Authorities investigating a property in connection with the 1996 disappearance and murder of California college student Kristin Smart said Saturday that her remains were not recovered in the search.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said that it had finished its search at the Arroyo Grande property of Susan Flores, the mother of the man convicted in Smart’s death four years ago.
“We did not recover Kristin Smart,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Detectives will be evaluating any evidence we have recovered to aid in the investigation.”
The update came a day after Sheriff Ian Parkinson said soil tests indicated that human remains may be or may have been on the property.
“We believe that ... human remains were there at one time or still there,” Parkinson told reporters Friday.
“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.
It isn’t clear what prompted the search at Flores’ home, which began Wednesday.
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.
Parkinson told reporters Friday that Susan Flores has always been a person of interest, and continues to be.
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.
That search effort continued Friday, Parkinson said.
“We’re not leaving that house until we’ve exhausted everything,” he said.
They could also be seen searching at a neighbor’s home, according to the station.
The sheriff’s office did not provide additional information Saturday about the search, but said it was “fully committed to finding Kristin and bringing her home to her family.”
“At this time, the Sheriff’s Office will not be making any additional comments or providing any further updates regarding this investigation,” it said.
