The 8-foot-tall Lady Justice statue stands on a pedestal in the lobby of the Shasta County Courthouse with a giant U.S. flag as a backdrop. The restored statue once stood atop the county’s 1889 courthouse. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
Day 5 of Tyler McCain’s preliminary hearing revealed further details of an affair involving his missing and presumed dead wife, Nikki Saelee-McCain, and included a sometimes forgetful witness – McCain’s mother.
The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office has charged 40-year-old McCain with murder in Saelee-McCain’s death along with a special circumstance that she was killed to prevent her from testifying in a domestic violence case against him filed in December 2023.
Nikki Saelee-McCain.
McCain has pleaded not guilty to those allegations, in addition to charges of corporal injury to a spouse, false imprisonment, making criminal threats, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, possessing a firearm and ammunition amid a criminal protective order, forgery and traffic violations.
McCain was arrested on Aug. 21 and charged with his wife’s murder.
Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Detective Kilee Holroyd leads Tyler McCain away in handcuffs following his arrest. Holroyd was named lead detective in the Nikki Saelee-McCain missing person’s case on May 24, 2024. Photo source: Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.
Tuesday’s hearing in Shasta County Superior Court picked up from last Thursday with further questioning of Luis Barajas, who said on the stand he was having an ongoing affair with 39-year-old Saelee-McCain.
Barajas said she would stay with him at various times in 2023 and up to May 2024, saying she was getting a divorce from her husband. Barajas testified previously that the two met where he worked at a cell-phone store in Anderson.
“She would come over to spend the night and leave,” Barajas said.
Often, he said she would bring a change of clothes and bedding, such as a sheet.
He said Saelee-McCain liked to share stories about the four children she and McCain had, and how she missed them. The children, the oldest being 14, are now with members of Saelee-McCain’s family.
“She loved her kids,” Barajas said. “She would talk about them all the time.”
Saelee-McCain was last heard from on May 18, 2024, and Barajas said the night before she disappeared was the last time he talked to her.
Under questioning from prosecutor Toby Powell, Barajas said he and Saelee-McCain had sexual intercourse on May 17, 2024, where he stayed in a converted-garage room at his family’s home.
Barajas said he and Saelee-McCain texted often, with her final phone messages to him coming in the early morning of May 18.
“I really need to talk to you,” Barajas said Saelee-McCain told him from her home.
They had gotten into an argument because Barajas said he was concerned for her safety, and felt jealous. He figured she quit texting or calling him afterward on May 18 because she was angry at him.
Barajas said he tried to contact her several times after 3 a.m. that morning to apologize, but she didn’t respond.
“I was getting worried because she would usually text back,” he said.
“I had high hopes she would show up again,” Barajas stated, earlier saying: “I still cared for her a lot.”
Several times during Barajas’ testimony, McCain covered his ears with his hands while sitting next to his attorney, Michael Borges.
Barajas also revealed that he and Saelee-McCain would occasionally use methamphetamine during their relationship.
He testified that he once took a polygraph test with law enforcement as part of the missing-person investigation. He also said he didn’t participate in searches for Saelee-McCain because he didn’t want to be confronted by McCain.
Toward the end of Powell’s questions, he asked Barajas point blank: “Did you kill her?”
“No I did not,” Barajas replied.
Criminalist testifies
The next witness was Carolyn Heitsman, a senior criminalist with the state Department of Justice, who was questioned by Chief Deputy District Attorney Sarah Murphy.
Heitsman, who specializes in DNA analysis, testified that a blood stain discovered in the truck bed of Saelee-McCain’s Chevrolet Avalanche tested positive as human blood.
Officers also found a white sheet knotted in three corners in the truck bed with reddish-brown stains that carried an odor.
A tip from a citizen on May 25, 2024, led law enforcement officers to the abandoned Chevy Avalanche off Highway 36 in the area of Beegum Road near the border of Shasta and Tehama counties.
Shortly thereafter, the pickup was processed to locate any forensic evidence.
The criminalist said DNA evidence on the white sheet and blood that dripped from a bolt hole in the truck bed onto the fuel tank showed “strong support” that it belonged to a female.
Murphy asked Heitsman why she couldn’t outright say the DNA from the blood belonged to Saelee-McCain. The criminalist said that’s because she never got a direct sample from Saelee-McCain since her body has never been found.
Instead, investigators said they used a kinship DNA sample from the McCains’ oldest daughter to make the link.
Heitsman said the blood stain that was tested was 120 billion times more likely to belong to Saelee-McCain.
She added that semen stains found on the sheet also showed strong support as belonging to Tyler McCain. There was also “strong support” for seminal fluid stain from Barajas.
McCain’s mother takes stand
Jeanette Hayward, McCain’s mother, testified at midafternoon.
She said she last saw Saelee-McCain the night of May 17 when her daughter-in-law dropped her off at her home at the Redding Rancheria following a visit at Mercy Medical Center in Redding.
Family members had gone to the hospital because Hayward’s son, Brian, was in the emergency room for blood clots in his lungs and leg.
Hayward said she went to bed while Saelee-McCain apparently got a ride home from a friend to her Happy Valley home. Hayward said Saelee-McCain had told her mother-in-law that she was going to get a ride home from Justin Karren.
The next morning, Hayward said her son came to her home by himself and told her that Saelee-McCain was gone when he woke up.
She said she gave McCain a ride in her Tahoe SUV to Red Bluff so he could look for the Chevy Avalanche.
Hayward said her son looked “normal” and “acted no different than he usually does.”
At one point when they couldn’t find the Avalanche, she said McCain got out of the car to walk on his own.
He told his mother that he had been driving the Avalanche when “it blew up,” according to her testimony.
She said she told McCain to get back in the car, and when he didn’t, she drove home by herself. She also said they were arguing about not being able to find the truck.
She said she wasn’t worried because McCain had money with him and she figured he could get back to Redding on his own.
“I said, ‘Don’t let the coyotes get you,’ ” Hayward said.
Murphy, the prosecutor, got noticeably testy with Hayward when the woman said she couldn’t remember the content of texts that came from her phone after Saelee-McCain went missing.
Hayward said no one but herself had her phone in May 2024. Several times Hayward said she couldn’t recall those texts, even when Murphy showed her a transcript of texts from her cell phone.
Hayward said she also didn’t recall if she texted the girlfriend of her son, Brian. However, the gray-haired Hayward said she imagined she sent them.
Hayward said she used to drink vodka, but quit more than seven months ago. She said her past drinking would make her “tired, forgetful, angry.”
Hayward said she drank vodka after coming home from Mercy because “I was pretty upset about my son.”
Further aggravating Murphy, Hayward said she couldn’t recall when officers first came to her house to ask questions about Saelee-McCain’s disappearance.
She said she did remember reaching out to Chloe Saelee, one of Nikki’s sisters, saying she needed to take Nikki to the hospital after noticing bruises on the woman’s face around December 2023.
Murphy showed Hayward a photo of a Saelee-McCain with a battered face. Previous testimony described McCain’s wife as having two black eyes and lacerations from the alleged domestic violence incident.
“She (Saelee-McCain) had a few bruises, but nothing like that,” Hayward replied.
Testimony is expected to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday with visiting retired judge Thomas Bender presiding.
The purpose of the preliminary hearing is for the judge to determine whether there’s enough evidence to hold McCain for trial.
In the meantime, McCain is being held in Shasta County Jail without bail.
Random notes
At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Bender gave permission for a sketch artist to draw participants in court. The man’s sketches were broadcast on KRCR News Channel 7.
Courtroom photos of McCain were allowed at the start of his trial readiness conference on Aug. 29 under a different judge.
Tyler McCain enters the courtroom on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, to attend his trial readiness conference in Shasta County Superior Court. McCain has pleaded not guilty in the murder of his wife, Nikki Saelee McCain. Further court proceedings are set for next week. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
In the meantime, Bender has forbidden the news media from taking photos or recording audio or video in the courtroom. One out-of-town reporter also was prevented from taking notes on her laptop.
Several supporters of Nikki Saelee-McCain wore “Stop Domestic Violence” pins to Tyler McCain’s preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025.
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