After listening to 11 weeks of proof and a set of fiery closing arguments, jurors on Tuesday started deliberating whether or not to convict Paul Flores for the 1996 homicide of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scholar Kristin Sensible.

“Paul Flores murdered her and buried her underneath his father’s deck. It’s that straightforward,” San Luis Obispo County Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Peuvrelle stated in his closing arguments in a Salinas courtroom.

Flores’ lawyer, Robert Sanger, completed his closing arguments by telling jurors that “there isn’t any proof of a homicide — so that’s actually the top of it.”

Sensible was 19 when she vanished 26 years in the past after strolling towards the dormitories with Flores. Her physique has by no means been discovered, however she was legally declared useless in 2002.

Her disappearance and the following homicide investigation left an indelible mark on the Central Coast school city. Billboards appealed for proof to convict her killer. The killing was the topic of a true-crime podcast. And it spawned a cottage business of investigators.

Peuvrelle stated Flores, 45, raped or tried to rape — and finally killed — Sensible earlier than hiding her stays with the assistance of his father.

San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s detectives arrested Flores at his San Pedro dwelling in April 2021, a long time after figuring out him as an individual of curiosity in Sensible’s disappearance.

His father, Ruben Flores, was taken into custody final yr at his dwelling in Arroyo Grande, Calif., and charged with being an adjunct to the crime. Prosecutors say he helped conceal Sensible’s physique earlier than shifting it in 2020.

Peuvrelle instructed jurors that Flores and his father knew the place Sensible’s physique was all these years.

“However now the place she was all alongside: underneath their deck,” Peuvrelle instructed jurors as he pointed towards Paul and Ruben Flores.

Ruben Flores, 81, is being tried similtaneously his son. Separate juries listening to the case collectively are deciding every man’s destiny.

Sanger instructed jurors that that they had been instructed “a bunch of conspiracy theories not backed up by details” by a prosecutor intent on making them hate Paul Flores.

Peuvrelle, he claimed, had witnesses testify about remarks Flores by no means made about Sensible.

“He’s attempting to bootstrap a homicide the place there isn’t any proof of homicide,” Sanger stated.

Peuvrelle rebutted that declare Tuesday, saying, “The folks’s case is just not a conspiracy concept.”

He added, sarcastically: “So some 50 witnesses spanning 26 years are a part of the conspiracy.”

Among the many witnesses, the prosecutor famous, have been three police canine handlers who testified their cadaver canine every had sought out Flores’ room from greater than 120 rooms within the dormitory and signaled that they had detected the scent of dying.

Peuvrelle instructed jurors that Paul Flores ought to be discovered responsible underneath the state’s felony homicide legislation since he allegedly dedicated the killing in his dorm room as a part of a rape or tried rape of an intoxicated individual.

A San Luis Obispo County decide earlier ordered the Flores trials be moved greater than 100 miles north to Monterey County to make sure truthful authorized proceedings.

Sensible was final seen on Could 25, 1996, as she was strolling with Flores close to the residence halls on campus after attending a celebration.

Peuvrelle instructed jurors that Flores, a fellow Cal Poly scholar, had “hunted” her for months, ceaselessly showing the place she was, together with her dormitory.

The night time of the get together, he appeared out of the darkness to assist her stroll dwelling after she had handed out on a garden from ingesting closely, the prosecutor stated.

Two girls testified final month that Flores drugged and raped them a long time after Sensible vanished.

The ladies used the pseudonyms Sarah Doe and Rhonda Doe, and alleged Flores sexually assaulted them in Los Angeles in 2008 and 2011, respectively.

Peuvrelle referred to as Flores a “serial drugger” and rapist.

“Sarah Doe and Rhonda Doe,” he stated, “inform us what Kristin couldn’t: that she was raped or that Paul Flores tried to rape her.”

The prosecutor stated Flores had provided to provide the ladies rides dwelling after assembly them, solely to drug and repeatedly rape them at his home.

Displaying the jury a picture discovered on Flores’ laptop of a gagged girl, Peuvrelle added that the 2 witnesses had testified that they too have been restrained with the identical ball gag.

Throughout his closing arguments, Sanger tried to undermine the testimony of the 2 girls, noting that Rhonda Doe attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1996 and 1997, when Sensible’s disappearance was getting a lot publicity. He stated it was an excessive amount of of a coincidence that she got here ahead with rape allegations in 2020.

Because the trial’s begin in July, Peuvrelle has stated that, throughout a four-day interval when Flores was not seen on campus, he eliminated Sensible’s physique with the assistance of his father and buried it underneath the deck at his father’s Arroyo Grande home.

Ruben Flores, the prosecutor alleged, saved folks away from the deck for years. A neighbor testified that, in 2020, as police have been zeroing in on the home, she noticed a bevy of exercise as a trailer backed as much as the property.

A soil scientist and archaeologist testified that floor radar confirmed an anomaly within the soil and indications of bodily fluids that have been according to a physique having been buried and eliminated.

Blood was detected there, the prosecutor repeatedly instructed jurors.

Sanger rebuffed that declare, telling jurors Tuesday that the blood detection was based mostly on “junk science.” He stated it was considered one of a number of claims within the prosecution’s case, together with canine smelling an odor of dying, that didn’t have forensic proof to help them.

Sanger instructed jurors that activists set on convicting Flores, in addition to a true-crime podcast, “Your Personal Yard,” that turned up potential witnesses, influenced the prosecution.

With no proof Sensible was raped or that Flores tried to rape her, jurors mustn’t contemplate the testimony of Sarah Doe and Rhonda Doe, Sanger stated.

He added {that a} key witness for the prosecution, Jennifer Hudson, who testified that Paul Flores admitted to her that he killed Sensible, had provided various variations of her story and waited a few years earlier than coming ahead.

The decide on Tuesday rejected a movement for a mistrial by Flores’ lawyer.

Sanger stated the prosecutor erred in telling jurors that they had a “binary alternative” between the proof provided by prosecutors and the protection. The burden of proof, he famous, is on the prosecution to show its case.

The second jury will hear closing statements in Ruben Flores’ case on Wednesday.

The decide stated each verdicts can be learn collectively. After the primary jury determination is reached, it is going to be held till the opposite jury reaches a verdict.