Change in story from confidential informant could undermine prosecution’s case against Tyler McCain

When Franz “Albert” Nelson was arrested by the Redding Police several months after Nikki Cheng Saelee-McCain went missing, he told law enforcement that he knew something about the case. 

Soon after, Shasta County Sheriff’s Detective Kilee Holroyd met with Nelson in jail. He told her McCain confessed Saelee-McCain’s murder to him shortly after returning from a brief stint in rehab in the months following her disappearance. 

Nelson, who’s the brother of another witness in the case, often stayed at the McCain property with his girlfriend, sleeping either in his car or in his sister Felicia Nelson’s trailer, which she shares with a third witness in the case, Justin “Too Tall” Karren. Nelson said he was friends with McCain.

In his initial interview with the detective Nelson said he had gone into the kitchen of the property’s main residence in the months following Saelee-McCain’s disappearance and found McCain drinking vodka. It looked like he’d been crying, Nelson said, and he asked him what was going on.

“I fucking killed her,” Nelson claimed Tyler mouthed to him at the time before sharing more details, including that the couple had wrestled on their bed and that Saelee-McCain told her husband “I can’t breath” before both fell asleep.

When McCain woke up, according to the story Nelson told law enforcement last year, he found his wife unresponsive with vomit nearby. McCain threw up, too, Nelson claims, then tried to administer CPR without success.

McCain is currently incarcerated without bail on a charge that he murdered his wife, Saelee-McCain, last year in order to prevent her from testifying against him on felony domestic violence charges, which were pending when she disappeared. Her body has not been found. For the past week, Shasta County prosecutors have been revealing evidence in an attempt to justify those charges during a preliminary hearing in McCain’s case. 

Yesterday, September 17,  Nelson, who’s now incarcerated in state prison, entirely recanted the detailed story he told a detective last year. During six hours of direct examination by the prosecution, Nelson steadfastly denied every part of the narrative, saying he made the whole thing up in order to strike a deal with law enforcement and get back to the streets where he could find fentanyl.

Prosecutor Toby Powell struggled through a tedious day of questioning, playing back audio and video recordings of what Nelson said to law enforcement while incarcerated last year and this year, then questioning him on every part of the recordings.

But Nelson’s stance didn’t change. He was lying back then, he told the prosecutor, and he’s telling the truth now. 

Last year, detectives with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office believed the story, enough to release him from jail with a digital recorder and a vape pen with a built-in hidden camera and instructions to speak with McCain to see if he would admit where he allegedly hid his wife’s body. 

Nelson said on the stand he never tried to speak to McCain after being released. Instead, he ditched the expensive recording devices and ran before being picked up during a high-speed chase. Dates for this arrest and other arrests and interviews were not clearly laid out by the prosecution during Wednesday’s testimony.

In a more recently recorded interview played by the prosecution Wednesday, Nelson told a Shasta County detective in no uncertain terms that he didn’t intend to testify to the story he told law enforcement last year. He says if he’s brought from state prison to take the stand that “it’s going to backfire” on the prosecution and that he will explain that he made the whole thing up. 

Wednesday afternoon, in an apparent plea for him to return to his earlier version of events, prosecutor Powell asked whether Nelson was aware that the DA’s Office had “made an independent decision not to charge with evasion” in his case, something they indicated that he had been informed of via his attorney Shon Northam, just before taking the stand. Nelson responded neutrally saying that he “didn’t really give a shit” what he was charged with now.

Wednesday’s prolonged testimony set the hearing timeline back, Prosecutor Sarah Murphy indicated to the Honorable Judge Thomas L. Bender at the end of the day. She said the prosecution’s timeline to wrap up the case is now extended to Tuesday, Sept. 23.

Nelson’s sister, Felicia Nelson, is scheduled to return today, Thursday, for more testimony, as is Karren, who shared the trailer on the McCain’s property with her last year when Saelee-McCain disappeared. Both know Nelson well. Three to four more members of law enforcement will also be testifying before the hearing concludes next week.

---

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.