16-year-old Tera Smith was last seen in Redding, California on August 22, 1998. She disappeared after telling her sister that she was going for a jog and would be back in about twenty minutes.
Tera was grounded at the time and wasn’t supposed to leave the house, but told her sister she’d be back before their parents got home. Tera Smith never returned home and hasn’t been heard from since. She never showed up to the Oasis Fun Center where she was scheduled to work that night. Cadaver dogs were brought in to search for Tera, and a nearby lake was drained, but no clues as to her whereabouts were found. On the night of Tera’s disappearance, a woman matching Tera’s description was spotted by a witness inside a full size dark blue 1976 Ford pickup truck with mag wheels and a yellow tailgate driven by an unidentified white male. This sighting has never been verified. According to one of her friends, Tera was having a secret relationship with her Taekwondo instructor, 29-year-old Charles “Troy” Zink, who was married with a young son at the time. Tera left a letter in her bedroom addressed to him, suggesting that she wanted to end their relationship. Troy Zink told police that he went to meet Tera near her home at 6:30 pm on the day she disappeared after she called him at work. According to Zink, Tera asked him for $2000 and got angry when he told her he didn’t have that much money. He says she then asked for a ride, leading to him dropping her off at the intersection of Oregon Trail and Old Alturas Road for a jog. Zink claims he drove to Hang Glider Hill after dropping Tera off, where he prayed for five hours before returning home at 11:30 pm. He denies any involvement in Tera Smith’s disappearance and has never officially been named a person of interest in her case. He stopped cooperating with authorities after his initial interview with police. In 1992, Troy Zink was convicted of marital rape and spent a year in prison after he allegedly forced his ex-wife to have sex with him at knife point. Zink was married with a young son and living in in Redding, California at the time of Tera’s disappearance.
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