27-year-old Terrence Woods went missing on October 5, 2018. He was working with a production crew that was filming a TV series in mountainous central Idaho. Reportedly he ran down a steep embankment in the Idaho wilderness never to be seen again. His father Terrence Woods, Sr. joins Crime Redefined to set the record straight on what may have happened and how he feels the investigation has been handled and portrayed in the media. Part 1 of 2 of our interview with Terrence Woods, Sr. https://www.gofundme.com/f/2hqmj-find-my-missing-son-terrence-woods
[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: Thanks for joining us on Crime Redefined today. I’m Dion Mitchell here with my Crime Redefined cohost Mehul Anjaria. We truly appreciate you taking the time to listen to our episodes and interact with us on social media.
[00:00:33] Mehul Anjaria: Please keep the comments coming on Twitter and Instagram and all of that, we like to hear your feedback and commentary on how we’re doing. So today we have the honor of talking to Terrence Woods Sr. whose son Terrence Jr., mysteriously disappeared almost three years ago on October 5th, 2018 to this day there are no real substantial leads as to what may have happened to him. So needless to say, this has been a very grueling and long ordeal for our special guest today.
[00:01:06] Dion Mitchell: We just felt it was important to give Terrence Senior another platform to get his perspective on his son’s disappearance out there, just like in a cold case investigation, the more, the story is told, the more likely it is that someone will come forward with new information, ideas, or resources to help solve this mystery. So today we’re going to take a little bit of time and we’re going to set this up for you with all the details that we have and where things stand as of today.
[00:01:35] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah. This will be brief, I mean, certainly you can read a lot about the case and we’ll, after we talked to Terrence, we can all decide what are established facts and what are in question, but it goes like this Terrence Jr. was part of a 12 person crew from a London based production company and they were on site in Idaho working on a TV show in the Orogrande area of Central Idaho.
[00:02:01] Dion Mitchell: Now another kind of full disclosure, I’m familiar with this area and it is heavily forested and it’s also at elevation of about 4,500 feet. It is truly a no man’s land where the Penman mine is located as you’ll hear from Terrence, even the basic facts surrounding his son’s disappearance are not necessarily agreed on.
[00:02:22] Mehul Anjaria: Right. So let’s go with again, just what’s been reported kind of universally, so it was reported that on the evening of October 5th, 2018, again, almost three years ago that Terrence, all of a sudden said that he needed to go to the bathroom and he put down his handheld radio and proceeded to run extremely fast down a very steep embankment into treacherous terrain and from that point supposedly crew members ran down this embankment after him basically didn’t see him, I guess they couldn’t catch up to him. Didn’t find a trace of him and it was claimed that when these crew members then came back up the embankment, that because of the terrain and all the trees, their clothes were torn and they were actually scraped up
[00:03:09] Dion Mitchell: As they should be. Like I said, this is heavily forested and most of the ground there is either, what’s the word for it? Where branches and stuff come down and it’s a lot of shale rock. So it’s slippery going and I believe there was snow on the ground at the time, or at least some moisture, which would have made it even more treacherous, Mehul.
[00:03:29] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah. We’ll get into this, but it’s worth noting that Terrence was not known as a mountain man or anything like that.
[00:03:36] Dion Mitchell: I think it’s fair to say he’s a city guy for the most part.
[00:03:38] Mehul Anjaria: And there were descriptions. Yeah. Him running like, like a hare or something very fast down the steep embankment. So we’ll get into that with Terrence.
[00:03:46] Dion Mitchell: So anyway, the crew now, did what they needed to do and a put out the call and a search ensued for Terrence Jr. In this harsh terrain, including scent dogs, helicopters with thermal imaging equipment and a search and rescue team. There was no evidence developed that Terrence had been in the area it was claimed that he ran to.
[00:04:08] Mehul Anjaria: So now this is an interesting development. I think this would depend on what filter, you’re looking at the facts through. So what you described can mean one or two things, basically, right? This is a mystery. This guy ran down and there’s this no sight of him. What, what the hell happened, or if you want to play devil’s advocate, you might look at this and say, well, wait a minute. They threw everything they could and there’s no sign that he ever ran down that embankment, so did that even happen? So, of course, Terrence Senior and Terrence’s mom wanted to get out to Idaho as soon as possible, find out what the heck was going on and when they did that, they expected to meet with the Sheriff of Idaho county, as well as the TV crew that Terrence was with on the shoot, because obviously they would be the best witness, but when they got to the Sheriff’s department, there was only one crew member left at the meeting and apparently the rest had already returned to London, and this episode that they were all filming actually never made it to the air.
[00:05:08] Dion Mitchell: So it just kind of, just ups, the level of the mystery, right?
[00:05:12] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, it sure does. Is there a reason that they weren’t at the Sheriff’s department?
[00:05:17] Dion Mitchell: If anything it just doesn’t look right. So although Terrence has spent some time in London working in production, he’d been living with Terrance senior in Maryland when he agreed to the goldmine shoot. When Terrance left home for the shoot, the first stop he made with the crew was actually, and I believe he was picked up in the, in an airport in Montana , it was not in Idaho. So as you will hear from Terrence Senior, the overall investigation is sadly lacking. Which in my opinion is kind of a mystery there another mystery in itself, there does not seem to even be definitive evidence that Terrence ever made it to Idaho from Montana.
[00:05:58] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, Dion I have to admit, I really hadn’t heard of this case until you brought it to my attention year and a half ago and I know you kept pushing me. Hey, check this out and then when I finally did.
[00:06:09] Dion Mitchell: I know you love a good mystery.
[00:06:10] Mehul Anjaria: Absolutely, and you were right so, you know, to kind of study up on the case. I think we both read the articles that were out there. There’s one on Deadline, there’s one on Vice, I think those are the major ones anyway and then there’s a six-part Fox Five podcast called Missing Pieces: Into the Woods and then finally at the end of 2020 there was a Dr. Phil episode dedicated to the disappearance of Terrence and yeah. I have to say, I tuned out a little bit after Dr. Phil and I sort of just assumed that, well, after the Dr. Phil episode, there’s going to be a big break. That’s going to solve it. That’s the publicity, it needed a, there’s going to be some new leads and all of that and then, just, I don’t know, a few weeks ago, poking around on the internet. I couldn’t find one development in that case, or any evidence of any leads that came from the Dr. Phil Show and I was kind of shocked because, isn’t that the thing now in cold case investigation, that you get it on a podcast, you get it on, somebody and it just shakes it up.
[00:07:14] Dion Mitchell: I mean, come on. This is Dr. Phil. That’s a lot of eyeballs.
[00:07:16] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah. I mean, how are you going to reach more people? In fact, we talked to Lindsey Wade about that too, about rewarming these cold cases and that something always shakes out in this day and age of social media and all that didn’t happen here.
[00:07:31] Dion Mitchell: Yeah. So instead of rehashing the prevailing narrative on what happened at Terrence Jr and pretending we were experts on this case, we wanted to speak directly to Terrence Sr, to get a more well-rounded view of some of the puzzling, assertions and facts surrounding the investigation.
[00:07:48] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah it’s frustrating that there’s just a lot of speculation out there. There’s a lot of connecting the dots, maybe prematurely without the hard evidence or without that what I want to see. I want to see that physical evidence, show me some DNA, I just, when I’m involved in post conviction investigations. The re-investigation is so thorough, people are knocking on doors and looking at reports and as we’re going to find out, there’s really a dearth of reports and stuff because of the status of the case and so now we’re left with a bunch of theories that are all over the place. So, some would say that well, Terrence he wanted to get off the grid and he wanted to disappear or ghost himself, or maybe there was foul play by somebody, maybe it was his coworkers did Terrence fall into mine shaft? Did he succumb to the elements or to a bear or something like that? There’s also rumor that Terrence had a mental breakdown and there’s probably a whole bunch more. So, our feeling here is let’s kind of get to the closest source we can which is Terrence Jr’s dad Terrence and in the end, as you’ll hear, we had a very poignant and I would say long discussion with Terrence. We’re gonna break this into a two-part episode, and we’re also working on potentially speaking to another person who’s very close to the case and may have some information. So here’s part one of our interview with Terrence Woods Sr. Terrence we’re honored to have you on Crime Redefined today.
[00:09:18] Terrence Woods Sr.: I thank you for having me as well.
[00:09:20] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah. Thank you so much for taking some time out of an evening and Terrence, it’s our hope that today’s interview will move that needle forward in the long process of getting some answers about your son.
[00:09:30] Terrence Woods Sr.: We definitely need the answers. It’s going on three years and every time I think I’m getting closer to something and get knocked back 25 feet. I’ve been on Dr. Phil I’ve been on talk shows, Fox Five other radio shows and, spoken to a lot of people in the, in the beginning, everybody, oh, we want to help, we can help X, Y, and Z and the next thing is a dead end.
[00:09:52] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, we’re going to try to do everything we can to just get more information out there and spread the word, but you know, my first question for you is how are you and how are your family? You just mentioned it’s coming up on three years. I’m just wondering how are you doing? And how’s your family doing?
[00:10:04] Terrence Woods Sr.: It’s real rough. I mean, because my two sons Terrance is my oldest and he’s 29 now my youngest son is 25. I’ve been raising my kids for over 18 years by myself although their mothers in their life, we’re not together and I, they’ve always been with me. So it was kinda rough because the day that I took my son to the airport, September 30th, 2018, his bedroom is the same exact way it was the day I took him to the airport. So I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s real difficult on me.
[00:10:32] Dion Mitchell: There was no way that I think that’s that you, anybody can possibly imagine, you know what you’re going through until you actually go through it. We just wanted to kind of see how you were doing and how you’re doing now. Compared to how you were when you first found the news, those first couple of weeks.
[00:10:47] Terrence Woods Sr.: The first couple of weeks were a shock and it was, denial that this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening. We are going to find him and he’s going to come home now, are we going over two and a half years. And you would think it would get better, but it’s getting worse because after two and a half years with no answers still, it’s not a good feeling. I try to go to sleep some nights and my son said dad help me dad help me and I just sit up and go sit in his room on the bed and say, man, I ain’t gonna forget about you. I’m gonna find you. I’m fine, and by the time I know it’s four o’clock I got to go to work. I ain’t been asleep all night. I got to go to work and put on a $9 smile and act like, Hey, what’s going on? and inside of me is like upside down.
[00:11:30] Mehul Anjaria: Well, Terrence, let’s get into some of the reasons why you don’t have any answers. So can you explain for our listeners why it is that the Idaho County Sheriff’s office considers Terrence’s disappearance, an open case? And then how that designation hinders you from collecting more information or, doing your own investigation?
[00:11:55] Terrence Woods Sr.: Well, the sad thing with the Idaho Sheriff’s department is I don’t know what’s going on with them. Right, but to say the least, but if they close the case, then the records become public records. So anyone could get the information. Now, I don’t know if you seen the Dr. Phil show when I was on the Dr. Phil show and when Dr. Phil asked the sheriff, well, why don’t you close the case? So the family can get, information. He said, I’m not closing the case. Well if you don’t close the case, then are you going to still work it? No, we’re not actively looking as well. So if you’re not going to close the case, you’re not going to look for him. Then what’s the hard part about closing it, why don’t you want us to see what you have not really done, and the lies that you all have told people.
[00:12:45] Dion Mitchell: I was going to say, what’s your gut feeling of why he would be holding this up and when it just makes no sense logical sense of why he would be kind of working against you?
[00:12:51] Terrence Woods Sr.: Because it’s more behind it, then he’s admitting to, and that he wanted anyone to know. They know they dropped the ball. If they didn’t have something to do with the ball from day one, when I got to Idaho, when I went to Sheriff’s department, this young man that worked there, he said, and this is the person I spoke to on the phone. He worked in the Sheriff department. He’s the one that took the 911 call when he took the 911 call and I spoke, he said, Mr. Woods, something’s not right about it. Something is not right. He said, when you get to Idaho, make sure you see me. When I got Idaho went to the Sheriff’s department and I seen this person gave me an envelope. He said, whatever you do don’t tell anybody I gave just to you and don’t show it to anybody. No problem. I go back to the hotel room. I opened the envelope up. It’s the original police report. It was called in and it’s police report is saying detail for detail what quote unquote was said when they called this in one, they said my son was a dark complexion person. I don’t know if you seen pictures of my son?
[00:13:52] Dion Mitchell: Yeah. He doesn’t fit that description.
[00:13:54] Terrence Woods Sr.: Not dark at all. Right. Okay. Moving along then. You also. That morning, he had an anxiety attack. Okay. Well, if he had an anxiety attack, did you all call professional medical assistance and no report that you would hear or read or anything No one ever once up to this second, then they call for professional medical assistance, but you told me, oh, we had to detain him. Oh, you said he had an anxiety attack. So do you mean restrain? No. Well, detain mean to hold against your will, detain mean to hold down. If he had an anxiety attack, why would you have to detain him somewhere? No, but everything worked out. You still didn’t answer that question. Well, everything worked out and then we went on out and the day was going along well. Okay, Now everything worked out from him having this anxiety attack. Now mind you, if you look at any of your reports, listen to anything. You don’t hear anyone dwell on Montana. Well, Montana, that’s the place he first went to on September 30th, which was that Sunday. Well, if he was in Montana from Sunday to Thursday, which was the 4th of October now, woke up on the fifth, which was that Friday. No one speak nothing about from Sunday to Thursday, no one say in Montana, he allegedly had an anxiety attack. He was tripping and you had no conversation about Montana. Now he’s in Idaho, but less than 24 hours, the day he wake up that Friday from that Thursday, getting there, he has an anxiety attack. Wow. Out of the clear, but four days he’d been in Montana. We speak nothing of that. No one even shows, there is no pictures of him in Montana you don’t even see any pictures up in Idaho. Okay. So nevertheless, that day going to the fifth. Now you say you’re out on the shoot and he has, this relapse he’s acting strange. He tries to grab a drone out of the sky, still no one sat him down and put them in a car, truck, whatever, and got professional medical assistance. If I go to work right now, if you go to work and your coworkers, see you acting strange out of the norm, whoa, man, let’s call some help for him. No one, not once said they call for professional medical assistance where this person who was at work with 10 other people grown people, you will read nothing no one ever said they call for a professional medical. No one even said they called for medical assistance. Not even putting the word professional in front of it but you all determined that this young man who’d been all over the world, never had an issue. Nowhere before he’s with you over this one trip and it’s one morning, although he was with you four days prior in Montana, which you speak nothing of, but just one morning in Idaho, he wake up that morning, have a mental breakdown, starting the morning off and just lose it in the evening and leap off a cliff and run like a hare.
[00:17:11] Mehul Anjaria: I want to follow up on something you said Terrence, other than, I guess the lucky break of that one police officer handing you that envelope, have you seen any type of official reports on the investigation?
[00:17:24] Terrence Woods Sr.: No, nothing. They will not, they will not give anything. That’s just like when originally, when I spoke to him on the phone, I was supposed to speak to the whole crew, by the time I got there, it was only one person there. There’s no reason for me to speak to anyone else. Once again, I asked a simple question, If you go to work today, I go to work. Then I’m with coworkers, God forbid something happens the first thing your family’s going to say, who was he with? Who was she with? And they went, if nothing’s funny, nothing’s out of line. He is with Joe Blow Mike, Sally, because your family want to ask, but when you say no, you can not speak to them and you get everyone out of the country. Really, really? Because guess what? 10 people can’t tell the same lie and if its all the truth all of us can say the same story if it’s all true, but if we got 10 people and we know something shady online, everybody ain’t gonna tell the same lie. So how do you cover a lie? Getting nine of the ten people out of here, we got one host here to talk, come on man. Up to this day, they won’t give anyone the other people’s information. Come on.
[00:18:37] Dion Mitchell: So you actually have the original report that the original report that came from the 911 operator.
[00:18:42] Terrence Woods Sr.: I have the original 911 call and that’s another thing that took place with the sheriff department when I was out there. So the guy, Simon, the one person that was allegedly that’s the person they stated did not get along with my son and he told me out his own mouth, then when he first met my son, he had high standards of my son, but all of a sudden those standards dropped and he don’t know what was wrong with my son because my son didn’t know what type of fruit to give him when he told him to go get his fruit. My son don’t know you why would he know what kind of fruit to get you, sir?
[00:19:13] Mehul Anjaria: It’s almost like shifting the blame is kind of what that sounds like. Why is it the first thing? Here’s some parents who were upset. Why is it the first thing that you tell them is that you essentially dis their son. It’s crazy.
[00:19:24] Terrence Woods Sr.: Exactly and I spoke to this dude on the phone prior to even going at that morning and this guy is saying all this negative stuff about my son, although my son is the one that’s missing and you were the one that was supposed to be with him and your telling him you were uncomfortable. He disappointed you, you all just told me my son is missing and you tell me about my son disappointed you and did not stand up to your standards, really?
[00:19:49] Dion Mitchell: Do you think he came out of Montana? Do you ever think that he was actually in Idaho? Do you have actually people that you spoke with.
[00:19:54] Terrence Woods Sr.: You have a couple of locals, which I have not actually physically seen or spoke to it’s word of mouth. That said they saw him. They were up on the mountain top when they spoke with them. Well, this place had 200, the population is 200, 206 people. It’s one way in and one way out. They knew who I was when I walked into the gas station, supermarket all that. They knew who I was. Oh, you must be the young man’s father, who disappeared here. So you all know who I am, but nobody know what happened to my son, but moving quick forward and then we can rewind. So when I’m in the sheriff department that morning now they don’t know I have this paperwork. So then speaking, so I said let me why did you all say, my son had a mental breakdown and leaped off a cliff and this dude Simon said, no one ever said that. I said, well, why did you all say my son was dark complexion, no one said that. I said that was said the sheriff looks down and he said, Mr. Woods, I have the 911 report right here in front of me he opens up a yellow manila folder looks down. No, no one said anything like that. I have the 911 report also, right and I read it last night, but I never said nothing to them at that time. I said, man, I got to get out of here, cause I might disappear. He lied to me and looked down at the paper. No one said that no one said anything like that Mr. Woods, where would you get something like that from?
[00:21:21] Dion Mitchell: Definitely sounds like they’re trying to cover something there for the life of me I can’t figure out what it would be.
[00:21:28] Terrence Woods Sr.: I’ll say this. I don’t know even if my son made it to Idaho, but my thing is this, When my son texted well, when I got the text from my son’s phone, I don’t even know if it was him texted, but I got a text when I got the text from his phone and it said ‘dad I’m coming home’ so I’m not knowing that anything was wrong. I’m like, good. Make sure you bring me my shot glasses because everywhere he goes, that’s the only thing I don’t want nothing, but the shot glass goes in the cabinet. So I’m thinking I’m gonna talk to him later on because I get this text, on Friday. So I’m say, well, later on, he’s gonna tell me, why he cut it short? Why are you coming home? I’m thinking I’m going to talk to my son later on now, not knowing that if that was him that sent the text. So could text came from his phone, whatever happened, cause I didn’t verbally speak to him. This is a text coming to me.
[00:22:19] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah. That’s a great point. Terrence and I know much was made of, I think it was on Dr. Phil. They made it seem like a mystery why Terrence left early yet in other media coverage, like a podcast, the claim was that his mother was having medical tests and that’s why he wanted to leave early, but you bring up a great point and it we’ll get to this, but in any good investigation, you look at the cell phone evidence, all that, but we don’t know that those messages are coming from Terrence and so what’s your take on why he would leave the set early?
[00:22:54] Terrence Woods Sr.: Well, he’s never left a set early. That’s first and foremost, okay. First and foremost, he’s never left a set early. Secondly, they were in Montana, they have pictures of it on a Facebook page with all of them in Montana. My son is in none of the pictures. They have pictures of them in Idaho. My son is in none of the pictures. Well, when I had the private investigator, before he started stealing money. He claimed, which I never got that I paid for, that he had the footage from the hotel. Well, you would, if I’m a sheriff, whatever, why don’t they have the footage from the hotel? So show me some pictures of my son walking in a hotel, walking out the hotel. I have not seen any of that yet. No one, you know what I’m saying? So where’s that at? No, I haven’t seen no footage of proof, other than word of mouth. Some couple of locals. that you all could have paid money to say anything. You know what I’m saying? You were in this little, small town, somebody tell you I’m gonna give you 50, $50,000 and that’s more than three, four years of salary to you, You can say anything.
[00:23:58] Dion Mitchell: Yeah. We have those questions, the questions that you have and your statements that you’re making we have those exact same ones. I mean, this stuff screamed at us when we were watching all this in the interviews.
[00:24:06] Terrence Woods Sr.: You know what I’m saying? And they make them like, okay, you had this quote unquote mental breakdown. Okay, you all keep saying he had a mental breakdown. So what doctor professional medical assistant person documented that and said that, so what happened in Montana first? They started this from four days Sunday to Thursday, y’all on the trip on to Idaho. No one say nothing about no funny behavior from Sunday. There’s no one is nothing you won’t pick up any information from Sunday to Thursday. Only thing you hear about is this team on Friday, he had a mental nervous breakdown, et cetera, et cetera, and all hell broke loose and went zero for my son. What? No one is leading up to this. Come on.
[00:24:52] Dion Mitchell: You mentioned the private investigators that you hired. How was it working with them?
[00:24:58] Terrence Woods Sr.: It was terrible, it was terrible, I was shocked, I was vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong. When I met the first guy, he talked real good, sounded real slick, my son missing. So I’m just trying to find somebody to help me find my son. So I gave him my bank account, man, what you need take this money? Just send me the bill, tell me what you are taking it for. I get a bill, a phone call to London, I gave him a friend of my son’s phone number, he called that person and charged me $600 for a phone call, and I gave you the person name and phone number and I got a $600 London phone call.
[00:25:33] Mehul Anjaria: As far as, Terrence the investigators that you dealt with, the private investigators were, they like licensed people that would appear reputable?
[00:25:42] Terrence Woods Sr.: Well on the internet, the one I found that he was supposedly, he had some good stuff on the internet, and it caught my eye. You know what I’m saying? So, I, at the time I was just trying to find some, I went to several people in this guy’s little biography sound real good. So I’m like, oh yeah, he talked a good game. So, all right, well, what we got to do get started and haven’t seen paperwork is here and we signed this and we’re going to get started. So I’m thinking, okay, man, I’m trying to find my son, you know what I’m saying. I ain’t nothing like this never happened to anyone. I know, so I don’t know who to ask to give me advice to tell me don’t do that don’t do this, man, my son is missing.
[00:26:22] Dion Mitchell: So basically, well, it sounds like you didn’t get a lot from them and they just blew your cash.
[00:26:26] Terrence Woods Sr.: Oh, I mean, I got them money taken from me then I had to close to cut cancel that debit card and then I’ve got the next guy and this guy found out he was working with the damn Sheriff’s department in Idaho. Yeah, so it hadn’t been happening and I thank God that I believe in God, man. Cause that’s the only way to keep you strong, man, because I gotta stay strong. For my youngest son, he won’t even talk about, he don’t, he didn’t want him to talk about his brother and he’s 25 years old. He’s the banker at PNC bank. He owns a wedding planning company, so he’s doing great, but he’s on, he’s staying strong, but he won’t talk about his brother. He don’t even want to talk. So right now it’s just me and him home now, cause both of my sons still live with me.
[00:27:05] Mehul Anjaria: Well, let me ask you this so far, we’ve talked about how you weren’t treated right by the cops. You weren’t treated right by the private investigators. How do you feel that the media has treated you and the story of Terrence’s disappearance?
[00:27:19] Terrence Woods Sr.: I think the media I’m not, I’m not going to get political right now. I’m not a Donald Trump follower. If you are, that’s your business, but, and what’d he say, fake media? Yeah, shit fake media, because I read some stories, man and I’m like, where the hell are these people get this story from? These people never contact me. I don’t know who they spoke to. So people grabbing stuff that Idaho put out this person and then they put in these stories, oh, he disappeared on his own. Oh, he didn’t get along with his family. Did you speak to his family? How you create these stories? I look at these stories, I’m like, well, who did these people speak to and get this information? I never spoke to this person, I had never gave this person permission. You know what I’m saying? So we’re, I put in my son’s name and see all these stories come up missing, missing and I read a little. Wow really what the hell.
[00:28:11] Dion Mitchell: That’s actually one of the reasons why we wanted to speak with you because so many of the, so much of the media that we read and watch, you can see that everything was slanted for a narrative to for clicks and we could not understand why and my next question is, and I think you’ve already answered is do you feel there’s been enough national exposure. I don’t understand after, when I first came in contact with this, why like Hollywood and why everybody, sports athletes, everyone is just not talking about this kids just don’t disappear.
[00:28:45] Terrence Woods Sr.: I’ve tried to get in touch with Tyler Perry. I tried to Jennifer Hudson. He worked with Jennifer Hudson on the Voice. My son worked on the Voice with Jennifer Hudson, Will I Am, Tom Jones, all of that, got pictures with them, all of that. I don’t know, I’m sure all of them, people read their mail and see what they’re going to give them and all this stuff. So, I don’t have no direct line. So I sent stuff to Tyler Perry, Jennifer Hudson Will I Am, President Obama, Mrs. Obama. You know what I’m saying? And it’s like, damn.,
[00:29:19] Dion Mitchell: And no one would touch it.
[00:29:22] Terrence Woods Sr.: No replies from nobody and then the people that do say, oh yeah. Oh man, there’s something wrong with this. We going to get all of it and suddenly they go dead. Like, somebody say, leave it alone. You know what I’m saying? That’s like in London, I spoken to several people in London in the journalism field and they say, man, they would blackball you out here. If you mentioned your son thing, like what.. I ain’t going to talk about that. Is Raw TV, too powerful? They said, man, we trying to get into business. You can’t bring up that story. Well, that alone saying, why would I blackball someone if you’re not doing nothing wrong? What are y’all what big picture y’all trying to cover? Because my thing is this if there was a text from my son and like you said, people were saying, oh, he told him that his mother was having an operation. If he told them this because his mother was not having an operation, then maybe he told him that because he saw something, heard something, he wasn’t comfortable with something and he felt he had to say something that might make them, allow him to get the hell out of it without the eyebrows going up, but my thing is this, If I get a text from you on Friday saying that you coming home and 7:20 AM, Saturday morning, I get a call, saying you leaped off a cliff when no one could find a trace of you, as you heard the Sheriff say on Dr. Phil, your dogs went to the area where they said, quote, unquote, my son went off, couldn’t find a trace and smelled nothing of him helicopters up in the air, couldn’t find no heat detection of him or he was not there.
[00:31:09] Dion Mitchell: Yeah. I’m wondering that as well.
[00:31:11] Terrence Woods Sr.: Yeah, my son didn’t go over 70 degree angle cliff and like I told you, I said, first of all, my son had $300 inserts in his shoes. He’s flat foot, my son trips, walking up the steps. Now you all want to say in the evening that he dropped his radio in the evening, in the woods, and then he had a car waiting, so this boy never been here in his life, but he had a car to wait on the road and he’s going to run, drop your radio drop, don’t have a flashlight left your book bag with your light in it. In his bag, he had a stun gun in his bag and he had a pocket knife in his bag, he left his bag with a stun gun, pocketknife, everything, the leap down a cliff at night in the dark and you’re going to make it in the dark through the woods that you never been in, get your room and make it to the destination. They said when he was running, we sent one of the vehicles to the road, by the time the vehicle got there, he never crossed it cause he ain’t never go down there, but then they said when they went after him, as he was running like a hare. They came back up, they clothes was ripped and they were bleeding. Well, y’all came back up with ripped clothing and bleeding, but he didn’t lose a drop of blood for a dog to smell a piece of his clothes didn’t get ripped. So he flew down the cliff, get the hell out of here.
[00:32:25] Dion Mitchell: You mentioned Raw TV, obviously, Raw TV is a part of Discovery, which has got pretty long arms in the entertainment industry and I was wondering at the end of the Dr. Phil Show they finished up with, they said Raw TV had reached out to you and offered to meet with you and the Idaho Sheriff’s department. Did that follow up meeting ever occur?
[00:32:44] Terrence Woods Sr.: First of all, Raw TV and this is only hearsay, that’s only what they told us, no one reached out to me. Right? So Raw TV. Why do I have to come back to Idaho for you to meet up with me? We could do a zoom meeting, I don’t want to come back to Idaho. Why do you want to get me back there? So now I can disappear? My son disappeared out there. The sheriff showed me he was up to something shady, when he sat up and looked down and read a piece of paper and told me I was wrong and I got the same paper in my pocket and now you’re going to tell me we can meet up in Idaho. Hell no
[00:33:21] Dion Mitchell: So that meeting never took place that follow up that they threw on it.
[00:33:24] Terrence Woods Sr.: Raw TV haven’t offered me a penny to get a lawyer. They didn’t offer me a private investigator. Didn’t offer no help. Now y’all want to get me back in Idaho. The Idaho Sheriff’s department said, they’re not looking for my son.
[00:33:42] Mehul Anjaria: Well, let me ask you this Terrence.
[00:33:43] Terrence Woods Sr.: I’m listening.
[00:33:44] Mehul Anjaria: What person or organization in your opinion has actually been the biggest help to you as you sought to find some answers?
[00:33:53] Terrence Woods Sr.: No one as of yet. I thought Dr. Phil was going to be a plus, and I followed Dr. Phil show. When you go on these TV shows 99.9% of the time. If you have a drug problem, oh, we are going to put you in counseling marriage problem. We going to get you help with that at the end of that show, they offer you help towards whatever the reason you come on Dr. Phil didn’t offer me nothing. They ain’t saying, well, we can get you a private investigator. We can No!, well, one when you first took the case, the show, it took you over two months to actually air the show. You asked me to do it, then when you finally aired it, it was a put together show. You took what I told you and what my ex-wife said and we said, and then you spoke to the Sheriff Department totally separately and then you put that together. I wasn’t on the show where I could say, hold up, Sheriff, you’re lying about it and about people talking back and forth.
[00:34:57] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, we were talking about this before we got on and the editing is crazy. It is so chopped up. Yeah.
[00:35:05] Terrence Woods Sr.: Come on, man. Man. Come on, man. Yeah, exactly. Dr. Phil show, normally Dr. Phil, he come at you. You know what I’m saying? As you know, he come at you, he tap danced on that show, he didn’t eat him up, he tap danced. Then when he asked the Sheriff, so why don’t you give the family, then we’re not doing a follow and we’re not giving them no information. Okay. If you look at Dr. Phil show at the end of any show, they offer a drug addict, counseling, marriage people, counseling. They offer you something to help you at the end of that show, the show was over. Cut. I ain’t never hear from them yet since it was a wrap.
[00:35:52] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah, you’re right. Terrence. That’s the formula. Dr. Phil is supposed to be aggressive and get the answers and not just sit in the chair.
[00:35:58] Terrence Woods Sr.: Resolution, what was the resolution? If you watched it, what resolution you seen there? Like I said, his show revolves around everybody’s asking questions. If you cheat on your wife, your wife’s there, whatever it is then you had us and then you had the sheriff, you did a separate interview with him and whatever you felt made him look good, you put that in and then you made the show together. Sheriff your lying, Sheriff, I know I had a copy. I have a copy of the original report. I couldn’t say that, and so that was his background and everything, but I feel he’s under Oprah Winfrey, and she has a partnership with Discovery.
[00:36:43] Dion Mitchell: There you go. Good point
[00:36:46] Terrence Woods Sr.: Big situation. No.
[00:36:50] Dion Mitchell: You think that she would pick it up?
[00:36:51] Terrence Woods Sr.: Oprah Winfrey have ownership with Discovery, Dr. Phil is under Oprah Winfrey right before all this went out. Oh, well, no, you can’t, you can’t step hard on this one. You told him he was going to do it, you made yourself obligated. Okay, we’ll put it up there, but doctor it up and you don’t fuck with them.
[00:37:09] Dion Mitchell: I want to get into some of the investigation stuff and I was wondering has anybody I probably know the this answer as well, checked his Terrence’s electronic footprint, like his cell, any social media before and after the computer bank records, et cetera, is any of that investigated?
[00:37:25] Terrence Woods Sr.: Now let’s go with that one cell phone. Of course, we don’t have a cell phone. The cell phone quote unquote was with him. Supposedly he couldn’t ping it. Cause the first thing I said, well, why don’t you ping his phone? Well, we’re in the woods and we have Satellite phones cause there’s no service. Well ping his phone to see where the last service was when It took place, nothing happens. You know what I’m saying? Don’t exist. Now as far as this laptop, mind you. When I got there, the Sheriff department had everything. They gave me his laptop. They said you can’t get in, we tried to get into it, but he had a triple firewall in it and if you go into there and you do something, it’s going to burn everything up. We doubt if you can get into it, I brought it home, gave it to somebody and said, man, I don’t know what kind of firewall they have. I say that to say, I don’t know if people did whatever they wanted to do to it and then they put the firewall in there. I don’t know. I know his diary that came back home, I know pages are ripped out of that, that I never received. I know in his camera I have his camera. You would think as soon as I opened up, you can think all the pictures that I would see would be the first pictures of whatever he took while he was in Idaho and Montana. I couldn’t find new pictures until midway flipping through the pictures.
[00:38:51] Dion Mitchell: That’s a great point because I noticed that with your son, he was really big on either video or photographs, diaries, documenting everything he did and there would be a photograph trail.
[00:39:07] Terrence Woods Sr.: Anywhere my son go, he going to take pictures. He gonna make it, he going to take pictures of himself. He is no nothing, not nothing on it with my son, physical body.
[00:39:19] Mehul Anjaria: A quick question on that point. Have you ever considered, or have you ever talked to a computer forensics expert who could go in and trace what some of the deletions and editing and tampering might have.
[00:39:31] Terrence Woods Sr.: I’ve been trying to find such a person. I have people to say, oh, I know this person and get that person and I don’t know, I can’t get there. Oh, I know this person or I can do it. It’s going to cost you $2,500 though. You know what I’m saying? Oh, now you’re putting a price on it. You’re going to go pimp me for money. Huh? I’m a working person. I’ve been working all my life work now to take care of my kids. Both of my kids went to college, we live very comfortable and it’s just the three of us. I never got remarried, no other woman ever lived in my house, their relationship with their mother, It is what it is. You know what I’m saying? That’s their mother, you know what I’m saying? She loved him. They love her, but they always live with me. Dr. Phil, Terrence was in Montana from Sunday y’all left, arrived in Idaho on Thursday as you, if you seen, when I opened up his suitcase with his clothes, all his clothes are neatly, folded up brand new underwear tags still on socks, still rolled up pants, not worn shirts, but he got one pair of muddy, dirty boots and with all these clean clothes where are his dirty clothes for the last five days?
[00:40:51] Dion Mitchell: A side question. Terrence, did he, and this is just kind of standard they ask about when they do search and rescue, did they just does Terrance aside from, you mentioned the $300 inserts, which I have as well for my flat feet. So I can relate to that any medical issues of, heart lungs, like headaches or anything like that?
[00:41:09] Terrence Woods Sr.: No, I told them they could get his doctor records from his doctor. You know what I’m saying? He has a regular primary doctor at Kaiser Permanente . We have insurance, we have doctors. We go to see the dentist. We go get physicals, get his doc, everybody talking about he had, okay, first now you’re saying the young man had a mental breakdown. Now you’re trying to say. yeah, I’ve found pills, that’s called hearsay. Show me evidence that you went to his primary doctor where his physicals are his lab work is then just go to, if you got work from, give me some of that and you show me one, one physical, one thing from any of his doctors that said he was coming in for anything. Show me some proof from a professional person not of created word of mouth trying to down talk to the person, or make this person look like the enemy, so people say, oh, he had mental problems, all the hell with him. That’s just, I guess the Sheriff said, oh, he from the city? We don’t even live in the city. My son was never even brought up in the city. You know what I’m saying? So well, because he’s black. He’s from the city?
[00:42:25] Mehul Anjaria: Yeah that’s kind of the inference. You might draw by what he said and it’s funny when you said that 911 caller said Terrence had a dark complexion. Well, compared to everybody else in Idaho. Yeah.
[00:42:36] Terrence Woods Sr.: But even from some of the people, not who he looked like, some of them.
[00:42:41] Mehul Anjaria: Well, let me go back to Raw TV real quick and I think I know the answer to this question, but again, another claim on Dr. Phil by the Sheriff, I believe. He said that you had the names of every one of the crew numbers members. Now, is that true or is Simon the only name that you have?
[00:43:00] Terrence Woods Sr.: Simon is the only name that they would give me, Simon is the only person I met and only name they would give. Raw TV would not, they said there was no criminal investigation and there was no need to give anyone else’s name not up to this day, even when Fox Five, that’s another joke of a newscast story they did a six-part podcast on my son, terrible, because it was totally one sided, everything that Melanie did was what the sheriff department said, what the sheriff department said. There is nothing in a six-part podcast that this lady did on my son where she had people that he knows people that he went to school with family members, the thing is what they said. Wow. Then the last one was, my son was with the lady that owned the RV company and told her, he don’t get along with his father, him and his brother fight. He don’t love his mother.
[00:44:02] Dion Mitchell: And none of that’s true?
[00:44:04] Terrence Woods Sr.: Hell no. Like I said, my son lived with me, his bedroom, very comfortable.
[00:44:12] Dion Mitchell: You mentioned, you mentioned a couple of pieces of evidence and stuff and I was just wondering, what do you think what’s the one most important piece of evidence or piece of the puzzle that you don’t have that might kind of blow this open or reignite it?
[00:44:25] Terrence Woods Sr.: One, if we could get in that computer to see, like you said, what was all deleted? And two, like I said, in his camera, if right now you take a bunch of pictures. So now get your camera, the pictures that you. Should not be, it shouldn’t be 200 pictures in front of them, 50 pictures in front of them. That means somebody went through them and you know what I’m saying? Scattered them around or whatever. Someone went through that.
[00:44:53] Dion Mitchell: Well, that’s it easy to figure out. So, I’m assuming since Terrence was a pro he’s probably using a pretty nice 35 millimeter camera, correct?
[00:45:01] Terrence Woods Sr.: Yes.
[00:45:02] Dion Mitchell: Okay. So that means that you can download all the pictures off the camera, via USB into a computer, and then you should be able to see each picture is timestamped. There’s no way around that and then it also should be in synchronicity. So it should be like depending how many photos is taken. It would be, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003 and then you can look at the timestamps. So that’s fairly easy and that’s something that you can actually do right now and that’s just hook that 35 up to a PC.
[00:45:30] Terrence Woods Sr.: Okay. Well, I was I looked at, I was looking at him, through the little scan on them and I could see dates and stuff on them.
[00:45:39] Dion Mitchell: So right there. Yeah, exactly. So right there that would tell you because you get it
[00:45:43] Terrence Woods Sr.: Right. So that’s my point.
[00:45:46] Dion Mitchell: Terrence was really good he was taking all these pictures. So if there was a gap, of more than 24 hours, that would be odd.
[00:45:57] Terrence Woods Sr.: Exactly. That’s my point. Okay. So that’s my point. So I’m looking at pictures, but I’m looking at pictures. Okay. Like I said, he was just in Idaho. So those should be the first pictures then to be Montana pictures, those pictures are from when he was in Rome, I had the wrong pictures show up before the Idaho pictures.
[00:46:18] Dion Mitchell: Yeah, that’s not right.
[00:46:19] Terrence Woods Sr.: Come on.
[00:46:19] Dion Mitchell: You mentioned Terrance’s suitcase. When did you come in contact with it? And then how long did it take you to actually open it up?
[00:46:26] Terrence Woods Sr.: They gave it to me the day after I got there.
[00:46:31] Dion Mitchell: And you opened it up right away.
[00:46:32] Terrence Woods Sr.: No I looked in his backpack, his suitcase, I didn’t wanna open it up for months and then I finally opened it up and that’s when I seen everything easily folded up. That’s like they said it was 30, it was 32 degrees the night they did the shoot.
[00:46:52] Dion Mitchell: Was there snow, is there snow on the ground up there?
[00:46:56] Terrence Woods Sr.: Yes.
[00:46:56] Dion Mitchell: Was there a lot or little?
[00:46:58] Terrence Woods Sr.: In the mountains, It was, that’s why they had to stop because of the weather. So mind you, it’s 32 degrees. He runs down this hill well, what did he have? Oh, he had on, we believe a light jacket and some pants, one light jacket. Well, 32 degrees. The snow suit that I bought him before he left that’s at home with me. He didn’t have his snow suit on his secondary coat. Heavy coat I brought home with me. So he’s out, out in the woods. Y’all all got on winter coats, everything, but he’s out there with a little jacket on it. Snow coat, snow pants he doesn’t wear none of that. His boots, he didn’t have boots. He got muddy pair of shoes where these shoes are muddy, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Dr. Phil show, you’ll see the shoes. So why would he be out in that type of, and I know he took, he wouldn’t, he loves Doc Martens. So I know he had Doc Martens, I guess he might’ve had those on that day. Cause they didn’t come back, sneakers still in his bag. Like I said, no dirty clothes, no dirty underwear, no dirty t-shirts, no dirty socks. If those boots, those shoes is in there muddy, there should be some muddy pants around, should be some pants around with bottom of the pants would be muddy too, but nothing else is dirty.
[00:48:18] Dion Mitchell: Yeah. I got hung up on that pretty early as to where where were the clothes? I’ve just no, full disclosure here, I’ve worked in production for a really long time, 20 years on a set and when you get done at the end of the day, you’re not putting those clothes back on, there’s a pile of dirty clothes and you move on. So clearly he’s worked on enough sets that he knows that you pack accordingly because basically you wear something it’s done until you bring it home and you wash it. So where do you think that his dirty clothes went?
[00:48:48] Terrence Woods Sr.: Who’s to say how many days he really was there, who’s to say his dirty clothes wasn’t a part of some type of evidence and y’all got rid of them, not you all meaning you, but they got rid of them, come on, man.
[00:48:59] Mehul Anjaria: Well, then that leads into my next question. Obviously that hotel room is a very important piece of evidence and now did you say that the private investigator, the only thing he or she did was give you a photograph of the hallway of the hotel?
[00:49:13] Terrence Woods Sr.: No, I said they didn’t give me anything. They told me they have it. I have no evidence.
[00:49:18] Mehul Anjaria: That’s right. You haven’t seen it.
[00:49:19] Terrence Woods Sr.: Oh, No one will, let me see anything and remember this, I don’t know if you heard in the interview where they said the crew quote, unquote, went back to his room and went into his room and then they taped his room off and locked his room, so no one else could get in it. So the crew went back in the room before the Sheriff’s department or anyone even got there.
[00:49:40] Mehul Anjaria: You now have multiple instances where people, if they wanted to, could have tampered with evidence.
[00:49:46] Terrence Woods Sr.: Could have done anything, man. Yeah. That’s my point.
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