27-year-old television producer Terrence Woods went missing on October 5, 2018. He was working with a production crew that was filming a television series in mountainous central Idaho. Reportedly he ran down a steep embankment in the Idaho wilderness never to be seen again. Television director Rochelle Newman is a friend and colleague of Terrence Woods in the UK. She joins Crime Redefined to discuss the daunting and surprisingly lonely task of keeping the search for Terrence going. https://www.gofundme.com/f/2hqmj-find-my-missing-son-terrence-woods
Vanished-A Friend’s Lonely Search For The Truth-Transcript (download PDF)
VANISHED: A FRIEND’S LONELY SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH
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[00:00:00] Announcer: Welcome to the Crime Redefined Podcast produced by Zero Cliff Media coming to you from the US Bank Tower high above downtown Los Angeles. In our podcast, we drill deep into forensics and criminal investigation from the viewpoint of the defense, as well as explore the intersection of the media and the justice system.
[00:00:21] Dion Mitchell: I’m Dion Mitchell here, once again with my cohost, Mehul Anjaria. We hope all you listeners are doing well and enjoying Crime Redefined. Today, we are going to continue our series on the 2018 disappearance of Terrence Woods.
[00:00:35] Mehul Anjaria: Well, Dion, as this series continues, and the more we learn about this, just the more it boggles the mind as to why Terrence’s story hasn’t received more attention. I mean, as we’ve hit over the head a million times, if there was even some basic investigation, not to say that would was solve it but at the minimum, I mean, my gosh, at least you could eliminate some of the possible scenarios, what may have happened to Terrence, you know, right now, there’s so many possible options, you know, you and I even talk about it all the time. So right now, I mean, all we can do is, for our part is to keep the spotlight on this and so, you know, our request of our listeners and our social media followers, you know, please help spread the word so that as many people as possible can hear this, and hopefully one or more of those people have some great info for Terrence’s family.
[00:01:31] Dion Mitchell: You know, I hate to go, you know, off the rails right off the track but here’s one thing that’s, you can see how conspiracy theories can get started really, really easily, because there’s the basic things in this particular case that weren’t done, or at least as far as we know, weren’t done and so you start asking the question, why, you know, why weren’t these basic, you know, protocols or investigation tools utilized? And then there, it starts to, you know, kind of mount up, man, what, are they hiding? And there could be nothing wrong, they could have done everything great but you can see how this can gain traction.
[00:02:05] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, you definitely can and I would just say that, as bizarre and scary as the lack of investigation is, I mean, take a look at criminal case investigation, you know, more so old ones that you look at from the cold case or post- conviction that will shock you but even today, I mean, what we think should happen just doesn’t always happen.
[00:02:27] Dion Mitchell: Well, to continue on with our I guess our investigation, we have the pleasure of speaking with Rochelle Newman, who became friends with Terrence in the UK, along with Terrence Woods Senior she has basically headed up an international missing persons campaign.
[00:02:42] Mehul Anjaria: If you happened to see the Dr. Phil episode on Terrence’s disappearance, you’re familiar with Rochelle. She’s also done some excellent work, keeping Terrance’s story alive on social media but as you’ll soon find out, after we talk with her a bit, this whole saga, Dion has really taken quite a bit of a toll on her.
[00:03:02] Dion Mitchell: It sure has, and there’s a real darkness surrounding Terrence’s disappearance and lackluster investigation thereof the show will take us through some of the key issues that have made this missing person case particularly challenging.
[00:03:16] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, and it’s kind of like a two-person team investigating it. I mean, it seems like Terrence Sr., and Rochelle are the only people who are, you know, really actively pursuing answers, to the extent possible, because things have went cold, people aren’t talking. It’s just sad that we’re now approaching the three year anniversary and you know, these clues are getting colder and colder but, you know, another part of us doing this series, is to talk to people close to Terrence, and we want to put out there, you know, what is the true essence of Terrence, not just what are the hot takes about him, or the loose suggestions that maybe he’s somehow to blame for this or he had mental issues, or any of that. So hopefully, we’re we’re bringing some balance to the story.
[00:04:07] Dion Mitchell: No doubt and when there is limited coverage of a story, it is very, very hard for it to be balanced. I hope we are doing at least some small part to balance it out. As a bit of a tease today’s interview, Rochelle has some new information to share. Let’s see what our take on Terrence himself in the events leading up to his disappearance are.
[00:04:29] Mehul Anjaria: Rochelle, thank you so much for joining us on Crime Redefined today.
[00:04:33] Rochelle Newman: Hi. Hi. Thank you for having me.
[00:04:35] Mehul Anjaria: Great. We’re really looking forward to learning more about Terrence Woods and what can be done to help find him.
[00:04:41] Rochelle Newman: Yes, yes, because it needs to happen now.
[00:04:45] Dion Mitchell: So listen, are you ready to dive in?
[00:04:47] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, I’m ready.
[00:04:48] Dion Mitchell: Okay, so first, let’s start with you. Tell us about what you do for a career.
[00:04:56] Rochelle Newman: At the moment I’m a TV director but for the last five years I’ve been working in true crime. So I’ve been helping I’ve done over 60 murders in the UK and US. I studied criminology and sociology and I’ve always been interested in why people do certain things and the why we act the way we do sometimes. So, yeah, I’ve been doing crime, I’ve come out of crime now since Terrence’s case last year, so since the Black Lives Matter, movement, and all of these things happened, I decided to come out of crime. Because it just got too much it got too overwhelming. I went from helping victims’ family members to become in a victim’s family member. So I found that very difficult. So I decided just to move into children’s TV for a while.
[00:05:42] Dion Mitchell: I could see that but it sounds like you’re one of us.
[00:05:44] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, it does. I am but it’s so difficult. I think in I’ve done the whole international campaign, literally kind of by myself with a few other people but everyone’s so scared to speak up. So I’ve literally put my life and put my career on the line to make sure that Terrence’s story stays relevant that we find out what happens to Terrence and to ensure that it never happens to one of us ever again.
[00:06:11] Dion Mitchell: Absolutely. Just got to go from there. How did you first meet Terrence?
[00:06:16] Rochelle Newman: So this is what is very interesting. We both went, we both started out on a TV production scheme. So Terrence was in the year below me and we met at an event.
[00:06:28] Dion Mitchell: Could you back up for a second a TV production-what?
[00:06:30] Rochelle Newman: A scheme. So it’s a scheme that helps young people get into the TV industry. So that’s where we met Terrence was in the year below me and we met at a couple events and we went out a couple of times, all of us together as young people starting off in the TV industry and that’s how, yeah, that’s how we met.
[00:06:50] Mehul Anjaria: Well, so Rochelle, how is it that you first found out that Terence was missing?
[00:06:56] Rochelle Newman: So his Auntie actually was contacting everyone on Facebook saying that Terrence was missing? And also what do you mean Terrence is missing, and she’s a slight, she’s sending us all of this information, these articles and that’s how I found out and that night, I started sending out an email, I’ve never written a press release, release in my life, before Terrence’s story. I was just writing like a crazy woman put a picture of him there put some information about what happened and I sent this out to loads of journalists in the UK, and in the US, and no one got back to me, apart from a journalist who worked for The Guardian and he forwarded it on to another journalist who lived near Idaho, like an hour away from Idaho and I can’t remember his name right now but he said he would be able to help and he spoke to Terrence’s mom and he did nothing after that, because news moves on and that was it.
[00:07:50] Mehul Anjaria: Well, there’s something I have to follow up on and we’ll probably talk about this later on in the interview but you kind of dropped the bomb and you said that you were concerned about your life as you were covering the story. Can you go into a little bit about that about what exactly happened?
[00:08:06] Rochelle Newman: I’m still concerned about my life. I’m still concerned about my life, even till this day. So Terrence has gone missing. He went missing in Idaho, which is obviously a very strange, unusual place. I live in England and I’m a small black woman who’s trying to who’s running an international missing persons campaign and who is black. Yes, do you know what I mean, I’m black. People are going to try and get me and I just know that Discovery Channel, and Raw have a lot of money announcing this on the podcast is going to go out there anyways. They’ve got a lot of money, they can do what they want and I know how it goes, this world is not nice. There’s a lot of horrible people out there and when people have a lot of money, they can do certain things.
[00:08:56] Dion Mitchell: Was there anything specific that you know, through social media that that popped up that made you to be really concerned?
[00:09:01] Rochelle Newman: Um, yes, someone was messaging me asking how long I was on the Dr. Phil show for, random person and people just asking a lot of weird questions and because I started talking to some of the private investigators who weren’t really private investigators about the case. So they obviously found out my name from Dr. Phil when all these articles and so it got to a point was just like I need to kind of step back from this a bit, but my name is already out there. So we just run with it.
[00:09:34] Dion Mitchell: You know, prior to Terrence’s disappearance did you know his father?
[00:09:40] Rochelle Newman: Um, no, no, no.
[00:09:41] Dion Mitchell: So you never talked to him or anything like that?
[00:09:45] Rochelle Newman: I never talked to him, I talked to Mr. T. I call him Mr. T. Because I find it we’re saying Terrence. I talked to Mr. T probably every other day or once a week depending on how busy I am, never.
[00:09:52] Dion Mitchell: So you’re working with him right now. That was my next question. How have you been working with him keeping the story alive. So you guys are in pretty good contact?
[00:10:01] Rochelle Newman: Yeah. All the time. I’m probably the only one that keeps in contact with him all the time and Terence had closer friends in the UK and US and people, I understand that people are scared and all of these things, but there’s a missing person regardless of if he’s a man or a woman, black, white, or Asian, he’s missing. He’s missing full stop but people have just gone on with their normal lives, having kids getting married, all of these things and I’m just like, how can you not say nothing, not continue to put his name out there? Even if it’s a tweet every now and then or something to find out if Mr. Woods is okay, message him find out if I’m okay, message me anything but no, people are just -Okay Terrence has gone missing let’s go on, and I understand that it’s hard for people to understand that he’s gone missing but you need to have a bit of a backbone when it comes to things like this. So that’s my problem with everyone.
[00:10:55] Mehul Anjaria: In terms of publicity, would you say that the Dr. Phil show was was the thing that shone the biggest spotlight on the issue.
[00:11:05] Rochelle Newman: The thing is with the Dr. Phil show is that it showed the biggest spotlight on Terrence’s disappearance and that was the biggest we were gonna get. We realized at the time, because we did have other shows, contacting us looking at my social media, people all over my story messaging me here and there. It got so overwhelming last year, but they weren’t as big as Dr. Phil and I knew that it would have been difficult for us to get on Dr. Phil, because it took two, three months for them to do all the law, all of the go over all of the paperwork because of Discovery Channel and Raw. So we recorded that episode two to three months before it actually went out. Because there were issues there were legal issues but they stuck with it, even though it didn’t come out the best as it could have come out. They stuck with it and they still put it out and from that I have had people contact me about the show and about seeing Terrance in Idaho, not where people assume that he was last seen but a lady did contact me who had seen him in the store apparently does not know what the name of the store is, but she saw him in a store and all of this information. So much. This lady saw him in a store and he was acting very like he needed to get stuff now, sandwiches and everything as you do when your production assistant, then you don’t have time to get anything because no one gives you time. Everyone’s in a hurry when you’re on production. So she was just saying he said he was just in a hurry and he needed to get whatever sandwiches and fruits he needed to get it now
Dion Mitchell: and this was during production?
Rochelle Newman: This was during the production before they say he went to the Penman mines, allegedly.
[00:12:44] Dion Mitchell: Okay and then I just want to make sure, it’s clear that you haven’t had anybody message you or get in contact with you that have seen him post the post missing. This was all during that production correct?
[00:12:57] Rochelle Newman: This is only before so before Yeah, during the production, but before the fifth of October.
[00:13:04] Dion Mitchell: Okay, and this was actually in Idaho.
[00:13:07] Rochelle Newman: This was in Idaho, a lady said she saw him. She served him at the store and what she did say to me whether she’s telling the truth, or not all she said is Rochelle, someone’s hiding something. I don’t know if it’s the production team and I don’t know whether it’s the sheriff’s office, I don’t know but someone’s hiding something and she also mentioned that people go missing in Idaho all the time.
[00:13:33] Dion Mitchell: We’re going to take a deeper dive into the investigation but I want to take a quick little turn and find out more about Terrence the individual, if you don’t mind, please share some stories about him. Maybe some information of like, what he was like, was he in a relationship, what kind of music did he like, hobbies, interests, that type of stuff.
[00:13:50] Rochelle Newman: So I would say Terrence is he’s quiet, a quiet person unless he knows you. So if he knows you, then he’ll open up a bit to you, but he’s very reserved, very quiet, but very loving and caring and he loves traveling, which is the reason why he’s always loved London as well. That’s why he was in London because he just loved it here. I don’t know why. Because I’m trying to get over to LA. I don’t understand it but and he yeah he just loved traveling what he liked to be by himself quite a bit when he was traveling and filming. Kind of a free spirit I would say and he had different groups of friends. So he had like his TV friends and then some people, the majority of his friends were in the TV industry, but he met people through people and that’s how he kind of got along in London.
[00:14:43] Mehul Anjaria: Well, you know, Rochelle, something that was brought up was that before he went missing, the story goes that he was with the crew at a restaurant and he met a young lady and exchanged numbers. What’s your thoughts on that? Is that something that is you know, within Terrence’s character to do?
[00:15:02] Rochelle Newman: I don’t know if Terrence has that kind of like, should I say- game. I don’t know if he has that sort of game or confidence. The only way he would say it with us lot in the TV industry. We all were friends, because we were on the same scheme. So I don’t know if he has that sort of confidence to be oh, yeah, let’s meet up. No, he doesn’t. I’ll be honest, he does not.
[00:15:23] Dion Mitchell: So he wasn’t when he was gone. He was not in a relationship when like in London or in Maryland.
[00:15:29] Rochelle Newman: I think he was seeing someone in London and yeah, he’s seeing someone in London or he was in and out of a relationship in London but I don’t know how serious that was.
[00:15:41] Mehul Anjaria: Rochelle, did you ever know Terrence to have any sort of interesting health issues, whether they be mental or physical?
[00:15:48] Rochelle Newman: No mental, physical, nothing, nothing at all. They say that he had possibly sleeping problems. Sometimes. Not sleeping problems. Sorry, I’m flying. So he had problems like when flying or something like that but anytime I’ve met him or being around him, he’s never mentioned it I’ve never seen anything and any of his close friends who were with him have said that he didn’t. Now this is coming from them and coming from his family. You never really know what’s going on with an individual themselves but from what we know, and his medical stuff, and what his dad said, and his friends who have been with him in London, he didn’t, no.
[00:16:29] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, obviously, that was a big point of the team there. They were saying maybe had some kind of a mental break but usually those don’t come out of the blue. So we had to ask that question.
[00:16:39] Rochelle Newman: Yeah. Yeah, of course. That’s what they’re gonna say. That’s their story.
[00:16:42] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, I want to ask you about this, this text message that he received, that Terrence Senior received from his son, and stated that he’s not sure it came from Terence, what are your thoughts on that?
[00:16:53] Rochelle Newman: I don’t believe anything came from Terrence. Now, the lady who said that she saw Terrence in the supermarket when he looks like when he was in a rush, she said the time when he was there in that part of Idaho, she doesn’t know how he reached to where they said he went missing within that certain amount of time. Now, I don’t know how big Idaho is or anything like that but she said the timings don’t add up. His social media, the pictures that he’s posted on his social media, the last three or two that he’s posted, on, synchronize with the ones that he posted beforehand. So the ones that he was posting while he was away in Montana, or Idaho or wherever they say he is aren’t in the same kind of correlation and I just don’t think it was Terrence from the first time I heard that Terrence sent this text I said that’s not Terrence, because you just I don’t know, there’s something that you just know, he never sent that text message. Someone else sent that from his phone and that’s why they wouldn’t give us the records on his phone.
[00:17:53] Mehul Anjaria: Wow. Rochelle, you’ve kind of touched on this but can you tell us about some of the specific ways that you’ve advocated for Terrence in the last few years, and what the importance or role of social media has been in that process.
[00:18:08] Rochelle Newman: So we have I’ve been posting about Terrence’s disappearance on Twitter since it happened and telling people, even people in the TV industry in the UK and London have said that if it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t have known about Terrence’s disappearance, Now Raw have said that they let people know that Terrence went missing when it happened. I was like, No, you did not because no one knew about it. So I’ve used Twitter, any moment that I get, whereas for example, there one of the heads of Raw, she went on to the Edinburgh TV Festival, which is like a big festival in the UK, talking about how we need to look after one another and I was just like, Well, you didn’t look after Terrence and no one’s been able to help us find out where he is or what really happened to him. So what we did is kind of use that as a leverage to kind of tweet about his disappearance with the Fox news video and that got like 1000s of retweets, and 1000s of people have viewed that and then unfortunately, when the killing of George Floyd happened last year, I saw that as a way to get Terrence’s story out there, which really helped, because that’s when I was able to send it to Deadline and send it to Vice and then that’s when Dr. Phil got in touch with us and one of the other talk shows in LA got back to us, and we’re wanting to do his story but we stuck out for Dr. Phil because it’s got the biggest reach, which it does have.
[00:19:38] Dion Mitchell: Do you have any more appearances coming up?
[00:19:40] Rochelle Newman: Not at the moment. We don’t have anything can it’s coming up to his third? I don’t even know what to call it anniversary. Yeah, so we haven’t got anything at the moment yet. People don’t really care. That’s totally honest with you in the UK. They’re just like, Oh, this is a US thing. Well not really, because he was with UK production company who were out in the US. Yes, Terrence was a US citizen, but he was present in the UK for five years and he worked here and he went to study his masters here.
[00:20:16] Dion Mitchell: I find it mind boggling that this hasn’t been the torch has been passed to, you know, a big public figure that’s really put some energy behind it and use their brand to to cast a big light on this.
[00:20:27] Rochelle Newman: Apart from Brooke, What was her name? Brooke, one of the celebrities for God, I can’t remember her name. One of the celebrities only Brooke. Hold on guys, Brooke Shields, she posted about it on her Instagram page but other than that, no one else we’ve reached out to so many people sent into all of these big Instagram news publications, specifically the ones that are directed at and for black people. Nobody, not one single person and if you speak to anyone about it no one wants to talk about it.
[00:21:05] Dion Mitchell: That’s, that’s really kind of mind boggling. You know, I understand that you’ve done some investigating yourself about Terrence’s, disappearance and you’ve spoken to some people close to the case. What if anything, can you share that perhaps has not been made public?
[00:21:23] Rochelle Newman: That hasn’t been made public? I think the biggest thing is like the lady that I spoke to, that saw him the day before he disappeared. I’ve had people contact me anonymously, who have worked at Raw TV, and have heard people laughing and joking about Terence’s disappearance, saying that hahaha should we use some of the footage from the day that Terrence disappeared and that has made some people leave Raw TV, because they felt so uncomfortable. So that’s a piece of information that I can share. People are scared to talk up people need to open their mouths, I don’t care what happens in life, what you’re going through at the moment. He’s still missing and that’s what I find so difficult by the fact of that if I came to LA last year, actually, to film True Crime documentaries. Just me and my cameraman and when I was there, one of the district attorney’s there was at sunset drive. He said to me Rochelle be careful out here and I said why? He said Rochelle you need to be careful that he’s a white man and I’m a black woman. He never said that to the my white camera, man and that’s that’s the reality of it and reality of black people in general, which people don’t understand.
[00:22:39] Mehul Anjaria: Wow, so this was a Los Angeles district attorney Who told you that?
[00:02:46] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Last year, I went to LA and he just told me to be careful.
[00:22:49] Mehul Anjaria: Well, I wanted to ask you, Rochelle about a Twitter exchange that you had recently and not to put anyone on blast here, but just to understand the issue and so specifically, I’m referring to an organization that claims to support TV and film workers. You had a little interchange with them. I think it might have been last week. Can you kind of break that down for us?
[00:23:09] Rochelle Newman: So I’ve contacted them before about help and they contacted me saying oh, Rochelle I’m sorry to say that no one’s helped you. Let’s have a chat. I’ve given you my email address, given you all my information, great and they said we’ll talk but then last week, all of a sudden, its international missing persons day, which I didn’t even know and they’ve tweeted about Terrence’s case, saying, well, we don’t know why Terrence disappeared. However, this amount of people suffer with mental health and I was like hold on a second. Hold on, hold on a second. I haven’t heard anything from you guys but you’re there tweeting about Terrence’s story before talking to myself, but most importantly, his family members, you’re wrong.
[00:2353] Mehul Anjaria: Making inferences.
[00:23:54] Rochelle Newman: Exactly.
[00:23:55] Dion Mitchell: What does mental health have to do with that he’s still missing whether he had mental health issues or not.
[00:23:59] Rochelle Newman: Or not or not. So they have apologized, and they’ve taken down the tweet they are looking for what is it a racism and bullying advisor which people think I should go for. I’ll think about it but am I really going to get to say what I want to say about the TV industry and about the way we’re treated? I don’t know. So that that’s my problem. Even though you know, even the scheme that we were on is one of the biggest organizations in the UK called Pact. That was the scheme that we were all on they said they haven’t mentioned Terrence at all haven’t spoken about him nothing and they’ve received some horrid emails from me just explaining like we are upset we are dealing with a lot of mental health problems at the moment can you help, oh Rochelle we’re busy at the moment or I can talk to you about can’t talk to you about this it’s not good enough.
[00:24:46] Dion Mitchell: No, it sounds kind of crazy if that’s the whole purpose of the organization and yet they’re doing I think lift a finger to help you out.
[00:24:52] Rochelle Newman: Help diversity. Oh, you’re really helping diversity. When someone goes missing, get out of here.
[00:24:59] Dion Mitchell: What do you think? You know, as they say there’s a new Sheriff in town. What do you think about the change in the in Idaho county with the new Sheriff? And what are your thoughts about him being more open to digging deeper into Terrence’s case?
[00:25:09] Rochelle Newman: I haven’t heard anything well I’ve heard is that they’re the guy that did Terrence’s case, he left or they fired him, and that there’s going to be someone more there is someone, but my issue is, is coming up to three years now. The longer it goes on, or the longer it’s gone on already is the less evidence there is, unless one of the people that were with him on the team are going to speak up, then we don’t really have nowhere to go. Where, What is he really going to do? The reason why they won’t give out. They weren’t. So is it closed Terrence’s case is because they know whatever’s happened is very, very, very bad. Because they closed the lady’s case that went missing. Like they said that she’s deceased. Why don’t you just do the same to Terrence? That’s because something more happened.
[00:25:59] Mehul Anjaria: So this leads to really the big question for you, Rochelle, based on everything that you know, and have uncovered, what is your opinion on what most likely happened to Terrence?
[00:26:10] Rochelle Newman: My opinion is that Terrence was being bullied by Simon Gee and whoever else on that team and that he wanted to come home, they probably wouldn’t let him come home because that’s what TV productions like, you know, TV and film, you need to be literally dying. No you literally need to you need to be dead before they can get away with anything and that’s what happened. So they were bullying him. He wanted to come home and then maybe something happened. I don’t know whether they got him to take something or whether he just ran I don’t know but I know for certain that Simon Gee. was bullying him and that crew. They were bullying him and something happened. I don’t think it happened up on the Penman Mines were this as they say he was because I don’t think he was there. I think something happened at the hotel in Idaho, because his dad spoke to him. Was it the night just before he went missing? A couple of hours or the day before? And he spoke to him on the phone. So something happened there after he got off the phone to Mr. T.
[00:27:16] Dion Mitchell: So you don’t actually think that he went missing at the actual locations the shooting site?
[00:27:22] Rochelle Newman: No way
[00:27:24] Dion Mitchell: What are your thoughts on the local hire the transportation lady Sheree, I believe her name was saying that she saw him take off like a rabbit down the hill or something to that effect.
[00:27:34] Rochelle Newman: I think what’s something that’s really important for everyone to know is that all this information that we’ve got about Terrence’s disappearance is coming from their mouths, and we cannot trust these people at all. We don’t know anything about Terrence’s disappearance, let’s say we don’t know anything about Terrence’s disappearance, because we don’t all of this is coming from them. We don’t have the other side. We don’t have nothing at all. I think the only way we can take off this from where Mr. T dropped him at that airport and that’s it. Other than that, do we know that he really arrived in Montana? Yeah, there’s pictures on his Well, yeah, there’s pictures on his Instagram of Montana. So we know that he possibly got there but then after that, what really happened to T? We don’t know.
[00:00:21] Dion Mitchell: So that’s a question actually I’ve had for myself and thinking about this and but you believe that he made it to Idaho?
[00:28:24] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, I think he possibly did make it to Idaho. Yeah, I think he did make it to Idaho. I don’t think he made it up to where they said they were filming. I have spoken to like this Indians, like did you know that real like a real Indians like actually exists, like the ones that pray on the top of the mountains and all of that. So I was searching for Instagram and this man who’s like an Indian type of spiritual man, he went up to the mine where Terrence went missing. He said he didn’t see anything. I think this was 2020. He went up there. Or before that. He said he didn’t see anything, or what he did do is left a prayer at the top of the mountains for Terrence and he said that he had a vision that he might have got stuck in one of the light air vents and stuff but you know, these are just stuff that people say and what they believe. So that’s his belief, which could be possible.
[00:29:26] Dion Mitchell: Okay, so let me let me do a hypothetical with you. I gave you an unlimited budget, and a team. What key things do you think need to be done in the investigation today? What would you do? I say, here we go, Rochelle, boom. Everything you need is at your disposal. What are you doing?
[00:29:40] Rochelle Newman: His phone records I’m gonna look into first of all to find out if we can find out where the phone loss was. I’m bringing in every single person from that crew in for questioning, and no one is leaving until we get a clear timeline of what actually happened to Terrence, we’re going to check his his bank accounts as well check his diaries, his cameras, we’re going to get into that frickin laptop and we want that paperwork from the Sheriff’s department as well and I think that’s all and the CCTV from the hotel he was staying in. Because I don’t know if you guys have seen that motel because we don’t have really motels in the UK. That motel is scary. I wouldn’t stay there. We need everything. Mr. T has Terrence’s camera and the laptop but not a phone. They said the phone is with Terrence allegedly.
[00:30:38] Dion Mitchell: Has anybody made an attempt to sue or one way or another to get to the records on where his phone had been pinged that day and the previous days?
[00:30:49] Rochelle Newman: No, we don’t even know how to do that. We’ve been left out in the open trying to get help from private investigators and the media and we don’t even know where to turn anymore.
[00:30:52] Dion Mitchell: Was his phone, a US phone or UK phone?
[00:30:58] Rochelle Newman: A UK chip. So he has a UK chip number.
[00:31:12] Dion Mitchell: Okay. This area of Idaho will actually all of Idaho unless you’re around Boise is really really remote. So there’s only a few repeaters towers out there where it can ping. So it would be there’s only like a like a handful. So it would be pretty quick, pretty quick. You’d be able to zero in on this previous as well as last location because there’s only a few towers.
[00:31:18] Rochelle Newman: Yeah. see, and they said they couldn’t do that.
[00:31:40] Mehul Anjaria: Like you say like the private investigators have been a bit of a dead end. It seems what Mr. T really needs now is some kind of legal counsel, in other words, advisement and how do you subpoena these phone records? How do you subpoena records? I know that he would we talked to him, he alluded that he has something in the works. So I hope that really is going to come to fruition and I know that’s not easy, either.
[00:32:04] Rochelle Newman: We’ve always had something like in the works or someone said they’re going to help and it doesn’t come to anything, because there’s literally only me, him, his mom and other people when they want to get involved. Other than that, like if people wanted Dr. Phil’s quote, okay, I’ll go on Dr. Phil, other than that you don’t hear from anyone.
[00:32:27] Mehul Anjaria: Now I know that you have a GoFundMe campaign active, how is how is that doing?
[00:32:33] Rochelle Newman: Not good. Not good. We don’t really know how to work these things but even I think Dr. Phil, Vice, Deadline, all of these publications and broadcasters, they’re big things but still, the push for Terrence’s story has not been the same. Because he’s a black man. I’ll tell you guys a story like two black girls got murdered last year in London and literally their case hardly ever received any notice in the news, two they’re sisters.
[00:33:08] Mehul Anjaria: Well, it’s like, you know, the we had the big case few years ago, the Grim Sleeper in LA that was cracked and turned out the cops were saying they used the term no humans involved, in other words, all of the victims were black women.
[00:33:21] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, I was doing that case last year. He died. Yeah, he died. As soon as I got back to London.
[00:33:29] Dion Mitchell: Rochelle, did you hear about this other guy that passed away? Jesse Goins a gold miner who appeared on the same show Terrence as was working? What are your thoughts on that?
[00:33:38] Rochelle Newman: And they put out a big news article and everything about it and then some people who watch Gold Rush they say we’re saying what about Terrence Woods? Why is no one said anything about Terrence Woods?
[00:33:48] Dion Mitchell: Do you think there’s any connection? Or do you think that shows cursed? What do you what do you think that’s about?
[00:33:51] Rochelle Newman: The show is definitely cursed, because I know people who have worked on it and they said it’s got a massive bullying culture, massive mahoosive bullying culture. You’ve got these like big macho man, old school TV directors, who just want to make sure that they’ve got it done. A lot of them have got PTS depression because of how they’ve been treated in the industry and how long they’ve been working in, there for, so it’s got a massive bullying culture and also, one thing that I need to make aware is that Terrence it’s not the first time Terrence has worked for Raw TV. He worked with them in London, and a couple months before he went missing. He worked with them in Alaska and he came home to London, and he was fine and another thing because I listened to Mr. T’s podcast with you guys, in terms of Terrence talking to Simon Gee beforehand, he probably didn’t even speak to Simon Gee beforehand, when you’re on production, it’s just like, Okay, this is who you’re going to be with and you show up.
[00:34:48] Dion Mitchell: Here’s your call time.
[00:34:49] Rochelle Newman: Here’s your call the time right that’s it. So Simon probably didn’t even speak you probably they probably mentioned Okay, we got this guy Terrence Woods he seems great and that’s it, but I highly doubt that they ever had a conversation.
[00:35:04] Mehul Anjaria: Rochelle, we talked a little bit about the media coverage of Terrence’s disappearance in the US and how it really hasn’t been prolific. Yeah, a couple articles here and there but it’s fizzled out. What about in the UK? When it first happened was there coverage? Is there any coverage at all?
[00:35:22] Rochelle Newman: Nothing, no coverage at all about this there’s still no coverage about Terrence in the UK nothing. There’s Vice, okay that’s Vice UKish but Deadline that was still basically American because I never heard of Deadline before my friends brought to my attention, by the way, and Dr. Phil, no show will take it because no broadcaster will take it because he’s a US citizen and it happened in the US. That’s the problem but people fail to understand that it was a UK production company that have done this.
[00:35:57] Dion Mitchell: It seems like there’s like his story is a little bit of a gray area. You know, it’s UK, you can use excuse here, he’s American here and it’s just kind of fallen in between the cracks a little bit.
[00:36:09] Rochelle Newman: Yeah but I’ll tell you something is that Raw and Discovery, they’re very scared. Because they know that Terrence’s case is going to blow up soon and they’re very scared of what’s going to happen. So they should be.
[00:36:18] Dion Mitchell: You know, sooner or later we were talking about this before you jumped on sooner or later, someone’s conscience is gonna come clean and go I can’t deal with this anymore and they’re gonna say something.
[00:36:29] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, because I hope I hope it is killing their conscience right now. Because every bit I put like my whole year last year, I put into practically Terrence’s disappearance where I already got myself into, I nearly had a mental breakdown last year, near Christmas because I was just like, this is just too much because I was trying to do everything. Even now I’ve done everything. And I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough.
[00:36:51] Dion Mitchell: How can our listeners help? how can how can the rest of the public, our listeners help solve the mystery of, of Terrence’s disappearance?
[00:36:59] Rochelle Newman: Try and get people to speak up if you know anyone posts his story. If anyone knows anyone who might be able to help Mr. T with the laptop who lives locally, like any one at all who can help in this case, and think you know what, I’m a genuine person. I could be of any assistance, lawyers, crime experts, anything. We need help with everything. Because we don’t literally you don’t have anything for anyone.
[00:37:27] Mehul Anjaria: Rochelle, what else do we need to know about why it has been so difficult to get more information or to have any breakthroughs on Terrence’s whereabouts mean, just go into maybe some more of the roadblocks that seemed to be unique to this case,
[00:37:41] Rochelle Newman: The TV industry is corrupt first of all, and they it’s just the money, and money is important, but the TV industry is just corrupt and people just don’t care about anyone or anything. I don’t know if you guys have seen on Instagram this page called @ia_stories and people in the TV industry are just talking about their stories and what they’ve been through. They’ve got over 40,000 followers now and people talk about their experiences anonymously, like the industry is is dying, and people are actually dying in the industry. So there’s a big problem. This is a massive problem.
[00:38:26] Dion Mitchell: As you know it’s all about your next job, and people just don’t want to do anything that’s going to rock that opportunity. So it’s it’s rather they would put their head in the sand and move on and you know, be a team player than do the right thing.
[00:38:46] Rochelle Newman: Yeah, and that’s the problem. It doesn’t doesn’t help anyone. I think a lot of people not speaking up about Terrence’s case is causing more harm than good. Because if this was to happen again, then someone else is going to be losing a family member but the thing is, is what people don’t understand is that this is the biggest thing ever in TV and film in the TV and film industry to ever happen. This is the biggest thing to ever happen. Full stop, and look how it’s been treated.
[00:39:15] Dion Mitchell: I agree when I first saw the article in Deadline a number years ago, I was like, why isn’t this on every news channel? I still do not understand and that actually leads me to my next question and you kind of briefly touched on this already, but what individual organization has been the most helpful in spreading the word about Terrence?
[00:39:37] Rochelle Newman: Nothing! No one! Me.
[00:39:41] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, you know, Mr. T gave the exact same answer. I mean, this is unbelievable.
[00:39:46] Rochelle Newman: Me like Mr. T, if it wasn’t for me actually reaching out to Mr. T and talking to him and actually, you know, Raw. There’s so much more to this and I learned more about Terrence from him and everything about their life and the way they’re living and I can tell you for a fact, if Terrence wanted to disappear, he would have disappeared in the UK, he’s not going to go and disappear in Idaho.
[00:40:07] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, you don’t go home to do it.
[00:40:09] Rochelle Newman: He’s not he’s not going to do that and that’s what I’m saying to people, this is wrong and people are like, Oh, did he have mental health, I don’t give a crap. Even if Terrence did have mental health problems, he’s not at home. That is the biggest problem. He’s not home.
[00:40:23] Mehul Anjaria: Well, Rochelle, as we wrap it up, we just want to give you the floor here at the end to say anything else you’d like to about Terrence and the ongoing efforts to find out what actually happened to him- so take it away.
[00:40:34] Rochelle Newman: I just want to say to the TV industry, and everyone out there is that you guys all need to do more, to help support Terrence’s case and find out what happened to to him but also support one another. For anyone that’s going to be listening from Raw and Discovery because I know they will, your conscience is going to kill you and we will find out what happened to Terrence and I hope anything bad that happens to you will happen to you because it needs to because you’re just a bad person and I’m just so sick and tired of this industry. Although I love what I do, and I love helping people, I won’t be working in the TV industry full time ever again, until I have my own company and my own things, because people are just losing their lives and I will continue to fight for Terrence and to find out what happened to him. That’s it.
[00:41:24] Dion Mitchell: That’s a great statement. We really appreciate your unique insight on this disturbing mystery and we of course, hope that Terrence’s family gets some answers and relief very soon and we want to thank you so much for taking the time,we know it’s late there, for joining us today on Crime Redefined.
[00:41:41] Rochelle Newman: Thank you guys, thank you so much for what you’re doing.
[00:41:45] Dion Mitchell: I’m so glad we talked to Rochelle, she really helps fill in some of the blanks. She has been really an excellent soldier for the Woods family and it’s sad to see how she’s been so negatively affected by all of this.
[00:41:58] Mehul Anjaria: Well, you know, I would say it’s definitely one thing to be sort of passively involved in crime research and journalism but man, it’s a whole different emotional level when the case you’re working in, you know, is close to you and involves a loved one but you know, even if you don’t know parties involved in a case, I think this is an excellent reminder to anybody working in the criminal justice system, whether you’re a detective or you’re working in the crime lab, or you’re just even doing True Crime podcasts, you know, you can be deeply affected by these kinds of things and I can tell you, Dion that I routinely see absolutely horrifying images and I read detailed case accounts of some of the worst things imaginable. It’s just unbelievable what people can do to each other and I think that when you do this type of work, you have to be mindful of the cumulative effect of these things. Almost like like a poison, you might say, well, this doesn’t bug me, this doesn’t affect me but after doing it for months, and months, and years and years.
[00:42:59] Dion Mitchell: And actually subconsciously, you don’t know how it’s stacking up on you.
[00:43:02] Mehul Anjaria: Exactly, it seems like it was starting to catch up with with Rochelle.
[00:43:05] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, almost to where it sounded at the end of the conversation, like she wanted to tap out, she just didn’t have any more left in the tank but right now she’s a she’s a soldier, she’s gonna keep moving forward. I think she also laid out a good reminder about the entertainment industry, and the sometimes dark side of it. You know, after spending years and years on set, you know, there’s a lot of great people. So let me start there. There’s, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been really fortunate to know some really nice and really kind people, but, you know, these sets can be very cliquish, you know, very territorial and there can be some some ugliness to it and, you know, hopefully, that’s not the case but I’ve seen, I’ve seen both sides of it and it’s a shame that the other one goes on, but I’m sure that you have that in every workplace.
[00:43:58] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah and I think in the entertainment industry, you know, it’s one thing if it’s like, hahaha, the PA has to get everybody’s coffee order right or whatever but when it gets to that next level of essentially, bullying or something like that, that’s just unacceptable anywhere.
[00:44:13] Dion Mitchell: No, I couldn’t agree more and hopefully, you know, by us, you know, talking about it, and just putting more out in the Zeitgeist and people are paying attention to, you know, the less of that will, will take place. In other words, you know, you shine a spotlight on it, people aren’t going to do it and that’s just, you know, what we need to do
[00:44:29] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, well, you know, when you compare Terrence’s case, to, say, a cold case, or a post-conviction case, you know, if you don’t have any new physical evidence that turns up, which we don’t seem to have in this case, well, the next best thing would be to develop new witnesses and so what I thought was really remarkable is you know, how Rochelle said that there was a lady who saw Terrance in the supermarket, and that’s huge because that then seemed to disrupt the timeline of when he went missing, because the implication was that from the time that she saw him in the supermarket to the time he went missing, he couldn’t have possibly gotten up the hill in that time period.
[00:45:10] Dion Mitchell: That was really riveting to listen to for the first time. You know, it’s our hope that by us, staying involved in keeping Terrence’s story alive that somehow some way, even more people will come forward and all it takes is a small kernel of information to snowball into something bigger and I truly believe we discussed this with with Rochelle, that’s, you know, sooner or later, someone’s going to want to clear their conscience on this good, bad or ugly, whatever the information is, they’re going to want to get it off their chest.
[00:45:37] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah and also, I would say in terms of, you know, the possibility of people like attorneys or experts jumping in to help on the case, it may seem from the outside now that it’s overwhelming that there’s kind of nothing to work with, right? but when you start to get more and more new leads, like the lady in the supermarket, I mean, that hope that some of the rocks have been unturned, and there’s new info out there that might actually ignite someone to get off the sidelines and help get involved in the investigation.
[00:46:10] Dion Mitchell: Or just or maybe just help someone remember, Hey, you know what, maybe I did see that guy. Um, it was pretty hard to hear that Rochelle concerned not just about her career, but even her life. I mean, no one should have to go through that when you’re trying to, find a missing friend, you know, but it shows that you can never be too careful when you start turning over rocks and stirring up things in whatever industry, not just entertainment but she’s shown such a loyalty and bravery and like she says, If she doesn’t do it, who will?
[00:46:40] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, and then this whole next level, the fact that this is basically an international case, on one hand, the key witnesses are now in the UK but basically this is played out and portrayed as a US case and I think Rochelle hit it on the head when she labeled this as an international missing persons investigation and my gosh, Dion, that sounds daunting, especially if two people are working on it and I wanted to ask you as as our entertainment guy, you know, what are your thoughts on this suggestion that maybe Terence his disappearance is one of the biggest mysteries ever, you know, on a production set or in the entertainment industry?
[00:47:24] Dion Mitchell: Well, there’s obviously been some big ones like Natalie Wood, and some other cases like that but that wasn’t on a set. So as far as a set goes, it’s that I can think of right now, It’s funny, because it’s definitely the biggest, but it’s also the least well known, which is what we’ve been kind of going harping on from the beginning.
[00:47:46] Mehul Anjaria: Most mysterious yeah, because of the lack of coverage.
[00:47:48] Dion Mitchell: Which in itself is a mystery and that also leads to, you know, kind of a conspiracy, you know, for conspiracies to pop up but I agree, I think it’s one of the biggest ones, because this was directly on a set, you just don’t walk off a set and never be heard or seen from again, it just does not happen but I think the problem is what you just laid out and what Rochelle laid out, was the gray area with this is that one country saying oh, he’s a UK guy, and another one saying, oh, it’s a US deal, and then all it does is fall through the cracks.
[00:48:20] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, that’s exactly the word I was gonna use falling through the cracks. So Crime Redefined’s call to action for our wonderful listeners and social media followers is, you know, please get the word out about our episodes and about Terrence Woods, you know, tell a friend, let people know about this mystery one way or the other and of course, if anybody out there has any info, or can provide any technical assistance, please let us know, or Rochelle know or Terrence Woods, Sr.
[00:48:51] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, not only that, but give us your take, you know, I know that there’s a lot of amateur sleuths out there. Listen to our podcasts, listen to some of the experts do your own investigation, and then, send us a message, send Rochelle a message, send Terrence Sr. a message and give us your take so maybe, there’s some some cloud investigation we could put together and maybe that helps us put these these these pieces together where we try to get a better idea of what happened to Terrence.
[00:49:21] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, and to that end, you know, maybe there’s somebody else we should interview on Crime Redefined.
[00:49:27] Dion Mitchell: Who did we miss? Thats a great point.
[00:49:29] Mehul Anjaria: And should should we keep going? Can we offer value here? It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves. So yeah, please let us know.
[00:49:32] Dion Mitchell: Then definitely like, like Rochelle says, news moves on so hopefully Terrence’s story can gain some real momentum now. Rochelle’s Twitter handle is @rochellesnewman. There’s also a Twitter account for Find Terrance Woods which is at @findterrencewds and there is also a hashtag at #findterrencewoods. Also, if you can please contribute to the GoFundMe set up for Terrence Woods the campaign is entitled Find My Missing Son Terrance Woods. It’s actually looks like the goal of funding the campaign is in sight, so if you can even a $1 would be great. I’m sure that Terrence Sr. would appreciate it and once again, we hope all our listeners and followers are finding the saga interesting and as always, we truly appreciate all the support we have received worldwide. Until next time, be well.
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