Terrence Woods Jr. always had big dreams. He wanted to be a film producer.
“That’s what he went to school for,” his father, Terrence Woods Sr., told Dateline. “He graduated from the University of Maryland, then he went to London and got a double master’s degree.”
By October 2018, it seemed like those dreams were coming true. In fact, Terrence was working as a production assistant at a shoot in Idaho.
“They allegedly did their work on the 5th,” Woods Sr. said. “They called me on the 6th.”
The call was one no parent ever wants to get: 27-year-old Terrence Woods Jr. was missing...
Woods Sr. told Dateline that he raised his two children in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Terrence is the oldest. “He was a go-getter. He loved reading,” he said. “He loved outdoors, he loved snow, he loved playing with his brother.”
Terrence and his younger brother, Joseph, are five years apart, but Woods Sr. said they could not have been closer. “It was the two of them — always,” he told Dateline. “It’s always been them.”
Woods Sr. said that he has always shared a special bond with his kids. “After me and their mother divorced, I got full custody of my children. I raised them,” he told Dateline. “They lived under my roof. Their bedroom was at my house.”
Woods Sr. watched Terrence pursue higher education and eventually make his way into the workforce. In the fall of 2018, Terrence was living at home while working. “His bedroom is the same way it was when I took him to the airport,” he said. “September 30, 2018.”
It’s a date Woods Sr. told Dateline he’ll never forget -- the last time he saw his son.
I took him to Reagan National Airport,” he said. “I said, ‘See you later’ and I haven’t seen him since.”
According to Woods Sr., Terrence flew to Montana to meet with the crew from Raw TV for a shoot. “He was working with ‘Dave Shaw’s Gold Rush,’ so he was supposed to meet them in Montana on the 30th,” he said.
When he arrived, Terrence called his father. “He said everything was OK,” Woods Sr. recalled. “But on the 3rd, he had texted me and said he was going to come home early. He didn’t say why, and normally, he never cut a shoot early.”
Then, a few days later, Woods Sr. got that life-altering phone call. He said it was from one of the crew members at the shoot.
“They said on the 4th, they made it to Idaho, allegedly. And they said they went out to dinner… et cetera,” Woods Sr. told Dateline. “And then the next day, on the 5th, they claimed that morning he was acting strange, and he had an anxiety attack.”
Woods Sr. told Dateline that he had never known his son to suffer from anxiety, so he was immediately alarmed.
“Then they said he got himself together that morning, and then they went out to shoot,” Woods Sr. said. “They said everything was going fine. Then all of a sudden, they said, he was acting strange. I said, ‘Well, what do you mean strange?’”
According to Woods Sr., the crew member told him that Terrence attempted to grab a drone out of the sky. “I said, ‘A drone out of the sky?’”
Woods Sr. said the crew member told him that Terrence then sprinted down a cliff. “All of a sudden, he seen my son take his belt off with his radio and everything and drop it to the ground,” he recalled the crew member telling him. “He said, ‘Never seen no one run that fast in my life.’”
Woods Sr. told Dateline that the crew member said that he and some of the other crew members tried to catch up with Terrence, but couldn’t. That was the last time he was reportedly seen.
A spokesperson for Raw TV told Dateline in an email that, “Terrence was a popular figure at Raw; he was a well-liked and valued member of the production team and his disappearance greatly affected us all. We have the deepest sympathy for Terrence’s family and friends. It is truly heartbreaking that he has not been found, and we continue to hope that he will be.”
Dateline tried to contact the crew member who had called Terrence Woods Sr. about the disappearance, but was unable to reach him for comment.
Terrence’s father said that after hearing his son was missing, he got on a plane to Idaho. “I got there on the 9th,” he said. “The next day, I went to the sheriff’s department.”
On October 11, 2018, the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office posted about Terrence’s disappearance on their Facebook page.
According to the post, Terrence “had become separated from his party, a film crew from London doing a documentary on the Penman Mines,” and “due to the late hour of the report, searching did not commence until Saturday, October 6th.” The crew was filming in the Orogrande area of Idaho.
The post goes on to say that “Two Bear Air was contacted and they were out of service for maintenance and unable to fly. Three dog teams from Clearwater County, ground searchers (both on foot and ATVs),” and “personnel from the US Forest Service arrived on Saturday and began searching with Deputy Stan Denham. Clearwater County Back County Rescue Helicopter also did an aerial search of the area. Fish and Game canvased the area and stayed later into the night checking with hunters and continuing to search.”
The following day, “ground searchers, US Forest Service and Fish and Game personnel, and the dog teams resumed searching. Back Country Rescue Helicopter also resumed searching using FLIR to attempt to locate Mr. Woods.”
Searches continued the next day with the help of helicopters but, according to the post, no trace of Terrence was found. By Thursday afternoon of that week, authorities made the decision to cut back the active search, because “no leads were obtained” from the previous days’ searches.
Dateline spoke with Douglas Giddings, who was the sheriff of Idaho County at the time. Giddings retired in 2020, but told Dateline he has a clear recollection of Terrence’s case. “We investigated the thing completely and I remember all of it,” he said.
The former sheriff told Dateline that crew members called the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office to report Terrence missing on October 5. He said they told investigators that they saw Terrence run down the cliff that evening. “They were getting ready to go home and he was talking to one of the girls that did transports,” Giddings said. “He walked a little ways away from her and then took off.”
Giddings told Dateline that crew members weren’t able to catch up to Terrence but later tracked his steps. “They believe he got down to the road and that’s where they lost him,” he said. “They couldn’t decide whether he went left, right, or got in a car -- there’s all kinds of speculations of what he might have done if that, in fact, were his tracks.”
According to Giddings, his office searched the area thoroughly but found no trace of Terrence. “We searched the area with dogs and the whole shmear and we did not find him,” he said.
“We got rivers and steep mountains and cliffs and bears and cougars,” he added. “There’s so many things that could have happened to him… You could make up any wild story that’s possible -- because anything is possible.”
Giddings said that at the time, his office tracked Terrence’s credit cards to see if there had been any activity since he vanished, but there had been none. “They didn’t come up,” he said. “He disappeared.”
Giddings told Dateline that there were no signs of foul play in Terrence’s disappearance. “We couldn’t come up with any proof of that,” he said.
“It doesn’t happen very often where someone just flat [out] disappears,” he said. “It’s a very interesting case. There’s no doubt about it.”
Dateline reached out to the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office for the latest updates on the investigation and to request the incident report on Terrence’s case but was told that because the investigation is open and active, the records could not be shared at this time.
Giddings told Dateline that at the time of his retirement in 2020, there were no new updates in Terrence’s case.
Terrence Woods Sr. has questioned whether his son made it to Idaho. “[The crew] put up Facebook pictures with them in Montana. They put pictures with them in Idaho. My son is in no pictures of theirs, not one picture,” he said, adding that he only knows that Terrence for sure made it to Montana because he had talked to him on the phone when he arrived there.
Raw TV told Dateline in an email that “there is a wealth of documented evidence as well as numerous witnesses, not only from the production crew but also local drivers, hotel staff and other independent witnesses — who met and worked with Terrence and who can vouch for him being on location. He also texted and communicated with his father and mother stating where he was.”
Douglas Giddings, who was the Idaho County Sheriff at the time of Terrence’s disappearance confirmed witness accounts of him being in Idaho. “We have all the people that talked with him and had dinner with him,” Giddings said. “So the probability of him not being here is really not very likely.”
Woods Sr. told Dateline he was frustrated by his interactions with the sheriff’s office and quickly returned home to Maryland to wait for answers. He said he has reached out multiple times to get an update on the investigation and hasn’t received a response. “I should have had, by now, cut-and-dry answers,” he said. Dateline has attempted to follow up with the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office, but has not yet received a response other than to a records request which was denied due to the case being “an open and active investigation.”
Although Woods Sr. might not know exactly what happened to his son, he told Dateline he knows his son would never take off on his own and he is never going to stop fighting for answers. “You have healing and you have closure,” he said. “I have nothing but a story that is not even a good story. I have nothing.”
Woods Sr. said the pain created by Terrence’s absence is evident at their home. “His brother won’t even talk about him,” he said. “Inside our house, it’s pictures of them all over.”
The pain still lingers with Terrence Woods Sr., as well. He said the name he shares with his son is a constant reminder of what he’s missing and what he’s fighting for. “People don’t know what I’m going through.” he said. “But you got to keep going. I have to keep going for myself, for my younger son, and I got to keep going so that I can find him and the truth.”
Terrence is 5’9”, 130 lbs., with black hair and brown eyes. He would turn 32 on Tuesday, October 24.
Anyone with information regarding Terrence’s disappearance is asked to contact the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office at (208) 983-1100.