Investigators with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office wrapped up their search of the Arroyo Grande property of Ruben Flores around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Ruben Flores is the father of Paul Flores, who has been named the “prime suspect” in the disappearance of missing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart in 1996.
“The Sheriff’s Office has concluded its warrant service at the home of Ruben Flores in Arroyo Grande,” the agency posted on its Facebook page at 1:48 p.m. Tuesday. “As with any active investigation, we will not be commenting on what, if any, evidence has been discovered. No further information will be released at this time.”
Officials could be seen Tuesday afternoon rolling up caution tape and driving away from the scene.
Ruben and Susan Flores, Paul Flores’s mother, arrived at the home around 2:20 p.m. and went in together.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office started the search Monday, and on Tuesday, investigators appeared to be focusing on the area under a deck.
The property on the 700 block of White Court is the home of Ruben Flores, whose son, Paul Flores, was the last person to see Smart alive prior to her disappearance in 1996.
The Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at approximately 7:15 a.m. Monday, the agency said, noting that the search could take multiple days to complete.
Investigators left the property overnight, leaving a small number of deputies behind to keep the scene secure.
By 8 a.m. Tuesday, roughly two dozen deputies and people in civilian clothes were back at the property, including a person who appeared to be a contractor operating a handheld radar device. At one point, investigators were seen carrying buckets under the deck, and later, two emerged carrying shovels.
A photographer at the scene estimated roughly a half-dozen Sheriff’s Office officials and unidentified people in civilian clothing were spread around the exterior perimeter of the property, with more than a dozen personnel inside the property. Access to the home was blocked off with caution tape.
Cadaver dogs were also seen Tuesday being brought on and off the property, which is located next to a vacant lot in a quiet rural neighborhood.
At one point, a deputy was seen pulling a few items, including a broom, from a forensics van in the driveway.
Around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, two deputies with the Sheriff’s Office emerged from under Ruben Flores’s Arroyo Grande home with shovels. Minutes before, buckets were removed from under the house’s porch.
Agency personnel started using radar equipment in the yard around noon.
“We are continuing to use ground-penetrating radar to identify any areas of interest on the property,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Cipolla said Tuesday. “It’s likely we will be out here most of the day.”
Property Search Draws Out Community Members
Several onlookers passed by the Flores home to try to observe what they could, including some motorists who came by after sheriff’s officials ceased their search.
Dana Hanhart of Orcutt said she was eating lunch in the Village at Branch Street Deli on her day off, and the talk of the restaurant was the Kristin Smart case.
As a lifelong resident of the Central Coast, and avid follower of the news of the case as well as the “Your Own Backyard” podcast, Hanhart decided visit the house in time to see Ruben and Susan Flores return to the home, along with Susan’s boyfriend.
“I just want to see justice brought,” Hanhart said. “I’m curious. That’s why I’m here. It’s curiosity and wanting resolution.”
Keaton Biallas, a Grover Beach resident, said he observed a “lot of digging and moving parts” earlier in the day as part of the search warrant activities.
“It has taken 25 years and taken a long time (to get to this point)…” Biallas said. “There have been a lot of rumors and things that have been said. I think there’s way too much activity (for the case not be solved soon). I think the case will be solved soon. It’s a matter of time.”
Two longtime neighbors of Ruben Flores stood outside their adjoining properties along Tally Ho Road in Arroyo Grande on Tuesday, looking up a hillside as the Sheriff’s Office searched Flores’s property.
Sarah Araya, a resident of the 300 block of Tally Ho, has lived in her home since 1989.
“I remember right after (Smart disappeared), (her mother) Denise Smart was posting signs right outside our street,” Araya said. “I can’t remember exactly what they said, but they were about her missing daughter. It was just her out here.”
“I just want this case resolved,” Araya said. “It has been stressful for everyone.”
Araya and her neighbor, Debbie Odbert, said area residents talk often about Smart’s disappearance.
They said that living close to the Flores family home, the site of multiple law enforcement searches and widespread speculation over the years, has been a strange experience.
“I feel a sense of relief it may be coming to an end because I feel for the Smart family,” said Odbert, who has lived in her home since 1989. “I’ve also really had some feelings for the Flores family, like ‘What if they didn’t do it?’ ”
Odbert said she thinks it “will be good for it to be over with.”
“Then I think it will bring everyone peace,” she said.
Both neighbors said they haven’t had any significant interaction with the Flores family in recent years. They have seen Susan Flores drive up and down the street, particularly of late.
Susan Flores drove by and waved to them on Tuesday morning.
Arroyo Grande resident Rayfield Dilonardo came to the White Court property on Tuesday to watch authorities using ground-penetrating radar.
He went to high school with Chris Lambert, whose podcast “Your Own Backyard” examines Smart’s disappearance, and wanted to observe what he could.
“Everyone I know is super interested in this case,” Dilonardo said. “My friends and I have all listened to the podcast and watched this unfold.”
Investigators Seize Car, Use K-9s in First Day of Search
On Monday morning, three people who appeared to be residents of Ruben Flores’s home were seen standing outside as deputies walked in and out of the property with K-9s.
More than a dozen sheriff’s deputies were at the house, with a large number of those officers searching in the rear of the property.
Also on Monday, a tow truck hauled away a red, older-model Volkswagen Cabriolet from the driveway of the home.
The car was covered in a thick layer of dust and had a Cal Poly decal on the rear window. According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the car is registered to both Ruben and Susan Flores, and was last recorded as planned non-operational in October 2010.
“The Sheriff’s Office has been authorized to utilize cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar during the course of the search,” the agency said Monday in a news release. “This process could potentially take one to two days to complete. Traffic in the area may be impacted with vehicle access for non-residents restricted.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the search warrant has been sealed. “As a result, we are precluded by law from disclosing any further details regarding it,” the agency said in the release.
The search of Ruben Flores’s home takes place about a month after his son was arrested in Los Angeles.
Paul Flores, a San Pedro resident, was arrested Feb. 11 in the harbor area of Los Angeles on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
“The arrest originated as a result of information obtained during our search warrants last year at the home of Paul Flores as part of the Kristin Smart investigation,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Cipolla said in a statement then.
Flores, 43, was released from Los Angeles County Jail shortly thereafter, and a court date has been scheduled for June in Los Angeles Superior Court.
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