Classmates of the murdered teenager Kristin Smart noticed the erratic behaviour of her killer in the months before he killed her.
Smart was killed by Paul Flores – who was a 45-year-old classmate of Smart at the time – back in May 1996, with the 19-year-old last seen at the University of California Polytechnic State University.
During a trial, which only reached a guilty verdict yesterday (October 18), some of Smart’s university friends said that they’d noticed that Flores had been acting strangely around campus, and testified to that effect.
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You can see a report about the verdict below:
One such friend, Stephen Fleming, lived in the same halls of residence as Smart, and told the court that he’d seen Flores sneaking around near to where they lived, as well as following Smart around.
Taking to the stand in August, Fleming said: “Everyone in the dorms, they were weirded out by Paul.”
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He added that Smart was noticeably worried and uncomfortable around Flores, stating that her body language tipped him off that she wasn’t happy.
He claimed that Flores was always seen around, though he didn’t believe that he and Smart were actually friends.
Fleming said that he only knew who Flores was because of what other girls would tell him in confidence and that he remembered a time when Flores had been standing in Smart’s room at the dorms, hovering inside her doorway whilst she stood over by her desk looking uncomfortable.
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“He was between her and the only escape route,” Fleming claimed.
The trial – coming 26 years after Smart’s disappearance – also saw Flores’ 81-year-old father on trial for allegedly helping to move the body and helping to obscure the crime scene, though he was found not guilty on October 18.
Smart was never seen again after the day of her disappearance and was officially declared legally dead in 2002 after no remains were found.
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Prosecutors claimed that Flores had killed her during an attempted rape.
He and his father were arrested in April 2021, after he had been named as the ‘prime suspect’ the previous month.
Police also claimed that undisclosed evidence had put Flores in the frame for her killing as early as 2016.
During the trial, the court heard how Flores had allegedly drugged and raped two other women, who both appeared to give testimony against him at the trial.
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Both men pleaded not guilty. The jurors found Flores guilty in an unanimous decision.
After the verdict, Kristin’s father Stan Smart said: “This has been an agonisingly long journey with more downs than ups,
“Without Kristin, there is no joy or happiness in this verdict.”
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Topics: True crime, Crime, US News
Tom Wood