Park Predators - The Cook

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

When an outdoor enthusiast and remote hunting camp cook disappears into thin air, authorities worry what might have befallen her. When a young man in the same region is reported missing the same day as her, investigators are stretched thin to find answers fast. The stories of Connie Johnson and Terrence Woods Jr. may not be formally connected, but to tell one, you must tell the other.View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-cook Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today is truly puzzling. It's the story of a woman who vanished from a popular private hunting camp in northern Idaho just a few years ago in 2018, and has never been seen again. The clues she left in her wake are confounding and unsettling. Connie Saylor Johnson was an experienced hiker, survivalist, and lover of the outdoors. Her disappearance is something no one has been able to understand, especially those closest to her. The area of Idaho she vanished from is near the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, just east of Big Fog Mountain. This is an area of Idaho that butts

up right next to Montana's border and is known for being remote, especially in places along the Selway River. In fact, according to the U.S. Forest Service, you can only get to the Fog Mountain trailhead on horseback, by foot, or if you have a four-wheel drive vehicle. And once you arrive, there are only three trails that visitors can use to get to campsites deep into the wilderness, there are only three trails that visitors can use to get to campsites deep into the wilderness, none of which are accessible by car. A lot of the terrain is steep, dangerous, and passes through what's considered rocky backcountry.

People who are interested in recreationally hunting elk, deer, bears, mountain lions, and even wolves will come to this part of the United States to take guided expeditions into the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. The goal is to land a harvest of a lifetime. A private outfitter that specializes in these kinds of trips is Ritchie Outfitters. In October 2018, Connie was the business's cook. She worked at one of the base camps day in and day out until one day she didn't. The question of whether she succumbed to the dangers of the wilderness around her or a threat much closer to home is something law enforcement has been trying to answer for years. And the chilling fact that she vanished at the same time another man did in the same geographic location has caused many to wonder if something terrible was happening

in northern Idaho in the fall of 2018. This is Park Predators. On the evening of Friday, October 5th, 2018, a group of hunters who'd been staying at a remote hunting camp along the Selway River near Big Rock in the Fog Mountain area of Idaho arrived back at their base camp's trailer after three days away, and immediately they noticed something odd. The camp's cook, 76-year-old Connie Saylor Johnson, wasn't inside the trailer with her border collie dog named Ace.

Connie not being at the base camp was out of character. After looking around for a little bit, none of the hunters could find her or Ace anywhere. While they searched inside and near the exterior of the trailer, the group noticed a coat on one of the hunters could find her or Ace anywhere. While they searched inside and near the exterior of the trailer, the group noticed a coat on one of the tables, and underneath it was a handgun that they recognized as belonging to Connie. Finding the coat and the gun gave the hunters the impression that wherever Connie went, she hadn't planned on being gone for long,

or else she would have likely taken her gun and coat with her. Unsure what exactly was going on, they fanned out around the trailer to look for footprints or any tracks that might tell them where she and Ace went. But surprisingly, there were no shoe prints or paw prints on the ground leading away from the base camp. It was as if the pair had literally disappeared into thin air. The last time any of the hunters had physically seen Connie was three days earlier on Tuesday, October 2nd. That's when they'd been packing up to briefly leave the camp with the intent of coming back on Friday, October 5th. Several articles I read said that at one point

on Wednesday, October 3rd, members of the hunting group had heard Connie's voice come over their radio, but the connection was garbled and they hadn't been able to make out what she was saying. So by the time they were standing at the camp's trailer on Friday evening, it had been well over 36 hours since anyone had made contact with her. And that alarming fact kicked the hunters into high gear. At 9.18 p.m., members of the group

called the Idaho County Sheriff's Office to report Connie missing. The trek that deputies were going to have to make to get out to their location was long and unforgiving. One of the closer towns, Powell, Idaho, was miles away, and the nearest place you could land a plane was still roughly 14 miles from the camp. So we're talking about a very remote area that the Sheriff's Office knew was going to take some time to get to. Their jurisdiction covered more than 8,000 square miles. So they quickly called in the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Forest Service and a rescue helicopter to help search the Ritchie Outfitters hunting camp. Kathy Hedberg reported for the Lewiston Tribune that where the camp was located

was not accessible by vehicle. You could only get to it if you hiked or rode a horse there. And that lined up with what investigators saw when they arrived, because there were no cars or trucks anywhere. The missing person description that went out for Connie was that she was white, roughly 140 pounds, had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and was about five foot seven inches tall. Searching for her was tough work, and to make matters even more complicated, just a few hours earlier on that Friday, around 6.40 p.m., a similar call had come into the sheriff's office, but not about Connie. This other missing person report was for a 27-year-old man named Terrence Woods Jr. Terrence had disappeared while filming with a documentary crew for a gold mining TV show

near Penman Mine in Idaho, a location several hours and more than 50 miles southwest from where Connie had vanished. Terrence had flown into Montana on October 1st and spent the first few days of the month there before eventually traveling to the filming location in Idaho on October 4th. Throughout his stay, he'd been keeping in touch with his dad via text, sending him pictures and video of the beautiful landscape he was going to be working in. According to that Lewiston Tribune piece I mentioned earlier and an article by David Rousey for the Idaho County Free Press, Terrence was chatting with some folks in his film crew

around 5.30 p.m. on Friday, October 5th, when after 20 or 30 minutes of conversation, he suddenly left the group and went off into the woods without warning and vanished. KLEW News interviewed Idaho County Sheriff at the time, and he told their reporter that Terrence's colleagues described his behavior leading up to his disappearance as unusual. However, an article published by ABC News stated that the reason Terrence took off so quickly was because he said he had to use the restroom, and he took the time to remove his job-issued radio set and put it on the ground before excusing himself. Whatever the reason was, though, Terrence had apparently run straight toward an area

of terrain that had a steep cliff or hill which dropped off to a roadway below. Unfortunately, the sheriff's office did not go out and search for him the evening he was reported missing. Instead, deputies waited until the morning of Saturday, October 6th to organize a formal search. When things finally got underway, the Idaho County Sheriff's Office allocated its own deputies to the task and got help from the state's Fish and Game Department, the Forest Service, a rescue helicopter service with infrared technology, and three dog teams from a nearby county. However, after spending all day Saturday looking for Terrence, no sign of him turned up. The description searchers had for him was that he was a black male, roughly five foot nine inches tall, weighed 150 pounds, had brown

eyes, and a tattoo of a small oval on the inside of his left wrist. Searchers coming up with nothing kind of surprised law enforcement because the area where Terrence had last been seen wasn't that remote. In fact, the sheriff told the Idaho County Free Press that the woods he ran into surrounded a bunch of homes, and there were even a handful of roads he likely would have run into if he'd gotten turned around or lost. Meanwhile, the same could not be said for the type of terrain Connie vanished from. The Ritchie Outfitters camp near Fog Mountain in Big Rock was truly in the heart of the wilderness. On Sunday, October 7th, two days after she was reported missing, the man and woman who owned Ritchie Outfitters posted on the camp's Facebook page that they were deeply concerned

about Connie's whereabouts and were working with law enforcement to help find her. The couple said in a joint statement, in part, quote, as many of you may or may not know by now, a search is being conducted for our dear friend, Connie Johnson. Connie was thrilled to be able to come into camp with us and do some cooking for us, and at the same time be able to spend some time in the backcountry that she loves and enjoys so very much. We are still trying to put together all the pieces to the puzzle

of what may have happened and where Connie may be. We do not have many details, but at this point, absolutely everything that can be 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 Ritchie 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 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 25th. 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 Terrence 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 Terrence.

The department clearly didn't want to confuse people or lump the two missing person cases in as one. Anyway, on Monday, October 8th, three days after they were reported missing, the simultaneous searches for Connie and Terrence carried on. Canine 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 Terrence. 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 Terrence, 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,

end quote. 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. 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 their 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, end quote. 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 Terrence.

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 things, closure and healing. I have nothing, end quote. Despite Terrence's case really dropping off by mid-October 2018, the search for Connie pressed on. The Ritchie 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 15th, 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. 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 and 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 teams' best efforts to find her, authorities kept coming up empty-handed.

Eventually, on Tuesday, October 16th, 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 Richie 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 on, 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, end quote. But just when things were feeling hopeless, a critical clue emerged.

Ace, Connie's dog, showed up. 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, Ritchie 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 23rd, the day before Ace supposedly showed up. on Tuesday morning, October 23rd, 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 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 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 her mom was most likely dead. The sheriff's office offered up the theory that Connie might have just walked too far from the Ritchie 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 2nd,

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 Richie Outfitter's 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 Remote, 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 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, end quote. 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 field work 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. She said, quote, 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 Terrence's family in their ongoing search for him, please visit the Instagram page they've established by searching at FindTerrenceWoods. Park Predators is an Audiochuck original show.

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