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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.”
A California fugitive wanted in connection with two murders was captured in Laos and extradited to the United States.
Myung Jin Kim, 31, was taken into custody by Laotian authorities in late May and flown back to Los Angeles International Airport on June 9.
Kim was wanted for his alleged roles in two murders — one that occurred in 2016 and another in 2018, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
On June 27, 2016, Kim was accused of orchestrating the botched ambush killing of the wrong man in San Jose.
The victim was in a vehicle when the suspects, who were lying in wait, ambushed him after he came to a stop. At least one suspect got out of their vehicle, shot the man, and fled before police arrived.
Investigators later identified several suspects and discovered the shooting was a targeted killing believed to have been orchestrated by Kim. Prosecutors said the person who was fatally shot ended up being the wrong man and was not the intended target.
A warrant was issued for Kim’s arrest, however, police were unable to locate him.
On Sept. 5, 2018, Kim was accused of shooting and killing his friend, Christopher Kim, 26, after arguing with him over money in the parking lot of a CVS store in Westminster. He reportedly shot the victim six times in front of the victim’s girlfriend before running away, authorities said. Another arrest warrant was issued for Kim on Nov. 20, 2018, for murder.
Kim remained in hiding for several years until December 2025, when investigators learned that he had fled the country and was overseas in Laos.
Authorities from multiple agencies, including the Orange County and Santa Clara County district attorney’s offices, along with the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, began working to return Kim to the United States for prosecution.
In late May 2026, Kim was taken into custody by Laotian authorities for using fraudulent travel documents. He was flown back to Los Angeles International Airport on June 9.
He was booked into the Anaheim Police Department jail, where he was taken into custody by the San Jose Police Department and later transported to Santa Clara County on June 10.
Kim’s arrest and extradition mark the first-ever return of a wanted fugitive from Laos to the United States, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Kim’s cowardly acts of violence finally caught up with him, despite being halfway across the globe,” said Patrick Grandy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The FBI’s Orange County Violent Crime Task Force is proud to assist police departments seeking violent subjects who’ve fled the jurisdiction, and we will continue these partnerships and those we’ve developed with countries all over the world to seek justice for victims of violent crime.”
“Justice knows no borders and we will go to the literal ends of the earth in the pursuit of justice,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. But the long arm of the law of Orange County is coming for you and there is not a country on earth that is capable of shielding you from our unwavering pursuit of justice. We believe in consequences for your actions, and you will be held accountable for every crime you commit and for every victim you harm.”
Kim is expected to be prosecuted in Santa Clara County first, before returning to Orange County to be prosecuted for the crimes committed in that jurisdiction.
He was also previously charged in Orange County with drug dealing, possessing a gun as a convicted felon and metal piercing ammunition.
Kim’s removal and extradition to the U.S. were a result of the collaboration and cooperation of local, federal and international law enforcement agencies, including:
- Multiple divisions/units in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- U.S. Department of Justice Attaché in Manila
- U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service in Vientiane (Laos) and Singapore
- U.S. Marshals Service Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations (Bangkok and Singapore)
- Lao PDR law enforcement
- Orange County District Attorney’s Office
- Westminster Police Department
- Anaheim Police Department
- Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office
- San Jose Police Department
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection
California
Officials say sprinklers at California medical equipment warehouse didn’t work during blaze
TRACY, Calif. — Firefighters responding to a blaze that destroyed a massive medical equipment warehouse in Northern California and sent embers flying for miles were hindered by sprinklers and hydrants that weren’t working, authorities said Friday.
The 1 million-square-foot (93,000-square-meter) warehouse in Tracy, a city about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) east of San Francisco, supplied medical equipment to area hospitals. It’s owned by Medline, a major medical-surgical products provider of equipment such as latex gloves, masks, surgical instruments and other medical supplies.
Thick black smoke billowed Friday from the site, as firefighters continued to put out hotspots.
Authorities said they don’t yet know why the water system failed during the blaze but it appeared to be a problem with the facility’s system, not city supply. The blaze broke out around 1 p.m. Thursday. Crews found the building’s sprinkler system wasn’t working and hydrants on the property lacked water pressure, Tracy Deputy Fire Chief Brian Bagley said. A fire official found little or no water was flowing through either system, he said.
Firefighters were forced to try to connect to city hydrants instead. The building was engulfed by fire within 40 minutes, Bagley said.
“We did a defensive approach at that point,” he said.
The facility had been evacuated, and no one was injured.
Smoke from a medical supply warehouse fire in Tracy, Calif., is seen from Livermore on Thursday, June 11, 2026. Credit: AP/Santiago Mejia
Embers from the blaze sparked two grassfires and set pallets and multiple big rig trailers at a nearby FedEx facility ablaze. Firefighters were able to knock those fires down.
Crews overnight had to contend with new fires in trailers that were loaded with supplies.
Bagley said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would help investigate the cause of the blaze, but authorities would probably not be able to get into the warehouse for at least a couple of more days. The sprinkler system had been tested in January by an outside company and no issues were found, Bagley said.
The warehouse is in a massive industrial park that also houses fulfillment and distribution centers for Amazon, Home Depot and FedEx.
No homes were evacuated. Bagley recommended people near the fire stay indoors but said air quality tests had not raised any “grave concerns.”
When Rickey Spivey Towner had a heart attack in his Coachella Valley home last September, his stepdaughter Megan Conner found him unconscious and called 911.
But there was a problem: The equipment used to answer 911 calls at the Desert Hot Springs Police Department malfunctioned and Conner couldn’t connect with a dispatcher for more than two minutes, according to dispatch records obtained by NBC Bay Area.
In a recording of one of Conner’s 911 calls, the dispatcher is immediately disconnected, and Conner is met by silence for 25 seconds until the dispatcher can get back on the line.
Towner did not survive. His family said he died of a heart attack.
Ricky Spivey Towner’s death is the first documented fatality that may be linked to Cal OES’ problematic 911 upgrade.
Towner’s death may be the first documented fatality potentially linked to the state’s ongoing 911 system overhaul.
Newly obtained records under the California Public Records Act reveal the connection problems were linked to call processing equipment approved by the state as part of California’s troubled Next Generation 911 rollout, sold by a state contractor called NGA 911, and deployed by the Desert Hot Springs Police Department in 2023.
Police records reveal emergency dispatchers were unexpectedly logged out of their phone system as Conner called 911 to report her stepfather lying unresponsive on the floor.
Records obtained by NBC Bay Area show all of the dispatchers were logged out of their systems when the 911 call came in.
It’s unclear if Towner could have been saved had his stepdaughter been able to summon help faster, but records show a police dispatch manager sent a scathing email shortly after his death to NGA 911. She also copied top officials with the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES).
“People’s lives are on the line and your failed system may have just cost this person their life,” the dispatch manager wrote on September 12, 2025. “I believe that your engineers are continuously making changes to our live environment which is affecting our user experience. Which again is unacceptable, especially when I had continuously asked you to stop.”
Desert Hot Springs dispatch manager’s email to NGA 911 and Cal OES shortly after Towner’s death.
Records from the police department lay out the details of what went wrong and show Conner had to call 911 three times that morning before she was finally able to relay any information to a dispatcher. It took nearly two-and-a-half minutes.
The national standard calls for 90% of 911 calls to be answered within 15 seconds.
The equipment that failed is called call processing equipment (CPE) and it was purchased by Desert Hot Springs police after Cal OES suspended new sales of existing call processing equipment and began pushing dispatch centers toward cloud-based systems designed for the state’s Next Generation 911 network.
State officials say the Next Generation 911 project is a critical upgrade to California’s antiquated 911 system and will improve emergency response.
After a series of reports by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit, however, the overhaul has faced mounting scrutiny from lawmakers over delays, technical problems and a rising price tag exceeding $450 million.
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Like most emergency dispatch centers across California, Desert Hot Springs has not switched over to the new Next Gen 911 network. However, it was among the first to use the new cloud-based CPE that Cal OES promoted after suspending sales of legacy call processing equipment that failed to meet Next Generation 911 standards.
NGA 911’s equipment had passed state lab testing conducted by Cal OES and was among a handful of vendors approved to sell the new cloud-based CPE when Desert Hot Springs purchased its equipment.
While Cal OES, NGA 911, and Desert Hot Springs police were discussing the equipment failure during Conner’s 911 call, the family says they were left in the dark. They say nobody had told them about what happened until they were recently contacted by NBC Bay Area.
“Why didn’t I know any of this,” said Lakisha Romero, Towner’s daughter. “My dad has been talked about around the state and I had no clue what was going on.”
Lakisha Romero (left) and Megan Conner (right).
A timeline of “major events and challenges” in the state’s implementation of Next Gen 911 that has since been posted on Cal OES’ website shows the CPE purchased by Desert Hot Springs had been plagued by persistent problems since it was first deployed more than two years before Towner’s death.
“911 calls that were disconnected before being answered by the [911 center] are not displaying for dispatchers,” the Cal OES timeline states. “A workaround was immediately implemented that required dispatchers to use third party technology. NGA 911, LLC is notified of the problem and indicates it is working on a solution.”
About a year later, the Wasco Police Department also purchased NGA 911 call processing equipment and experienced “the same problems as [Desert Hot Springs],” according to Cal OES.
By May 2025, police in Desert Hot Springs and Wasco had opened roughly 300 trouble tickets concerning issues with NGA 911’s CPE, including 17 of “critical importance” and 99 of “high importance.” Two months later, both departments canceled their CPE orders with NGA 911.
In a statement, the Desert Hot Springs Police Department said it “worked collaboratively with NGA and Cal OES regarding operational and technical concerns that arose during implementation and operation.”
Cal OES said it took “immediate steps” to help both departments swap out the problematic CPE with equipment from a new vendor, but the process took months to complete and had not occurred before Towner died.
Three weeks after his death, Cal OES said it removed NGA 911 from the approved CPE vendor list and the agency eventually cancelled the company’s CPE contract in March of this year.
Cal OES declined an on-camera interview request but said in an email the agency is committed to oversight and accountability of its contractors.
NGA has not responded to NBC Bay Area’s repeated requests for comment regarding Towner’s death and the equipment failure in Desert Hot Springs. It has posted this timeline on its website explaining its project record in California.
California’s Next Generation 911 project is years behind schedule, but state officials say there’s a new plan in place to get the project moving forward again and hope to have the Los Angeles region hooked up to the network in time for the 2028 Olympics.
The state agency recently requested another $142 million to meet that goal, which would be paid for by an additional 13 cent surcharge on the phone bill of Californians.
As the state moves forward with Next Generation 911 and upgraded call processing equipment that 911 centers desperately need, Towner’s family continues to seek answers.
Romero visited the Desert Hot Springs Police Department in May to get some clarity about what happened in her father’s case but said she was disappointed by the response.
Lakisha Romero is still searching for answers about what went wrong.
“I went asking for answers and nobody wanted to tell me anything,” Romero said.
In a statement, the department said it’s “committed to transparency and reliable emergency response services.”
Towner’s family said nobody has contacted them about the long history of problems associated with the 911 equipment and questioned why it wasn’t removed a long time ago.
“Why should it take someone dying for them to do that,” Romero asked.
Candice Nguyen is the reporter on this story. If you have a comment or a question, email her at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.
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