THE mom of the "prime suspect" in Kristin Smart's disappearance was "not surprised" when cops seized a Volkswagen from their family home.
The San Luis Sheriff’s Office began to search the home of Paul Flores' parents, Ruben and Susan, on Monday – a probe which concluded on Tuesday before his mom spoke out.
They used cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar to search the property 25 years after Smart, 19, vanished on May 25, 1996, on her way home from a franternity party.
During a bombshell interview on Tuesday, Susan told a local KSBY journalist Megan Healy that police had seized her private files, computer, and as many as three vehicles.
"I kinda thought they were going to come for the Volkswagen because when they came last year to my house," Paul's mother said.
"The commander had some pictures on his phone that were sent to him from this garage.
"He had a couple of questions and yeah the Volkswagen was on there. So it didn't surprise me that they came and took it."
Susan went onto reveal that they have two other vehicles in custody.
"If they have what used to be our family's truck, the ranger was a trade-in so it's not technically ours," she said.
"The Nissan pickup was a stolen vehicle which was our family vehicle, we gave it to Paul at some point, changed ownership, it was stolen from him.
"Therefore it is his vehicle, he was never paid off from an insurance company and if they have that vehicle, it is technically his vehicle. They have a stolen vehicle."
Susan said she hoped that Kristin's parents find answers but the mom was adamant that they didn't lie in her backyard.
"I can't solve it for them. I can't give them the answers that they want. I don't have them. And yet just time and time again they just go after my children," she said.
"They go after Paul, they go after my daughter, they go after my husband – what are they gonna do go after my grandchildren next?"
She described her son as the "scapegoat" of the investigation, saying there were a lot of other people at the party Kristin went to before she vanished.
Susan said she only did the interview because she was angry about the confiscated Volkswagen which she described as her "little restoration project."
On Monday, Smart’s family members said they were “encouraged” by the new search, which saw cops comb the Flores property with sniffer dogs and radar.
Flores Jr was upgraded from a "person of interest" to the detectives' "prime suspect" this week – but his mom insists that the Flores family have "no responsibility" for Kristin's cold case disappearance.
A spokesperson for the sheriff's office Tony Cipolla said there were "no updates at this time" as of 12.30pm ET on Tuesday. The Sun has contacted the office for comment on Wednesday.
He declined to comment on what investigators found during their seven-day search of the property in 1996 or the more recent investigation, which is under seal.
"We are continuing to search the property of Ruben Flores," Cipolla told The Sun. "I am not able to comment on the search in 1996.
"We will not commenting any further on the search because the search warrant was sealed by the court."
The sheriff's office told KSBY that the Flores family had refused to speak with them.
When The Sun contacted a neighbor who lived nearby yesterday, they said: "No comment there" before hanging up.
Law enforcement officials used horses, radar and helicopters to search for Smart when she initially vanished. Her body was never recovered but she was declared deceased in 2002.
Federal investigators in 2016 dug on a hill near the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus searching for Smart’s remains and also looked at the yard of a home.
"They go after Paul, they go after my daughter, they go after my husband – what are they gonna do go after my grandchildren next?"
Paul, also a student at the time, was the last person spotted with Smart and has denied any wrongdoing in her case.
He was seen walking on a path to the dormitories the night that Smart vanished and was questioned about her whereabouts.
Paul was arrested in February on suspicion of being a felon possessing a firearm, after San Louis Obispo and Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputies searched his home in April.
Authorities in February also searched a house on the 900 block of West Upland Avenue and three more places in California and Washington state.
The searches are part of an effort to obtain DNA and other evidence that could lead to information on Smart’s mysterious disappearance, several sources told the Times.
Smart’s family sued Paul and he in turn invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in a civil deposition and before a grand jury.
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