Convicted murderer Paul Flores was hospitalized after being attacked in prison, Harold Mesick an attorney representing Flores, told CBS News.
A spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office told CBS News the office was “made aware of an injury sustained by Paul Flores while incarcerated at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.”
Neither Mesick nor the sheriff’s office had further information on the type or severity of Flores’ injury.
Flores is serving 25 years to life in a California prison for the murder of Kristin Smart, a college freshman who vanished from the California Polytechnic State University campus in 1996.
Jurors unanimously found Paul Flores guilty of first-degree murder in October 2022. His sentencing in March marked the culmination of a case that had drawn worldwide attention for over a quarter century. Flores had long been considered a prime suspect in Smart’s death before he was arrested in 2021.
David Middlecamp/The Tribune of San Luis Obispo via AP, Pool
Smart was 19 years old when she vanished while returning to a dorm at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Flores was also a student at the school.
Smart’s remains have never been found, but she was declared legally dead in 2002.
Prosecutors maintained that Flores killed the 19-year-old during an attempted rape on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at Cal Poly, where both were first-year students. He was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party where she became intoxicated.
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