Man charged with attempted murder of Kristin Smart’s killer

A bloody web of violence and vigilante justice in California took another turn Wednesday, when a twice-convicted murderer who had previously strangled a notorious serial killer in his prison cell was charged with the attempted murder of Kristen Smart’s killer, Paul Flores. 

Jason Richard Budrow, 43, has been charged with attempted murder by the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office after he allegedly slashed Flores’ neck with a “manufactured weapon” in Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga on Aug. 23. 

Flores is currently serving 25 years for the murder of Kristen Smart, who disappeared in May 1996 from the Cal Poly campus in San Luis Obispo after a student party. Smart’s body has never been found. After the attack in August, Flores was airlifted to a nearby hospital, treated, and returned to prison two days later. 

Budrow — a self-described satanist with “666” tattooed over his right eye — has a history of violence that includes the murder of his ex-girlfriend in Riverside County in 2010 and the strangling death of his cell mate in 2021, Roger Reece Kibbe, aka the I-5 Strangler.

From 1977 to 1987, Kibbe raped and killed at least seven female victims in and around the Bay Area, Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. After Kibbe’s death in Mule Creek State Prison at the hands of Budrow in 2021, Budrow wrote a five-page letter to the Mercury News, detailing how he said he had “groomed” Kibbe to be killed to avenge his young victims.

Budrow is scheduled for arraignment Jan. 8, the District Attorney’s office said.