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In Idaho County, Idaho,four-wheel drive is a fact of life.
More than half the county’s nearly8,500square miles are either national forest or federally-managed wilderness. These steep mountains and deep canyons are a draw for outdoor enthusiasts. They also hold secrets.
On October 5th 2018,12members of a television production crew drove up one of those mountains for a daylong shoot.
That night11of them returned to their motel.
Terrence Woods did not. He was 26 years old and he was last seen on that mountain… more than five years ago.
Josh Mankiewicz: “What’s these last few years been like since then?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Hell. Like cancer. Like knowing something is gonna kill you but you gotta deal with it and keep going.”
That is Terrence Woods...senior.
Josh Mankiewicz: “From the beginning, you thought this isn’t your son going missing. This is something happening to him.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yes. Because the story from the beginning didn’t make no sense.”
What happened to his son doesn’t make sense to a lot of people,including Terrence’s friend and mentor Bethany Swain.
Bethany Swain: “Everything about the stories after Terrence’s disappearance, I would describe as weird.”
The sheriff who oversaw the investigation says he’s baffled,too.
Doug Giddings: “There’s so many possibilities that it just kind of boggles the mind. That’s why it’s an interesting case.”
I’m Josh Mankiewicz and this is Dateline: Missing in America. This episode is “Into Thin Air.“
We first covered Terrence’s story in October 2023. Please listen closely,because you or someone you know may have information that could help solve his case and give his family the answers they need.
Terrence Woods Jr. is the oldest of two boys. He grew up in Prince Georges County, Maryland,outside D.C.
Terrence Woods Sr. told me that from an early age, his namesake was determined to see what lay beyond his hometown.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “He was always, you know, an adventurer. He was always outgoing, always wanted to see the world.”
Terrence Jr. also had a lot to say about the world. His father still has a copy of the letter Terrence wrote in middle schoolto...President George W. Bush.
It begins, “Iam a 12-year-old citizen of the United States of America. I’m writing to you to state my opinion of the country’s involvement in overseas conflicts.”
It was not a fan letter.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “And when he wrote the letter and I read it, I told him, ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘When they come to the house, they’re not gonna look for you. They’re gonna look for me. They’re not gonna think you wrote this.’ His mindset with politics, the world, etc. Um, he looked at it, you know, from a serious standpoint.”
His dad says he wasn’t surprised when Terrence majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland.
Terrence Woods: “Hello, and welcome to Viewfinder, presented by the University of Maryland. I’m Terrence Woods. And I’m Anna Namaki. Technology has been good for some and difficult for others. Viewfinder’s Catherine Harrington visited a local flower shop where sales are being undercut by online orders.”
That’s him,co-anchoring a news program he and some college classmates produced. Bethany Swain was one of his professors.
Bethany Swain: “His goal to, um, be working as a journalist in London was very, very clear -- very, very focused from the first day that we met.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “He saw himself as a — sort of, you know, an international journalist crossing borders to cover big stories.”
Bethany Swain: “Absolutely.”
Bethany is a veteran photojournalist who was working at CNN when she started teaching. Her class met at night, and she says Terrence quickly stood out.
Bethany Swain: “He was always there before I got there. Um, he’d stay late, him and a -- and a couple of the classmates, they would want to ask questions, um, just into the night, as long as I was willing to -- to stay.”
SometimesBethany took her students to work with her.
Bethany Swain: “Whenever I would share an outside opportunity, ‘Hey, I’m -- I’m doing this,’ he was there. So he went and spent a day shadowing me, um, at CNN.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “He sounds like the kind of, you know, eager, devoted, really hard-working student that every professor in every single discipline wishes they had.”
Bethany Swain: “Oh, absolutely. Terrence was one of those students.”
In 2013, Terrence Jr. earned his bachelor’s degree, a milestone not just for him,but also his family.
Josh Mankiewicz: “He’s one of the first members of your family to go to college.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Oh, yes.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did he feel pressure because of that?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No, he loved it. He always wanted to be top at whatever he did, you know?”
After graduation, Terrence headed straight to London, where he earned a master’s degree in international relationsand launched his career.
Joanna Abeyie frequently helped young people of color like Terrence get their foot in the door.
Joanna Abeyie: “At the time I was recruiting the talent for a -- an independent, um, production company trainee scheme. Ultimately what it was doing, was giving opportunities to people from underrepresented backgrounds to work within television, to get their first break, really, working with an independent production company.”
Joanna says Terrence reached out to her and made a big impression.
Joanna Abeyie: “Rather than, you know, email a CV or a letter, he actually hand delivered it. And I said, ‘You didn’t need to do that.’ ‘No, I really wanted to meet you in person.’ That kind of summarizes Terrence, because he would always go the extra mile.”
Joanna found a position for Terrence at an independent film production company and then later connected him with other jobs. She told me the feedback she got from his employers was glowing.
This will all be important as our story progresses.
Joanna Abeyie: “It didn’t matter where I recommended Terrence for, very quickly I’d get a note from someone wherever he was working that would be very much of the, ‘He’s amazing.’ ‘ Terrence is incredible.’ ‘ The team love him.’ ‘He’s got so much initiative.’ ‘Nothing is too big an ask.’“
Josh Mankiewicz: “He sounds like the kind of employee anybody would want.”
Joanna Abeyie: “He was. He really was.”
Working as a freelance production assistant in TVorfilm usually involves a lot of grunt work for little pay. As he was building his resume, Terrence collected credits on some high-profile British shows, including ITV’s “The Voice UK.”He traveled for work, and for pleasure to France, Germany and Turkey. And he found a way to share those travels with his father.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Wherever Terrence traveled around the world, he would bring you a shot glass.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yea, ‘cause he would say, ‘Dad, what you want?’ ‘I don’t want nothing but a shot glass.’ I’m simple and I’ll never use it.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You’re not taking shots out of these.”
See AlsoChildren of spies only discovered they were Russian on the plane to Moscow, Kremlin saysDateline NBC | iHeartAll episodes of Dateline NBCTerrence Woods Sr.: “Not -”-
Josh Mankiewicz: “You just keep them.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yeah, just -- just to say, ‘This is where my son was.’ I probably would never go all the places he went. So, um, I was just proud of him and that was like a trophy of mine to myself from him.”
In July 2018, after five years in London, Terrence moved back to Maryland.
Josh Mankiewicz: “He just thought, ‘This has run its course and I’m ready to come back’?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Right. Yeah. He set out to do what he wanted to do. And there was the new chapter, and he was ready to start that back at home.”
Terrence Jr. had been back just a few weeks when Raw TV, a production company he’d worked for in London, contacted him.They were shooting a reality series called “Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine.” The job would involve several weeks of shooting in the western United States. Terrence signed on for the shoot, and on September 30th, 2018,his dad dropped him off at Reagan National Airport,outside D.C.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “He said, ‘See you later.’ I said, ‘See you sooner.’ And we laughed about it and I hugged him. And, um, yeah.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And he got on the plane.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yeah.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “That day is kind of burned into your memory, isn’t it?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Mm-hmm. Yep.”
Six days later, October 6th became another date he’ll never forget. That’s when Terrence Sr. learned his son had disappeared, somewhere in Idaho’s vast wilderness.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “At 7:40 Saturday morning, I got a phone call. And they told me that my son went off a cliff.”
Hearing your son has gone off a cliff is something no parent ever expects. And what Terrence Sr. heard next was even more incomprehensible. He’s not the only one who feels that way.
Here’s the former sheriff.
Josh Mankiewicz: “It’s just -- it’s -- it’s -- it’s so inexplicable.”
Doug Giddings: “You’re right. Try to explain it to somebody.”
The former sheriff says witnesses told him what they saw was no accident. Terrencedid notfall off that cliff.
Doug Giddings: “The story is, they were finishing up for the day and then he just took off down the side of the mountain.”
On October 6th, 2018, Terrence Woods Sr. was hearing a voice on the other end of the phone describing what had happened in the moments just before his son went missing the night before. That voice belonged to a producer on theTVcrew named Simon Gee, who Terrence Jr. was working with.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “And he said, all of a sudden, he looked, he seen my son’s radio on the ground. So he leaps out the car, run over there, ‘cause he thought my son dropped the radio or might have fell off the cliff. But he seen my son running down the cliff like a hare. I said, ‘What do you mean like a hare?’ He said, ‘I’ve never seen anyone run that fast.’”
The TV crew had been shooting near an abandoned mine in the mountains of central Idaho. Now, Terrence Jr. was missing. Doug Giddings was the sheriff in charge of the investigation.
Josh Mankiewicz: “This is very dense forest.”
Doug Giddings: “Yeah, it’s pretty dense forest. They haven’t clear-cut it or anything. It’s rough terrain.”
Giddings lives in an area just as remote as where the crew was shooting. There’s no cell service. When we spoke,he was using his landline, so you may hear static from time to time when he’s talking.
Josh Mankiewicz: “What story did you get, originally?”
Doug Giddings: “The story we got originally, how -- how many words you want this?”
Josh Mankiewicz: “How many you got?”
Giddings says Simon Gee and other witnesses told deputies what they saw in the minutes beforeTerrence vanished. Here’s the story they gave the sheriff. They’d wrapped up their work for the day, and Terrence was chatting with a local woman from town who was handling transportation for the crew. Giddings says Terrence Jr. told that woman he had to use the bathroom and stepped away. And that’s when he did something no one saw coming.
Doug Giddings: He walked along the edge of the road, and he passed one of the company managers, who was sitting in a Suburban doing some paperwork. And then he just took off down the side of the mountain.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did anybody say what precipitated that?”
Doug Giddings: “No one said, because no one knows. He didn’t tell anybody he was going to do it.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And suddenly he just runs away.”
Doug Giddings: “He just took off down the side of the mountain.”
According to Giddings, that alone was not done easily.
Doug Giddings: “It’s brushy. There’s huge trees. Uh, it’s steep. It’s rocky.”
Giddings says a few crew members chased after Terrence but failed to catch up with him.
Terrence Woods, Jr. had simply disappeared into the gathering darkness.
Doug Giddings: “And you’re up -- up in the middle of nowhere. There’s no sound, there’s no anything. And it’s rough. You wouldn’t wanna be left there by yourself. You got bears. You got cougars. You got coyotes. You got bobcats.”
The former sheriff says four-legged killers aren’t the only danger lurking in that area. Air vents for the abandoned mine nearby can be covered by brush, hard to see and easy to fall into. Some of them are quite deep.
At daylight, search teams began looking for any sign of Terrence.
Doug Giddings: “We had air with the heat-seeking. We had dogs. We had people. We had volunteers. We did the grid -- did the normal search.”
According to Giddings, the search team included a retired military officer who was an expert tracker, and who believed he may have found slide marks near the bottom of the embankment Terrence ran down. It’s close to a road.
Doug Giddings: “They possibly found his track where he slid down the bank to get onto the road, but they’re not positive that was him, but it looked like it might have been. So there’s that possibility.”
Could Terrence have gotten or maybe arranged a ride off the mountain?
Giddings says his deputies checked with people who live near the road, and no one noticed any unfamiliar vehicles coming or going that night.
Three days after Terrence disappeared, the production company, Raw TV, flew his parents from Maryland to Grangeville, Idaho, where the crew had been staying. At the sheriff’s office, Terrence Sr. and his ex-wife met with Giddings and other investigators. Mr.Woods says he expected all of the crew members who were on the mountain with his son to be at that meeting.
They were not.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Everybody was gone, except one person.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And you said, ‘Where’s everybody else?’”
A Raw TV spokesperson told us that all crew members stayed in Grangeville until the searches ended, then went to Portland,Oregon,to continue shooting at their next location.
Doug Giddings: “They didn’t hang around for a long time for us to, uh, you know, do backgrounds on them. But nobody did anything that we know of to cause him any grief.”
The former sheriff told me he didn’t see any reason for the crew to stick around.
Doug Giddings: “They did everything they could do to, uh -- looking for him and making sure we knew. They talked to us, told us what happened. They really didn’t have any reason to stay. They couldn’t find him.”
Simon Gee, the same producer who’d called Terrence Sr. the morning after his son disappeared, did speak with Terrence’s parents when they arrived in Idaho.
Terrence Sr. confirms that and adds an odd detail. He says both times they spoke--on the phone and then again at the sheriff’s office--Simon Gee began the conversation, not by telling him how his son had gone missing,but by criticizing his son’s job performance.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “He said they was out in the field and my son didn’t know what battery to get because he was green, this is his first time doing this. No, it was not my son’s first time doing it. My son’s first time ever being with this guy. And --. This is you calling me to tell me my son disappeared, but this is how you starting the conversation off.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “By telling the parent of a missing kid, ‘By the way, he wasn’t getting the job done.’”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Your personal feelings about him. You’re telling me about your personal, negative feelings about him.”
We reached out to Simon Gee for comment. He did not respond. Giddings, who retired in 2020,and no longer has access to the case file, told me he does not recall that conversation.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Do you remember the guy from Raw TV telling, uh, Terrence’s parents that -- that Terrence hadn’t done a good job, that they were disappointed in him?”
Doug Giddings: “I didn’t hear that in our -- in our meeting.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Or knocking him in any way, criticizing him?”
Doug Giddings: “I don’t recall that. Boy, I just don’t remember, and if there were any they passed me by.”
A spokeperson for Raw TV told Dateline,“Following recommended S&R protocol Simon phoned Mr. Woods Sr. to ascertain Terrence’s normal behaviour, state of mind and any other information he could give the S&R team. It was mentioned by Simon that Terrence had been distracted at times; this was solely in order to establish whether this would be normal behaviour. No criticism was made by any of the production team at any time.”
According to Terrence Sr., Simon Gee also told him that on the morning of the day he disappeared, his son had an anxiety attack.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You ever know him to suffer from panic attacks, anxiety attacks, any kind of, sort of, stress related illness or, you know, you ever worry about anything like that?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No.”
Josh Mankiewicz: "Did he ever mention that?"
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You’ve been suspicious of the official story that you were given from the get-go.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “It doesn’t make sense.”
On October 11th 2018, after six days of looking high and low for Terrence, deputies had come up short.
The sheriff called off the search.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You didn’t find anything that suggested foul play.”
Doug Giddings: “No. Not at all.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Nobody chased him. Nobody made him run. Nobody did anything that he was running away from.”
Doug Giddings: “No, there’s nobody doing anything to him.”
News of Terrence’s disappearance spread quickly among his friends and colleagues,and left them stunned.
Bethany Swain: “When this happened, I was like, this doesn’t sit right. This doesn’t feel right.”
Terrence’s former college professor Bethany Swain had been looking forward to hearing about this Raw TV shoot when Terrence came back to Maryland. They had stayed in close touch after he graduated. She says they texted just a few weeks before he disappeared.
Josh Mankiewicz: “He seem OK in that exchange?”
Bethany Swain: “There was nothing in that exchange with Terrence that raised a red flag. There was nothing that -- that made me think, ‘Oh, I should check in on him.’ It was a pretty standard text exchange.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “The story that authorities were told of him just sort of abruptly running off is a very strange story.”
Bethany Swain: “Absolutely. None of it made sense to me.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You’ve never seen him exhibit any kind of rash behavior like that?”
Bethany Swain: “No, the exact opposite. Everything that Terrence does was really thought out. It was methodical, but like in a good way he definitely was someone who thought a lot about the impact of every decision.”
Joanna Abeyie, his mentor in London, also found it hard to square what she was hearing with the Terrence she knew.
Josh Mankiewicz: “That sound like him at all?”
Joanna Abeyie: “No, um -- no. If that’s accurate and he ran off, then something definitely, definitely worried him or upset him because that’s just not what he would’ve done.”
Joanna says Terrence took special care to always behave professionally on set,specifically because he knew the stakes.
Joanna Abeyie: “In the U.K., when you’re from an underrepresented background, you kind of only get one chance. You don’t really get a chance to mess up that many times on a production or with a -- or even in the industry before someone hears about it. So he was always treading so, so carefully. In my opinion, something would’ve had to happen to him for him to run off like that, rather than try and find a professional, less confrontational way of managing whatever had gone on.”
For more than five years Terrence’s father has tried to fill in the blanks he thinks might explain what happened to his son. He’s come up with a provocative theory,one that completely reimagines where this mystery began. And it’s not in Idaho..
Josh Mankiewicz: “Do you think it’s possible your son wasn’t even there?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “In my heart, I don’t think my son made it to Idaho. I think whatever took place took place before Idaho.”
In October 2018, after the sheriff had called off that search for Terrence in Idaho, his dad flew home to Maryland, determined to solve the mystery of what had happened to his son.
He pored over every detail he could think of, including the calls and texts he’d gotten after dropping his son off at the airport on Sunday, September 30th. The first he’d heard from him was later that day, when Terrence Jr.called to say he had safely reached the first stop on his itinerary: Missoula, Montana.
Like a lot of parents, Terrence Woods Sr. never rested easy when his son traveled, even though he was 26 years old.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “I’m a parent, so I’m always worried. But I couldn’t tell him that.”
In Missoula, Terrence, who’d been hired as a production assistant, met up with the rest of the crew from Raw TV. His father didn’t hear from him again for the next three days.
Terrence Woods Sr: “He’s been other places where he couldn’t call me on the regular. So that wasn’t something that was majorly concerned, because that was his job.”
On Thursday, October 4th, the crew wrapped up shooting in Montana and headed to Grangeville, Idaho.
That’s when Terrence Sr. heard from his son again. He texted,“Hey dad just got to the hotel in Idaho.”
Then, just before midnight, Terrence called his father for another check in. It was nearly 3 a.m. in Maryland and Terrence Sr. was in bed.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “He said, ‘Hey, Dad.’ I said, ‘Hey, you know I gotta go to work in the morning.’ He said, ‘I was just calling you.’ I said, ‘You OK?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m OK.’ And I said, ‘All right, I’ll call you later.’ And that was the last, uh, physical phone call I had with him.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did your son say he was in Idaho?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “I’m not gonna say for certain he did or didn’t. I cannot remember at -- no, I can’t remember that.”
Almost six hours later, Terrence Sr. received another text from his son. This one had some unexpected news.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “’I’m coming home Wednesday -- on the 10th.’”
That would have been almost five weeks earlier than planned.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “And I texted him back and said, ‘Good, see you when you get home. Don’t forget my shot glass.’ I didn’t get a response to that.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “He doesn’t say why he is coming home early.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No. You know, I was just happy he told me he was coming home early. He didn’t sound like he was in a panic or anything.”
Terrence Sr. later learned from Raw TV that his son had told the production company he needed to leave early because his mom was having surgery.
Andthat was not true.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “His mother wasn’t having any surgery.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Is it possible he told him that ‘cause he needed an excuse to get out of there early?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yes. Yeah. Because he never cut a shoot short. So, if something was going wrong and he wanted to leave early, maybe he thought that would get him out of there early.”
The families of the missing are sometimes left grasping for answers when there aren’t any or when there isn’t any proof. Terrence Sr. isn’t convinced his son tried to leave the shoot early. He’s never trusted what Raw TV and thesheriff’s office told him about his son’s disappearance. In fact, he questions whether Terrence Jr. was ever in Idaho.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “In my heart, I don’t think my son made it to Idaho. I think whatever took place took place before Idaho.”
Mr. Woods says that’s because he’s seen no photos, no video,and literally no other proof his son spent any time in Idaho.
What he has is a lot of people telling him Terrence was there.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No physical evidence, no physical footprint that anyone is showing me of my son.”
Former sheriff Giddings told us investigators did not find any video showing Terrence in Idaho. However, he says the sheriff’s office did have eyewitnesses. Terrence Sr. says he doesn’t believe them.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Everything is word of mouth. Everything about my son’s whole disappearance is word of mouth with people out there that he knew for -- for what, from the 30th up until the day he disappeared.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “People he knew for just a couple of days.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yes.”
Mr. Woods is talking about the Raw TV crew. Giddings says the crew members were not the only people investigators interviewed. One key witness was that local woman who was providing transportation for the crew. She told investigators she saw Terrence run down the embankment.
The former sheriff says he’s known that woman for years and trusts her.
Doug Giddings: “Absolutely trust her. There -- there’s not a reason in the world that she would have to say anything other than the absolute truth.”
Giddings says detectives and the undersheriff also interviewed other residents in Grangeville, including employees at the restaurant where the crew had dinner, and the owner of the motel where they stayed,all of whom had seen and talked with Terrence.
Josh Mankiewicz: “So we’re talking about, what, 25 to 30 interviews maybe?”
Doug Giddings: “Probably 20 at the most. Fifteen, maybe, even.”
The former sheriff does not doubt for a minute that Terrence Woods Jr. was in central Idaho when he disappeared.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You have any reason to believe that you were not getting the full story that day from the people who were there?”
Doug Giddings: “No. We don’t have any reason at all other than that the family, uh, seemed to develop some reasons.”
Terrence Sr. told mehe has his own theory about what happened to Terrence Jr. beforehe got to Idaho.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “I think my son saw something -- or heard something -- and didn’t agree to it, or didn’t wanna be a part of it.”
He did notsaywhat he thinks that something might be, or what caused his son to vanish. It remains a father’s theory,and there is no proof of it.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Short of your son coming back, what could happen that would put to rest your suspicions and make you rest a little easier?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Me hearing what 10 other people have to say that was with him. And show me the videos of the places he allegedly was at.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “That would do it, or that would help?“
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No. That would help. I still will have a void until the day I die, but that would help, you know. But now I have nothing.”
Mr. Woods says the sheriff’s office denied his records request and won’t give him the names of the crew members the family wasn’t able to speak with in Idaho. The sheriff’s office also denied ourpublic records request. They told us, “Per our prosecuting attorney, this is still an open,active investigation so we are not able to release the records at this time.”
Doug Giddings told us the sheriff’s office is no longer actively searching for Terrence. Because Giddings is retired, he no longer has a say in who gets to see the case file.
Josh Mankiewicz: “If the finding is no foul play, then why not connect the family with the witnesses?”
Doug Giddings: “Well, it’s one of those issues that is always sensitive. And I understand it from both sides. I wish they would release it to them. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not an automatic, ever.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “If I made you guess, is Terrence still on that mountain or is he somewhere else?”
Doug Giddings: “My guess is he’s still on that mountain. Something happened to him on that mountain, and we missed him.”
A Raw TV spokesperson told Dateline, “Terrence was a popular figure at Raw; he was a well-liked and valued member of the production team and his disappearance greatly affected us all. We have the deepest sympathy for Terrence’s family and friends. It is truly heart breaking that he has not been found, and we continue to hope that he will be.” They also confirmed the episode they were shooting in Idaho has never aired--out of respect for Terrence and his family.
When someone goes missing it is easy to dwell on the what-ifs. Terrence’s former professor, Bethany Swain:
Bethany Swain: “Um, you know, I -- I really wish that, um, we had connected before he went out there. If Terrence was struggling, I know that if we had connected, I could have given him one of my pep talks.”
Joanna Abeyie finds it hard to believe the young man who handed her his resume nearly a decade ago,has simply vanished into thin mountain air.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You really feel his loss, don’t you?”
Joanna Abeyie: “Yes, it’s horrendous. I think his family have been robbed of, um, a son and a brother and nephew. And we’ve been robbed of a friend, and I think the industry’s been robbed of a -- of a great talent.”
On his right forearm Terrence Woods Sr. has a tattoo of Terrence Woods Jr. He had it done a few weeks after his son went missing, to mark Terrence’s 27th birthday. The tattoo is a copy of a childhood portrait.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “That’s a picture he always liked, so that’s the one I put on me.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “So he’s always with you.”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Yeah, and I have his name.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “This is not a pleasant question to ask, but you think your son is still alive?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “I hope that he is. And if he isn’t, I hope he didn’t suffer.”
Terrence Woods Sr. says he’ll never give up looking for his sonand for the answers to those questions that haunt his whole family.
Terrence Woods Sr.: “Somebody knows the truth, but I don’t think my son leaped off no cliff at night, and disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You’ll never believe that?”
Terrence Woods Sr.: “No. Mm-mm. Nah, that’s not true.”
Officially, Terrence’s case remains an open and active investigation.
Here’s how you can help:
Terrence is 5’9”, and at the time of his disappearance he weighed 130 lbs. He has black hair, and brown eyes.
Anyone with information regarding his disappearance is asked to contact the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office at 208-983-1100.
To learn more about other people we’ve covered in our “Missing in America” series, go toDatelineMissingInAmerica.com. There you’ll be able tosubmit casesyou think we should cover in the future.
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