Shasta County authorities in California have reclassified the disappearance of 39-year-old Nikki Cheng Saelee-McCain as a homicide.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Nikki vanished on May 17, 2024. Redding Police Department said she last spoke to her family that same day before someone picked her up from a home in Redding, near the Win-River Casino.
Her truck was also reported missing, but police later found it, a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche with California License Plate DP154UT, on May 25, 2024, in western Tehama County, according to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.
Police said they’re now looking for information about a red truck; the driver may have picked up a man near Highway 36 in western Tehama County “near the R Wild Horse Ranch” or Beegum Gorge Bridge between May 18 and May 25 of last year.
Nikki’s sisters, Kaye Ford and Chloe Saelee, said during a FOX News Digital they want answers and won’t give up on finding out what happened to her.
“We, as a family, knew it wasn’t her running off or her just not communicating with the family,” Ford said. “We definitely knew that something probably really bad had happened to her. And we definitely knew that time was in the essence as far as evidence and clues as to what may have happened to her.”
On March 25, 2025, the sheriff’s office announced that they had identified “persons of interest” in Nikki’s death.
“I’m hopeful that the people who have information will step up,” Ford said. “They may or may not be involved in the actual homicide. They may be involved in a cover-up or the cleanup, whatever else it might be.”
“We’re working really hard to apply the pressure. Law enforcement has been very diligently working on the case. We don’t see most of their work since a lot of their work is behind the scenes.”
Meanwhile, Nikki’s husband, Tyler McCain, was facing numerous domestic violence charges, which were subsequently dropped. He has not been named a a suspect in her disappearance.
“As previously stated in Court the DA’s office has exhausted all avenues to prove the case at this time without her. The DA’s office reserves all rights to refile this case in the future,” the sheriff’s office said at the time.
McCain was arrested and charged on December 2, 2023, for false imprisonment, corporal injury to a spouse, assault with force and criminal threats. On May 7, 2024, he pleaded not guilty and a little over a week later, Nikki vanished.
He broke his silence last month, during a press conference regarding his wife’s disappearance.
“I apologize to everyone, especially my children, my wife’s family, mine as well,” he said. “I’m just here in support, so anything that I can do, I want to do that.”
A combined reward of up to $30,000 is currently offered for information that leads to Nikki.
Nikki is described as standing 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing 110 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and a tattoo on her left forearm of several roses.
[Feature Photo: Nikki Cheng Saelee-McCain/Handout]
