The person convicted of killing Kristin Sensible, who vanished from a California school campus greater than 25 years in the past, was scheduled to be sentenced Friday for her homicide.
Paul Flores may face 25 years to life in state jail. Nonetheless, the choose was first anticipated to think about protection motions to toss out Flores’ conviction, acquit him and order a brand new trial.
Sensible, 19, disappeared from California Polytechnic State College in San Luis Obispo on the state’s scenic central coast over Memorial Day weekend in 1996.
Her stays have by no means been discovered, however she was declared legally useless in 2002.
Prosecutors maintained that Flores, now 46, killed Sensible throughout an tried rape on Might 25, 1996, in his dorm room on the college, the place each have been first-year college students. He was the final particular person seen with Sensible as he walked her residence from an off-campus celebration.
Flores was arrested in 2021 alongside together with his father, who was accused of serving to to cover Sensible’s physique.
The trial was held in Salinas, in Monterey County, about 110 miles north of San Luis Obispo, after the protection argued that the case’s notoriety prevented Flores and his father from receiving a good trial in their very own county.
Individuals sit in entrance of a poster of Kristin Sensible hours after a jury discovered Paul Flores responsible in her 1996 homicide on Oct. 18, 2022, in Salinas, California. (Laura Dickinson/The Tribune by way of AP, File)
A jury discovered Flores responsible of first-degree homicide in October. A separate jury acquitted Ruben Flores, 81, of being an adjunct.
At Paul Flores’ trial, protection lawyer Robert Sanger tried to pin the killing on another person. Sanger famous that Scott Peterson, who was later convicted at a sensational trial of murdering his pregnant spouse and the fetus she was carrying, was additionally a scholar on the campus about 200 miles up the coast from Los Angeles.
Sanger filed motions on Feb. 24 in Monterey County Superior Court docket requesting that prices be dismissed and his shopper acquitted. One movement additionally seeks a brand new trial.
EXAMINING CALIFORNIA’S KRISTIN SMART TRIAL: THE ANATOMY OF A CASE WITH NO BODY
Sanger disputed forensic proof provided by the prosecution. He contended that Flores’ proper to a good trial was violated due to prosecution errors and “the admission of junk science as proof.”
“There’s a motive {that a} case in opposition to Paul Flores was not introduced for 25 years,” the movement stated. “There was no proof of a homicide or that Paul Flores dedicated it.”
The San Luis Obispo County District Lawyer’s Workplace requested the courtroom to disclaim these requests, arguing “claims of misconduct are baseless and the claims of judicial error are incorrect.”
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Paul Flores had lengthy been thought of a suspect within the killing. He had a black eye when investigators interviewed him. He informed them he obtained it taking part in basketball with associates, who denied his account. He later modified his story to say he bumped his head whereas engaged on his automobile, in response to courtroom information.
Investigators performed dozens of fruitless searches for Sensible’s physique over 20 years. Up to now two years they turned their consideration to Ruben Flores’ residence locally of Arroyo Grande, about 12 miles south of California Polytechnic State.
Behind latticework beneath the deck of his giant home on a useless finish road, archaeologists working for police in March 2021 discovered a soil disturbance in regards to the measurement of a casket and the presence of human blood, prosecutors stated. The blood was too degraded to extract a DNA pattern.