Rico Harris

Case background and investigation

Rico Omarr Harris was born in Los Angeles on May 19, 1977, and grew up as a gifted basketball player in Alhambra, California. A standout at Temple City High School, he led Los Angeles City College to its first state junior-college championship in 1997 and drew comparisons to future NBA stars before injuries and suspensions cut short his Division I career at Cal State Northridge. He briefly joined the Harlem Globetrotters in 2000 but left after a violent assault caused lasting head injuries. In the years that followed, Harris struggled with severe addiction, but by 2007 he had entered recovery through a Salvation Army program and rebuilt his life, finding steady work and a girlfriend, Jennifer Song, in Seattle.

In October 2014, the 37-year-old Harris was preparing to relocate to Seattle to move in with Song and start fresh. After visiting his mother in Alhambra, he set out on the long drive north on October 10. Around midday he called and left a voicemail saying he had reached the Sacramento area and was going 'up into the mountains to rest' before continuing. Shortly afterward he lost cell reception, and that message was the last anyone ever heard from him. He simply never arrived in Seattle.

Days later, his black Nissan Maxima was discovered abandoned at Cache Creek Regional Park in rural Yolo County, roughly 40 to 60 miles north of Sacramento. Inside and around the vehicle, searchers found his wallet, credit cards, cellphone, and a backpack, with nothing suggesting robbery. The phone contained timestamped photos and videos he had taken on October 10. Investigators located large, size-18 footprints leading away from the car toward Cache Creek, and there were reported sightings of a man matching his description the following day.

The Yolo County Sheriff's Office found no evidence of a crime, and lead investigators theorized that Harris may have wandered into the rugged canyon and either fallen victim to the harsh terrain or left the area on foot. His family has noted that he lived with bipolar disorder, and some have wondered whether that played a role, while others believe he simply became lost or injured in an unforgiving landscape of steep canyons, water, and wilderness. Cache Creek is a fast, cold waterway, and the surrounding hills are laced with abandoned mine works and dense brush, any of which could conceal a person who fell or became disoriented.

Extensive ground and air searches, including efforts by cadaver dogs and volunteers, turned up no body, and despite hundreds of tips and reported sightings over the years, none has ever been confirmed. Harris's girlfriend, Jennifer Song, and his mother, Margaret Fernandez, have kept his case in the public eye, describing a loving, charismatic man who had fought hard to reclaim his life and was on the verge of a hopeful new chapter when he vanished. More than a decade later, the case remains open and unsolved, and the whereabouts of the man his loved ones remember as a 'gentle giant' remain a complete mystery.