for killing pregnant wife and her womb Convicted for the birth of a child – he was also a student at Caltech. time.
In his final argument, Mr Sanger told jurors there had been no attempted rape and cast doubt on the witness’s evidence.
Paul Flores charged with first-degree murder against Kristen Smart
— Your Own Backyard Podcast (@YOBPodcast) October 18, 2022
He also called the forensic evidence provided by the prosecution “junk science.”
“This case has not been prosecuted over the years because there is no evidence,” Mr Sanger said. “It’s a shame Kristen Smart is missing, she may have gone out on her own, but who knows?”
Paul Flores has long been considered a homicide suspect. When investigators interviewed him, his eyes were black. He told them he was playing basketball with a friend, but the friend denied his claims, according to court records. He later changed his account, saying he hit his head while fixing his car.
However, the father and son will not be arrested until the case is retrial in 2021.
Investigators have conducted dozens of fruitless searches of Ms. Smart’s body over the past two decades, but for the past two they have turned their attention to Arroyog, 12 miles south of Caltech. The home of Ruben Flores in the Rand community.
Behind a lattice under the deck of his large house in a cul-de-sac, archaeologists working for police in March 2021 discovered a coffin-sized soil disturbance and the presence of human blood, prosecutors said. Blood is too degraded to extract DNA samples.
The trial took place in Salinas, 110 miles north of San Luis Obispo, after a judge granted a plea for its transfer. The defense argues that the defendants are unlikely to get such a notoriously fair trial in a city of about 47,000 people.
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