Kristin Smart Trial: Cadaver Dog Shows ‘Change of Behavior’ Underneath Defendant’s Deck - Noozhawk

A dog trained to detect human remains zeroed in on a section underneath defendant Ruben Flores's deck during a search of his property, an expert testified Tuesday during the Kristin Smart murder trial.

During the March 2021 search, the dog showed all the "alerting" behaviors that are exhibited only when smelling human remains but did not alert, human remains detection expert Kristin Black said on the stand in Monterey County Superior Court.

Paul Flores is accused of killing Smart and his father, Ruben Flores, is accused of helping his son hide Smart's body under his deck after her alleged murder and moving it to a different location. 

Also in court on Tuesday, investigators with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office discussed their strategies for delving into Smart's disappearance.

The Sheriff's Office leaked information about the investigation into the Cal Poly student, who vanished in 1996, to a podcaster and wiretapped the phones of family members of the man accused of killing her, one witness testified Tuesday.

First, senior Sheriff's Office Deputy Jason Nadal discussed the agency's surveillance of murder defendant Paul Flores. Nadal testified that he and eight other Sheriff's Office deputies served a search warrant at Flores's San Pedro residence on Feb. 5, 2020.

During cross examination, Nadal told Flores' attorney, Robert Sanger, that he coordinated the search and surveillance efforts of Flores prior to the execution of the search warrant — such as following and photographing Flores; placing a GPS tracker on Flores' car and placing a camera on the telephone pole across the street from his home.

Gregory Smith, a deputy and Major Crimes Unit detective with the Sheriff's Office, testified about wire taps executed on the phones of various Flores family members: Paul Flores, his father Ruben Flores, his mother Susan Flores and his sister, Irma Linda Thomas.

The Flores family members' phone numbers were tapped from Jan. 6 to Feb. 4, 2020, Smith said on the stand, explaining that a wire tap allows law enforcement to listen in on conversations without the consent of the person to whom the phone number is registered.

Investigator: Sheriff's Office Leaked Information to Kristin Smart Podcaster

A Jan. 26, 2020, conversation between Paul and Susan Flores recorded via wiretap was played in the courtroom. In the conversation, Susan Flores references Chris Lambert's podcast, "Your Own Backyard," which is credited with bringing new attention to the Kristin Smart case.

Defense attorney Robert Sanger, left, talks to his client, Paul Flores, in Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas on Tuesday. Flores is accused of killing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. (Connor Bailey / KSBY-TV photo)

"The other thing I need you to do is listen to that podcast so we can punch holes in it, wherever we can," Flores is heard telling her son.

"Only you can tell me that," she says.

Susan Flores also mentioned needing to consult with attorneys during this conversation. Smith said during cross-examination that one of the Sheriff's Office's strategies was to leak information about the investigation into the Flores family to Lambert.

The goal was to get the Flores family members to say something incriminating while the wiretap was active between January and February 2020, Smith testified.

"That is the purpose of a wiretap," he said.

Human Remains Detection Dog Zeroed In on Ruben Flores' Deck

Black, the assistant director of the Santa Clara Search and Rescue Dog team, also testified Tuesday. Black has more than 22 years of experience working with human remains detection dogs. She has trained five dogs, including Annie, a 5-year-old Belgian shepherd that participated in the search of Ruben Flores' home at 710 White Court in Arroyo Grande.

Annie was certified in human remains detection in 2017 and has never failed an exam, Black said. Black told the courtroom Annie participated in more than 70 deployments to search for human remains and described how the canine detected buried remains in at least two homicide cases. On March 15, 2021, Black and Annie searched Flores' property.

Black said she worked the search with another dog handler, Karen Atkinson. According to Black, each dog searched the property blind, meaning they did not have access to the property until the search commenced. Annie started by searching the Volkswagen automobile then parked in the driveway and did not alert or change behavior, Black said.

Annie then searched the backyard, Black said. After the dog again did not alert, Sheriff's Office Det. Clint Cole asked Black and Annie to search underneath the deck, Black said. "It's a change of events you are looking for," Black said. A dog searching a scent pool may look like a dog vacuuming the ground with its nose, she explained, its breathing changing or bracketing to indicate it's time to search a smaller area.

Annie traveled through the lattice entrance to search under the lattice area, then went into a crawl space under the house, Black said.

The dog did not alert or change behavior in either area, but did change behavior to the right of the crawl space entrance, which is to the left of the lattice area entrance, Black said.

Annie turned her head and started vacuuming and bracketing to try to narrow down the location of the odor, Black said. "I stood back. I let her do her job," Black said. "I had all those changes in behavior that I see when I'm training."

Despite displaying all the other behaviors of human remains detection, Annie did not provide a final alert on the area under the deck, Black said. Black said she told Cole about Annie's behavior at the search scene and what it could mean. Black testified that Annie's behavior was consistent with what she would expect to see if the source of the scent has been removed.

In the preliminary hearings Black said Annie had a 93% accuracy rate based on her proficiency and accuracy in tests, a rate Black calculates based on her own data collection, Black told Sanger during cross-examination. "Annie does a good job," she said.

Black said that Annie's training involved detecting scents of human remains that were buried and later removed even though the certification test does not include this exercise.

"They cannot tell me what they are smelling," Black told Sanger during cross examination. Although changes in canine behavior is insufficient according to the standards set by the California Rescue Dog Association, "Change of behavior is very important for us," Black said.