Investigators searching the home of Susan Flores, the mother of the man convicted of killing Kristin Smart in 1996, told reporters Friday that soil tests at the Arroyo Grande, California property and the neighboring home have returned results consistent with human decomposition.
Kristin Smart’s body has never been found. She has been missing for nearly 30 years.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson held a press conference on Friday May 8, 2026, two days after his department executed a search warrant at Susan Flores’ property on East Branch Street.
The search is ongoing. Susan Flores, who has been declared a person of interest in the case, is not allowed to return to her home.
“We believe that based on what we’re looking at evidence-wise, that human remains were there at one time or still there,” Parkinson said. “We can’t call it Kristin, but you know, we think there’s evidence to support human remains.”
The Smart family released a statement through the sheriff’s department. “We remain hopeful that this current search will be successful and look forward to the outcome,” they wrote. “Our family greatly appreciates the efforts, dedication, and commitment of Sheriff Ian Parkinson, Detective Clint Cole, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department, and the technical experts assisting with the execution of this search.”
Who Was Kristin Smart?
Kristin Smart was a 19-year-old freshman at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo when she disappeared.
She had grown up in Stockton, California, and had arrived at Cal Poly to study architecture. Her disappearance happened over Memorial Day weekend in 1996.
On the night of May 24 and into the early morning hours of May 25, Smart attended an off-campus party.
Classmates found her passed out in the early morning hours and a fellow student named Paul Flores appeared. He told the classmates he knew where she lived and offered to walk her to her dormitory. She was never seen again.
Flores was a fellow Cal Poly student. In the weeks after Smart’s disappearance, investigators conducted K-9 searches across campus. Multiple cadaver dogs alerted in Flores’ dorm room.
Those alerts, combined with Flores’ shifting accounts of that night and injuries that were noted on his body in the days following Smart’s disappearance, led investigators to declare the case a criminal matter and to identify Flores as a person of interest.
But without a body, prosecution was not possible in the early years of the investigation. Kristin Smart was declared legally dead in 2002. The case went cold.
The Podcast That Changed Everything
In 2019, true crime podcaster Chris Lambert launched a series called “Your Own Backyard” focused entirely on the Kristin Smart case.
The podcast reached an enormous audience and, in what became one of the most significant examples of public attention influencing a criminal investigation in recent memory, generated new witnesses who came forward with information and new evidence that investigators could pursue.
The podcast’s impact on the case is direct and documented. Investigators credited the renewed public attention and the specific witnesses it produced with giving the investigation new avenues it had not previously been able to pursue.
The connection between the podcast’s audience and the case’s eventual resolution is one the Smart family has acknowledged repeatedly.
The Conviction That Did Not Find The Body
In 2021, Paul Flores was arrested and charged with the murder of Kristin Smart. The arrest came 25 years after Smart’s disappearance.
In September 2022, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in California state prison.
His father, Ruben Flores, was charged with being an accessory to murder, accused of helping his son conceal Smart’s body at some point after the killing. Ruben Flores was acquitted by a separate jury.
Paul Flores appealed his conviction through the California court system. In January 2026, the California Supreme Court denied his petition for review of the conviction. He is serving his sentence.
But the conviction, as significant as it was, resolved only part of what the Smart family and investigators have been seeking across three decades. Paul Flores was found guilty of killing Kristin Smart.
Kristin Smart’s body has never been found. She has not been brought home.
What Is The Current Search?
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at Susan Flores’ property at the 500 block of East Branch Street in Arroyo Grande on Wednesday May 6, 2026.
The same address had been searched previously, in 1996, in 2020, and again in 2021. Each of those prior searches used the technology and forensic methods available at the time.
The current search is using more advanced tools. Investigators deployed ground-penetrating radar to look beneath the surface of both the target property and the neighboring yard.
Soil testing and measurements were conducted across both properties. Cadaver dogs were brought in.
The soil results returned Friday are the most concrete findings the investigation has produced from this property. Parkinson said the samples show signs of decomposition. “We can’t call it Kristin,” he said, “but you know, we think there’s evidence to support human remains.”
He added, “We believe that based on what we’re looking at evidence-wise, that human remains were there at one time or still there.”
The language, were there at one time or still there, points to the central investigative theory that has shaped this phase of the search.
Parkinson told podcast host Adam Montiel earlier in the week, before the soil results came in, that investigators believe Smart’s body has been moved. “We’ve proven already that Paul did it,” Parkinson said. “We believe that Kristin, at one time, was on Paul Flores’ father’s property. We know she’s been moved, so where she moved to, we’re hunting that down.”
At Friday’s press conference he expanded on that. “Kristin has been moved, and we don’t know how many times she’s been moved and to where she’s moved, and so just because somebody’s house was searched doesn’t mean that we’re not going back there.”
Susan Flores is considered a person of interest. She is not allowed to return to her home. Whether she is cooperating with investigators has not been publicly stated.
The Investigation Is Still Active And Still Going
Parkinson was asked Friday how long the search at the Flores property would continue. His answer left no ambiguity. “We are not leaving that house until we’ve checked everything,” he said. He was asked further. “As long as it takes,” he said.
He confirmed investigators are prepared to dig anywhere the evidence directs them. The soil testing results will be compared against any reference samples available.
Whether the decomposition markers found in the soil testing correspond to human remains, and if so, whether those remains belong to Kristin Smart, requires further analysis that the sheriff’s department has not yet publicly detailed.
The search warrant was granted based on probable cause that Parkinson described as rooted in investigative evidence, scientific evidence and witness information.
He declined to be specific about what evidence or which witnesses contributed to the warrant.
The Smart family has been kept informed. Parkinson said he has been in direct contact with them throughout the current search.
30 Years Of Searching
Kristin Smart disappeared on May 25, 1996. The thirtieth anniversary of her disappearance is May 25, 2026, seventeen days from Friday.
The case that started with a college freshman who never made it back to her dorm room has spanned three decades of investigation, a murder conviction, an acquittal, a podcast that changed the course of the case, and a family that has spent thirty years asking to bring their daughter home.
The soil at Susan Flores’ property in Arroyo Grande shows signs of human decomposition. Investigators are not leaving until they have checked everything.
