Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous Co-ed DISAPPEARS walking to dorm after party, cadaver dogs hit. Where's Kristin?

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Kristin Smart, a 19-year-old student at California Polytechnic State University, disappears after attending a campus party. She is still missing more than 20 years later, and no one has ever been charged.  Kristin's parents Denise and Stan Smart have never given up in their search for answers. Now, new search warrants have been executed in the search for Smart, at the home of the sole suspect's father. Paul Flores maintains his innocence.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Twitter @TroySlaten Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire'  Bobby Chacon - Former FBI, Facebook tv Show “Curse of Akakor” [e-mail] Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire'  Jennifer Dzikowski - Investigative Freelance Journalist Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. In the last hours, investigators using ground-penetrating radar in the search for a beautiful college student, Kristen Smart. First of all, take a listen to this. Kristen Smart was a typical college student. She was enrolled at California Polytechnic State University, or Cal Poly. As Memorial Day weekend rolled around, Smart made plans to attend a birthday party for a fellow student. After midnight, students Cheryl Anderson and Tim Davis walked Smart back to her dorm. Along the way, another

student from the party, Paul Flores, joins the group. He offers to help Smart get to her dorm room safely. Tim Davis leaves the group first. He lives off campus and drove to the party. Cheryl Anderson broke off heading to her dorm, Sierra Madre Hall. According to Flores, he walked Smart as far as his dormitory and then allowed her to walk back to Murr Hall alone. This was the last known sighting of her. Smart had no money or credit cards with her at the time. She went missing. Interesting. He offered to walk her to her dorm, but yet he didn't.

Interesting. Never thought of that curiosity. With me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. Where is Kristen Smart? Gorgeous 19-year-old girl studying, leaves an off-campus party to head back to her dorm, never seen again. With me, veteran trial lawyer joining me out of the LA jurisdiction, defense attorney Troy Slayton. On Twitter, you can find him at Troy Slayton. Psychoanalyst to the stars joining me from LA, Dr. Bethany Marshall, star of a new Netflix show, Bling Empire, and you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Former FBI, star of Facebook TV show, Curse of Akakor, Bobby Chacon at BobbyChaconFBIRetired.com.

But first, to Crime Stories investigative reporter Jennifer Tsikowski. Jennifer, it's great to have you with us. Let's talk about how Kristen Smart went missing to start with. Who, what, where, when, why? Do it your way, Jennifer. What happened? Sure. Okay. start with. Who, what, where, when, why? Do it your way, Jennifer. What happened? Sure. Okay, so Kristen Smart, she was an absolutely stunningly gorgeous 19-year-old freshman at Cal Poly in San Luis

Obispo, California. She went to a birthday party the weekend of Memorial Day. On May 25th, 1996 was the last time that she was reportedly seen hold on Jennifer hold on just a moment you know um out to you Troy Slayton you're joining me along with Bethany from LA I remember when my sister first moved to California she's in northern California and she would talk about St. Louis Obispo how beautiful it is and I'm just trying to get in my mind Kristen Smart living the life at Cal Poly Tech tell me about St. Louis Obispo Troy it's a beautiful town north of Santa Barbara where there are... Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Santa Barbara. Now, isn't that where Megan and Harry live?

That is. That must be a beautiful area because that's where all the stars are. There's Oprah. I don't even know who lives there, but I know it must be really... Of course, you and I will never, you know... Nah, forget it.

Okay, so back to St. Louis Obispo. Tell me about that. And I remember when my sister first told me about it, she said, Oh, Nancy, it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen. And that really struck me because she's been all over the place. So what were you saying, Troy? Like I was saying, a beautiful place north of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara.

And it's famous for its old Spanish missions and Spanish architecture. It's got beautiful weather, great little restaurants. People go to vacation there from Los Angeles to escape the hustle and bustle. People will often head up to San Luis Obispo just to get away because of its beautiful weather, beautiful views, and great little restaurants and stuff like that. What's your take on it, Dr. Bethany? Well, my father and my niece attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I spent a lot of time there. There is not one place in that little town where you can't sit and look at the foothills. It is so beautiful and idyllic. Imagine kind of like the wine country in Northern California. You go to a little restaurant,

they'll have picnic tables outside, gourmet food, the weather will be warm, balmy, and you look around you and you see not huge mountains, not pastures, but beautiful foothills with California oaks, that kind of shrubbery that you see around the mid part of California. And I was actually in Arroyo Grande a few months ago, and I saw the missing person billboard for Kristen Smart. And I didn't realize until we did started talking about it today. I kept looking at her picture thinking that girl is so gorgeous, young, beautiful. Who is she? Why is this billboard here in Arroyo Grande? But I just now put it together that she's been on that billboard for the past 20 years because she's a treasured part of that community. You know, as you, Bethany and Troy were, were talking and then

about St. Louis Obispo and you mentioned wine country, you know, as a prosecutor in the DA's office working two night jobs, I got, uh, three vacations a year. One was Christmas. Um, we'd have Friday off after Thanksgiving. Didn't have an Easter holiday. We had Sunday. But I'd take a week off during the summer and would traditionally just go to the beach, the closest one we could get to, and come back. It was only during Shutter, the Scott shudder. The Scott Peterson trial, when I went to live out in Redwood City to cover the case every day, that on a couple of weekends, we would go look, and I finally got to see Wine Country, and I've never seen anything like it before. It's just beautiful. It looks like what you might think heaven would be. It's just so idyllic, so beautiful. As a matter of fact, Bethany, David, my now husband and I,

were driving back from wine country, back to Redwood City for Monday morning trial. And we heard a bluegrass group on the radio singing john the revelator really fast and we would always sing it after that and that's how we named john david really oh after that song yes so i have a lot of really good memories about wine country but i'm thinking about what Jennifer Skowski, I know I went off on a tangent, just said they had been to a birthday party. She had. It was May 25. It was in the evening. And I can just feel how warm, yet in the evening, you know, it starts to cool down. And with all the blooming flowers in St. Louis Obispo,

walking back to her dorm where all the other girls were, the dichotomy of her going missing in that moment is very, very severe. The dichotomy of the surrounding that you three have described for us and then suddenly she's just gone and her parents think everything's okay. They have no idea anything is wrong. Take a listen to who I consider to be a friend,

Kristen's dad, speaking to me. This is Stan Smart. Listen. Initially, the campus police thought our daughter had gone camping with friends, and this is why she had not returned to campus, that she had overstayed the vacation time. And so initially I was a little upset, and although after a week it you know, it appeared that something horrible had happened. And so I had gone down there to take a look and meet with the

campus police. The campus police were very ill-equipped to deal with a missing person. I think probably they would be able to handle students that had been drinking or if there had been a party or a car parked where it shouldn't be, but they had no idea what to do for an investigation into a missing person. And so I was rather disappointed. And they were real quick to point out that it was our daughter who had made an error, had gone to a party like many students going to college and away from home, and that she'd gotten into trouble and disappeared. And so they left

really the blame with, you know, with us, with our daughter. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. They were real quick to point out that it was our daughter who had made an error, had gone to a party like many students going to college and away from home, and that she'd gotten into trouble and disappeared. And so they left really the blame with, you know, with us and with our daughter. When Stan Smart told me that, I will never forget. I was speechless. And of course, you know, to you, Troy Slayton, we as lawyers, as trial lawyers, you can be speechless if you're, you know, looking up real estate titles. You don't have to say anything, which is a terrible thing. I had to do that as a law clerk.

Oh, looking at real estate titles is the worst. But I was speechless, Troy. Speechless that this campus security police blamed Kristen and the family. To not bring in police investigators immediately was a huge mistake and could have caused spoilation of evidence, loss of evidence. Things can get missing. Things can get removed. And in fact, when police finally, 10 days later, went to his apartment, he had later. He had moved everything out. Wait a minute. I missed that fact.

Now, I remember that now. To Jennifer Otzkowski joining us, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Jennifer, I forgot that part. Troy Slayton is absolutely correct. I've got so many facts in my head about Kristen Smart. He's right. It was ten days,

and they went and moved things out, totally destroying any potential crime scene. What happened? Give me the time sequence. Yeah. So no, they didn't have any idea at that time. And not only that, you know, the 10 days, but also other students coming in, cleaning before those students came in. The forensic evidence that was lost during that time frame is unheard of. I mean, it's horrible the way that the entire case was treated by these campus police. Hey, Jennifer, the school actually had cleaners come in. Now, wait a minute, though, before I totally attack the school, it was May 25 when she went missing. By the time the school sent in cleaners, say 10 days later,

I bet you anything school was over, nobody knew what the other party was doing. Campus security police didn't know what the school cleaners were doing didn't know what the police were doing nobody knew anything to bobby chacon bobby i'd like to take it out on you since you're here representing law enforcement you're you know you're the former fbi star fbi agent bobby i mean could it have been any more than right hand doesn't know what left hand is doing? I mean, oh, I feel so bad for the smarts family. Yeah, I agree, Nancy. I mean, this, you know, you often see the FBI jackets and stuff immediately upon, you know, an incident happening. We throw resources at a problem as quickly as we can, get people down range.

We pull in agents from other cities because it's so manpower intensive. She could have stepped in alive, Bobby. Yeah, it's a very manpower intensive thing. And time is definitely of the essence. A missing person's case, we know hour by hour by hour, the outcomes go lower and lower and lower for a successful resolution. So you have to get on it quickly. You have to, even if you have to borrow manpower, it's time to put your ego away and and ask for help if you need it from neighboring jurisdictions from federal and state authorities from whatever you need you know you need to get on it as quickly as possible not only for you know

evidence preservation like troy said but also like you said because the person the victim might still be alive so so really in these cases you and I, you know, I don't understand the attitude of a campus police saying, oh, it's just another student disappeared. It's probably, you know, she's probably out joyriding or whatever, you know, to blame the victim. Joyriding for 10 days? Well, even for one day, Nancy, even for two days, if you talk to her roommates or talk to the family and say, this is very unusual for her, this has never happened, you have to get on it right away. I mean, within hours, you know, if she doesn't show up the next morning, you have to jump right on it.

And even if it's, you know, you don't think there's a case, you have to start looking for this person. It's really, it's abhorrent to let it go that long from every type of consideration in a case like this. And if I can just add, I'm sorry. Jump in, Jennifer. Look, guys, for those of you just joining us, we're talking about just a recent technique that was used to try to find this gorgeous young girl, Kristen Smart, who goes missing at age 19, ground penetrating radar. I've been on many crime scenes where it's used. It's almost, have you ever seen those people going up and down the beach looking for metal?

It's something like that, except it can go, like, side-scan sonar is used in water searches. And, like, you know, on a ship or a boat, a boat, where you can look at your radar and you can see the fish down there. Okay. They don't have a chance, you know. It's not really a sporting event. But it's kind of like that except for the ground the dirt that's happening right now but we're circling back to how this whole thing started so jennifer tsikowsky's jumping in jump in guys there's no formality

here whatsoever unless it's bobby chicano if i see him but um jennifer what about the horse's rear end campus security cop that blamed the family and blamed Kristen? Oh, just awful. I mean, can you imagine being put in that situation? Your daughter is missing, and she was a responsible girl. Kristen was known to be very responsible, and she went to a party. She may have drank some alcohol. And to just completely demolish her reputation for going to a party like every college student usually does, that's just ridiculous. And taking 10 days to get into her apartment, that's really crazy to me as well because her

person belongings were found in the apartment so obviously a girl of 19 years old is not going to leave those items behind granted we didn't have cell phones back then i was about christian's age at that time but believe me anywhere i went my purse was in belongings, you know, that were with me. Or at least your driver's license. Exactly. At least that. Or, you know, a credit card. Guys, she's right.

She's absolutely right now. Also, I want you to take a listen to Kristen's mother, who, again, I consider to be a friend after all this time. Here is Denise, Ms. Smart, speaking to me. Listen, Day. Obviously, we didn't know the first day. We didn't know the second day. We didn't know the third day because Cal Poly did not take a request from her friends to look for her. So by the time Monday evening came around,

which was she disappeared Friday night, we didn't hear anything until Monday evening. And we got a call from the campus if we knew where she was. And I think every parent will tell you, you have a gut reaction when you know something's not right. And someone calling you out of the blue and saying, do you know where your daughter is and she's 200 miles away um bumps again just going back to there and i think it says you referenced that it it comes back it just always comes back and whenever you hear about a missing child, you relive it for that family as well. I'll never ever, as long as I live, forget that moment when Ms. Smart told me that, that every time she hears about a missing person, missing child, a missing student, relives when Kristen went missing. Just those poor people.

So what happened? Let's forget about the campus cops screwing everything up. Let's focus on what we do know. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Guys, we're talking about the disappearance of just a wonderful young girl, Kristen Smart, just 19 years old. What happened? Take a listen now to our friends at KSBY. This is NBC6. Megan Haley.

May 25, 1996. That's when Smart left an off-campus fraternity party around 2 a.m. and was walked back to her Muir Hall dorm by several people. Paul Flores was one of them and the last person to be seen with her, according to witnesses. Two days later, May 27th, Kristen's resident hall neighbor reported her missing. Nearly a month after her disappearance, Cal Poly police turned the case over to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office and hundreds of volunteers went on an organized search for Kristen on June 29th. In July 1996, investigators named Paul Flores a key witness. Kristen's parents, Stan and Denise Smart, have filed several lawsuits against Flores,

starting just months after she went missing. In this November 1997 deposition, you can hear James Murphy, the Smart family's attorney, asking Flores about his parents' name, place of work, are you presently employed, and Kristen's disappearance. But Flores refused to answer each question except to say this. On the advice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question based on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. So he wasn't helpful, and I got to wonder why. And also, just common sense, Bobby Chacon, former FBI, former FBI he says oh yes um I walked her to her

dorm but I quit walking when we got to my dorm and just let her go the rest of the way on her own that doesn't even make sense no it doesn't none of his behavior makes any sense taking the fifth amendment you know, supposedly on investigation into your friend's disappearance doesn't make sense. You know, so, you know, it's frustrating. I'm sure for them that, you know, for the state police or the county sheriff who was called in a month later that they didn't. A month later. Yeah, June 29th. They should have been out there May 26th, you know, and so evidence preserved and you have more ammunition to use in those interviews. Now that you've given him the time to clean his apartment, to get rid of any, you know, any clothing, anything that might be evidence, now he's sitting in the driver's seat and he can sit back there and he can take the Fifth Amendment because he knows that he was allowed at that time to, you know, clean up any potential crime scene, clean up any potential evidence, you know.

And so you go into those interviews, you know, a month later with a lot less ammunition as an investigator to confront this person. And really, I think that the delay, I mean, they call them, you know, a person of interest. Now they're calling him a prime suspect. I think they've known from the beginning that this is likely the person who may have done this. But that delay in the very early hours and days is what's cost them all this time. A solid month before they handed it over to police. Well, there are some clues left behind.

You can clean all you want to, but it's hard to clean this away. Take a listen to our friends at Vanished. So it has to be someone in the room who has touched or been near that scent of death. All the dorm rooms, all the bedrooms, all the beds, they went to the corner of his bed in the trash can. The Smarts believe the odds that a cadaver dog would have incorrectly picked up the scent of Kristen's remains is slim And suggest that either Kristen died in that particular location Or died at the hands of someone who had recently been in that dorm room Paul's roommate on the weekend she disappeared was gone

And therefore Paul would know that he would have unfettered access to use his room. And therefore, Paul had an opportunity to get a girl that was under the influence back to his room. Police insiders believe that Kristen Smart was taken to Paul Flores' room. What happened then, no one knows, but we can imagine. I know this. Cadaver dogs went to the corner of Flores' bed in his room and to his trash can. Okay, you know, back to you, Bobby Chacon. A cadaver dog is not going to hit unless it gets a scent of dead human tissue. That's exactly right. Dogs are, they're like machines. I mean, I were, my partner in the FBI was a dog handler. So I worked with a dog every day and I watched them work together. I've worked

with ground penetrating radar for years. And so it's again, Sonar obviously is the head of the dive team. These, these devices, this technology, and you have to look at a dog as a piece of technology, I mean, they are 100% and they give you an honest, objective piece of information and they tell you the scent is right here because a dog doesn't have any interest in the case, right? The dog doesn't have any biases. The dog just knows what to do and it's trained to do. And the sense of smell in the dog is equivalent to a computer or things like that. It's so good that we can't even comprehend being able to scent like a dog can. And so that piece of evidence is an objective piece of evidence,

just like a fingerprint or anything else that we treat it as solid 100% evidence. That cadaver dog, more than one cadaver dogs, go to Flores' room and hit on his bed and his trash can. So I don't understand. You, Troy Slayton, why didn't they just arrest him right then? However great the dog evidence may be, and it could very well be great, isn't enough to make a murder case,

and it isn't enough to arrest somebody, even on the very low burden of probable cause for arrest. Now, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department, over the last 10 years, has collected over 140 pieces of evidence. They've served 18 search warrants, 37 pieces of evidence from the early stages of the investigation resubmitted for DNA. And they still don't have enough at this point, even though they're calling him a suspect to arrest him for the murder or disappearance of Kristen. You know, the search still goes on, but nobody, you know, the old saying, the nursery rhyme, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

That one-month delay. And as our esteemed friend Bobbage Cone was telling us, even the first three days, that delay, it's really hard to put a case back together again. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, I mean, if I'm sitting on a jury and somebody tells me he's the last one with her, his story doesn't make sense, and cadaver dogs hit in his bedroom while his roommate was away. Of course, the jury will never know. He took the Fifth Amendment on every question, including, you know, what's your DOB? They won't know that.

But that alone tells me it was him. Nancy, I just had a flashback. About six years ago, I was on your show on HLN, The Nancy Grace Show, and I got a call from my niece sobbing from San Luis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I ripped my mic off. The minute the show was over, I drove all the way up there, and she had gone to a party on campus the night before. Sweet girl, 19 years old, had never really been out in the world, sheltered, very Christian family, youth group leader. And at the party, people, you know, handed her a water bottle and it had vodka in it. She had no idea, took a drink. She didn't even want to drink alcohol. And then the party took a turn.

The girlfriends who brought her there abandoned her, went somewhere else. She got a little disoriented. And I remember spending hours the next day talking to her about, okay, who are these girls? Who are these friends? Who are the guys? Helping to piece together the tangled web of relationships to sort out who's your friend, who's not your friend, not to take a drink from other people. And that's just one 19-year-old beloved niece at a party on the San Luis Obispo campus. I'll never forget that. I spent a couple of days there.

We called her parents. I'm thinking about Kristen Smart and what might have happened. There are so many relationships at that party represented. And a month later, those kids are either going to be frightened. They will have talked to their parents. They will have constructed different stories in their minds, had guilt for maybe abandoning her there. And this Paul Rubin, is that his name? The last person who saw her. Paul Flores.

Paul Reuben is Pee Wee Herman. Let's not confuse the two of them, okay? My bad. Because I count Pee Wee as a friend, and I don't want him dragged into the Christmas market. But Paul Flores, let's just say if he had bad intentions, it's like a salmon fisher with salmon swimming upstream. You know, go to a party with girls who have never drunk alcohol before. That's where you're going to be able to commit a rape or pick off the weakest member if that's what you want to do.

And let's jump in, Jennifer, please. Okay. I was just going to say, we can't forget that Paul Flores had a black eye the day after Kristen went missing. That was apparently discovered after he turned himself in on a DUI charge. And then his story kept changing about how he got it. He said he got it playing basketball. Then he said he was fixing his car and received this black eye. So he was obviously hiding something from the get-go. I wonder if in the rooms around his room

anyone heard anything. ¶¶ Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace guys we're talking about the disappearance of kristin smart her parents have accepted that she is no longer with us she's dead i want you to take a listen to our friends at kCRA. This is NBC3 reporter Edie Lambert. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office has had a team of investigators working actively on this case. They've recently been fielding a lot of calls from the media, so that's what prompted them to release all this information. So they're now saying since 2011, deputies have served 18 search warrants.

They conducted physical evidence searches at nine separate locations. They have also re-examined every item of physical evidence seized by all agencies involved in this case. Deputies have entered 37 items of evidence from the early days of this case for modern DNA testing, and they have recovered 140 new items of evidence. And deputies are now revealing they have two trucks in evidence that belong to the family of Paul Flores. He was a former Cal Poly student,

and witnesses say he was the last person to see Kristen the night she went missing. He's never been charged in her disappearance. Over these past nine years, the sheriff's office says they invested more than 7,500 employee hours looking into this case. I'm glad they finally got the vehicles, but it's a day late, a dollar short. It's years later. Who else has been in the truck? How do you expect to find fiber evidence or one of Kristen's hairs there

when he transported her body wherever he took it? Guys, let's fast forward to right now. Take a listen to our Cut 13. This is Rachel Kim, CBS LA. Authorities served a search warrant at the San Pedro home of Paul Flores early this morning. It's the second time this year. Investigators say he continues to be a person of interest in the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Kristen Smart. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office said with the help of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department,

they went to look for specific items of evidence, but they couldn't release any details because the warrant is sealed by the court. I didn't see anything this morning, but I know this is the second time that they've been here last time they were here with the FBI. This neighbor named Mike, who doesn't want his face shown, is talking about the first time a warrant was served here.

That was just this past February when Paul Flores sat in a sheriff's car while FBI agents carried out bins and boxes from his home. He was questioned, then released. We did not see Flores at his home today. Nothing goes on in this neighborhood like that, so I was shocked when I saw all that action. Yeah he's pretty quiet he never really talks to anybody um he comes out throws his trash. Doesn't talk to anybody sounds like um a loner of sorts only see him when he

comes out to throw out his trash. Now that was a search another search on the home now of Paul Flores. But what about his father? Take a listen to Katie Johnson, CBS LA. Investigators are at Paul Flores' father's home today. Flores is the prime suspect in the decades-old disappearance of Kristen Smart. Authorities are raiding Ruben Flores' San Luis Obispo County home. The sheriff's office says they're using cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar in this search. In May 1996, Kristen Smart disappeared after an off-campus party near Cal Poly San Luis Abispo. Paul Flores is believed to be the last person known to see Smart alive. Her body has never been found. Flores was arrested last month on an unrelated weapons charge. Unrelated weapons charge. Troy Slayton, that's a big red flag to me because when they arrested Flores, the son, in this case, Paul Flores, on a weapons charge, the PC probable cause in that

arrest warrant was based on a search they had done like a year before. And now, now they arrest him on that weapons charge. It was possession of a firearm by convicted felon. That underlying felony was, I believe, felony DUI. So why, based on evidence they saw a year ago, do they arrest him now for possession of firearm convicted felon? Well, the evidence that the San Luis Obispo Sheriff, along with L.A. County Sheriff's deputies, when they conducted the search of his home, obviously they saw a handgun. Didn't feel like it was a year ago. Yes. But didn't feel like they wanted to arrest him at that point. Maybe now, a year later, after they've done further investigation, knew that they had probable cause to arrest him for the weapons charge and wanted to rattle him. Maybe they were hoping that he would get into custody and say something to somebody else in custody in the jailhouse.

Because they could have arrested him right then when they saw the weapon, but they didn't. They waited. Do I have the dates right? Jennifer Sikorsky joining us, a Crime Stories investigative reporter. What do we know about the arrest of the suspect, Paul Flores, but not for Kristen Smart's murder? That is all that I know as far as the arrest warrant is for the weapon. You're right. Yeah, they're being tight-lipped.

Very, very. And I'm just wondering about the strategy, the tactic of sitting on that arrest for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and then executing the arrest warrant months and months and months later. Very curious. But jump in, Bobby. What is that? Yeah, Nancy, you're exactly right.

It is a strategy. It's a tactical investigative move. There could be any number of reasons you would do this. For example, if they've developed someone close to him that they're talking to that's providing them information and now they feel if they arrest him on this, he will go back and talk to that other person. Or if they've gotten, you know, and this is just conjecture on my part, if they've gotten a wiretap on one of his phones and they arrest him to see if he's going to make any phone

calls and what he's going to talk about. So this is a strategic investigative move. There is a reason why they did it at this time. We don't know what that reason is, but as an investigator, I can tell you there's a number of different possibilities in my head of why they would do this and how strategic it is. You're right. Very often in cases where a suspect is, someone's believed to be a suspect in a very serious case, let's just say a murder, you'll see them picked up on, let's just say an outstanding bond forfeitor or an outstanding

probation violation and put him in jail. And that's a tactic. And I think there's a tactic here, but I don't know what their thinking is. Take a listen to Keith Carl's News Channel 3, K-E-Y-T. The morning San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department deputies, crime scene investigators cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar scoured the residential property here in aurora grande believed to belong to ruben flores off of james way in aurora grande a vehicle was towed away by the sheriff's office the residential property remains sealed off with crime scene tape surrounding the perimeter. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office expects to remain out here for the remainder of the day

and possibly into tomorrow with all of this technology that they're using to scour the landscape here at this home behind me. What, if anything, is going down on the father's property? Take a listen to Megan Healy, KSBY News. With shovels in hand, investigators dug underneath Ruben Flores' Arroyo Grande home and at specific locations in the backyard. A neighbor sent me this video showing a part of the excavation site. I mean, it's really nice to see that they're finally making moves on it. You know, it's taken so long for them to dig up this backyard.

You could see deputies camped out near the house, going underneath the deck at two entry points with shovels. A panel of this lattice wall was removed to get underneath the house. These areas were extensively searched with cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar Monday and Tuesday. Crews also moved this blue pop-up tent to another section of the backyard where they dug for about an hour. Thick foliage around the property made it difficult to see the activity. By 2 p.m., yellow tape around the Flores' home was taken down, the Flores family returning just 30 minutes later. I just hope they find her soon. And guys, in case you're wondering what the Flores family has to say about this,

remember this is a suspect's father's home being searched property. Take a listen to Susan Flores speaking to KSBY. What led you to talking with us today and letting me into the vacuum? I know I'm mad because they took the Volkswagen. That's my little restoration project. You know, people restore old cars all the time i'm a real car i love cars i love old things you know it's like no i wanted to do a restoration on that car they didn't need to take it they wanted to take it now they're going to take, oh yeah, the warrant says they can take it apart. So God knows what it'll look like, you know.

But it's, I don't know, it's private. They're coming and they're taking your stuff. So the suspect's parents whining that cops took the vehicle, the old Volkswagen, that she was going to restore someday, whining that it was private. There is a girl kidnapped and murdered. Suck it up, little sister. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.