A preliminary hearing for the men accused in the case of missing Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart will stretch into next week, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge revealed Monday.

The extra time in the hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores is needed to complete witness testimony and for the prosecution and defense to argue over the defense’s requested testimony from “Your Own Backyard” creator Chris Lambert, whose podcast explores Smart’s disappearance.

Lambert has opposed handing over his personal records, notes and communications sought by the defense, but is not objecting to testifying.

Testimony resumed Monday in Superior Court in the preliminary hearing for Paul Flores and his father, Ruben.

Paul Flores, now 44, is the last person known to have seen the 19-year-old freshman alive after walking her back from the party toward the Cal Poly campus residence halls on May 24, 1996.

Smart’s body has never been found but investigators said in court documents that her remains were buried at the Arroyo Grande home of 80-year-old Ruben Flores, and recently moved.

Paul Flores, a San Pedro resident, is charged with one count of murder, while his father is charged with felony accessory after the fact.

Monday marked the 14th day of proceedings as the evidentiary hearing begins its fifth week. It is tentatively scheduled to conclude by Sept. 10.

Nearly two dozen people — including Smart’s parents and former friends and classmates of Smart and Paul Flores, as well as current and retired San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and Cal Poly campus detectives, Flores’ ex-girlfriend and a cadaver dog expert — have testified since the hearing began Aug. 2.

At the conclusion of the weeks-long hearing, Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen will rule whether prosecutors established probable cause — a lesser standard of proof than guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — to proceed the case toward trial.

Here’s what happened in court on Monday.

Preliminary Hearing Will Stretch Into Next Week

After proceedings began two hours late on Monday, van Rooyen explained the reason for the late start was new discovery given to the defense earlier in the morning regarding the day’s first witness, Gail LaRoque, who was one of four handlers of human remains detection dogs that alerted on Paul Flores’ dorm room in June 1996

Van Rooyen did not elaborate on what that new discovery was.

The judge also asked the parties about scheduling.

Van Rooyen was told that the prosecution’s case will stretch into next week as testimony continues and both parties argue over the subpoena for Lambert as well as the defense’s request for testimony from convicted murderer Scott Peterson, who was a Cal Poly student in 1996 and who the defense contends was never investigated as a suspect in Smart’s disappearance.

Defense attorney Robert Sanger did not say that a subpoena has been issued for Peterson, but told van Rooyen that Peterson was “ordered” to be made available for testimony via Zoom conference from San Quentin State Prison. Peterson is serving a life sentence there for the murder of his wife Laci and their unborn child.

Peterson is on call through Sept. 7, Sanger said.

Van Rooyen told Sanger that the defense must provide an offer of proof to the court that Peterson’s testimony is relevant to the preliminary hearing before the judge can determine whether Peterson’s testimony will be allowed.

The judge also urged Sanger to file a reply to Lambert’s opposition to his subpoena, to be heard before van Rooyen makes a ruling.

Lambert in court Monday agreed to remain on-call to testify through Sept. 7, when the parties are scheduled to debate the issue.

Cadaver Dog Handler Testifies About 1996 Search of Cal Poly Dorm

Prior to breaking for the lunch recess, van Rooyen heard from LaRoque about her boxer mix Toorey, which was one of four dogs trained in the detection of human remains to alert on Paul Flores’ Santa Lucia Hall dorm room in June 1996.

The dog was “brilliant” and “hard-working,” LaRoque said, and the two worked together for about 10 years on roughly 200 searches, about 80% of which were for human remains.

The pair took part in several high-profile searches, she said, including a search for survivors of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995.

Under cross examination by Sarah Sanger, who is representing Paul Flores with Robert Sanger, LaRoque said she did not record the number of “false alerts” Toorey gave during the course of the dog’s training because dogs will commonly have many false alerts as they are learning what’s expected of them.

“The dogs will have false alerts (during training). Of course they will,” LaRoque said.

LaRoque said it takes a dog and handler “thousands and thousands” of hours before the dog is certified in detecting human remains.

Once certified, Toorey had no false alerts that LaRoque could recall, she said.

However, Toorey did fail to pass one test during training when the dog failed to pick up on and alert on human hair during a search, the trainer said.

Sarah Sanger also questioned LaRoque about her lack of records for Toorey’s training, namely training logs that would have shown the number of false positives during the training period. LaRoque said those records were prior to the digitizing of those records.

“A lot of that information is just gone, unfortunately. I just don’t have it,” LaRoque said.

Under direct examination by deputy district attorney Christopher Peuvrelle, LaRoque recalled that on June 29, 1996, she and Toorey were deployed at the request of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office to Santa Lucia Hall on the Cal Poly campus.

She didn’t know it at the time, she said, but she and two colleagues were requested to search the residence hall for any sign that a dead body had been present.

LaRoque testified that she brought Toorey into the first floor’s main entrance and ordered her to “search bones,” her command to search for remains.

She said the dog ran down the hall and did a “fish hook” back to Paul Flores’ Room 128 and alerted. Once investigators allowed her inside, Toorey targeted a bed frame and a corner of the room, her former handler said.

LaRoque did not know it at the time, but the mattress that had been on the bed frame had already been confiscated by investigators after a previous cadaver dog alerted to it. Toorey “very methodically ran her nose along the bed frame” but appeared to not be able to find the source of the scent, LaRoque said.

“It was as if she was smelling the air in the room,” LaRoque said, adding that the dog then alerted on a trash bin, which was removed from the room.

Sanger asked LaRoque whether she discussed the case with other handlers, which she did, she said, after the searches were complete. LaRoque also said she knew very little if anything about Smart’s disappearance when she conducted the search despite heavy publicity surrounding the case.

In addition, LaRoque acknowledged that she never inquired about whether the room had become contaminated in the days since the dorm room was vacated.

Defense Alleges Sheriff’s Lead Detective Was Investigated for Misconduct

Before adjourning for the day, van Rooyen discussed an outstanding defense motion seeking to compel the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Office to turn over records related to local investigations of other potential suspects in the case, as well as communications between Sheriff’s Office lead detective, Clint Cole, and two witnesses in the case.

Robert Sanger also pointed out Cole was again wearing a purple tie in court Monday after a motion to recuse the DA’s Office over the prosecution’s wearing of purple, Smart’s favorite color, was denied last week.

“This isn’t funny in this case because my client is facing a murder charge,” Sanger said.

In arguing for van Rooyen to grant the motion to compel, Sanger said that digital files handed over to the defense do not contain any reports about what local investigators did to investigate Peterson in connection to the Smart case.

Previous testimony revealed that San Luis Obispo County investigators searched ponds on property owned by Peterson in 2002 as part of the Smart investigation.

But the defense team says it was not provided records related to that search or any other efforts made to look into Peterson as a suspect in the Smart case.

Peuvrelle said in court that investigators have “gone out of our way” to search for any such records and they’ve not been located.

“I can’t obtain what doesn’t exist,” Peuvrelle told van Rooyen, who then ordered the prosecution team to hand over any located records related to both Peterson and the Smart case.

Sanger also referenced information that hasn’t yet been explained in court about Cole’s communications with two witnesses in the case, Justin Goodwin and Jennifer Hudson, who testified earlier this month that Paul Flores verbally admitted to burying Smart’s body in Huasna.

According to Sanger, some record should exist of “inappropriate conduct by Cole with witnesses” from February 2020 related to Hudson and Goodwin, though he did not elaborate. Sanger said that the prosecution told the defense that Cole inadvertently deleted some records of communications he had with the two on social media platforms.

Sanger said the prosecution knows “they have the evidence to preserve that evidence.”

“I can’t believe the investigators can’t go to Facebook or the service provider” with a subpoena for records, Sanger said, noting that companies will typically release such records only to law enforcement officials with warrants, and not to defense attorneys. “Right now, we’re dependent on the government to do its job.”

Sanger also alleged that another potential witness complained directly to District Attorney Dan Dow about Cole. Sanger claimed that Sheriff Ian Parkinson “was told that his lead investigator was accused of misconduct with a witness” in the case.

Peuvrelle argued that what Sanger was referring to “has been ruled unfounded by everyone.”

“Counsel has hung their hat on this (issue),” Peuvrelle said. “Let’s get back to evidence and finish this prelim.”

Van Rooyen again ordered the prosecution to turn over any relevant records about Peterson, Hudson and Goodwin related to the Smart investigation, but said he could not force prosecutors to file a subpoena to a third party such as Facebook for records of communication not already in their possession.

Testimony was expected to resume in Superior Court on Tuesday morning with another handler of a dog that searched Paul Flores’ dorm room.

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