The sisters of a California mom whose disappearance was ruled a homicide nearly 10 months after she vanished have said they always knew “something bad happened” to her.
Saelee-McCain, a 39-year-old mother of four, was last heard from on May 18, 2024, 10 days after she texted loved ones about her plans to end her 15-year marriage with husband Tyler McCain — who was facing serious felony charges for domestic violence that were dropped after she vanished.
Her disappearance was upgraded to a homicide investigation last month — with detectives confirming they have “identified persons of interest in her homicide,” without publicly identifying the suspects.
However, the missing mom’s tight-knit family said the announcement only confirmed their long-held fears.
“When we initially first had a feeling that she was missing, I just knew right away in my heart something wasn’t right, and I knew something bad had happened to her,” Saelee-McCain’s younger sister, Chloe Saelee, told Fox News Digital.
Another sister, Kaye Ford, said she first knew something was wrong when her sister failed to participate in family group chats — and her estranged husband started sending “odd messages.”
“Once we had determined she was probably missing, as a family, we knew it wasn’t her running off or her just not communicating with the family, we knew that something probably really bad has happened to her, and we definitely knew … that time was of the essence,” Ford said, echoing her sister.
“For me, it was the odd messages from her husband Tyler,” she said of the husband telling them their sister was missing, which they did not know at time.
“We felt like that definitely rang the alarm bells for us,” she said.
The mother of four had messaged relatives about her desire to leave her husband, who had been charged with felony domestic violence, according to her family — who say she told them she feared for her life.
McCain was charged with allegedly tying her his wife and viciously beating her over three hours inside their home. He had pleaded not guilty to felony domestic violence — claiming her injuries were from a fight with someone else. The charges were dropped after she went missing.
He has never been identified as a suspect in her disappearance, and said last month that he hasn’t “done very well” with all the attention that case has brought.
“I apologize to everyone, especially my children, my wife’s family and mine as well,” McCain told KHSL.
The FBI and Homeland Security were involved in a raid last month on the couple’s Anderson where Saelee-McCain lived before she went missing, local officials said, without elaborating on the full circumstances.
Officials are offering a combined reward of up to $30,000 for information that leads to the location of Saelee-McCain.