California
Famed California kidnapping hoaxer Sherri Papini breathes new life into schoolmate's 1998 disappearance
A California woman’s plan to fake her own kidnapping in 2016 has brought some renewed attention to the unsolved disappearance of 16-year-old Tera Smith, who vanished from a run nearly 26 years ago.
While Sherri Papini’s hoax kidnapping inspired a Hulu documentary series, “The Perfect Wife,” which premiered earlier this year and made national headlines, there has been little attention focused on Tera’s 1998 missing person case even though Papini and Tera attended the same high school in the 1990s.
Papini graduated in 2001. Tera, who did not live beyond her sophomore year, would have graduated in 2000.
It’s become a point of frustration for Tera’s family, who believe the man who abducted and killed their daughter has been walking freely for more than two decades, possibly victimizing others.
CALIFORNIA MOM WHO FAKED KIDNAPPING ACTS LIKE HOAX ‘NEVER EXISTED’ AS ‘BLINDSIDED’ HUSBAND BREAKS SILENCE
Tera Smith’s sophomore yearbook photo. She would have graduated with the class of 2000. (Family handout)
Sherri Papini’s freshman yearbook photo. She graduated with the Class of 2001. (Family handout)
“It’s really frustrating to me because of the severity of what she did. She lied. She got some money she shouldn’t have. That’s what she did,” Marilyn Smith, Tera’s mother, told Fox News Digital. “And [authorities] spent so much money, so many resources on that and took a really long time. … They suspected from the very beginning that it could be a hoax because of her history. But it took four or five years for them to tell her they knew she was lying.”
The Smith family even had Papini and her husband at the time over for dinner after she was “found.” Marilyn said Papini put on a very convincing show to make it seem like she had survived something traumatic.
SHERRI PAPINI, WHO FAKED HER OWN KIDNAPPING, RELEASED FROM PRISON
“It really felt like a slap in the face in hindsight for her to come over and put on a big act for us when we really did lose our daughter,” Marilyn said.
Sherri Papini, center, leaves the federal courthouse after federal Judge William Shubb sentenced her to 18 months in federal prison in Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 19, 2022. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
Despite the odd connection between the two cases — if one can call it a connection — the Smith family is grateful for the renewed attention two documentaries about the Papini case have brought to their daughter’s unsolved disappearance.
“We do have hopes that there will be an arrest.”
“We do have hopes that there will be an arrest and that there will be a trial in the next couple of years. But we’ve been waiting 25 years,” Marilyn said.
On Aug. 22, 1998, Tera, who was grounded at the time, told her sister she was going out for a jog in the area near their rural Redding, California, home and would be back home in 20 minutes. But she never returned. The 16-year-old’s parents scoured the area that evening and in the days that followed, driving all the roads she may have been running on, but nothing turned up.
On Aug. 22, 1998, Tera, who was grounded at the time, told her sister she was going out for a jog in the area around their rural Redding, Calif., home and would be back home in 20 minutes. She never returned. (Family handout)
To this day, while Tera is believed dead, her remains have never been found.
Her parents aren’t sure what evidence from their daughter’s case remains and what has been lost over the years. Authorities have shared little information with the family over the last two decades, but they haven’t given up hope. In fact, they believe their daughter knew and trusted the man who they believe abducted and killed her.
CALIFORNIA WOMAN SUSPECTS RELATIVE WAS A SERIAL KILLER AFTER UNCOVERING FAMILY SECRETS: ‘IT SHOOK ME’
Tera was a spiritual teenager who kept volumes of written journals since she was a child. She felt a deep connection with the earth and had taken up taekwondo lessons just months before her disappearance.
Tera’s parents believe her instructor, a man named Troy Zink who was in his late 20s and married with children at the time, groomed their daughter, sexually assaulted her and eventually killed her based on what they have read in her journal entries and evidence that has been uncovered over the years.
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Tera was a spiritual teenager who kept volumes of written journals since she was a child. (Family handout)
“We just immediately knew he was involved,” Marilyn said.
Zink had apparently told police and the Smith family he saw Tera earlier that evening, when she arrived to his house and asked him to loan her money. When he told her he could not give her the money she wanted, she became upset and asked him for a ride home. He said he obliged, but when they began fighting in his truck, she demanded to be dropped off at the intersection of Oregon Trail and Old Alturas Road in Redding.
“There was a part of me that was wondering if she was pregnant. … We never really believed that Tera ran away — that she wanted to run away,” Marilyn said. She also believes Tera had told some of her friends she and Zink had a sexual relationship, and he did not want that information to become known to his family.
“[H]e had motive to silence her.”
“She was 16, and he was 29. So, he knew the law. And he knew that if that got out, if he went to jail … he could lose his wife and his little boy. So, he had motive to silence her,” Marilyn said.
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Zink, who could not be reached for comment, also claimed that at the time of Tera’s disappearance, he was in a remote location in the mountains praying.
Troy Zink told police Tera demanded to be dropped off at the intersection of Oregon Trail and Old Alturas Road in Redding. (Google Maps)
Smith’s family recently discovered that witnesses, however, saw Tera and Zink riding in the same truck the evening of Aug. 22. One witness even said he made eye contact with Tera through the passenger seat window as they drove past, and she mouthed, “Help me,” according to Marilyn.
“The police had a pretty good idea of where he took her along the Sacramento River. Between Keswick Dam and Shasta Dam was the area that was kind of focused on for the search. But then it just became a cold case,” Marilyn said.
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Zink was immediately considered a person of interest, but the only thing he was ever charged and convicted with related to Tera’s disappearance was possessing guns as a convicted felon. When police searched his property while looking into possible connections to Tera, they found guns he was not supposed to have.
He was sentenced to three years for the gun conviction in Shasta County, but nothing more came of the case.
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He also had previous convictions for spousal rape and for raping his high school girlfriend when she broke up with him.
“They didn’t connect the dots,” Marilyn said of police at the time. “[T]his guy that’s working on it now … is saying, ‘You know, it looks like to me, like with all this … circumstantial evidence, there’s enough to arrest this guy and to have a case, and they don’t want to do a body lost case.’ But, at some point, you have to come to grips with the fact that there’s maybe not a body, right? And so I think … it’ll be up to the DA if they decide if they have enough to arrest and prosecute.”
California
Federal appeals court blocks California law requiring federal agents to wear identification
LOS ANGELES — An appeals court has blocked a California law passed in 2025 requiring federal immigration agents to wear a badge or some form of identification.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in November challenging the law, arguing that it would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing, and violence and that it violated the constitution because the state is directly regulating the federal government.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction pending appeal Wednesday. It had already granted a temporary administrative injunction to block the implementation of the law.
At a hearing March 3, Justice Department lawyers argued that the California law sought to regulate the federal government, violating the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The appeals court agreed unanimously, saying the law “attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions,” in an opinion written by Judge Mark J. Bennett. The panel was composed of two Trump appointees, Bennett and Daniel P. Collins, and Obama appointee Jacqueline H. Nguyen.
California lawyers argued that the law applied equally to all law enforcement officers without discriminating against the U.S. government, and that states could apply “generally applicable” laws federal agents. They also argued that the law was important to address public safety concerns.
People are more likely to attack officers in self-defense if there’s no visible identification letting the public know they are law enforcement, California lawyers said in a brief opposing the injunction.
“This confusion has resulted in federal law enforcement officials being mistaken for criminals and vice versa, creating serious risk of harm to peace officers and members of the public,” they wrote.
The appeals court judges said they did not consider the public safety factors because the federal government has demonstrate its constitutional rights would be violated by the legislation, and “all citizens have a stake in upholding the Constitution,” it ruled, quoting previous case law.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli called it a “huge legal victory” in a post on X.
The California Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The initial lawsuit also addressed another California measure signed into law last year that would have banned most law enforcement officers from wearing masks, neck gaiters, and other facial coverings. It was blocked by a federal judge in February.
The legislation did not apply to state law enforcement and made exceptions for undercover agents, protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear, and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize the operation.
California
California Islamic calligraphy artist preserves ancient tradition during Arab American Heritage Month
As Arab American Heritage Month is celebrated, one Northern California artist is keeping the centuries-old tradition of Islamic calligraphy alive, one carefully measured stroke at a time.
Sehar Shahzad is a student calligrapher. Before starting any project, Shahzad said “one of the first things that calligraphers learn is how to cut their pens.”
Her tools must be in pristine condition.
“Your instruments are just as important as anything else in this art,” she said.
Shahzad said that as a young girl growing up in Toronto, she took up Islamic calligraphy while reflecting on her religion.
“It’s not like I’d never seen it before, but it was my first time kind of trying it,” she said. “And there’s no other way to say it except that I just fell in love with it.”
Now married with three children, Islamic calligraphy is very much part of her life.
“I remember thinking that this isn’t something that I just want to learn for fun,” she said. “I really want to be able to master it.”
Shahzad said that every angle and curve follows strict geometric rules and is measured with dots.
“For example, this letter here was just a little bit too long, so we use these nuqtas to help us guide and understand how long that letter should be,” she said.
Like the Arabic language, Islamic calligraphy is read from right to left. Its bold simplicity requires precision and a deep understanding of proportion.
“When you’re creating a composition, it’s not only about the letter itself,” Shahzad said. “It’s about composition as a whole and making sure that everything balances together.”
Even though she’s still mastering her form, Shahzad’s work is featured in the prayer room of a Muslim cemetery in Napa and in the domes of mosques in San Jose, Hayward, and San Francisco.
Still, she considers her work on paper the most special.
“A form of meditation, a form of worship, requires focus, requires discipline, really brings me to a different space,” Shahzad said. “And I think that’s what I love most.”
Proving that in this fast-paced world, this millennia-long tradition is far from disappearing.
Shahzad’s work will be featured at the upcoming Light Upon Light art exhibit at the Tarbiya Institute in Roseville from April 24-26.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday highlighted what he called historic progress in the state’s fight against gun violence.
“California has achieved something historic with the lowest rates of firearm deaths, suicides and homicides on record,” he said during a press conference.
According to Bonta, in 2024, California saw the lowest numbers of firearm-related deaths since 1968. That also drove the state’s overall homicide rate to its lowest level on record in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Bonta’s office said.
However, Bonta warned lawmakers that those gains could be at risk without continued investment.
“This progress is fragile,” he said. “It was driven in part by significant investments that are now declining or disappearing, and without continued and increased investment, we risk losing it.”
Bonta urged policymakers to continue advancing gun violence prevention efforts and education initiatives.
To learn more, click here.
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