The man convicted of murdering missing college student Kirstin Smart was stabbed Wednesday at a California state prison, the second time he has been attacked by another inmate in the past year, officials said.
Paul Flores, 47, who is serving 25 years to life for the 1996 killing, was knifed in the recreation yard at Pleasant Valley State Prison around 3:30 pm, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Prison staffers who witnessed the assault put an end to it without using force but only verbal commands.
Flores was taken to a medical facility to be treated for his wounds and later returned to the prison in fair condition, officials said.
The inmate who attacked Flores, who has not been identified as of Friday, was placed in restricted housing.
Two suspected inmate-manufactured weapons were recovered, officials said.
The violent attack comes less than nine months after Flores was slashed in the neck by a fellow inmate in the same prison yard in Coalinga, Calif.
He was hospitalized and back in lockup two days later.
The inmate accused in the August 2023 slashing, Jason Budrow, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges including attempted murder and assault by an inmate serving a life sentence.
Budrow, 43, is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for two separate murders, including that of his former cellmate Roger Reece Keebe, dubbed “the I-5 Strangler.”
There was no word from the authorities on possible motives for either attack on Flores.
Flores was convicted in October 2022 of slaying Smart, a 19-year-old freshman at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, during what prosecutors claimed was an attempted rape in his dorm room over the Memorial Day weekend in 1996.
Flores, also a first-year student, was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party.
Smart’s body was never found, but she was declared legally dead in 2022, months after Flores’ arrest.
Flores’ father was also charged after he was accused of helping his son conceal Smart’s body, but 81-year-old Ruben Flores was later acquitted of being an accessory after the fact.
With Post wires
