Despite some similarities in their cases, the Trinity County Sheriff's Office doesn't consider the recent disappearances of two North State women to be related. 

Sheriff's spokeswoman Lynn Ward also said there weren't any updates in the search for Stacey Smart, whose disappearance sometime in October has sparked comparisons to that of missing Mountain Gate mother Sherri Papini, 34.

There are plenty of differences in their cases, though.

Smart, 51, was last seen in Lewiston, over 40 miles from where Papini was last spotted in Mountain Gate. She's 17 years older than Papini and has a different build -- 5 feet 8 inches tall and 180 pounds to Papini's 5 feet 3 or 5 feet 4 and barely 100 pounds.

Then there's their everyday lives -- Papini is married with two young children and an avid runner who drives. Smart, on the other hand, recently moved in with a boyfriend, doesn't drive and has mobility issues and grown children who live in a different city.

While both women live in rural areas, Lewiston is much more remote and rugged than Mountain Gate, which seems secluded but is less than a mile from Interstate 5 -- basically a Redding suburb. The nearest major thoroughfare to Lewiston is Highway 299, which is far less traveled than I-5 and still several miles from Lewiston.

There's also the amount of time it took to report both women -- in Papini's case, the failure to pick up her two toddlers from day care was so unusual, her husband, Keith, reported her missing nearly right away. 

While Smart's family says it's unusual for her to be out of touch -- especially considering there was a death in the family and still no word from her -- they didn't report her missing until several weeks after their most recent conversation in mid-October. Both women were reported missing Nov. 2.

The disappearances of Smart and Papini also are classified differently by the California Department of Justice -- Papini's case is considered missing under 'suspicious circumstances,' while Smart's is classified as an 'unknown circumstances' case. 

According to a California peace officer training guide, 'unknown circumstances' means there simply isn't enough information to know whether a disappearance is voluntary, a crime or something else altogether.

'Suspicious circumstances,' on the other hand, means the disappearance is unusual enough that the person could either be the victim of foul play or, at the very least, be in danger because of a mental, physical or emotional problem.

But for an area with relatively few missing persons cases, the timing and other similarities -- such as that both are blonde, blue-eyed women who live in rural areas and whose families say the disappearances are out of character -- make two vanishings at the same time unsettling. 

The cases have also triggered memories of another haunting North State disappearance: that of 16-year-old Tera Smith, whose vanishing has both similarities and major distinctions to the current cases.

Smith's disappearance in the late 1990s mirrors Papini's most closely -- they have similar appearances and both were reported jogging near Old Oregon Trail before they disappeared. But the last reported Smith sighting was near Old Alturas Road, much closer to the heart of Redding than Papini's relatively remote jog near the intersection of Sunrise Drive.

The main difference in their cases is easily the amount of mystery in each.

While no one was ever charged in Smith's disappearance, friends and family have long suspected her martial arts instructor -- the last person who saw her alive, and with whom they believe she was romantically involved -- killed her. There's been no such person publicly identified in the Papini case, which has baffled amateur sleuths and family members alike. 

Shasta County sheriff's officials would not say whether they think the cases could be related.

Read or Share this story: