COALINGA, Calif. — The man convicted of killing Kristin Smart, who vanished from a California college campus more than 25 years ago, was hospitalized this week after being attacked in prison for the second time in less than a year.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) confirmed Thursday it is investigating the attack on Paul Flores as an attempted homicide.
CDCR says staff at Pleasant Valley State Prison saw Flores being stabbed out in the yard around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. Officers stopped the attack with verbal commands.
Two inmate-made weapons were recovered at the scene.
CDCR says Flores was taken to an outside medical facility for his injuries and has since returned. He’s in fair condition, and no one else was injured.
Flores’ alleged attacker, who has not yet been identified, is in restricted housing during the investigation.
Flores was slashed in the neck Aug. 23, 2023, at the same prison facility. In that incident, his accused attacker was identified as Jason Budrow, who killed his girlfriend in 2010 and his cellmate Roger Reece Kibbe — also known as the I-5 Strangler — in 2021.
KRISTIN SMART CASE
The 19-year-old Kristin Smart disappeared from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo on the state's scenic Central Coast over Memorial Day weekend in 1996.
Her remains have never been found, but she was declared legally dead in 2002.
Prosecutors maintained Flores killed Smart during an attempted rape on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at the university, where both were first-year students. He was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party.
Flores was arrested in 2021 along with his father, Ruben, who was accused of helping to hide Smart's body. Flores was later convicted of murdering Smart, while his father was acquitted of being an accessory after the fact.
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