Rico Harris was a professional basketball player of Harlem Globetrotter fame, who was recovering from serious alcoholism and drug addiction. But just when things were starting to get better, they got worse. One day, he just disappeared.
Basketball Gets A Child Prodigy
Margaret Fernandez, the mother of Rico Omar Harris, often said he was born to play basketball. His father, Henry Harris, had been a gifted forward for the Idaho State University team himself.
But Rico’s home was far from a happy family. On some days, his father would verbally and physically abuse his mother. He would also berate his children, the brunt of which fell mostly on Rico.
Margaret eventually separated from Henry. She left with the children to live in a small duplex in Alhambra. So a young Rico grew up just a few blocks away from a dad that rarely showed up or visited.
An LA Times article mentions Rico towered over other kids, yet he was soft-spoken and hated confrontation. His innate talents and the inherited legacy from his estranged father started showing signs at an early age.
At 11, the youngster would be a regular part of pickup basketball games with adults at the Granada Park Gym – a municipal recreational facility not far from his home in Alhambra. Unlike other teenagers, he wasn’t consumed by flash distractions.
Basketball was his singular focus. All he wanted was to give his single mother a better life. He played high-school basketball for two years as part of Temple City High School’s team.
Rico also went on to play for Los Angeles City College (LACC) and California State University, Northridge before making a brief foray into professional basketball. He played a few games in the International Basketball League, as part of the San Diego Stingrays.
His last and most notable appearance was as part of the Harlem Globetrotters in 2000. But an injury he received in an altercation ended his basketball career in a few months.
Despite having a troubled childhood, Rico’s struggles were far from over. The real problems started when he tried adjusting to life without basketball.
After Basketball, Before Going Missing
Between 2001 and 2007, Rico faced 16 cases in L.A. County Superior Court on charges including public intoxication, burglary and trespassing. His best friend, David Lara, claims he was arrested more than 100 times.
“It’s a local tragedy. He was the best ballplayer this city ever saw, and then you’d see him in the street, drunk and asking for quarters,” Lara told Flinder Boyd of Fox Sports.
Ironically, Rico hit rock bottom when searching for a new high. Shortly after his 30th birthday, he overdosed on some prescription pills and had to be rushed to the hospital.
This close brush with death led him to check in with the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Centre in Downtown Los Angeles, where he began a long, painful journey towards recovery.
Later on, he also took up a few jobs for the organisation as a cook and also worked as a security guard at a homeless shelter in Bell. It was during this time, in 2012, that he met Jennifer Song.
She was a 34-year-old insurance broker from Seattle, and they hit it off immediately. “It was different dating someone who looked really normal, but slowly learning that he’s adjusting to life as a whole different person,” Song said in an interview.
Nathan Fenno for The LA Times reported that he would vanish for 4-5 days at a time to clear his head. The destination didn’t matter, as long as it was a drive.
One of his friends nicknamed him ‘Houdini’ for his ability to disappear out of sight. This detail proves important for his disappearance, because it wasn’t odd for him to vanish for a few days.
But there wouldn’t be alarming signs until late 2014. Until then, Rico and Song’s relationship would blossom. He would visit her on the weekends, and they even discussed marriage and children.
They were even planning to move in. But in the few months leading up to his disappearance, he had started drinking again, which cost him his job as a security guard for an event management company.
On a drive back home to Alhambra, he reportedly called Lara and said he was depressed. On October 8th, 2014, when he arrived at his mother’s house to collect some clothes, he also had a beer with his stepfather Charles Taylor.
That day, he expressed doubt about whether moving in with Song was the right choice. When Taylor asked why he was doing it if he was doubtful, he reportedly said, “I’m ashamed of the things that happened down here, and I want to start another life.“
During that trip, he also had dinner with his brother and had a brief private conversation with his mother. “The last conversation with me,” Fernandez says, “he wasn’t in a good place, and he had to clear his mind.”
Rico Harris’s family never saw him after that. The day he left home on 10th October was the last time his mother saw his face.
The Disappearance Of Rico Harris
After he said his goodbyes to his family, he picked up a few mementoes and belongings and then headed out. The missing person report by the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office details the exact timeline of events on the day of his disappearance.
He began the trip back to Seattle early on 10th October, at 1 am. As he passed through Sacramento on the way at 9:30-9:45 am, he spoke to his mother and at 10:45 am, he left a voice note for Song.
On 13th October, A deputy from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office noticed his car parked at Yolo County Regional Parks Lower Site on State Route 16 near Rumsey. It was a black Nissan Maxima.
The deputy checked the immediate vicinity of the car but found no one. When the car was still there the next day (14th October), the deputy checked the car up close. The doors of the car were locked, and the interior was a mess.
CDs, credit cards and papers were scattered across the floor. He performed a registration check and found Hariss’s details. The car wasn’t stolen, and there were no outstanding tickets or warrants.
When the car was impounded, the gas tank was empty, and the battery was dead. Authorities found Rico’s wallet and most of his credit cards but no cash. Even his license was missing.
He contacted Alhambra police and told them to check if there was any problem. Fernandez recollected speaking to him on the phone. Some deputies reached out to Song too, and she informed them of the voice note he’d left.
This triggered a ground search in the area surrounding the site of Rico’s parked car. Initially, the search began on foot, but it had to be suspended by nightfall. Deputies even requested help from law enforcement agencies with helicopters.
Unfortunately, it was too windy that day. On October 15th, the search expanded to three modes – on foot, ATVs and from the Sheriff’s Aero Squadron Airplane. The search returned empty-handed.
Meanwhile, a family returning from Sacramento noticed a cellphone on the pavement next to the road. The spot was a mile south of the park where Rico’s car was found. The phone wasn’t damaged, but the battery had died.
On the guardrail next to the phone, they found a black bag pack too. It had some jumper cables, clothes and two bottles; one filled with alcohol and the other with an energy drink.
The family even searched around for the owner, but couldn’t find anyone. The lead detective on the case, Dean Nyland, took over from there. The phone was examined thoroughly, and a breakthrough was found.
The phone had a series of photos and videos. The photos were misty landscape shots from the edge of Cache Creek toward the Capay Hills, along with some playful selfies, including one smiling in front of the Yolo County sign at the rest stop.
One video in particular stood out to Nyland. It was recorded after Rico’s last voice note to Song. In the video, the camera faced the overhead light and music played in the background.
Detective Nyland revealed in an interview that Rico Harris appeared to be singing out of tune, tossing the contents of his wallet and CDs across the car, clanking against the panel & steering wheel.
This video was taken after his voice note to Song, which placed his LSA (last-seen-alive) after the previous 10:45 am timeline. But Rico wasn’t only seen in evidence. There were some reported sightings too.
The first couple of them were two days before his car was found. On 11th October, he was spotted by two different people within a span of a few hours.
Sightings Of Rico Harris
In the episode titled ‘California Leaving’ of the show Disappeared, these early sightings are mentioned. A witness reported seeing Rico sitting on the guardrail at 5:30 am on 11th October, the exact spot where his bag pack was found.
Another witness spotted Rico walking along California’s Route 16 at 8 am the same day. But both leads went nowhere. For a week, there was silence. No new sightings were reported.
Meanwhile, Nyland spoke to people who were close to Rico. He wanted to understand his mindset to figure out where he’d gone. And he started with Rico’s girlfriend, Jennifer Song.
She had reported her boyfriend missing four whole days after she expected him home. The detective found this suspicious, and he asked her why.
Song clarified that she’d spoken to Rico’s mother, and they both had decided to wait for him to turn up on his own. Her call record also showed her trying to connect with him multiple times.
Nyland also spoke to Rico’s brother, Tito, and his roommate, Wilfredo Mayorga. Speaking to his mother did give him some insight into his mental state, but there were still no credible leads to pursue.
All that changed on 18th October. The day came with renewed hope for finding Rico. In the early hours of the morning, an eyewitness saw a large man wearing light-coloured pants; the same shade Rico wore when he left LA.
The next day, on 19th October, authorities spotted a new trail of size 18 sneakers a few yards south of where Rico’s car was found. An article on The Sacramento Bee details a fresh search following these sightings.
Authorities continued searching a 5-mile radius around where Rico’s car was found. A California Highway Patrol aeroplane with Forward Looking InfraRed, a heat-seeking system, also assisted them.
The feature below, edited for Fox Sports, contains footage from the area and an interview with Detective Nyland showing locations of interest in the case.
They didn’t just search physically, though. The sheriff’s office put out alerts through its Nixle automated messaging system and worked with Yolo County Emergency Services to activate its Everbridge System.
The system sent text and call messages to 4000 residents asking them to call if they had any information or had seen Rico Harris. Both searches turned up empty with no new credible leads.
Was Rico Harris ever found? No, and the case is still unsolved. To this day, thoughts of the case consume Detective Nyland’s day. He continued working on the case in his free time, even after the search was called off.
He doesn’t have any leads yet, only theories based on his judgment of Rico’s mental state during those days.
Theories Without Answers
Nyland believes that Rico left LA torn and conflicted. There was no evidence of a struggle or foul play. In the video on his phone, the former Harlem Globetrotter looked like a free man.
He suspected that a complicated relationship awaited him back there. Rico had previously expressed doubts about moving in with his girlfriend Song, which further reinforced this theory.
“He didn’t have the rosy relationship with the girlfriend that she tries to depict,” Nyland said in an article in The LA Times. “I think she was trying to make a better person out of him. She was trying to change Rico, maybe too fast.”
During an interview, Nyland speculated that the Lower Parks site where the car was parked must have been heaven (respite) for the conflicted man. He also believes that Rico came back after his car was towed.
That would explain the fresh sightings and the sneaker trail. But what happened after that? No one knows. And the weight of this mystery bears heavily on the people close to Rico.
Life After Rico Harris
Rico’s mother still waits for a call with any new information, wondering if it will bring any resolution. “This is a pain that’s deep, that goes down to your core,” she told The LA Times.
Wiping away tears, Fernandez added. “It’s like you’re on a merry-go-round and can’t get off. Nothing is going to quiet the pain. Nothing is going to make it go away. … He could be alive.”
She still keeps his clothes in the bin, awaiting his return. She has scrapbooks full of news clippings from his basketball career and often flips through them, remembering him.
Jeniffer Song, Rico’s girlfriend, expressed that she was still hopeful. “He will come home, and I think he would be very happy that I’m saying it like that.”
Rico’s relatives and friends still replay their last conversations with him, wondering whether saying something different would have prevented his disappearance.
On 22nd October 2014, the active physical search for Rico was scaled back. At the time of writing, Rico remains officially listed as missing by the California Department of Justice, with October 10, 2014, as his last-seen date.
The Harlem Globetrotter wasn’t the only one to disappear from a parked car. Bryce Laspisa, a 19-year-old college student, disappeared from Los Angeles in the same manner.
Bryce pulled his car over to rest on a 3-hour-long drive. A few hours later, his car was found down a 15-foot embankment with no sign of the teenager. Read the whole story to find out what happened.
