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Crime Alert, hourly update. Breaking Crime News now.

I'm Sydney Sumner.

Testimony continues in a preliminary hearing for Tyler McCain, a California man accused of

killing his wife, Nikki McCain. Superior Court Judge Thomas Bender is tasked with

determining if the murder case against

Tyler will proceed. As of today, Nikki is still missing and presumed dead. The Reading Police

Department said Nikki last spoke to her family on May 17th before someone picked her up from a home

in Reading near the Wind River Casino. Her truck was also reported missing, but police later found it,

a 2002 Chevrolet avalanche on May 25th in western Tahama County. During a check of Nikki's avalanche,

the vehicle was put up on a lift where investigators discovered blood pooled on top of the fuel

tank. There was so much blood, some of it dripped down from the fuel

tank. Shasta County authorities reclassified Nikki's disappearance as a homicide and charged

Tyler McCain with the murder last month. Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridget

said that Tyler McCain's motive had been to keep Nikki, a mother of four, from testifying

against him in a domestic abuse case.

On Wednesday, Tyler McCain's former friend, Albert Nelson, took the stand and stated that

Tyler admitted that he had killed Nikki after wrestling her in bed, then strangling her on May 18th,

2024. Nelson, who has an unrelated felony warrant, arrived at the Redding Courthouse in shackles.

Nelson previously told investigators that he thought Tyler McCain had been taking meth

at the time of Nikki's death and that Nikki had screamed, I'm dying, during the scuffle.

During his testimony, however, Nelson recanted and claimed he fabricated the incident in an attempt to get out of jail.

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