Justice is never too late.

Maybe Kristin Smart’s family can breathe a sigh of relief after jurors found the last man she was seen with 25 years ago guilty of first-degree murder.

At the time of her death, Kristin Smart was a freshman on the California Polytechnic Campus. Unanimously, jurors found Paul Flores guilty of her murder, but in a separate trial, the jury found Ruben Flores, Paul’s father, 81, not guilty of his charges. Ruben Flores was accused of helping his son bury the remains of Smart in Arroyo Grande and later digging up the remains and moving them to another location. The two conflicting rulings were read in the same courtroom for several minutes.

In 1996, Smart mysteriously disappeared from California Polytechnic State University. Her remains have never been found. The two suspects, Flores and his dad, were arrested in 2021.

According to prosecutors, the young Flores, now 45, committed the crime on May 25, 1996, after an attempted rape in his dormitory room at California Polytechnic, where he and Smart were both freshmen. The young Flores was the last person seen with Smart after an off-campus party where she became intoxicated, according to witnesses.

Despite his late arrest, Paul Flores was always considered a suspect. When prosecutors interviewed him, he had a black eye, which he claimed he got while playing basketball with friends, who denied ever playing with him, court records confirmed. He later changed his story, saying he bumped his head on his car while carrying out some repairs.

Over the two decades, investigators have conducted fruitless searches for the remains of Smart’s body. In the last two years, they turned their search close to Ruben Flores’s home, which is about 12 miles away from the school. On the deck of his house along the dead-end streets, archaeologists unearthed a soil disturbance equalling the size of a coffin, with the presence of human blood, prosecutors confirmed. However, it was not possible to extract DNA from the blood due to degradation.

At the trial, during the deliberations, Paul Flores’s attorney, Robert Sanger, tried to link the murder to Scott Peterson, who was found guilty of murdering his wife and his unborn child and was a student at California Polytechnic at the same time Smart disappeared.

While giving his last remarks, Sanger informed the jurors that he doubted the testimonies, and the forensic evidence, which he termed “junk science.”

At a news conference later after the verdict was issued, Kristin’s father, Stan Smart, said, “There is no joy and happiness in our family without Kristin. After 26 years of continuous quest for justice and the split verdict, it’s still clear that our quest for justice for our daughter will continue.”

Mr. Smart described the case as long and agonizing while recognizing the diligent work done by the two juries.

According to Ian Parkinson, the Luis Obispo County Sheriff, the case will continue until Smart’s remains are found.