UPDATE
May 10, 2026 7:50 AM CDT
Authorities in California have completed their search of a property but have not discovered the body of Kristin Smart. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office found evidence of human remains at the site—the home of the mother of the man imprisoned for the college student's murder in 1996—but they discovered no body, reports the Los Angeles Times. Authorities suspect Smart's body was moved multiple times.
May 8, 2026 2:45 PM CDT
A fresh search at a California home tied to the decades-old Kristin Smart case has turned up soil evidence suggesting a body may have been buried there, authorities said Friday. San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson told reporters that testing of soil at the Arroyo Grande property of Susan Flores—mother of convicted killer Paul Flores—shows compounds consistent with human decomposition, reports NBC News. "We believe that ... human remains were there at one time or still there," Parkinson said, while stressing that Smart herself has not been found: "I think it's safe to say that we have not recovered Kristin yet."
Investigators have spent two days executing a search warrant at the Flores home, collecting soil samples and using ground-penetrating radar in the yard and at a neighbor's property. Parkinson said Susan Flores has long been a person of interest, though she has not been charged with a crime. Paul Flores was convicted in 2022 of murdering Smart, a 19-year-old Cal Poly student who vanished in 1996 and was declared dead in 2002. Prosecutors previously said they believed she was buried under a deck at his father's home, where earlier searches uncovered disturbed soil and degraded human blood. In regard to the new search, "We're not leaving that house until we've exhausted everything," said the sheriff, per the AP.
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