Disappearance of Rico Harris

Rico Omarr Harris, born May 19, 1977, was a former professional basketball player who had starred at Temple City High School and later led Los Angeles City College to its first state junior college championship in 1997. He went on to play for International Basketball League teams and briefly for the Harlem Globetrotters before a 2000 assault-related injury ended his athletic career. In the years that followed, Harris struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, was arrested many times, and eventually entered recovery through a Salvation Army program in 2007.

By 2014, Harris had rebuilt his life. He had a job working security, had reconnected with a girlfriend, Jennifer Song, whom he met in recovery-adjacent circles, and the two were planning to marry and move together to Seattle. In September 2014, Harris relocated to Seattle to live with Song, exchanged his California driver's license for a Washington one, and secured a job interview for a position as a property appraiser. Before starting his new life, he returned briefly to Alhambra to visit his mother, Margaret Fernandez, and brother.

On October 9, 2014, Harris visited his family, then left after midnight to drive back to Seattle, planning to arrive in time for his October 10 job interview. He stopped for gas in Lodi, then called Song at 10:45 a.m. from north of Sacramento, leaving a message that he was going "up into the mountains to rest" because he had not slept much. He turned off his phone at 11:15 a.m. He has not been heard from since.

When Harris failed to arrive in Seattle or attend his interview, Song and Fernandez waited several days before reporting him missing to Alhambra police on October 14. That same day, a Yolo County sheriff's deputy found Harris's abandoned black Nissan Maxima in a county park lot along State Route 16 near Cache Creek, north of Rumsey. Search and rescue teams, aided by all-terrain vehicles, helicopters, a thermal-imaging aircraft, and search dogs, combed a five-mile radius around the vehicle and 27 miles of the surrounding highway corridor but found no trace of him after three days.

Subsequent reported sightings, none conclusively confirmed, included a man matching Harris's description walking along Route 16 and later sitting on a guardrail overlooking the creek. On October 19, footprints matching Harris's size-18 shoes were found leading from the parking lot toward the creek, and his backpack—containing his phone with photos and video timestamped the night of October 10—was recovered nearby. The sheriff's office scaled back the search on October 22; divers searched the creek in November without result. Investigators, including detective Dean Nyland, have stated they see no evidence of foul play, based on the absence of struggle indicators and the content of Harris's phone. The case remains open, and Harris's whereabouts remain unknown. The disappearance was later featured on the Investigation Discovery series Disappeared.