Authorities investigating a property in connection with the 1996 disappearance and murder of California college student Kristin Smart say soil tests indicate that human remains may be or may have been on the property, the sheriff leading the search said Friday.
“We believe that … human remains were there at one time or still there,” San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson told reporters.
“I’m not going to go into the details, other than just to say with soil tests, it’s about the compounds in the soil that are related to a human, decomposing body,” Parkinson said.
Despite that new evidence, he stopped short of saying they’d found Smart’s remains.
“I think it’s safe to say that we have not recovered Kristin yet,” he said. “But our search goes on, and I don’t know how long we’re going to be there.”
Investigators have spent two days executing a search warrant at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, the mother of the man convicted in Smart’s death four years ago.
It isn’t clear what prompted the search.
On Thursday, investigators collected soil samples from the property and took ground-penetrating radar equipment to the backyard, NBC affiliate KSBY of San Luis Obispo reported.
They could also be seen searching at a neighbor’s home, according to the station.
Paul Flores was found guilty of first-degree murder, but Smart’s body has never been found, and authorities said they were searching the property in an effort to “bring Kristin home.”
Smart, who vanished May 25, 1996, at age 19, was declared legally dead in 2002.
Smart and Flores were students at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, on California’s Central Coast. Prosecutors said he killed her during an attempted rape and possibly buried her under a deck at his father’s home in Arroyo Grande, roughly 16 miles south of the college town.
Archaeologists who previously searched the home of Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, found what prosecutors described as a soil disturbance roughly the size of a casket and the presence of human blood. The blood was too degraded to obtain usable DNA from.
Prosecutors accused Ruben Flores of helping his son bury Smart and later move her remains. He was charged with accessory after the fact and acquitted by a jury in 2022.
A man who answered the phone Thursday at a number listed for Susan Flores said she was not immediately available and declined to comment. She has not been charged with any crimes in connection with Smart’s murder.
At the news conference on Friday, Parkinson said the search for potential leads continues as investigators take more soil samples and use ground-penetrating radar, or GPR.
The sheriff reiterated to reporters that the process is lengthy. The scientists use GPR to examine the soil, and those readings can help pinpoint areas that can be tested for human DNA.
“Susan won’t be able to return until we have completed our search. Don’t know if it’s going to conclude today. As I mentioned, it’s a methodical step; each time we get something, we go in another direction,” he continued.
Parkinson told reporters that Susan Flores has always been a person of interest, and continues to be.
“We’re not leaving that house until we’ve exhausted everything,” he said.
“You know, ideally we would have had Kristin a long time ago,” Parkinson said.
