#Headline Creation Challenge##Strange Case Story##世界上有哪些至今还没有破解的悬案 #
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On May 25, 1996, Kristen Smart, a 19-year-old girl who is a freshman at California Institute of Technology, attended a party.
She returned to campus at about 2 a.m. and disappeared on her way back to her dormitory, where her whereabouts have never been known.
How did she disappear from that scenic campus?
Where did she go? Is it dead or alive?
Kristen Smart
In 2002, she was pronounced legally dead after finding no clues that Christine was still alive.
A billboard reads: $75,000 bounty for clues
(1) Lock suspects
After the crime that year, the police identified a suspect based on clues - Paul Flores, Christine's classmate.
Witnesses said that at the time, Christine was drunk and that it was Paul Flores who helped her walk back to campus.
But he refused to cooperate with the police investigation.
He said he and Christine met at a party. But Christine walked back to the dorm room on her own.
Paul Flores at the trial
When police questioned Paul Flores, he had visible bruises on his eyes, apparently bruised. But he claimed to have been injured while playing basketball with a friend; He later changed that narrative and said he hit it while waiting for a bus.
Since 2011, police have uncovered 140 new pieces of evidence and submitted 37 pieces of evidence for modern DNA testing. Among them, prosecutors presented evidence that four corpse search dogs had sniffed corpses in front of their beds in Paul Flores' dormitory.
Former local sheriff Ed Williams has said there are no suspects in the case other than Paul Flores.
In 2016, based on investigative leads, police excavated a small hillside at Caltech and sent what was suspected to be Christine's remains and related items to testing facilities.
But there is no follow-up.
(2) The case was reopened, and the murderer was finally arrested
Her disappearance did not sink into the sea thanks to a musician named Chris Lambert.
He hosts a popular true-crime podcast called Your Backard. He has been obsessed with the case over the past few years, drawing renewed attention to the case, with some witnesses encouraged to reveal new clues to police.
On February 5, 2020, police and the FBI searched Paul Flores' home, as well as the home of his parents and sister, confiscated his digital devices, and detained Flores. But he was subsequently released on $250,000 bail.
On April 14, police searched again, using corpse dogs and ground-penetrating radar, resulting in new evidence at the home of his father, Ruben Flores.
Ruben Flores
The house is located in a cul-de-sac on Tully River Road. Under the floor of the house, police found a coffin-sized pit with soil containing human blood.
However, because the blood degradation is too severe, DNA samples cannot be extracted.
This time, 25 years after Christine Smart's disappearance, the police finally arrested the 44-year-old main suspect, Paul Flores, on charges of murder, while his father, 80-year-old Ruben Flores, was also arrested as an accessory to "assisting in the hiding of the body".
(3) The sentence was finally announced, and the sentence may be 25 years to life imprisonment
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan M. Dow claimed in the allegation that Paul Flores tried to rape Ms. Smart in his dorm room and eventually killed her. His father, Ruben Flores, helped him bury the victim's body in his home in the nearby Arroyo Grande neighborhood.
Later, after police searched the site in February 2020, Ruben Flores, together with another unnamed accomplice, exhumed the body and moved it under cover of night.
But father and son refused to admit their guilt.
Prosecutors also have other evidence that Flores has committed sexual assault on other people, including stalking, inappropriate touching and aggressive behavior toward women, and that he drugged and raped four women in the Los Angeles area after Kristen Smart's disappearance.
On October 18, 2022, the murder that took place 26 years ago was re-sentenced.
Numerous evidence was presented, and two women, Sarah Doe and Rhonda Doe, testified that they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by Flores in 2008 and 2011, respectively.
A California jury convicted Paul Flores of murder. His formal sentencing is due on December 9, and he could face sentences ranging from 25 to life in prison.
But the jury ruled not guilty of his father.
It also upset San Luis Obispo County District Deputy District Attorney Chris Pefrele, who told the media that he was "very disappointed."
To this day, Christine Smart's body has not been found.
However, San Luis Obispo County current Sheriff Ian Parkinson told the media: "This case will not end until Christine 'goes home.'" ”