By J. L. Heinze
As the search for Enrique Rios and Elijah Moore continues – the two missing Woodland teens who disappeared in late 2016 – the FBI returns to Yolo County in search of leads they hope will shed light on the suspicious disappearance of the two 17-year-olds. Unfortunately, this is not the first time national investigators were called in to the area to help unravel a mysterious missing person case. In fact, the 2014 case of Rico Harris is still without resolve.
Harris, a star athlete and former Globetrotter’s player, vanished from Yolo County after leaving his mother’s home in Alhambra to head north for Seattle. The 37-year-old was last heard from by his girlfriend, whom he told he would be stopping in Yolo County to “get some rest in the mountains” after his long drive. Shortly after the call was made, his phone was turned off. Family became alarmed when he didn’t resurface in Seattle after four days, and missed an important job interview. Harris’ car was found near Rumsey along Cache Creek. A search party scoured the area only to retrieve his backpack and phone, which had a newly taken shot of Harris standing next to the “Welcome to Yolo County” sign, along with pictures of the creek. Eight days after he was reported missing, fresh footprints from his size 18 shoe were spotted near where he had initially parked his car, which was towed from the area shortly after it was found on the second day of the investigation. How Harris survived eight cold nights in the wilderness, or how no commuters on the California State Route 16 could positively ID the 6ft9, 300lb former basketball star, were among many questions that baffled investigators. Harris’ remains a missing person case, as the case went cold in 2015.
The mysterious disappearance of 45-year-old Dolores Wulff was another cold case file which preoccupied the Woodland community during the early 1980’s. Dolores said goodbye to her family and went to sleep on the night of July 31, 1979, and was never seen again. Her children woke up to her bedroom untouched, nothing stolen or out of place. The only thing missing was Dolores, who never came in for her secretary shift at Woodland High School where she worked. Although some suspected she had been killed by her husband, police did not have enough evidence to piece together a case against him. Two Woodland locals came forward to testify that they had seen Dolores after she was reported missing, further challenging the theory that she had been murdered. There have been no developments in the case in almost 40 years, as Dolores remains a missing person.
Some years later, 28-year-old Theresa Dawn Clark would strike up national attention, as a four-month search for her whereabouts would end in tragedy. Clark was last seen leaving an Albertsons supermarket in Davis to catch a bus to Sacramento for a job interview. Clark, who lived at a K Street apartment, was a recent graduate of UCD. Her backpack had apparently been thrown over the Mace Boulevard overpass where it was found by construction workers. No items appeared to be stolen, as valuables were left untouched. Her nude and badly decomposed body was finally discovered in 1987 in a field in East Davis. She appeared to have been abducted and beaten to death. The FBI was unable to ID the killer.
On the other end of the spectrum, national investigators have been called in when a body has been found but unable to be identified. A little over a decade after the Clark murder, an unidentified body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag on the bank of the Elk Slough. The victim, dubbed “Clarksburg John Doe”, was found with a knife plunged into his heart. His badly decomposed body made it impossible to piece together any details of his identity, apart from a broad age range of 20-35 years old, and a 5ft11 stature.
In more recent times, Yolo County has been inundated with numerous John Does, as many remains have been left unclaimed – often thought to be the bodies of homeless people, who may not have anyone looking for them or any available family or friends to positively ID them. However, missing person cases do not always end in tragedy.
Sherri Papini went missing after she never returned home from her morning jog near her home in Mountain Gate. Papini was held for over three weeks by two Hispanic females, who branded her body with a message (content unreleased by police) and broke her nose. She was chained, starved, and routinely beaten before she was driven out to County Road 17 in Yolo County and pushed out of a moving vehicle in chains with a bag over her head. Luckily, Papini was discovered alive, although hardly recognizable at 87 lbs and with all her hair chopped off. The FBI is still looking for the suspects, who were never visibly seen by Papini, as they wore masks or covered her head throughout her captivity.
Hope remains high in the case of Enrique Rios and Elijah Moore. The community has rallied around family, offered them any comforts possible during this unbelievably difficult ordeal. The people of Yolo County wait anxiously as FBI continues their investigation, which we hope will return the two young teens to their families, unharmed.
