Police Search LA Home Of Suspect In Kristin Smart Disappearance

LOS ANGELES, CA — For the second time this year, investigators served a search warrant at the Los Angeles home of a suspect in the 24-year-old disappearance of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Kristin Smart Wednesday.

The warrant remains sealed, and it’s unclear what San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department investigators sought at the San Pedro home of Paul Flores, a classmate of Smart and the last person to see her before she disappeared in 1996, according to police. The high profile case gained renewed attention with a series of podcasts released last year and a raid on properties owned by the Flores family in February. Over the years, Smart’s mother commissioned billboards seeking information about her disappearance, and the images of the smiling blond teen along California highways has helped to keep her case in the public eye.

But after decades without an arrest, federal investigators this year announced a break in the case and served numerous search warrants and questioned Flores in front of his San Pedro home for hours. Wednesday’s warrant was served "for specific items of evidence at the Los Angeles County home of Paul Flores," according to Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department.

"Flores continues to be a person of interest in the disappearance of Kristin Smart in 1996," Cipolla said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department assisted the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department in serving the warrant.

On Feb. 5, authorities served a warrant at Flores' home in the 900 block of Upland Avenue in San Pedro, and a man identified by a neighbor as Flores was interviewed for about two hours before he was released, ignoring questions shouted by reporters.

"As with the search warrants in February, this current search warrant is sealed by the court," Cipolla said. "As a result, we are precluded by law from disclosing any further details about them including items sought or recovered during the process. This continues to be an active and ongoing investigation."

In February, warrants were also served in San Luis Obispo County and in Washington State, but investigators left few hints as to what they were looking for and what prompted the searches nearly 25 years after Smart vanished on her way home from an off-campus get together while walking with Flores on Memorial Day weekend in 1996.

According to the Sacramento Bee, authorities recently confirmed that new evidence was discovered that was tied to Smart's disappearance, including two trucks that belonged to members of the family of Paul Flores in 1996. Flores has been a prime suspect in the case since the early days of the investigation. The case has long been a controversial one because of delays in initiating the investigation in the crucial first days of Smart's disappearance. In the decades since her daughter vanished, Smart's mother hired investigators and reached out to the media for help finding out what happened to her daughter. Last year's Your Own Backyard podcast by Chris Lambert explores the decades-long battle for justice and helped renew public interest in the case.

Since 2011, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's office has served search warrants, conducted physical evidence searches, submitted evidence items from the early days of the case for modern DNA testing, recovered more than 100 new items of evidence, conducted more than 90 in-person interviews and written more than 360 supplemental reports, the newspaper said.

City News Service contributed to this report.