January 6, 1982 — August 22, 1998
It was an ordinary midsummer day — the Saturday before school was scheduled to start —when Tera Smith went missing from Shasta County, California.
She has never been seen again.
August 22, 1998
The last time Tera Smith was seen by what I term “a reliable witness” was when her sister saw Tera leave the house at around 6:00 pm to go jogging. Tera was due to start a shift working at Oasis Fun Center at 7:00 pm, and it seemed she was trying to fit in some exercise before she went to work.
Oasis Fun Center was a business located near her home that Tera’s parents owned and operated. By all accounts, up until this Saturday in August, Tera had been a reliable daughter, a reliable employee, and a reliable student. There was nothing in her past to indicate that she would literally “run off” just before a shift at her job on the last Saturday before the school year started.
The last person “known” to have seen Tera Smith was Charles “Troy” Zink, a twenty-nine year-old convicted rapist with a wife and a child. When he was finally questioned by law enforcement, Troy claimed that Tera had asked him for $2,000, and when he refused, she got angry and asked to be dropped off at the intersection of Old Alturas Road and Old Oregon Trail which he says he did at around 6:30…
