On Wednesday, investigators could be seen at the Arroyo Grande home of Susan Flores, as authorities served a search warrant in the Kristin Smart missing person case.
The home belongs to the mother of Paul Flores, the person-of-interest in the case.
Smart was a freshman at Cal Poly when she disappeared on her way back to the dorms after an off-campus party in May 1996. Flores was one of the last people to see her.
Susan Flores' home has been a place of interest for more than 20 years now, but it's actually not the first home investigators searched.
Investigators first searched the home of Ruben Flores, Paul Flores' dad, in 1996.
It wouldn't be until eight months later, on March 3, 1997, the first searches of Susan's home on Branch Street began.
This search reportedly came at the request of James Murphy, the attorney who represents Kristin's parents, Stan and Denise Smart.
The next search would happen three years later on June 19, 2000.
In this search, sheriff's deputies used a ground-penetrating radar system to get electromagnetic pictures of where objects may be buried.
Seven years would go by, when on May 22, 2007, a private construction company dug behind the Flores home as part of discovery for a civil case arranged by the Smart's family attorney.
Wednesday's search is reportedly the first time investigators have searched the Flores home in close to 13 years. It's still unclear at this time what was taken from this home.
We asked Susan Flores for comment and she declined.
We spotted Susan Flores and her boyfriend going into their home on Branch St in Arroyo Grande - so far both declining to speak to us @KSBY #KristinSmart pic.twitter.com/xbLPK2A90b
— Melissa Newman (@melnewmantv) February 5, 2020
Neighbors say in the meantime, cars have been packing their street and honking their horns as they drive by the home.
"I hope they can figure it out, too, just to bring peace back to the neighborhood [where] nobody's honking their horns as they drive by anymore, that it's been taken care of and we know what happened 20 years ago," said neighbor Adam Arcadipane.
KSBY News asked the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse for a copy of the original search warrant from 1997 and we were told all of the search warrants in this case are sealed.
We also looked into reports that cadaver dogs searched the backyard of the Flores' home back in 2014 but were unable to confirm if those were true.
