Dateline: Missing In America - Into Thin Air

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Terrence Woods grew up in Maryland and was working with a television production crew in a remote area of central Idaho when he was last seen on October 5, 2018.  Witnesses told sheriff’s deputies that as they were wrapping up for the day, Terrence, 26, abruptly ran down a steep embankment into the dark. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz speaks with Terrence’s father, Terrence Woods Sr., his former journalism professor Bethany Swain, his mentor Joanna Abeyie, and retired Idaho County sheriff Doug Giddings. Terrence is 5’9” and 130 lbs., with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information regarding his disappearance is asked to contact the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office at 208-983-1100.  Get more information and see pictures of Terrence Woods here: https://www.nbcnews.com/datelinemissing

In Idaho County, Idaho, four-wheel drive is a fact of life. More than half the county's nearly 8,500 square miles are either national forest or federally managed wilderness. These steep mountains and deep canyons are a draw for outdoor enthusiasts. They also hold secrets. On October 5th, 2018, 12 members of a television production crew drove up one of those mountains for a day-long shoot. That night, 11 of them returned to their motel. Terrence Woods did not. He was 26 years old, and he was last seen on that mountain

more than five years ago. What's these last few years been like since then? Hell. Like cancer. Like knowing something's gonna kill you but you gotta deal with it and keep going. That is Terrence Woods, Sr. From the beginning, you thought, this isn't your son going missing, this is something happening to him. Yes, because the story from the beginning didn't make no sense.

What happened to his son doesn't make sense to a lot of people, including Terrence's friend and mentor, Bethany Swain. Everything about the stories after Terrance's disappearance, I would describe as weird. The sheriff who oversaw the investigation says he's baffled too. There's so many possibilities that just kind of boggles the mind. That's why it's an interesting case. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Dateline Missing in America. This episode is Into Thin Air. We first covered Terrence's story in October 2023.

Please listen closely, because you or someone you know may have information that could help solve this case and give his family the answers they need. Terrence Woods Jr. is the oldest of two boys. He grew up in Prince George's County, Maryland, outside DC. Terrence Woods Sr. told me that from an early age, his namesake was determined to see what lay beyond his hometown. He was always, you know, an adventurer. He was always outgoing, always wanted to see the world. Terrence Jr. also had a lot to say about the world. His father still has a copy of the letter Terrence wrote in middle school to President George W. Bush.

It begins, quote, I am a 12-year-old citizen of the United States of America. I'm writing to you to state my opinion of the country's involvement in overseas conflicts, unquote. It was not a fan letter. And when he wrote the letter, and I read it, I told him, oh, I said, when they come to the house, they're not going to look for you, they're going to look for me. They're not going to think you wrote this. His mindset with politics, the world, et cetera, he looked

at it from a serious standpoint. His dad says he wasn't surprised when Terrence majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. Hello and welcome to Viewfinder, presented by the University of Maryland. I'm Terrence Woods. And I'm Anandamaki. Technology has been good for some and difficult for others.

Viewfinder's Catherine Harrington visited a local flower shop where sales are being undercut by online orders. That's him, co-anchoring a news program he and some college classmates produced. Bethany Swain was one of his professors. His goal to be working as a journalist in London was very, very clear, very, very focused from the first day that we met. He saw himself as sort of, you know, an international journalist crossing borders to cover big stories? Absolutely.

Bethany is a veteran photojournalist who was working at CNN when she started teaching. Her class met at night, and she says Terrence quickly stood out. He was always there before I got there. He'd stay late, him and a couple of the classmates, they would want to ask questions just into the night as long as I was willing to stay. Sometimes Bethany took her students to work with her. Whenever I would share an outside opportunity, hey, I'm doing this, he was there. So he went and spent a day shadowing me at CNN.

He sounds like the kind of eager, devoted, really hardworking student that every professor in every single discipline wishes they had. Oh, absolutely. Terrence was one of those students. In 2013, Terrence Jr. earned his bachelor's degree, a milestone not just for him but also his family. He's one of the first members of your family to go to college.

Oh, yes. Did he feel pressure because of that? No, he loved it. He always wanted to be top at whatever he did, you know. After graduation, Terrence headed straight to London, where he earned a master's degree in international relations and launched his career. Joanna Abei frequently helped young people of color like Terrence get their foot in the door. At the time I was recruiting the talent for an independent production company trainee scheme. Ultimately what it was doing was giving opportunities to people from underrepresented backgrounds to work within television to get their first break really,

working with an independent production company. Joanna says Terrence reached out to her and made a big impression. Rather than email a CV or a letter, he actually hand delivered it. And I said, you don't need to do that. No, I really want it to meet you in person. That kind of summarizes Terrence because he would always go the extra mile. Joanna found a position for Terrence at an independent film production company and then later connected him with other jobs. She told me the feedback she got from his employers

was glowing. This will all be important as our story progresses. It didn't matter where I recommended Terrence for. Very quickly, I'd get a note from someone wherever he was working that would be very much of the, he's amazing, Terrence is incredible, the team love him, he's got so much initiative, nothing's too big an ask. He sounds like the kind of employee anybody would want. He was, he really was. Working as a freelance production assistant in TV or film usually involves a lot of grunt work for little pay.

As he was building his resume, Terrence collected credits on some high-profile British shows, including ITV's The Voice UK. He traveled for work and for pleasure to France, Germany, and Turkey. And he found a way to share those travels with his father. Wherever Terrence traveled around the world, he would bring you a shot glass. Yeah, because he would say, Dad, what you want? I want nothing but a shot glass. I'm simple.

And I'll never use it. You're not taking shots out of these. You just keep them. Yeah. Just to say, this is where my son, I probably would never go all the places he went. So I was just proud of him. And that was like a trophy of mine to myself from him. In July 2018, after five years in London, Terrence moved back to Maryland. He just thought this has run its course and I'm ready to come back. Right. Right. Yeah, he set out to do what he wanted to do and there was the new chapter and he was ready

to start that back at home. Terrence Jr. had been back just a few weeks when Raw TV, a production company he'd worked for in London, contacted him. They were shooting a reality series called Gold Rush, Dave Turan's lost mine. The job would involve several weeks of shooting in the western United States. Terrence signed on for the shoot and on September 30th, 2018, his dad dropped him off at Reagan National Airport outside DC. He said, see you later.

I said, see you sooner. And we laughed about it and I hugged him. And, um, yeah. And he got on the plane. Yeah. That day's kind of burned into your memory, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Yep. Six days later, October 6th became another date he'll never forget.

That's when Terrence Sr. learned his son had disappeared, somewhere in Idaho's vast wilderness. At 740 Saturday morning, I got a phone call, and they told me that my son went off a cliff. Hearing your son has gone off a cliff is something no parent ever expects. And what Terrence Sr. heard next was even more incomprehensible. He's not the only one who feels that way. Here's the former sheriff. It's just, it's so inexplicable. You're right.

Try to explain it to somebody. The former sheriff says witnesses told him what they saw was no accident. Terrence did not fall off that cliff. The story is they were finishing up for the day and then he just took off down the side of the mountain. On October 6th, 2018, Terrence Woods Sr. was hearing a voice on the other end of the phone, describing what had happened in the moments just before his son went missing the night before.

That voice belonged to a producer on the TV crew named Simon G., who Terrence Jr. was working with. He said, all of a sudden, he looked, he seen my son's radio on the ground. So he leaps out the car, run over there because he thought my son dropped the radio, I might have fell off the cliff. But he seen my son running down a cliff like a hare.

I said, what do you mean like a hare? He said, I've never seen anyone run that fast. The TV crew had been shooting near an abandoned mine in the mountains of central Idaho. Now, Terrence Jr. was missing. Doug Giddings was the sheriff in charge of the investigation. This is very dense forest. Yeah, pretty dense forest. They haven't clear-cutted or anything. It's rough terrain.

Giddings lives in an area just as remote as where the crew was shooting. There's no cell service. When we spoke, he was using his landline. So you may hear static from time to time when he's talking. What story did you get originally? The story we got originally? How many words you want this? How many you got? Getting says Simon G. and other witnesses told deputies what they saw in the minutes before Terrence vanished. Here's the story they gave the sheriff. They'd wrapped up their work for the day,

and Terrence was chatting with a local woman from town who was handling transportation for the crew. Giddings says Terrence Jr. told that woman he had to use the bathroom and stepped away. And that's when he did something no one saw coming. He walked along the edge of the road and he passed one of the company managers who was sitting in a suburb and doing some paperwork. And then he just took off down the side of the mountain.

Did anybody say what precipitated that? No one said because no one knows. He didn't tell anybody he was going to do it. And suddenly he just runs away. He just took off down the side of the mountain. According to Giddings, that alone was not done easily. It's brushy. There's huge trees.

It's steep. It's rocky. Giddings says a few crew members chased after Terrence, but failed to catch up with him. Terrence Woods Jr. had simply disappeared into the gathering darkness. And you're up in the middle of nowhere. There's no sound, there's no anything.

And it's rough, you wouldn't want to be left there by yourself. You got bears, you got cougars, you got coyotes, you got bobcats. The former sheriff says four-legged killers aren't the only danger lurking in that area. Air vents for the abandoned mine nearby can be covered by brush, hard to see,

and easy to fall into. Some of them are quite deep. At daylight, search teams began looking for any sign of Terrence. We had air with the heat seeking. We had dogs, we had people, we had volunteers. We did the grid, it was a normal search. According to Giddings, the search team

included a retired military officer who was an expert tracker and who believed he may have found slide marks near the bottom of the embankment Terrence ran down. It's close to a road. They possibly found his track where he slid down the bank to get onto the road, but they're not positive that was him, but it looked like it might have been. So there's that possibility. Could Terrence have gotten or maybe arranged a ride off the mountain? Giddings says his deputies checked with people who live near the road. And no one noticed any unfamiliar vehicles coming or going that night.

Three days after Terrence disappeared, the production company, Raw TV, flew his parents from Maryland to Grangeville, Idaho, where the crew had been staying. At the sheriff's office, Terrence Senior and his ex-wife met with Giddings and other investigators. Mr. Woods says he expected all of the crew members who were on the mountain with his son to be at that meeting. They were not.

Everybody was gone except one person. And you said where's everybody else? They said they left. A RAW TV spokesperson told us all crew members stayed in Grangeville until the searches ended, then went to Portland, Oregon to continue shooting at their next location. They didn't hang around for a long time for us to, you know, do backgrounds on them, but nobody did anything that we know of to cause him any grief. The former sheriff told me he didn't see any reason for the crew to stick around.

They did everything they could do to looking for him and making sure we knew. They talked to us, told us what happened. They really didn't have any reason to stay. They couldn't find him. Simon G., the same producer who'd called Terrence Sr. the morning after his son disappeared, did speak with Terrence's parents when they arrived in Idaho. Terrence Sr. confirms that and adds an odd detail. He says both times they spoke, on the phone and then again at the sheriff's office.

Simon G. began the conversation not by telling him how his son had gone missing, but by criticizing his son's job performance. And he said, they was out in the field and my son didn't know what battery to get because he was green. This is his first time doing this. No, it was not my son's first time doing it. My son's first time ever being with this guy. And this is, you calling me telling me my son disappeared, but this is how you start a conversation off. By telling the parent of a missing kid, by the way, he wasn't getting the job done.

Terrence- Your personal feelings about him. You're telling me about your personal negative feelings about him. We reached out to Simon G for comment. He did not respond. Giddings, who retired in 2020 and no longer has access to the case file, told me he does not recall that conversation. Do you remember the guy from Raw TV telling Terrence's parents that Terrence hadn't done a good job, that they were disappointed in him? I didn't hear that in our meeting. Or knocking him in any way, criticizing him?

I don't recall that. Boy, I just don't remember him. If there were any, they'd pass me by. A spokesperson for Raw TV told Dateline, quote, following recommended search and rescue protocol, Simon phoned Mr. Woods Sr. to ascertain Terrence's normal behavior, state of mind, and any other information he could give

the search and rescue team. It was mentioned by Simon that Terrence had been distracted at times. This was solely in order to establish whether this would be normal behavior. No criticism was made by any of the production team at any time." According to Terrence Sr., Simon G. also told him that on the morning of the day he disappeared, his son had an anxiety attack. You ever know him to suffer from panic attacks, anxiety attacks, any kind of sort of stress-related illness or, you know, you ever worry about anything like that?

No. You ever mention that? No. You've been suspicious of the official story that you were given from the get-go. It doesn't make sense. On October 11, 2018, after six days of looking high and low for Terrence, deputies had come up short. The sheriff called off the search.

You didn't find anything that suggested foul play. No. Not at all. Nobody chased him. Nobody made him run. Nobody did anything that he was running away from. No, there's nobody doing anything to him. News of Terrence's disappearance spread quickly among his friends and colleagues and left

them stunned. When this happened, I was like, this doesn't sit right. This doesn't feel right. Terrence's former college professor, Bethany Swain, had been looking forward to hearing about this raw TV shoot when Terrence came back to Maryland. They had stayed in close touch after he graduated. She says they texted just a few weeks before he disappeared. He seemed okay in that exchange? There was nothing in that exchange with Terrence that raised a red flag. There was nothing

that made me think, oh, I should check in on him. It was a pretty standard text exchange. The story that authorities were told, of him just sort of abruptly running off, is a very strange story. Absolutely. None of it made sense to me. You've never seen him exhibit any kind of rash behavior like that.

No, the exact opposite. Everything that Terrence does was really thought out. It was methodical, but look at a good way. He definitely was someone who thought a lot about the impact of every decision. Joanna Abeye, his mentor in London, also found it hard to square what she was hearing with the Terrence she knew. That sound like him at all? No. No. That's accurate and he ran off and something definitely, definitely worried him or upset him because that's just not what he would have done. Joanna says Terrence took special care to always behave professionally on set, specifically because he knew the stakes.

In the UK, when you're from an underrepresented background, you kind of only get one chance. You don't really get a chance to mess up that many times on a production or even in the industry before someone hears about it. So he was always treading so, so carefully. In my opinion, something would have had to happen to him for him to run off like that rather than try and find a professional, less confrontational way of managing whatever had gone on. For more than five years, Terrence's father has tried to fill in the blanks he thinks

might explain what happened to his son. He's come up with a provocative theory, one that completely reimagines where this mystery began. And it's not in Idaho. Do you think it's possible your son wasn't even there? In my heart, I don't think my son made it to Idaho. I think whatever took place took place before Idaho. In October 2018, after the sheriff had called off that search for Terrence in Idaho, his dad flew home to Maryland,

determined to solve the mystery of what had happened to his son. He pored over every detail he could think of, including the calls and texts he'd gotten after dropping his son off at the airport on Sunday, September 30th. The first he'd heard from him was later that day, when Terrence Jr. called to say he had safely reached the first stop on his itinerary, Missoula, Montana. Like a lot of parents, Terrence Woods Sr. never rested easy when his son traveled, even though he was 26 years old.

I'm a parent, so I'm always worried. But I couldn't tell him that. In Missoula, Terrence, who'd been hired as a production assistant, met up with the rest of the crew from Raw TV. His father didn't hear from him again for the next three days. There's been other places where he couldn't call me on a regular. So that wasn't something that was majorly concerned,

because that was majorly concerned, because that was his job. On Thursday, October 4, the crew wrapped up shooting in Montana and headed to Grangeville, Idaho. That's when Terrence Sr. heard from his son again. He texted, quote, hey, dad, just got to the hotel in Idaho, unquote. Then just before midnight, Terrence

called his father for another check-in. It was nearly 3 AM in Maryland, and Terrence Sr. was in bed. He said, Dad, I say, you know, I got to go to work in the morning. He said, I was just calling. I said, you OK? He said, yes, I'm OK. And I said, all right, I'll call you later. And that was the last physical phone call I had with him.

Did your son say he was in Idaho? I'm not going to say for certain he did or didn't. I cannot remember. I can't remember that. Almost six hours later, Terrence Sr. received another text from his son. This one contains some unexpected news. I'm coming home Wednesday on the 10th.

That would have been almost five weeks earlier than planned. And I texted him back and said, good. See, you can get home. Don't forget my shot glass. I didn't get a response to that. He doesn't say why he's coming home early. No. You know, I was just happy he told me he was coming home early.

He didn't sound like he was in a panic or anything. Terrence Sr. later learned from Raw TV that his son had told the production company he needed to leave early because his mom was having surgery. And that was not true. His mother wasn't having any surgery. Is it possible he told him that because he needed an excuse to get out of there early? Yes, because he never cut a shoe short. So if something was going wrong and he wanted to leave early, maybe he thought that would get him out of there early.

The families of the missing are sometimes left grasping for answers when there aren't any, or when there isn't any proof. Terrence Sr. is not convinced his son tried to leave the shoot early. He's never trusted what Raw TV and the Sheriff's Office told him about his son's disappearance. In fact, he questions whether Terrence Jr. was ever in Idaho. In my heart, I don't think my son made it to Idaho. I think whatever took place took place before Idaho. Mr. Woods says that's because he's seen no photos,

no video, and literally no other proof his son spent any time in Idaho. What he has is a lot of people telling him Terrence was there. No physical evidence, no physical footprint that anyone is showing me of my son. Former Sheriff Giddings told us investigators did not find any video showing Terrence in Idaho. However, he says the sheriff's office did have eyewitnesses.

Terrence Sr. says he doesn't believe them. Everything is word of mouth. Everything about my son's whole disappearance is word of mouth with people out there that he knew for, what, from the 30th up until the day he disappeared. People he knew for just a couple of days. Yes. Mr. Woods is talking about the RAW TV crew. Gidding says the crew members were not the only people investigators interviewed.

One key witness was that local woman who was providing transportation for the crew. She told investigators she saw Terrence run down the embankment. The former sheriff says he's known that woman for years and trusts her. Absolutely trust her. There's not a reason in the world that she would have to say anything other than absolute truth. Giddings says detectives and the undersheriff also interviewed other residents in Grangeville, including employees at the restaurant

where the crew had dinner and the owner of the motel where they stayed, all of whom had seen and talked with Terrence. So we're talking about what, 25 to 30 interviews maybe? Probably 20 at the most, 15 maybe even. The former sheriff does not doubt for a minute that Terrence Woods Jr. was in central Idaho when he disappeared.

You have any reason to believe that you were not getting the full story that day from the people who were there? No, we don't have any reason at all other than that the family seemed to develop some reasons. Terrence Sr. told me he has his own theory about what happened to Terrence Jr. before he got to Idaho.

I think my son saw something or heard something and didn't agree to it or didn't want to be a part of it. He did not say what he thinks that something might be or what caused his son to vanish. It remains a father's theory and there is no proof of it. Short of your son coming back, what could happen that would put to rest your suspicions and make you rest a little easier? Me hearing what 10 other people have to say that was with him and show me the videos of the places he allegedly was at. That would do it?

Or that would help? No, that would help. I still have a void until the day I die, but that would help. But now I have nothing. Mr. Wood says the Sheriff's Office denied his records request and won't give him the names of the crew members the family wasn't able to speak with in Idaho. The Sheriff's Office also denied our public records request.

They told us, quote, per our prosecuting attorney, this is still an open, active investigation. So we are not able to release the records at this time." Doug Giddings told us the Sheriff's Office is no longer actively searching for Terrence. Because Giddings is retired, he no longer has a say in who gets to see the case file. If the finding is no foul play, then why not connect the family with the witnesses? Well, it's one of those issues that is always sensitive,

and I understand it from both sides. I wish they would release it to them. I don't know what to tell you. It's not an automatic ever. If I made you guess, is Terrence still on that mountain or is he somewhere else? My guess is still on that mountain. Something happened to him on that mountain and we missed him. A Raw TV spokesperson told Dateline, quote, Terrence was a popular figure at Raw. He was a well-liked and valued member of the production team, and his disappearance greatly affected us all.

We have the deepest sympathy for Terrence's family and friends. It is truly heartbreaking that he has not been found, and we continue to hope that he will be." They also confirmed the episode they were shooting in Idaho has never aired. Out of respect for Terrence and his family. When someone goes missing, it is easy to dwell on the what ifs. Terrence's former professor, Bethany Swain. You know, I really wish that we had connected before he went out there.

If Terrence was struggling, I know that if we had connected, I could have given him one of my pep talks. Joanna Abeye finds it hard to believe the young man who handed her his resume nearly a decade ago has simply vanished into thin mountain air. You really feel this loss, don't you? Yes, it's horrendous. I think his family been robbed of a son and a brother and nephew,

and we've been robbed of a friend. And I think the industry's been robbed of a great talent. On his right forearm, Terrence Woods Sr. has a tattoo of Terrence Woods Jr. He had it done a few weeks after his son went missing to mark Terrence's 27th birthday. The tattoo is a copy of a childhood portrait. That's a picture he always liked, so that's the one I put on me. So he's always with you? Yeah, and I have his name.

This is not a pleasant question to ask, but do you think your son is still alive? I hope that he is, and if he isn't, I hope he didn't suffer. Terrence Wood Sr. says he'll never give up looking for his son and for the answers to those questions that haunt his whole family. Somebody know the truth. But I don't think my son leaped off no cliff at night and disappeared off the face of the earth. You'll never believe that.

No. Mm-mm. No, that's not true. Officially, Terrence's case remains an open and active investigation. Here's how you can help. Terrence is 5'9", and at the time of his disappearance, he weighed 130 pounds.

He has black hair and brown eyes. You can see photos and videos of him on our website. Anyone with information regarding his disappearance is asked to contact the Idaho County Sheriff's Office at 208-983-1100. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to DatelineMissinginAmerica.com. There, you'll be able to submit cases

you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Kate Vitek is the producer of this episode. Brian Drew is the audio editor. Keani Reed and Nicholas Vanwele-Yodar are associate producers.

Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production. Music