Narrator (10:16)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (10:18)

The Business posted regular updates about what their staff and search and rescue teams were doing to find Connie. In another status update posted on that Sunday the 7th, the business informed their followers that a helicopter from Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State was going to land in a town just east of the wilderness and begin searching for Connie overnight, but bad weather ended up hindering a lot of aerial search efforts. According to the Richie Outfitters Facebook post, rough conditions came and went throughout the day on Sunday, and only a small number of people were able to go out on foot to look for Connie and Ace. And if things weren't already wild enough, on that very same day, Sunday, October 7th, just two days after Connie and Terrence vanished, another missing persons report came into the Idaho County Sheriff's Office.

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Delia Diambra (12:57)

The third missing persons report filed the same weekend Terrence and Connie vanished was for a 42 year old man named Jose Mendez Morales. Jose was a traveler who left his home in Tacoma, Washington in late September with plans to go to Elk City, Idaho, but had failed to check in with his family. After September 25, a quick search for him got underway, which I imagine might have pulled some resources from Connie and Terrence's investigations. But eventually, within a few hours, authorities found Jose alive and well and continued searching for Connie and Terrence. I think it's important to mention here that based on the source material I found, the Idaho County Sheriff's Office did not consider Jose and Connie and Terrence's disappearances connected in any way. In the department's eyes, Jose was his own situation, and Connie and Terrance were literally just two people who'd vanished hours apart on the same day under very different circumstances. But because their cases happened in the same jurisdiction, the local sheriff's office had to work both investigations at the same time. And from what I found on the sheriff's office Facebook page, the agency did do a good job making sure any social media posts or updates they made for Connie were separate from the ones they made for Terrance. The department clearly didn't want to confuse people or lump the two missing person cases in as one. Anyway, on Monday, October 8, three days after they were reported missing, the simultaneous searches for Connie and terrence carried on. K9 handlers fanned out with their scent dogs in the woods along the Selway river to try and track any sign of Connie or her dog, Ace. Rangers also roamed some of the trickier terrain on horses and mules to search for them, but it was all fruitless. Nothing surfaced. Meanwhile, poor weather conditions that included snow and rain persisted miles away near Penman Mine, where searchers were looking for Terrance. Around this time, Terrence's parents, Valerie and Terrence Woods Sr. Had traveled to Idaho from their home in Maryland. No sign of their 27 year old son surfaced during those first few days of searching. Despite their best efforts, rescue teams using helicopters and scent dogs could not find a trace of him anywhere. Just based on the terrain that crews were scouring, though, rescuers felt like they should have found some sign of Terrence, a torn piece of clothing, blood from a possible injury, something. But nothing materialized. And this is how things went for a few days in both cases. Tuesday, October 9th passed and so did the 10th, until eventually the authorities called off the active search for Terrence. By the end of the day on October 11th, Idaho county deputies and search and rescue teams continued looking for Connie, though they even added two more dog teams to the resources dedicated to finding her and Ace. I'm not exactly sure why the decision was made to scale back the search for Terrance but continue looking for Connie because according to the source material I found, including an article by CBS News, Terrence's parents expressed to the sheriff's office that they had some serious concerns about the circumstances surrounding their son's disappearance and felt the fact that he was Black played a role in why his case wasn't being taken as seriously. His mother, Valerie, said that Terrence was supposed to be working as a production assistant on the gold mining TV show through the middle of November, which meant he still had a little more than a month left on the job when he vanished early in the morning on the Friday he disappeared. Terrence had texted his father saying he was going to come home from the film shoot early and would return to Maryland by October 10th. Now that text felt odd to the woods family because Valerie said her son had never returned home early from traveling for work, ever. She told CBS News, quote, he's been all over and he came home. He's been to Morocco and he came home. He has never once cut any of his trips short in the history of his traveling.

Narrator (16:58)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (17:00)

Valerie and Terrence Sr. Speculated that their son might have been bullied or treated poorly while working on the TV show in Idaho, and that's why he wanted to return home early. They pointed out the fact that Terrence was the only black person working for the production team and he could have felt isolated or intimidated by the people he was employed by, even though the Woodses had no direct proof of this and the production company Terrence worked for denied such allegations. Valerie and Terrence Sr. Met with the sheriff's office and members of the documentary crew who reported son missing. Anyway, they wanted to try and get more information because deep down they felt like they weren't getting the whole story of what happened to their son. They thought it was kind of strange that Terrence had reportedly run down a steep drop off that was supposed to have homes and roads near it, yet not a single trace of him had been found in that landscape or down by the road. Terrence's father told CBS News, quote, you can't get lost out there because if you get lost out there, you're going to run into a road or houses. So he didn't just poof, vanish and disappear? No, he made it to that road. Someone picked him up.

Narrator (18:09)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (18:10)

Terrence's sister, who was living in Maryland, echoed the same thoughts. She told the news station she felt it was very out of character for her brother to just take off running on his own into the woods. What's super weird to me is that strange Outdoors reported Terrence's parents were given his backpack after he disappeared. Apparently someone from either the documentary crew or the sheriff's office, I'm not sure which, just handed it to them when they flew in from Maryland. Shortly after Terrence was reported Missing inside the bag were some batteries, sharpies over the counter, painkillers, cough drops, hand cream, an iPhone charger, and some camera bags. In addition to those items, Terrence had also left in the backpack a tactical folding knife and stun gun. Now, if you ask me, all of that stuff feels like a great starter kit for surviving in the woods if you were to get lost. And the fact that Terrence supposedly willingly left these items behind did not sit well with his parents. But based on an investigative piece I read by Deadline, it doesn't seem like law enforcement took to heart the woods concerns that something untoward or even possibly nefarious had happened to Terrance. RAW tv, the production company Terrence worked for, reportedly cooperated fully with the sheriff's office investigation from the get go. But without Terrence's side of things, it was hard for authorities to know what exactly had happened to him. So many gaps in information made it difficult for deputies to find anything that supported the allegations Terrence's family was making. RAW TV paid Terrence the money he was owed for the work he'd done on the documentary project so far. Now, whether or not they gave that money to his family is something I wasn't able to find, though it's likely. But after a while, the company stopped communicating with Terrence's family altogether. When asked by the family, Raw TV did not offer to pay for the two private investigators Valerie and Terrence Sr. Hired on their own. According to Deadline, Valerie asked for financial help, but the company declined. Kendall Ross reported for ABC News in 2022 that for several frustrating years, Terrence's family has continued to live without answers. Not having any information about what happened to him has been heartbreaking and difficult to live with. His dad said, quote, it's nights where I try to go to sleep and I can't sleep. It's nights that I'm afraid to go to sleep. So I don't hear him. I don't see him. With death, you have two closure and healing. I have nothing.

Narrator (20:41)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (20:44)

Despite Terrence's case really dropping off by mid October 2018, the search for Connie pressed on. The Richie Outfitters camp continued to post on social media about how awful it was that she had vanished from their campsite into a wilderness that she loved and treasured so much, the camp's owners posted a picture of Connie expressing how much they appreciated the public's support and well wishes. On October 15, 10 days after she was reported missing, the camp posted on its Facebook page about how difficult the entire ordeal had been. On everyone. The writer said in part, quote, all but my husband and one guide were taken off the mountain yesterday. An extensive search has been conducted with no luck. At this point, we will forever be looking for our dear friend and loved one. She is one with the wilderness that she loves so very much. God bless you, Connie. The fact that Connie vanished in a place she was supposed to know like the back of her hand was extremely unusual and alarming to folks who knew her well. You see, Connie was from nearby Nez Perce, Idaho, and had a rich background in wilderness training and survivalism. Starting in the early 1990s, she began working as a ranger for the Moose Creek Ranger Station. And before that, she was living in Iowa teaching high school students, but still traveled during the summers to volunteer at Clearwater National Forest and the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. She had a passion for young people in helping them understand and appreciate everything about nature. She'd organized wilderness workshops, children's programs, skills training courses, and many educational opportunities for kids and teens to get out in the woods and explore nature's wild Mysteries. In 2006, 12 years before she vanished, she helped establish the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church foundation and created a wilderness ranger fellow program. By 2009, she was retired from the ranger service and served on the board of that entity. One of her colleagues, a guy named Chris Adkins, told CBS 2 News, quote, this is a woman who spent literally the last 25 years of her life, most of them on foot in the wilderness alone doing her wilderness ranger work. And if there's anybody that has a skill set that positions them to beat this, it's Connie. But despite law enforcement and search and rescue team's best efforts to find her, authorities kept coming up empty handed. Eventually, on Tuesday, October 16, two full weeks since she'd last been seen, the sheriff in Idaho county officially suspended the search for Connie on the basis that they'd found nothing to indicate she was in the wilderness around the Richey Outfitters Base camp. He told the Lewiston Tribune, quote, there's not been one iota trace of her. We've done everything we can do. We don't have anybody in there now, and the probability of finding her is zero, end quote. During this announcement, the sheriff specifically addressed something that had yet to be publicly commented, whether foul play was suspected. According to him, no tracks or blood had been found during the searches, which meant, in his opinion, a scenario involving foul play was unlikely. In the wake of that news, the Idaho County Free Press published an article detailing everything that had happened in both Connie and Terrence's cases up until that point. The piece talked about a lot of stuff I've already covered, like how many resources were poured into each investigation and the types of conditions the crews had to search in. It also featured a quote from the sheriff that I found really chilling. He said, quote, the further we get away from this, the larger the county becomes.

Narrator (24:22)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (24:23)

But just when things were feeling hopeless, a critical Clue emerged. Ace, Connie's dog, showed up.

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Delia Diambra (24:47)

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Delia Diambra (24:57)

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Delia Diambra (25:15)

On Wednesday night, October 24th, nearly three weeks after Connie disappeared her border collie, Ace walked up to an airstrip near the Moose Creek ranger station, which was roughly 15 miles from the trailer and hunting camp he and Connie had vanished from. According to reporting in the Lewiston Tribune, Ace had found his way into the camp of some searchers who'd been hired by Connie's family. Best I could tell from reading the source material, it seems this group was reportedly staying near the ranger station. However, Richie Outfitters posted on their Facebook page that Ace was actually spotted by a pilot at Moose Creek Airstrip who worked for their business. Their post said this pilot arrived at Moose Creek with a handler and a search dog on Tuesday morning, October 23, the day before ACE supposedly showed up. But either way, by that point, the sheriff's office and all official search teams had disbanded. The good news was, from what everyone could tell, Ace was fine, a little ragged and skinny, but overall healthy. The folks who found him flew him to the nearby town of Hamilton, Montana, where he was checked out by a vet, given some food, and eventually released. The day after leaving the vet's office, the searchers who found Ace flew him back to Moose Creek, and he joined that pilot and another search dog in the woods. The hope was that maybe Ace could lead the group to wherever Connie was. The Idaho county sheriff told the Lewiston Tribune, quote, there's a possibility that if we would take the dog back in there, he might lead us to where she was. But that's the only possibility there is. We've searched everywhere. We believe she's in there. We just don't know where. It's possible the dog might go back to where she is, end quote. Unfortunately, the high hopes everyone had for Ace's ability to find his way back to his owner didn't pan out. He didn't lead the searchers to Connie, and because the results were less than helpful, the sheriff's office decided not to resume a formal search for her, even though Ace had been found. Connie's daughters, Nicole and Christy Saylor, had been in Idaho since the news of their mom's disappearance appearance broke. Nicole had traveled from her home in Washington, D.C. and Christy had flown in from where she lived in Iowa. Both women expressed to reporter Kathy Hedberg that finding Ace was a bittersweet moment. They were glad he was alive, but also extremely saddened that he had gotten separated from their mom and couldn't lead searchers back to her. Nicole said that it was hard to know exactly what could have befallen her mother out in the wilderness. She told the Lewiston Tribune that she didn't think what had happened was something her mother had planned or that someone else had planned. She expressed that she felt some unforeseen circumstance had caught her mother off guard and likely taken her life. She told the newspaper, quote, I think that she was enjoying the outdoors, which she loves, and something happened. The weather came up, she fell. I don't know, but I think that she got surprised given the temperature, given the lack of time, given the lack of signs of her, and the fact that Ace is not with her. All points to end quote. Nicole didn't finish her thought, but she did tell the reporter that she believed her mom was most likely dead. The sheriff's office offered up the theory that Connie might have just walked too far from the Richey Outfitters camp and gone completely out of the search radius that teams had scoured. In early October, in an interview with reporter David Rousey for the Idaho County Free Press, the undersheriff said that it was possible Connie could have gone out for a long hike on October 2, maybe planning to cover a few dozen miles, which was something she was totally capable of doing. And by the time the hunters arrived at Richey Outfitters Base camp three days later, she might have been many miles away. And I can understand where he was coming from with that theory, but personally, it just doesn't seem plausible to me. I mean, why had no one heard from Connie? How did all the aircraft flying overhead during the time they were searching for her not see any sign of her? Why did Ace show up without her? There are just so many unanswered questions. One of Connie's good friends. DJ Lee wrote a book titled Finding Home in the Bitter Roots and told Washington State University professor Peter Chilson in an interview for OSU Press that so much of Connie's story, including her disappearance, had to be written into her manuscript before she could publish. Lee said, quote, I think with the things I learned from Connie and that everybody learned from her, is that wilderness is something almost mystical. It's the solid trees and rocks and water and wild animals and stewardship of the land. But it's also something bigger than the sum of its parts. Connie really gave people, not just the physical being in the place, but also the way that it contributes to your soul.

Narrator (30:08)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (30:10)

In July 2019, Connie's friends and family held a Celebration of Life service for her at a campground in Idaho. At that point, it had been nine months since she disappeared, and for all intents and purposes, she'd been declared dead. That same year, the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church foundation established an educational fund in Connie's honor. Money from that fund is granted to teachers, schools, libraries, historical societies, indigenous NGOs, and colleges who want to integrate wilderness and natural ecosystem topics into their curriculum or to provide opportunities for students to do fieldwork in the great outdoors. A section of the foundation's website has a quote from Connie taken in 2011, seven years before she disappeared. She said, quote, if you can get them there, if you can get people to the wilderness, they become advocates already. They understand. They get it.

Narrator (31:06)

End quote.

Delia Diambra (31:08)

Connie, for you, I hope in some small way this episode has done just that, gotten people to the wilderness you loved so much and made them both an advocate for nature and for your story today. Both Connie Saylor Johnson and Terrence Woods Jr. S cases are still open and active with the Idaho County Sheriff's Office. If you have any information that could help them, please give the department a call at 208-983-1100. If you want to support Terrance's family in their ongoing search for him, please visit the Instagram page they've established by searching ind. Park Predators is an audio Chuck Original show so what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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Delia Diambra (32:17)

Know from the cases we explore here.

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On Park Predators, it's that even some.

Delia Diambra (32:21)

Of the most beautiful places can hide some very dark secrets.

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Delia Diambra (32:32)

In my show, Dark Arenas, I'm exploring that question.

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Each episode of Dark Arenas features firsthand accounts from people who pursue some of.

Delia Diambra (32:41)

The most diabolical criminals and who choose.

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