THE sorrowful sister of a missing mother of four described how her sibling was aspiring to take the next step towards a life without her husband before she disappeared nearly a year ago.

Nikki Cheng Saelee-McCain, 39, was last heard from in the early hours of May 18, 2024, when she left her in-laws’ property in Redding, California, about 160 miles north of Sacramento.

Her family reported her missing to the Redding Police Department four days later as text messages to Nikki continued to go unanswered, and her husband, Taylor McCain, also said he had not heard from her for a few days, either.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, who took over the case from authorities in Redding, eventually found Nikki’s vehicle, a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche, abandoned on May 25, 2024, in western Tehama County, less than 40 miles south of Redding.

Yet Nikki was nowhere in sight as Shasta County investigators declared a missing person’s case.

In March, cops declared it a homicide case rather than missin persons and said they are seeking out information on a red truck seen nearby on the day Nikki vanished.

Kaye Ford, Nikki’s sister, told The U.S. Sun that her sibling and her husband’s relationship began falling apart in the years before she disappeared and allegedly included a violent domestic incident.

Ford recalled that when she last spoke to her sister, she seemed confident and eager to split from her husband and venture on a life of independence.

“Her messages were, they have the tone of just like, she was ready to move on. She was gaining a lot of confidence,” Ford told The U.S. Sun.

“I think just like feeling independent. She was a stay at home mom and she had tried to get a job before, but Tyler was very against that.

“He wanted her to stay home and just be with the kids and take care of the house. But she was starting to get a sense of independence and wanting to venture out on her own and learning what she could do for herself.

“Cause I think she was always under the impression that there was no way to get any help, you know, as a single mom, she didn’t know anything about like child support.

“She didn’t know anything about spousal support, any of that, because I believe that her impression was that she wouldn’t get any support from anyone and there’s no way she could be on her own.

“But I think she was learning kind of the ropes and how she can provide for herself and how she could work on getting her, the guardianship of her children back.”

In December 2023, McCain was arrested and charged with four felony counts of domestic violence after Nikki accused him of tying her up and viciously beating her over three horrifying hours inside their home.

McCain was due to appear in court in June 2024 to face the charges; however, prosecutors moved to dismiss the case due to Nikki’s disappearance and the unlikelihood of securing a conviction without his wife’s testimony.

McCain has not been charged in connection with Nikki’s disappearance.

MISSING PERSON’S CASE RECLASSIFIED

On March 14, Shasta County Sheriff investigators reclassified Nikki’s case from a missing person’s case to a homicide and now believe she was murdered.

In their press release, Shasta County deputies urged the public to help identify the driver of a red truck who may have picked up a male adult on Highway 36 in the western portion of Tehama County near the Wild Horse Ranch holiday spot or the Beegum Gorge Bridge between May 18 and May 25, 2024.

Ford told The U.S. Sun that the possible hitchhiker could hold crucial information in helping the family piece together Nikki’s final moments.

Ford said the update from investigators has given the family a sense of relief as they have long suspected foul play was involved in Nikki’s disappearance.

“I feel that we have a little sense of relief with that change in classification because we had a feeling that that might be the case,” she added.

“So just kind of knowing that they’re moving forward in a direction that we’ve kind of felt might be the case anyways.

“It was tough. It was tough to hear, but I think we can kind of start like processing that now because we kind of had that inkling anyway, but we didn’t really want to, I guess, mourn necessarily.

“But now it’s almost like a little piece of closure. A little piece of it, just knowing that now there’s a direction in the investigation.”

It’s frustrating that there’s not this collaborative effort to try to solve the puzzle and fill in the blanks.

Kaye Ford, Nikki’s sister, said about Tyler McCain and his family

At the time of her disappearance, Nikki messaged her sisters, Ford and Chloe Saelee, that she was heading to a hospital in Reading for a family emergency involving her brother-in-law, investigators said.

Throughout the night, Nikki kept her siblings updated and informed them when she left the hospital and was headed to her in-laws’ home to drop off her mother-in-law’s Chevrolet Tahoe.

Nikki texted her sister, Chloe, informing her she was leaving the hospital to drive her mother-in-law’s car back to her in-laws’ house and that a friend of her husband would follow in a car to drop her home afterward.

Chloe continued to text Nikki that night and into the early hours of May 18 but never received another response, according to investigators.

Ford told The U.S. Sun how the lack of effort from McCain and his family in helping search for Nikki has been increasingly frustrating.

“It’s frustrating that there’s not this collaborative effort to try to solve the puzzle and fill in the blanks,” she said.

“It’s a little frustrating because they do know, you know, they’re through the tribute and stuff, they have influence. So, it’s frustrating that they’re not using those influences.”

Ford said she was shocked and upset that McCain did not say more about his wife’s disappearance during a joint March 13 press conference.

For McCain, it was the first time he had spoken publicly since being arrested for domestic violence charges in 2023.

“We were surprised that he was there and spoke. His mom was there too, but she didn’t end up speaking,” Ford told The U.S. Sun.

“But we were very hopeful that they would have said more, you know, even if it’s just to let everyone know that we are now going to be, I don’t know, we’re 100% on board with all the search efforts.

“We were hoping for something more like that. Just like an official announcement from them, like this is why we’ve been silent, but it’s going to change.

“We’re all in and helping to find her, you know, we’re hoping for more like that.”

An attorney for Tyler McCain did not respond to a request for comment.