SLO County sheriff says Smart search could last days to ‘overturn every rock’
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said the search underway at the Arroyo Grande home of convicted killer Paul Flores’ home would last at least two to three days.
In a Thursday episode of the “Up + Adam” podcast, Parkinson told host Adam Montiel that the Sheriff’s Office would continue to search the house and grounds as part of ongoing investigation into the Kristin Smart case for however long it takes to “overturn every rock humanly possible.”
Parkinson said the Sheriff’s Office believes that Smart’s body was at “one time” on Paul Flores’ father Ruben Flores’ property, but they are still searching for her remains.
“We know she’s been moved, so where is she moved to? So we’re hunting that down,” Parkinson said on the podcast. “I think my gut tells me that all we can do is everything we can do and continue to try to follow everything and not be disappointed and never give up until Kristin has returned.”
Parkinson told Montiel that the Sheriff’s Office had completed another search since Flores’ conviction but did not disclose any other details besides that it was “very substantial.”
Flores was convicted in 2022 of killing Smart when she was a first-year student at Cal Poly. Smart went missing nearly 30 years ago on Memorial Day weekend of 1996, and her body has never been recovered.
New search due to advancements in science, technology, sheriff says
Parkinson also confirmed to Montiel that the new search at Susan Flores’ home was launched due to innovations in science and technology over the past 25 years.
He said the Sheriff’s Office was able to get a judge to sign off on the search warrant based on these technological advancements, pointing to evolutions in ground-penetrating radar.
“You have to be able to show to a judge that there’s evidence to support this, and that means there’s enough probable cause to go in,” Parkinson said.
Throughout the two days of the search so far, numerous work appears to have been focused on taking samples of the soil around and behind the Arroyo Grande home.
On the podcast, the sheriff said that it’s still too soon to tell what will come out of the investigation underway at Susan Flores’ home.
“We might find stuff that leads us in another direction, or it might be stuff that needs further evaluation and a form of scientific investigation. So it’s early into this,” he said. “There’s a lot to be done, and I think as it progresses, we will know more.”
But he said the goal of the investigation continues to be bringing Smart’s body home.
“I said when Paul Flores got convicted that the case wasn’t over, and it’s never going to be over until we return Kristin to her family,” Parkinson said. “So we’ve been continually working the case since the conviction.”
“If this doesn’t give us the results we need, then you know, we move on,” he added.
This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 10:53 AM with the headline "SLO County sheriff says Smart search could last days to ‘overturn every rock’."
