Episode 10: The Beginning of The End Part 2

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault that will likely be disturbing for some listeners. listener discretion is advised. Ruben Flores was born in Compton, California on April 9th, 1941. Susan Charles was born 10 years later in New York City. and raised by a young mother who would go on to marry a man she later had six more children with. Rubin served for four years in the U.S. Navy, reaching a level of third-class petty officer.

before being honorably discharged in 1963. He then got a job with General Telephone, later GTE, where he worked for the next several decades, even staying on board when they became Verizon in 2000. up until his retirement. Sometime in the mid-60s, he worked for a few years as a reserve police officer for the Redondo Beach Police Department. As a reserve officer, what duties did you have?

Just backup an officer on patrol. And did you have occasion to do that? Yes. Why did you cease employment in that line of work? I wasn't employed, I was just a volunteer. For years, he and susan would keep an antique police baton hanging in the entryway of their home until it was seized by san luis obispo sheriff's detective henry stewart

on July 18th, 1996 during the first search of their White Court home. It's unclear when Rubin stopped working for the Redondo Beach PD, as Rubin himself can't even seem to remember the years he was there. when asked about it during his 1997 deposition. In the late 60s, he was also married to a woman named Gail, though he also claims not to remember when that happened or when it ended. But during this time,

Susan is attending a Catholic high school in Upper Manhattan, where she graduates in 1969. She gets a job at a bank on 38th and Broadway, before relocating the following year. to be with her family in redondo beach california taking a job at another bank there she transfers to a torrance branch and that seems to be where in 1971 she meets ruben flores who she marries on August 7th, 1971, only a year after moving to California. Reuben is 30 years old. Susan is 20. In December of 1971,

They purchase a three-bedroom home on Hallison Street in Torrance for $28,500. Susan continues to work at the bank in Torrance and Ruben at General Telephone. In March of 1974, their daughter, Irma Linda, is born. And two years later, on October 22, 1976, Paul Ruben Flores completes the family picture. While Irma Linda shares Ruben's complexion, Paul is pale, with green eyes, and platinum blonde hair. Susan leaves the bank when Paul is born, and spends a few years working at home.

until Paul starts preschool at the Good Shepherd in Torrance. In 1981, she gets a part-time job as a teacher's aide at St. James Catholic School, which Irma Linda attends, and Paul enters kindergarten there. in 1982. Susan has regular yard sales at the Hallison Street House in Torrance, where she sells furniture, toys, books, jewelry, and vintage dolls. In 1985,

She becomes the registrar for Wes Torrance's American Youth Soccer Organization, a team that Paul plays on. In late 1996, after Paul's name is released in connection to the disappearance of Kristen Smart, Teammates and a former coach reach out to Keith Sharon, a writer for the Daily Breeze and Torrance, to recount a time that Paul lashed out at teammates, deflating several soccer balls with a sharp object.

and threatening to stab one of the other players. I've been unable to verify whether Paul was removed from the team for this. If you have information about this or any other incidents, you can reach out to me on my website. Around this same time, Susan Flores runs a daycare out of the Hallison Street house, which about a dozen children from St. James Catholic School attend each day.

My daughter went to St. James School. That's how we met the Floreses. And if I recall, it was through somehow we got referred for after school care. And so I was working and going to school. And I'm not sure if you talked to anyone else that did the after-school care. Many of these former students and parents have reached out to me to share their stories from this daycare, though most of them were nervous about being recorded for the podcast. But...

A lot of them recall one standout incident from their time there and ask me if I've spoken to a girl whose name I won't use. Luckily, this girl's mother did agree to share her recollection of this incident. Okay, so what it was, was the kids went to school to like 2.30. And then a group of children, I'm going to say it was probably about 10. I don't quite recall because, you know, I don't know if some of them got picked up by the time I got there. And Susan lived very close to us.

So then after school, what they would do is Susan would have snacks for them. She had a room that the kids all like did their homework. They had a snack break and then they did their homework in the in the room and got, you know, got caught up on everything. My daughter, she didn't really interact a lot with Susan's two kids just because they were odd. So Irma Linda, I believe, was a year older than.

And I believe Paul was a year younger. So, you know, it was kind of like she had many of her friends there anyway. So she just. You know, when I asked her today, she just said all she remembered is that she just avoided the kids because they just were like very.

You know, it was just a very odd family. It was just you always felt like you were walking in on something you weren't supposed to be walking in on. So she went there from first grade to, I believe, fourth or fifth or part of fifth grade. So, you know, we socialized them. I remember there was like Halloween parties, Christmas parties. They went to my daughter's birthday parties. But it was sort of like that where they were there, but just really kept her distance, especially from Paul.

he really was fixated on And it's so funny because somebody just sent me some pictures of some of the birthday parties. And it's like he's always like right there on like almost like hovering over her. And it's like I don't think she even noticed it because she just, you know, she didn't pay attention.

to him you know she was just always avoided him so then in the summertime it was they she susan also did summer care so that was even more of the kids and that was where they got to play in the pool and they made you know she made lunch and stuff and she did little outings with them and stuff All the kids were in the pool and Paul was in the pool and he was trying to get his attention and she just kind of kept going toward the other end of the pool to stay away from him.

And so apparently that upset him. And so he pushed her under the water and then was on top of her and wouldn't let her up. And then all the kids started yelling at him to let her up, let her up, and he wouldn't. He was very angry. And they started screaming. And she said she remembered somebody came out and dragged him out of the pool.

And she goes, I don't remember if it was Susan. I don't remember if it was another adult that was there. But so then the parents were calling me. Susan never told me about the incident. So the parents were calling me and they told me what happened.

and so you know of course i left work immediately i went to go pick her up and i confronted susan you know she just goes you stupid child she goes you're making such a big deal out of this you really you know this is just how kids play and he didn't do anything wrong and i'm like that's not what i was told you know

i said i was told by the parents that he held her there and somebody had to pull him off of her she's like oh it was no big deal you know this is you're just making too much of this you know and you know and again she's like playing the victim you're just you're causing us trouble you're you're you're just being a stupid child The incident, which Susan claims was typical childhood behavior.

seemed to at least be unusual enough to stick out in so many memories over the years. With parents still emailing me to ask, has anyone told you about Paul and the girl in their pool? It seems like this is when Paul's behavior began to escalate. One person I spoke to recalled that Paul was always eager to fight him on the playground for no reason. A lot of energy and seemingly no control of his temper.

Around the time he begins middle school, classmates begin to describe Paul as weird and creepy, descriptors that will stick with him for the rest of his life. I was really good friends with his cousin. And Paul came to our school and he just kind of showed up at places when we were in junior high with his cousin because his cousin was invited.

My feeling is that it kind of felt like I was forced to kind of have him tag along. I know everybody just always was uncomfortable when he would show up because he just was odd and he just... It was just an eerie feeling he kind of always gave everybody. He did play baseball at Tredondo Little League, which a lot of us did.

and there was a book that went around that had everybody's phone numbers and everything in it. She sends me a picture of one of these books, a team directory that lists each member's name, followed by their home address and telephone number. Paul's name is fourth from the top. And for a long period of time, I was getting prank calls on a nightly basis, and whoever it was was asking for me and then breathing.

and it was scary and little by little the word got out that it was Paul who was calling and it was not just me he was calling, there was a lot of us girls. My brother had to have a conversation with him because he was one of the coaches down at Little League and let him know that he didn't appreciate him calling in to knock it off.

I remember a Halloween party once that we were at, I would say in sixth or seventh grade, and he kind of hit up in the tree while we were all... you know dancing and having this party and none of us really even knew he was there and then all of a sudden he came out of the tree and we were all kind of creeped out like how long has he been here and been just hiding up in the tree and

Those little kind of memories that you kind of go back and say, yeah, when I started watching all this, I had no doubt in my mind that he was absolutely capable of something like this. It's terrible to think of, but we all have gotten together and kind of chatted a little bit throughout this whole last year and a half or so. And none of us are shocked, none of us are surprised.

i was talking to my sons the other day saying you know you know when if you were to see somebody you went to school with and this was happening and you felt like no they could never do something like that you know like i know that I said, the second I saw that, the first time I saw it on Unsolved Mysteries, I just went, oh my God, he did it. I had no doubt. I knew he was capable of that.

It was the weirdest thing. And I would never say that about anybody. That says to me, a bunch. While Paul is in middle school, Ruben and Susan Flores purchase a house. on East Branch Street in Arroyo Grande, and another house on Short Street. It's unclear if they're planning to move up to the Central Coast, or if they're just investing in real estate, but they don't leave the area for another four years.

Reuben and Susan purchase a one-acre plot of land on White Court in Arroyo Grande in 1990 and begin to have a house built on it. Shortly after Paul assaults Nick Spreitzer at Burtlin Middle School, putting him in the hospital, an incident which the Flores family's insurance company settles for $5,000. Reuben and Susan sell their house on Hallison Street.

And after their daughter Irma Linda graduates from West High School in Torrance, they move to Arroyo Grande, into the newly built home on White Court.

Paul starts his sophomore year that fall at Arroyo Grande High School, while Irma Linda enrolls at Cal Poly. Throughout that summer and fall, after listing their house on Short Street for rent several times, they finally sell that property and begin to fix up the branch street house reuben is unable to get a work transfer up to the central coast so for the next several years

He commutes between Arroyo Grande and Redondo Beach every week. During this time, Susan starts taking night classes to get her real estate license. In 1993, When Paul gets a job at Garland's Hamburgers in Grover Beach, she buys him a brand new iridescent green Ford Ranger. Over the next year, Paul will collect six traffic tickets for speeding, failure to stop,

tailgating, and disturbing the peace. Susan Flores is hired by Prudential Hunter Realty, and less than a month later, Mike McConville is also hired. Perhaps because Ruben is rarely home. It's around this time that co-workers tell me Susan and Mike start to have an affair. Although both Susan and Mike claim in later depositions that their relationship didn't begin until 1998 or 99.

It's absolutely not true, according to people who know them. When Mike's wife discovers the affair in 1995, she sells the house they bought together and leaves Arroyo Grande. Ruben is finally transferred to GTE in Goleta in 1995 as a payphone technician, which comes with an $800 a month pay cut. Susan is working at Prudential.

picking up night shifts at J.J.'s Market in the village, and renting out the Branch Street house to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Paul finishes his senior year at Arroyo Grande High School, while his behavior continues to escalate.

Women I've spoken to told me that he asked them to urinate in front of him at parties in exchange for money, or to sit bottomless on a glass coffee table while he laid underneath. After his prom, on may 20th 1995 paul attends a party and again demonstrates a propensity for responding violently to situations that don't call for it So in 1995, I was a junior in high school and Paul Flores was a senior. It was just known that he was not someone who was safe to be around.

He was Scary Paul. I remember referring to him as Scary Paul. I went to prom after prom, went to a prom party, and Paul was there. My date went off to the left to get us a drink, and I went off to the right and found some friends that were other girls sitting on the ground, and they invited me to sit down with them.

And we just started a conversation and suddenly Paul comes up and says to me, I was sitting there. I just kind of looked up to him. I'm like, okay, well, I'm sitting here now. And he's all like, you know, you can move or I'm going to body slam you. And I just kind of looked at him and I said, no, you're not. And then the next thing he said to me is, why are you cock blocking me? And I was just so dumbfounded. I said, I looked at him and I said, shut up, Paul.

The next thing I remember, everything went black. Like my hearing came back before my vision did. I heard everyone like this collective gasp. I heard someone say, holy shit. And then the next thing I remember, it was like my vision was coming back. And I was on my back on the other side of Paul, on the floor. And he was standing over me, laughing at me.

It was like a rush of people very quick over me. Like I remember seeing like the bottoms of people's shoes. One of the girls that I was sitting with kind of like crawled over to me and said to me, she was like, Let me help you up. And then very quickly said, you need to get up. And she kind of grabbed me by the hands and helped me up to my feet. And I turned around and four of the other guys at the party had rushed Paul.

literally over my body and slammed them into a corner and they were yelling at him you can't effing do that you shouldn't have fucking done that and i heard paul yell back at them well she was cock blocking me and they said it doesn't effing matter it doesn't matter shouldn't do that and there was a lot of yelling my friend helped me stand up she handed me my glasses my glasses had gotten knocked off my face and I just remember being so

shocked, just stunned that that had happened. And guys by that point had grabbed Paul by his jacket and like the scrap of his shirt and were like shoving him out the door. And I just turned to my date and said, I just want to go home. And then my date and I went to his car and he drove me home. I felt humiliated. I remember going back to school the following week and I was walking to class and he came up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

shook me and said, body slam. And it scared the living daylights out of me. I don't know how else to describe it. And then he just kind of walked off and he was laughing. He turned back and laugh at me. And he was so proud of himself just for making. This sinister laugh is a recurring theme in many of the stories I've heard about Paul, as well as being thrown out of gatherings by a group of men. That fall,

He moves in with his sister Irma Linda and her boyfriend Brett in a duplex in San Luis Obispo, and starts his freshman year at Cal Poly. In his first month, he receives two more citations for speeding in his Ford Ranger. In October, he knocks on the door of a Halloween party on Chorro Street and asks if he can join. Not long after he's let in,

Women at the party begin to comment to the host that Paul is making them very uncomfortable. When things start to wind down, they ask him to leave, but Paul refuses. After pushing him for a while, They finally put the keg outside with him and lock the door. An hour later, they notice Paul standing outside of one of the bedroom windows, hiding in the tall weeds in the dark, watching them.

When he sees them looking, he starts to laugh loudly, scaring them all. Around the same time, Paul attends several more parties in San Luis Obispo where he sets his sights on another woman. in a series of encounters. It wasn't just a sexual assault. It was a predator. Like, there is a difference, I feel like. It was premeditated. He had a mission. And he didn't let up.

fall of 1995 we had a group of girls we were all very close and we would go to lots of parties and the first time we noticed him was when he was basically the guy It was by himself at the party. We didn't know where he came from. He was just standing there staring at everybody. And then it was clear he was targeting me. He came up to me and he always spoke in this very under his breath, quiet way. It was very kind of almost mumbling. Like you were like, what did he just say? And he walks up and.

He mumbled obscenities at me. And I remember my friend, she was like, what did you just say to my friend? And she freaked out and she spit her gum at his face. And he took her and threw her down on the ground. And then he had like two guys on top of him just jumping him, basically, because everyone was so shocked that he did that to my friend. And then he left.

That same night, we went to another party after that, and he was there, standing there, staring, lurking. He had this very creepy, creepy energy. He was just off. everyone noticed we were all like stay away from him he's the scary creepy guy and over like three four months we just kept seeing him at parties But he would follow us like he knew we were going to the next party and he'd show up.

The next incident, we were all out and we were dancing and he came by and he made another comment at me. And then he came up to me a second time that night and he grabbed my crotch super hard. And then we all yelled at him and I remember my boyfriend punched him. Then after that, we were at a party and I went to go use the restroom.

And I went into the bathroom and as I was turning around to shut the door, he kicked the door in and slammed me up against the back wall of the bathroom, trying to rape me. I remember the wallpaper and I remember exactly the layout. I remember the bathroom, exactly where the toilet, where the wall is that he threw me up against. And I just remember kicking and hitting and fighting. And right when I kind of like knocked him back and down a little bit, I took off running out the door.

and I was yelling and telling everyone what had happened and then they jumped him and beat him up and the cops came and that was the last we ever saw of him. When Kristen Smart went missing, I remember just looking at her and feeling similar to her. Like, wow, you know, this could be any of us. And we didn't know at the time Paul Flores was the main suspect. It would have been good to know at that point.

his face wasn't put everywhere which if it had been at that point in time i bet there would be a lot more women that came forward at that point Maybe there are more women like me who fought, you know, because I fought back hard. And who knows if that instance, plus maybe one or two other ones, who knows, made them realize, oh, wow, in order for me to. She raises an interesting point, and one that I've been trying to pin down for a while.

If Paul was drugging women to subdue them, as he's believed to have done in recent years, when did it begin? I spoke to one of his co-workers at Garland's, who told me she saw Paul put eye drops in a girl's drink once.

because he thought it was funny. It's also possible that she was mistaken, and that she witnessed Paul with an actual date rape drug, in a small bottle that she assumed was for eye drops. Either way, There are many documented cases of people using eye drops as a makeshift date rape drug, which is incredibly dangerous and has extreme side effects, including vomiting, diarrhea, difficulty breathing.

And even death. So could Paul have been drugging women back in 1996 when he met Kristen Smart at a party? He was doing it before Kristen. sometime March or April, I would say, of 1996. I was going to Hancock College. My boyfriend at the time played football at Cal Poly. He had graduated from St. Joe's High School. And so I had frequented parties in San Luis with him and his teammates and friends. At one of those parties.

She ran into a girl from St. Joseph's, a Catholic high school in Santa Maria that her boyfriend had also attended. A note, this story is graphic in detail. So she actually went to St. Joe's. You know, it was kind of our rival high school. And she wasn't a really good friend of mine, but she was an acquaintance. You know, when we were in high school before we graduated, I would see her at parties all the time. You know, she was a St. Joe's girl. I was a Rigetti girl.

And we didn't really hang out that much, but I definitely knew of her. And it was at an apartment that was, it was like California and Foothill area. And I know it's, it was close to Crandall Way. There was always like a bunch of parties there that.

like fraternity or sorority parties but then it was an individual apartment of somebody that he knew I didn't know very many people there actually I only knew him so When I first saw her there, we kind of started talking about high school and the whole rivalry between high schools and how stupid it was.

She said, I've always liked you and we've always gotten along when we've seen each other. It's so stupid that we haven't hung out. So we kind of bonded a little bit before this whole incident happened. I'd say like nine o'clock probably at night. Literally. Less than an hour later, this guy came out of the bathroom and said, somebody get in here, help this girl. And I was kind of walking by at the time and I kind of looked in and I could see that it was her. And I said.

Oh my God, I could see her face was just like white, like a grayish white. She did not look well. Her pants were off. She was vomiting. And he's like, somebody help. So I went in and I said, hey, get out of here. I got this. This is my friend. And she was totally incapacitated. I mean, she had defecated herself.

Her pants were off. She had kind of some foam coming out the side of her mouth. I was literally almost ready to call 911 because I could tell that she was not doing well. And I had just talked to her like 45 minutes before that. So, you know, she had a, this is probably too much information, but she had a tampon in that was almost all the way out, you know, feces everywhere. And I took the tampon out, threw it in the trash.

She was so tiny. She's like less than five feet tall, 95 pounds. So I literally picked her up and I put her in the bathtub. And I started like washing her down. I was actually trying to get her to come back. So I was using like some cold water and she started coming to a little bit and I was cleaning her up and I finally got her kind of all cleaned up. kind of come to again and that's when paul flores walked back into the bathroom and he and he was the guy that said hey come help this girl

He said, I, I, I, and he was stuttering and he said, I know her. I want to help. And I said, get out of here. And she was, she was muttering. No, no, no, no, no. At first, I just thought she's in an incapacitated state, in the bathtub, basically naked, except a bra on, that she didn't want anybody coming into the bathroom to see her like that.

And I said, please get out and shut the door. And so anyways, I finally got her all cleaned up and one of her friends came back. And I said, do you know that guy that just walked out? Because they had just walked in right after. And they said, what guy? And I said, the guy that was just in the bathroom with her. i said is that her boyfriend because he says he knows her and he came in to try to take the trash out and they said no she doesn't have a boyfriend we don't even know who that is

I wrapped a towel around her. She went home in a towel wrapped around her because she didn't have any clothes left. It was not until I saw him on one of the news programs stuttering and I saw his face. And that's when I knew that that was the person that was in the bathroom with her initially, and also the person that came back in the bathroom to take the trash out without a shadow of a doubt.

You know, going through life and going through college and all those parties and things, I'm thinking, no guy cares about taking the trash out in the bathroom at the party, you know. Her suspicion now, and one that I think is reasonable. is that this guy was attempting to empty the trash to get rid of evidence that he had drugged her friend, or anything that might connect him to it. And all of her friends confirmed, and she confirmed to me after, that she did not know him.

that she had just met him at the party. and then even after that confirmed that he was definitely the one that gave her a drink that she had been talking to and over the years it's haunted her too because she has thought the same things but also can't remember everything right so can't recall and say without you know with 100 certainty because she was so out of it that that was him but but i can say with 100 certainty because i wasn't that was definitely him 100

I reached out to her and I said, look, and she had already thought the same thing, that that definitely was him. Like she thought all the same stuff that I thought. So these two women are fairly confident that Paul Flores was drugging victims before Kristen's disappearance. I'll circle back to the circumstances of that night.

But I'd like to establish what else I've learned about Paul's alleged predatory behavior, chronologically. Just one week after Kristen's disappearance, Paul showed up to an Arroyo Grande high school prom afterparty in Napomo. I've talked to five people who saw him there. And some of the women present believe that Paul was looking for an opportunity to drug someone there.

I graduated in 1997 from Arroyo Grande High School. Paul was a few years older than me, and he always kind of had that reputation of... Being a little strange a little creepy. He was the type of guy you just didn't want to be alone with It was the weekend after Kristen was missing and at this point we didn't know that Kristen was missing and we didn't know any connection to Paul. So Paul just showed up at an after prom party.

which was weird because he was already at Cal Poly. I was a junior in high school, and I thought, that's weird. What is this guy doing here? He showed up alone, and I think kind of the overall vibe was like, what is this guy doing? He approached me later in the evening and he was carrying like a pitcher like those Tupperware pitchers that all of our moms had and it was filled with some kind of like mixed alcohol drink and he offered it to me.

And I told him no, and he kept kind of pushing at it. My friends came over. He was trying to get them to drink out of it. And all of us were just kind of like, no, like, who's this guy? What's he doing here? This doesn't feel right. Later in the night, he approached me again and he asked me to go for a walk with him, that he wanted to go for a walk, that he needed to talk.

And I don't really have any connection to him. So that was really strange. And I just kept telling him, no, you know, I don't want to leave this party. I just knew something in my gut was telling me like, don't walk off with this guy. And so I just remember that night him being kind of looking for someone that was going to take the drink or take the walk.

kind of like predatory and um my friends and i were just trying to stay away from him i remember some of our guy friends were like leave the girls alone and that's all i remember and then of course months later we learned of the connection After Paul's name is released to the media in 1996, people start to talk, and Paul moves down to Southern California, where he lives in an apartment with his sister and her husband.

and gets a job at Blockbuster Video on Alton Parkway in Irvine. One woman I spoke to through email believes that Paul may have stolen her underwear out of the laundry room at her apartment complex on several occasions and while she can't say it was paul for sure she and her family did frequent the blockbuster he worked at and it occurs to me

that Paul had access to the addresses and phone numbers of every customer who came into the store. If you had an unusual encounter with Paul when he lived in Irvine, feel free to reach out to me. After losing his job at Blockbuster, Paul was hired at an Outback steakhouse on Culver Drive, which opened in July 1997. I spoke to one of his co-workers there in a previous episode.

who he tried to persuade to kiss him, and then literally carried into his apartment, where he turned the lights off until she threatened to scream and wake up his sister. I've since heard from other women who worked with Paul at that steakhouse. I got hired at Outback in Irvine in 1997. I was 18 years old. And I got hired as a hostess with Paul. He worked in the kitchen. He was on what they call the cold side. So he did salads and appetizers and whatnot.

During the opening, you do like a lot of hanging out with people and you kind of find your group of friends. And I would say that he wasn't part of my group of friends. He was kind of. You could just tell like he wasn't fitting in, like he wasn't like part of the cool group. You know what I mean? He just kind of seemed awkward. He had a really bad stutter and he would try to kind of flirt with the girls. You could kind of tell he wanted to be part of the crowd.

Everyone would go out after work, and he would just show up at the bar that we were all at, and he would try serving drinks to the girls. He would just walk up with a beer in his hand and try to hand it to you and give you free beer. And people like no one would want to take it because it was from Paul. Just creepy. There's no other better word, really. Some interactions that I remember.

I always ordered my chicken fingers a certain way. Like I had special orders and he would say, I made your chicken fingers just the way you like it, Sarah, with a very heavy stutter. I was always like nice to him and he just kind of like, like he would look at you. And I, I remember that look like, again, cause you.

You'd be standing in the other side of this window, this shelving, and he would kind of be peering out at you from the other side and just kind of like watching all of us. And it was just creepy. Like he was just a creepy guy. My another coworker of mine reminded me of this, that he would like carve a penis into a cucumber and then put like ranch dressing on it to make it look, you know.

vulgar and like put it in we called it the window where the shelving is in the kitchen he would put it up there he would she said that he would chase the girls around with it. I don't remember that part, but I remember seeing it sitting in the window. So you would just like walk up and like, Oh, Paul, like he had this cucumber there. Like, okay. just something that stood out. It was just kind of gross. The other thing that I remembered, which stuck with me for my whole life since then, was that

We had to stand like at the counter and it was called rolling silverware. So you put the silverware napkins and roll it up. So you'd have to do like 50 or 60 of them. So you'd be standing there for a while. He would come up from behind and start massaging your neck and shoulders while you were doing this. And I let him. I let him do it.

Then I remember my coworker said to me, don't let Paul touch you like that. And she told me what he was accused of doing. And then I was like, oh my God, I let a murderer. rub my shoulders and and and the fact that i refer to him as a murderer like i've always thought of him as a murderer there was never a doubt in my mind that he did that just knowing him

I was like, oh yeah, this guy totally did it. Like, no doubt. No doubt my mind. It's also while working at this steakhouse that Torrance Daily breeze writer Keith Sharon finally gets an opportunity to talk to Paul in person. Although he realizes it too late. It's embarrassing now. Paul Flores was working at a steakhouse in Irvine and...

I now had left the Torrance Daily Breeze and I was working at the Orange County Register. So I went to my editor and said, hey, I'd like to go check it out. I talked to people at the restaurant where he worked and they may have told me where he was living now. And I went up and knocked on the door and a guy answered and he seemed very nice. And I said, hey, I'm from the Orange County Register and I'm trying to find Paul Flores. And he said something like, oh, you just missed him.

He was here a minute ago, but he had to run out. I'm his roommate. So I'm talking to this guy and we have a three or four minute conversation. And I said something like, do you know? that your roommate is involved in this case up in Central California? And he said, yeah, you're not the only person who's knocked on the door. And I said, you know, what's he like?

what's Paul like? And he was like, well, he's a good guy. He's just like everybody else. He doesn't seem out of the ordinary in any way. And I was like, okay, well, my name's Keith Sharon. I'm with the Orange County Register. Here's my phone number. When Paul comes back, have him give me a call if he wants to talk about what it's like to be under suspicion. And he said, OK, thank you very much.

And I leave the apartment. I go back to my office. And it was in the days of fax machines. I get a fax with Paul Flores' picture. And it's him. That's the guy I've been talking to. And he's been lying the whole time. The thing that stood out to me was how calm, how easily he just pretended to be someone else. And I have a practiced bullshit detector, and he fooled me.

I didn't know what Paul Flores looked like. That was a big mistake on my part. After being fired from Outback, Paul gets a job at a bakery in Irvine and then an In-N-Out burger. before relocating to the city of Orange, where his sister and her husband have just bought a house. A family friend I reached. who agreed to be recorded for the podcast, and then contacted me after speaking with family and asked me to delete their audio, told me that around this time...

They ran into Paul for the first time since the Florezes had moved to the Central Coast in 1992. After growing up around Paul through elementary and middle school, they felt like they knew him pretty well. But upon seeing Paul for the first time as an adult, they told me, I was just like, oh, I'm in the presence of a murderer right now. I didn't even know the details. I just knew that Kristen was missing. But when I saw him...

I knew he was a murderer. I just couldn't get out of his presence fast enough. After getting another DUI, Paul is put on probation. and the terms require him to abstain from alcohol and stay out of bars, an order he doesn't follow. After he's seen drinking in a bar in Costa Mesa, and then fails to show up for a court hearing.

He's sentenced to eight months in Santa Barbara County Jail. When he's released, he moves briefly back to Torrance, living in a house owned by his brother-in-law's grandmother. before moving in with a family friend in Lawndale. When Dennis Mann, the creator of SonofSusan.com, gets a tip that Paul is living there and posts a picture of the house on his website,

Paul moves a few houses up the street, into a small back house behind another home. It's while living here that he starts to frequent several bars on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach. including Patrick Malloy's and Sharky's, where he meets a woman that he dates for several years. She's the one I interviewed in episode 4 of this podcast, who recounted a time where Paul held a butter knife to her neck.

until their roommate intervened. But for the entire time they dated, she said Paul continued to frequent the bars in Hermosa Beach alone, and other women vividly remember him from there. My girlfriends and I would run into him around 2004 to 2007. We used to see him at the bars in Hermosa Beach on Pier Avenue. Specifically, it was Sharky's.

This is before it burned down the first time and sometimes at the little pizza place next door. One thing I noticed that he is always alone, never with any friends. If you're always going out to the bar. You know, always socializing. How do you not have any friends? He just seemed very awkward and kind of creepy. He didn't seem to know how to talk to women. He was always just like kind of just staring.

He was also sort of gropey. You know, he was kind of like touchy in inappropriate ways. He was always drunk. He was always heavily intoxicated, always slurring. One time he offered to buy me a pizza after the bars closed. And, you know, of course I wasn't interested in him. So I said, you know, I'm lactose intolerant. But he didn't really get the hint. And he offered, I'll buy you a salad. And it was just like a weird thing to say, you know, offering to buy a girl a salad.

From then on out, we called in Salad Boy every time we saw him. Of course, you know, we were a group of girls, so we, you know, he'd always just kind of just like gravitate toward us. And after the bars closed for the night, we would always go to this bench. that we would sit on. And, you know, of course, he'd come out and he would just kind of just try to talk to us or just kind of just sit there and just kind of be around us, I guess.

And whenever the cops would come, you know, trying to make sure people were behaving on Pier Avenue, that's when he would just take off. It was just weird. The girlfriends I used to hang out with all the time, you know, of course, you know, over the years, you know, we grew apart, you know, we kind of lost touch and we don't really talk every day anymore.

So one friend who I haven't talked to in a long time, she sent me a message after he got arrested, sent me a photo of him and said, this is salad boy. And it was his exact face and everything. It was just really weird. A quick reminder that during this entire period, the Kristen Smart case is languishing up in San Luis Obispo, making little to no progress. While the Smart family and their attorneys...

are repeatedly refused access to the Sheriff's Department's investigative files, citing an ongoing and active investigation. And Paul Flores continues to target women in South Bay bars. Me and my friends would go to a bar in Redondo Beach. Oh, my God. Backstreet. Thirsty Club on Artesia. I guess he had met a few of my friends there, and then I met him that same day.

He seemed like a nice guy at first. We all drank with him for a little bit and stuff like that. But then one weekend, I went there with my friends. I went outside to smoke a cigarette and I didn't know he was still in the bars. He came out the back door and then I was trying to go back in and he's like, oh, have a smoke with me. I'm like, no, thank you. And then he had grabbed me and tried to take me into his car.

I hit him and I got loose, but he had hit me in my face and then people were coming out. So that's how I got loose of him and he took off. The police ended up going to the bar afterwards, but I didn't stick around there. I left. I went home. But a lot of people go to the Thirsty Club and they all know me there. So the detectives called me to find out what actually happened. But they just wanted to come and find out what had happened with me and stuff like that.

Around this same time, another woman in Redondo Beach blacks out in a bar and wakes up naked in bed with a man she doesn't know. She reports the incident to the police, who collect DNA from her body. which sits for five years before being matched to Paul Flores in 2012. He's questioned, but denies having any recollection of the incident. In March of 2013,

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office closes their investigation, citing insufficient evidence. While his DNA sits in storage, Paul purchases a house in San Pedro. the house he still owns today, and starts to hang around a handful of bars in downtown Long Beach and on 6th Street in San Pedro. Yeah, I was a bouncer for 20 years all over, you know, downtown LA, Hollywood.

And I ended up in San Pedro and it was on 6th Street. And my encounter, I've broken up some of the biggest fights with some of the biggest games all over LA. No one has ever bugged this shit out of me, bro. Like him. There is something that I'll never forget about him. The creepiest guy ever. I would notice him in the bar and he was a person watcher. He was like watching everybody. And, you know, Pedro's a very small town.

I remember someone, a young lady saying, hey, this guy keeps following me. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like stalking me. So I told her, I said, you know what? Go to the bar next door. And if he follows you. As soon as he walks in, act like you didn't want to be there and come right back. She did it. And when he came over, I grabbed him and I was like, hey, bro, I know you're stalking her and you keep following her.

We're going to have a problem, me and you, if you continue this. He was very scared. Like, you know, he had a speech impediment and I think he stuttered or something. He goes, I wasn't doing nothing. And he left like I had caught him. And I was like, that was weird. So he left, didn't have another altercation with him for a while. Then I remember one night, and I remember a girl was extremely drunk, and her friends were trying to carry her out towards the truck.

And I remember saying, hey, let me help you guys. So if you go on 6th Street, if you look to your right, you'll see there's a parking lot. So I had helped him walk the girl across the street. and i remember putting the girl in there i believe i came back to the bar and i could see the driver's side door pretty good well as we're smoking i'm looking across the street

And I noticed that the door is open where the girl was sitting. But like that girl, her group of friends were back at the bar already. Like there was no one in the truck with that girl. And there's a guy who has his hand. He has his left hand. on the roof of the car and there's right hands like inside the car but he's looking left and looking right it's a movement that you notice when someone is going to do something wrong and they're looking to see if anybody noticed them

And I'm like, what is this creep doing to that girl? I walk across his feet and I look at him and he like removes his hand. No, I can't say that he was touching or inappropriate, but all the gestures were there. And I look at him like, hey, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm just talking to her. Or like I know her. And I go, well, you know what? She's had a little too much to drink. Why don't you keep it moving, bro? Talk to her when she's sober.

And he literally puts his hands up, like freeze. And he goes, oh, OK, OK, no problem. And he starts walking away. And I'm like, that guy's a weirdo. And so I remember walking back across the street. I just keep smoking. And then I noticed like he's looking at me and walking back towards the truck to see if I turn my head to make eye contact with him. I see his head like above the hood. Now he's like in front of the truck. I see him.

start moving towards the driver's side of the car. And I'm like, is this creep really going to do something? And I start walking across the street and I don't see his head anymore. I don't see him. And yeah, he is short. But I see the driver's side door open. The dome, like, came on. And that's what really made me start walking over there faster. Like, dude, this creep is going to, like, crawl into the driver's side.

And I don't know what he was going to do. I was like, hey, mother effer, what are you doing, bro? And he turns and looks at me and just runs away. And I'm like, bro, I'm going to whoop your ass, bro. I remember telling him, you're a creep. and he just ran he was gone and i didn't see him for like a month after that i would see him and every time he saw me chris he would like stop in his tracks like he stepped in mud and just would look at me

And just turn around. And I told him, I said, hey, when I catch you, I'm not going to chase you. I'm not going to run after you. But I'm going to whip your ass for that shit you did that night. And he looked at me like he got caught. And he ran off fast. He was a creep. At one of those same bars on 6th Street, a woman I spoke to strongly suspects that she was drugged by Paul, only about six months after he moved to the area.

And the only thing that stopped her from being taken home with him was her friend Crystal. I actually calculated the time frame and it was 2011, the same year that our mutual best friend. Got into a car accident. We had just left the hospital. We met a few people on 6th Street. We were at the bar. We feel very comfortable with that space. We are both from San Pedro. We know everybody there. For us, it's a pretty safe environment. Never thought that anything like this would happen.

We come in, it's a very mellow night. I would say probably we get there between seven or eight o'clock in the evening. We have... Literally, we order one drink. I had a sunrise tequila. I'm sitting there. We're like maybe four seats down from the entrance. close to me or right in front of me are like where the napkins and straws and all that good stuff you know they are there available

So I'm sitting there, you know, looking to the left when Paul comes into the bar. The bar is pretty empty. So it's not like I'm like, oh, I need to worry about my drink or, you know, worry about. who's around me. Like I said, I'm very comfortable in this space. Paul comes in and he kind of like pushes up against me a little bit. And he's like saying weird things to me. And I kind of try to ignore him. And I even tell him kind of like to leave me alone and like back off.

because he's just irritating, saying weird, just abnormal things. And I'm pretty sure he was saying, kiss me too. And I was just like, what the hell? Like, who are you? I don't even know you. I don't know your name. My friend is in a coma. I'm not thinking about talking to a guy. You know, I'm sad. We're going through stuff. Like I said, my drink was kind of close to the straws and the napkins. And I'm drinking my drink maybe about halfway.

Not even halfway down my drink, I start feeling a little fuzzy. Like, I'm blacking out, you know? I'm kind of going in and out. and all of a sudden you know i went from sitting down having a conversation with my friends and telling this guy to kind of back off blacked out and i kind of come to and now i'm making out with this guy and i'm kind of like what the hell's going on in my head this is so abnormal

That was a red flag for me because she was like, back off. We're not the kind of girls that get pushed around by like men or let them take advantage of us, you know? So the next thing you know, I go to use the restroom and I come out and I can't find her. And I'm like, where is she? And she then... the front of the bar with Paul and she's making out with him and I'm like what is going on?

Something's weird. And you hadn't even finished your whole drink. So this was just strange behavior for you. Right. Which I'm thankful for her knowing how I am and how I react when we go out and have fun. It just was abnormal. And I do remember he had me. pinned up against the wall and he kept trying to put his hands in my pants and i just kind of like remember struggling a little bit and kind of going in and out and i just kind of remember i was struggling to like pull him off of my

private areas, I completely blacked out. Well, at that point, Crystal has to tell you the rest of the story because at that point, I was completely gone. she's out there making out with him and you know i'm like hey hey hey i'm like hey get your hands off her come on come on i'm trying to get her away from him it's very strange because we don't know him you know

And then the friends we're with are pushing me and pressuring me to tell me to, hey, leave her alone. Leave her alone. She's having fun. She's having fun. But that's not the kind of fun that me and my friend have. I mean, we've been best friends since we were 12 years old. We don't really.

do things like that so I waited until those friends went back into the bar and I immediately pulled her from Paul and I said listen we're gonna go home at this point I had already went in the bar and paid our cab I said we're gonna go home And he says, oh, no, no, no. He keeps pulling her to him. She's so messed up at this point. She can't fight at all. And he's like, yeah, let's go back to my house. We can all go back to my house. And I'm like, hey.

Who are you? I don't know you. You need to leave us alone. At this point, I'm getting upset. I'm getting upset because I need to get my friend home. And she's just acting, not herself. She's all messed up. Finally, say hey. You really need to back off and we're not going home with you. We don't know you. And so he had kind of got upset at that point, but he actually backed down and then we actually proceeded to walk home.

Like I said, once we got to that point, I completely blacked out and I had to ask her, how did we get home? Because it's so unusual for me to not know how I got home, you know? I mean, I didn't even know where I slept that night. Thank goodness she was with me because like she said, I'm a fighter. I'm a tomboy. I've been in sports. Someone tries to get rough with me. I'm going to like push back. Made me question myself because I'm like, what the hell? Did I drink more than one drink?

The tequila sunrise is, you know, a colorful drink, very thick drink. So you don't really see, you know, when he bumped into me and acted like he was going to get a napkin or whatever, he could have just thrown something in my drink and I didn't even realize or pay attention. feeling in a very safe environment. I'm not thinking, oh, someone's going to come up and put my drink. I know everybody here, except for Paul. It's just mind-blowing that I even experienced this. He got me.

For us to be in a small town that we grew up in and that we know so many people, it's just awful. It's completely awful. They had also spoken with another woman. who told me about a consensual encounter she had with Paul around 2015, which gives me even more insight into his habits and his living situation. I used to frequent the bar called The Spot, which is on 22nd and Pacific. In San Pedro, everybody knows everybody. So when you see somebody new, you kind of, they like stand out.

And so when I was at the spot and I did notice him, just a new person in the bar. usually go bar hopping. And so we would go down to sixth street. There's a couple of bars down there. So I ended up at Goodfellas and it was after last call, I was outside and I probably waiting for a lift. And he invited me over to his place. And I kind of like shricked it off and he was being very pushy. And so I was just like, well, I'm not going anywhere unless we go get something to eat.

And so we did, and we ended up at Los Tres Cochinitos, which is in Wilmington. And we hang out there for a while and ended up going back to his place. You know, what the heck, I'll just, I'll hang out. When I went inside, his house... was like very drab and i would use the word dank dark and dingy and it was just weird trash everywhere and like stacks of paper and newspapers and boxes and tools

empty water bottles and and like gallons of water i just remember it was a huge mess and i was just like like where do i sit i remember thinking like this this is creepy why am i here even though i could have caught an uber home i just i don't know why i didn't um but i did feel uncomfortable we did sit on the couch and talk for a little bit he had he also had like i don't want to say a lisp but yeah his speech was

was not clear and then eventually went to his bedroom there was like a huge pile of laundry on his bed no sheets and i just was like oh like i know he's not going to take me home right now. And I'll just go along with it. For the most part, I was face down. I just wanted it to be over. And I just thought, why am I here? I just want to go home. I do strongly believe that I may have been drugged because at 5 o'clock in the morning, I was incongruent. I was pretty much still drunk.

I hadn't been drinking at all after one. I was drinking water. And so I have a routine of when I'm drinking. I stop at a certain point, I eat, and then I'm okay, and then eventually I go to sleep. And if I'm hanging out all night, I'm pretty sober, you know, a few hours later, like, remembering how I felt.

and how everything was so foggy leads me to believe that I definitely was. And then he took me home, and that was that. I was just like, I don't ever want to ever see this guy again. Unfortunately, he would still go to the spot. i would see him i just remember him always standing in the corner staring at me creepily to the point where after a few nights i told my friend like i don't want to be here that creepy guy paul is here and

I want to go somewhere else. I moved out of the state, and every time I would go visit back home, that was one thing that was always on my mind. I hope I don't run into him. when I go hang out with my friends because it's going to be weird and uncomfortable. There was something that happened that night that I don't remember that made me feel uncomfortable around him. And I'm glad I never saw him again after that.

It's just crazy to me that I put myself in that situation with that person. You know, I'm lucky, I guess. She says that her memory of that night is clear. Up to the point that she asked for a glass of water, which Paul got from the kitchen. If she was drugged, which she suspects she was, this seems to be the most likely opportunity.

She says that during sex, she blacked out and woke up multiple times. It begs the question, if she had already consented to going to his house and having sex with him.

Was Paul Flores drugging women because he needed to? Or because he wanted to? When investigators collected the Flores family's electronics devices on February 5th, 2020, They found hard drives and cell phones belonging to Paul Flores, which contained a number of videos recorded in his house of himself engaged in sexual activity with various women.

many of whom were unconscious and therefore unable to give consent. A source I spoke to tells me that investigators will typically use facial recognition software to track down victims in cases like this. where the women in the videos may not even realize they were raped and filmed. Several of the women I spoke to sent me pictures of themselves, their defining marks and tattoos,

and allowed me to forward them to investigators in case they were in any of the videos. If you believe that you were victimized by Paul Flores at any time, you can reach out to investigators at 805-781. Or, if you're more comfortable speaking to me, you can reach out to me on my website, yourownbackyardpodcast.com. Although the Flores family has refused to speak to the media for the past 25 years, Susan's interview with KSBY is long and mostly unguarded. Except for one very specific question.

which Susan refuses to answer. Well, thank you, Susan. I really do appreciate your candidness. Susan, I do no disrespect by this, but as a parent myself, have you ever asked Paul or talked to Paul and asked him if he knows anything? The conversations that have taken place with him are something that will sit quiet until... Unfortunately, we'll see where this is all going to lead. I think it should have been over with. So all those aspects are not up for discussion.

I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in our family has any answers to where she is or what happened to her in the final. So what did happen on the night of May 24th? and the morning of May 25th, 1996? And what does the rest of the Flores family know about it? With everything I've learned, I'm going to walk through what I think is most plausible.

Since the case is going to be in court soon, I'll leave a disclaimer here that my theories may differ from the prosecution's, since the information we've each independently collected may have led us to different conclusions. Everything I'm about to lay out is my own opinion. At the party on Crandall Way, I believe Paul slipped something into Kristen's drink, or offered her a drink that he had already spiked. Based on Paul's history,

and future pattern of sedating women he met at parties or in bars. I think it's unlikely that Paul's habit of drugging women developed independently of this major event in his life. And I also think that the rush of getting away with this crime may have emboldened Paul to continue this behavior, or even developed into a sexual fetish, since at least one woman believes that Paul drugged her after she had already consented to having sex with him, and

because he filmed the act so many times, which implies that he probably enjoyed being able to relive those moments. Paul also admits to arriving at the Crandall party with his own alcohol in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. which he could have spiked with the intention of offering it to a girl at the party. Interestingly.

One of the features of Mickey's Malt Liquor is a resealable screw-on bottle cap. I believe that Paul kept an eye on Kristen, waiting outside of the bathroom door when she was inside with Trevor Belter. possibly to see if the drugs were taking effect. Several party attendees reported hearing a crash and seeing Paul laying alongside Kristen on the floor for a moment, which may be similar to the woman he pressed himself against.

in a San Pedro bar in 2011, after she believes he drugged her drink, a way to test how intoxicated she was becoming. I believe he probably waited along the walkway between the back and front yards, on the north side of 135 Crandall Way.

while Kristen laid on the lawn next door, until he popped out and offered to walk her back to campus with Tim Davis and Cheryl Anderson. When Tim was interviewed by campus police on May 31st, He says that when he found Kristen lying on the lawn next door, it briefly crossed his mind that Paul may have left her there, in the process of trying to walk her home himself when he heard people coming out the front door and hid.

Before his interview with campus police wraps up, Tim urges them, quote, The main point that I want to make with you guys is that this guy Paul was a little weird, and everyone realized it. You walk up to anyone at this party, I mean, almost any person, besides the people that were passed out, you walk up and you say, was this guy normal? And they're going to be all, no, this guy's a tripper.

Tim is careful not to directly accuse Paul of stalking Kristen throughout the night. But when he describes the moment he found Kristen on the lawn, he says, quote, Maybe he lost her and was looking for her. Or I don't know, or not looking for her. I mean... I'm not trying to say that, you know, this guy's... whatever, but, um... Tim pauses, and Officer Kennedy says, right. And it's clear that that is probably what they both believe. That Paul was following Kristen throughout the night.

watching and waiting for her to be alone. Behavior he demonstrated before, And after this night with many other women. It's like he's always like right there, almost like hovering over her. And then all of a sudden he came out of the tree and we were all kind of creeped out like, how long has he been here and been just hiding up in the tree? He was... Just standing there staring at everybody, standing there staring, lurking. Looking for someone that was going to take the drink or take the walk.

kind of like predatory you'd be standing in the other side of this window this shelving and he would kind of be peering out at you from the other side he was always just like kind of just staring and he was a person watcher He was like watching everybody. I just remember him always standing in the corner staring at me creepily. After the walk back to the dorms and separating from Cheryl at the crosswalk near Sequoia Hall.

I think it's possible that Paul attempted to persuade Kristen to come back to his dorm room, which was empty for the weekend, or that he attempted to force a sexual encounter right there, on the lawn near Grandin Perimeter. looking for spots in the area where they wouldn't be seen. This may be how they ended up in the vicinity of Sierra Madre, where I believe the bicycles saw them struggling. And they may have covered even more ground.

The following Sunday morning, a resident in the dorms found a pair of women's panties on the back lawn of Fremont Hall. After she heard that a female student had gone missing, she reported the underwear, and they were collected as evidence. Investigators spent years trying to find the owner of these panties, asking hundreds of students in 1999 whether they could identify them. To my knowledge, no one ever claimed them.

and they very well could have been connected to this case. Everyone I've spoken to who was on campus that night described it as dead silent. Even Paul confirms this in his interviews with investigators. By 2am, the campus was even more silent. And I think Paul had ample opportunity to get Kristen back to his dorm room without being noticed.

It's possible that a struggle ensued as Kristen resisted his attempts. As I've learned, Paul had a long history of responding violently to situations that didn't call for it. Stomping a kid's head in middle school... hard enough to put him in the hospital, threatening to stab another player on his soccer team, holding a girl underwater in his pool until an adult had to pull him off of her, or body slamming a girl for cock blocking him at a party.

It's also possible that Kristen could have had a bad reaction to the drugs, and asphyxiated on her own vomit, during or after being raped by Paul. Like the woman he ended up with in the bathroom, grey in the face and foaming at the mouth. until her friend put her in a cold bath. If either of those scenarios happened, then Kristen Smart died during the attempted commission of a rape, a first-degree murder in the state of California.

However, Kristen ended up dead. I believe that Paul panicked and ran to his sister Ermelinda's house, a mile away from his dorm. the place that he was already planning to walk earlier that night before he found the party on Crandall Way. and then like um i saw the party so then

I went on stopping by and then I never made it to my sisters. Did you see your sister that night? No. So you're walking to your sister? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I didn't tell her I was told over because sometimes I just go like, well, oh, it's just kind of like a little job. From there, I believe that Paul placed a call to his father in Arroyo Grande, or that Irma Linda made the call herself, to tell Ruben about what had happened.

As Susan's co-worker described to me, Susan told her the following Tuesday that Reuben had received a phone call in the middle of the night, jumped out of bed, and left home in a hurry without telling her where he was going. And I'm forced to speculate about the location of that call, because brace yourself for this. The phone records for both Ruben's house at White Court and or Melinda's house were never obtained by law enforcement.

Whether that call was actually made and from where, we can only assume. I can't confirm whether the following story is completely accurate, but the source who shared it with me is an official who previously worked on the case. and has an uncanny memory for detail. They told me that in 1996, the lead detective on the case went to the phone company with a mug full of cocoa powder and peppermints.

and attempted to sweet-talk the receptionist into giving him the phone records for Rubin's white court home. When the receptionist told him that all he had to do was fill out a request form, he stormed out of the building in a huff. offended that his gift hadn't been enough. If this story is true, and even if it's not, failing to secure those phone records was another massive failure of law enforcement.

I believe that Paul borrowed Irma Linda's 1985 Volkswagen Cabriolet, with Ruben driving Paul's Ford Ranger, returned to the back of Santa Lucia Hall, where the window of Paul's dorm room faces a small parking lot. and quietly loaded Kristen's body into one of the vehicles, wrapped in Paul's bedsheets. From what we've learned this year, I think it's likely that Paul and Ruben brought Kristen's body to the house on White Court

and attempted to conceal her under the deck. Susan Flores raises an interesting defense to explain why Kristen's body couldn't have been buried at this house. There's never been a fence up on this lot. We just have the little rail fence. It makes no sense. From someone who just spent hours standing on White Court.

attempting to get a clear view of what was going on in Rubin's yard over the course of the two-day search. It's very hard to get a good angle. From the street above, the backyard is covered by thick bushes. From the corner, Because the house is at an angle, you can only see the front. And from the street below, even from neighbors' backyards, I needed binoculars to watch investigators digging under the house.

Even the next door neighbors can't see the spot where ground-penetrating radar found an anomaly, because it's completely covered by a large avocado tree. This, along with the lattice enclosing the underside of the house, All makes me confident that Reuben easily could have buried a body under his deck without anyone noticing, especially in the middle of the night. I assume that Reuben realized that if Paul wasn't seen on campus Saturday,

that it would raise questions about where he had been after walking Kristen back to her dorm. I also believe that Ruben instructed Paul to see a movie with friends that night. When he's questioned in 1997 about the events of that weekend, Ruben has a hard time keeping the days straight. What's the date on Friday, May? You keep throwing the dates and I don't know where you're at. Eventually writing them on a piece of paper in front of him to refer back to.

Friday was what? Friday was the 24th. 24th. And then the 25th was Saturday. Monday the 27th. Right. Okay. Now I'm going to have to keep trying my mind here. He's not sure if they had a barbecue that weekend. He doesn't know if Irma Linda and Brett came over. He can't remember if he worked that Saturday.

But when he's asked about where Paul was that Saturday... They went to the show with some friends. Do you know the names of the people he went to the show with? No. Movie stubs are solid documentation of where someone was at a specific time. It's a classic alibi. In fact, in his very first interview with Cal Poly campus police, long before he is treated as a suspect or even a person of interest, Paul uses the word alibi.

I saw someone when I went to the bathroom. It's like a... I don't even recall who it was. Okay. This is when you were getting saved. Yeah. Yeah. You need to think about that, Paul. We need to find that person. This person is going to be an alibi if it comes down to that. I'm not saying you need an alibi, but this person is going to put you in the hall.

It's an interesting choice of words for a 19-year-old with a .6 GPA, and I can't help but wonder if someone had planted the word in his vocabulary in the five days that preceded this interview. So, after realizing that Paul needed to get back to campus, I think it's likely that they drove back to San Luis Obispo to return Ermelinda's car. And someone may have seen them. A while back,

I spent some time looking into the pizza cart story. A lot of you know this story, and have emailed me to ask me why I haven't discussed it on the podcast. If you're not familiar with the story, here's a brief rundown. Backstage Pizza, a Cal Poly eatery that was later renamed Chow before becoming Mustang Station. had a delivery scooter stolen from its parking space just south of Grandin Perimeter Road in the early morning hours of May 25th, 1996.

It was discovered at the corner of Loomis and San Yanez, just over a mile away, the following morning. Early theories propose that Paul could have stolen the cart to transport Kristen's body off campus. Before you get too invested, I'll cut to the chase now and tell you that police did eventually track down the person who stole this scooter. And it wasn't Paul Flores.

It's a case of drunken antics at the worst time and place, but it's been thoroughly investigated and crossed off the list. In the course of investigating the pizza cart lead, Campus police, and later sheriff's detectives, canvassed the neighborhood where the cart was found to look for possible witnesses. By this time, months have passed.

and many of the residents are new students who didn't live there in may of 1996 one woman who lives on the corner of san yanez and loomis tells a detective that her sister actually lived in the house before her Her sister, Rachel, didn't see the pizza cart or have any additional information about it. But she did see something else that weekend, which seemed suspicious to her. And I called her to ask about it. Oh, my God. I actually have chills all over my body. I have never felt this before.

I lived on a corner house over by Cuesta Park on Loomis, and I was just randomly looking out the window, and this would be... the following morning. This is before I knew anything and saw a suspicious vehicle right at the entrance of Cuesta Park. Where I was situated is a very remote area where only my house can see this. I just remember feeling really, really fishy about it and just staring and making sure everything was okay.

I just had a very, very bad feeling about what was going on and wanted to make sure that that was on paper that I saw a very suspicious vehicle randomly at a very, very early hour of the morning. Early on the morning of Saturday, May 25th, 1996, Rachel was sitting in her living room when she saw a red two-door car stop on Loomis Street facing Cuesta Park with two people inside.

Incidentally, Cuesta Park was a location that investigators spent a lot of time searching over the summer of 1996, as did Stan Smart. And notably, the spot where the red car stopped. was about 300 feet away from the house that Irma Linda's boyfriend Brett had lived in before moving in with Irma Linda. Rachel told investigators that she watched from her living room window

as two other people came running down the hill from Cuesta Park, jumped in the car, and left. Could Rachel have seen Paul and Ruben exchanging vehicles or dumping evidence before driving away? Could the other two people have been Ermelinda and Brett? We'll probably never know now. But the reason I find this story intriguing is that Rachel found this event so unusual that she called Cal Poly campus police

and San Luis Obispo Police Department to report it. And the timing, early on the morning of Saturday, May 25th, and vehicle description, a red two-door car, stand out only in hindsight. It's these kinds of community members who see something strange, document, and report it, who I believe will end up eventually solving this case.

After returning Paul to Cal Poly, I think it's plausible that Ruben attempts to conceal Kristen's body under his deck, while Paul is making withdrawals from an ATM on campus. and buying movie tickets to establish an alibi in San Luis Obispo. Sunday morning, it's undisputed that Paul calls Ruben from his dorm room, and Ruben picks him up from the campus and takes him back to Arroyo Grande.

After midnight, Paul is apparently in Ruben's garage, tinkering with the stereo in his truck for several hours and obtaining a black eye in the process. When Susan comes to the White Courthouse on Monday morning, She notices the black eye and asks about it. While Paul could have sustained the injury during a struggle with Kristen early Saturday morning, my gut tells me that it's just as likely that he got the black eye from Ruben.

During an argument, or during the act of attempting to bury a body under a deck with little headroom at the far end? And here's what I think is not plausible. After all of the people I've spoken to, who said that Paul tried relentlessly to kiss them, pressing them against walls at parties, cornering them in bathrooms and bars, carrying them into his apartment, attempting to pull them into his car,

climbing into strangers' cars to grope them even after being chased off by a large bouncer, and trying to get his hand down their pants in public. It takes a great suspension of disbelief to accept Paul's story. That Kristen Smart, a woman too intoxicated to walk home on her own, was spared from this very consistent pattern of Paul's behavior. And that...

Immediately after Paul uncharacteristically decided not to accost a drunk girl, an even more unlikely occurrence took place. Someone else intercepted Kristen on her walk back to Muir Hall. without Paul seeing or hearing them in the 40 yards between the two dorm buildings, abducted her, and either killed her or imprisoned her for the next 25 years without leaving a trace of evidence behind.

Or that Kristen Smart chose that moment, at 2 o'clock in the morning on May 25th, to disappear from society, cutting all contact with her friends and family, and living in secret for the next two decades. while the last person to walk her home that night grew up to become a prolific rapist. Allegedly. Ignoring his injuries that weekend, his lies about them,

the scent of human decomposition on his mattress, wastebasket, and telephone, and the biological evidence of a human body buried under his father's deck. Ignoring all of that. Let's imagine that Paul really had nothing to do with Kirsten's death. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's followed him ever since. To every neighborhood he's moved to, every job he's held.

He's been the guy who probably killed Kristen Smart. It destroyed the lives of his father, his mother, her boyfriend, his sister, her ex-husband. and cast strong suspicion on anyone he was known to hang out with at the time. In that case, trying to help a drunk girl home in 1996 was the biggest mistake of Paul's life. and backfired unbelievably. And yet, after all of that, Paul Flores has continued, on nearly a nightly basis since, to hang out at bars.

Watching girls get drunk and offering to take them home. The same thing that started all of this trouble in the first place. Not to mention that many of those women were not taken home. but taken to Paul's house instead, often unconscious, and filmed during sex. There's a reason that courts use the phrase reasonable doubt. How thin is the line between the unluckiest man... and the killer of Kristen Smart.

While Paul and Ruben Flores await their day in court, it's anybody's guess what's going to happen next. I assume that prosecution will attempt to establish, through California evidence codes, that Paul Flores' idiosyncratic behavior with women before and after Kristen's disappearance can help fill in the blanks of what happened to her that night. That Kristen Smart most likely died in the company of Paul Flores during the commission of a rape, and with Ruben's help,

She was buried under the deck at White Court. The defense will likely raise questions about whether or not investigators had a good enough reason to search Rubin's house in the first place. or whether witnesses' memories from 25 years ago are reliable. And while the preliminary hearing, which has already been pushed back, is expected to take place throughout most of July 2021,

With dozens of witnesses likely testifying, my goal remains the same. To find the current location of Kristen Smart. And we may have a pretty good lead. Because after the first warrants were served on the Flores family last year, when investigators seized their electronics devices on February 5th, 2020, a witness observed suspicious behavior later that week.

that drew their attention to Ruben Flores' house. Behavior which they documented and reported. I obtained information that Mike McConville, Susan Flores, and Ruben Flores were arguing and fighting throughout the night that there was a a vehicle susan's vehicle parked adjacent to the garage which would lead to access to the area where the body likely was we know that the law enforcement a year later in a comprehensive search did find biological evidence at the same location.

where the hole was with the disturbed dirt. So it's pretty clear that that body was moved. One eyewitness who was vigilant and alert, may have busted this case wide open. So I would appeal to everyone in this community. You all know what Susan looks like. You know what Ruben looks like. Now, Ruben's not going to be out much, but if you have seen Mike McConville, if you have seen Susan Flores,

driving somewhere where they probably shouldn't be, alert us to it. Call my law office. Call Clint Cole. Call Chris Lambert. We're going to find her remains. You've been listening to Your Own Backyard, Episode 10, The Beginning of the End, Part 2. Your Own Backyard is written, produced, and hosted.

by Chris Lambert. Associate producer is Alexandra Wallace. Special thanks for this episode to Garen Sinclair, Sandy Arnold, John Sigali, Carla Clausen Hoffman, Mark Connolly, Karen Murphy, Lauren and Denny Itai. and Amanda Lee Design. If you feel that you have information that could help law enforcement with their investigation, you can directly contact San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Detectives at 805-781-4500. Want to reach out to us directly?

Send an email to your own backyard podcast at gmail.com or visit our website at your own backyard podcast.com to keep up with new episodes. Subscribe to your own backyard on Apple podcasts. Spotify, or wherever you listen. And follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Original music is by Chris Lambert. Want to help keep Kristen's memory alive?

You can donate to the Kristen Smart Scholarship at kristinsmart.org or by texting the letters KSS to 91999. Your Own Backyard is an entirely ad-free and self-funded program. If you'd like to donate to help offset the ongoing costs of production, you can find links to our Venmo or PayPal at yourownbackyardpodcast.com.