Terrance Williams & Felipe Santos

Case background and investigation

Felipe Santos and Terrance Williams did not know each other, but their disappearances in North Naples, Florida, are investigated together because of a shared circumstance: each man was last seen in the company of the same Collier County sheriff's deputy, Steven Calkins.

Santos, a 23-year-old from Oaxaca, Mexico, was involved in a minor traffic accident on October 14, 2003. Calkins responded and took him into his patrol car for driving without a license. Santos was not booked into jail and has not been seen since. Three months later, on January 12, 2004, Williams, 27, a father of four who had moved to the area from Tennessee, was stopped by Calkins in North Naples. He too was placed in the patrol car, and he too was never seen again. His car was later found to have been towed from the area of a cemetery.

Calkins told investigators that in both cases he decided against making an arrest and instead gave the men a ride, leaving each at a Circle K convenience store. According to the summary of the investigation published by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, drawing on reporting by CNN and NPR, no evidence was found confirming that either man arrived at those stores, and sheriff's investigators documented nearly two dozen untruthful or inconsistent statements in Calkins' account of his contact with Williams.

Sheriff Don Hunter fired Calkins in August 2004, saying he had lost trust in the deputy's ability to describe and recall incidents. The firing was an employment decision based on his statements; it was not a finding that he had harmed anyone. A multi-agency investigation followed, including forensic examination of the patrol car and searches. None produced evidence of a crime. WGCU reported in 2024 that law enforcement never found evidence against Calkins, who has denied any wrongdoing and has never been criminally charged. He has been described in that reporting as the only person of interest.

In September 2018 filmmaker Tyler Perry announced a $200,000 reward for information in the cases and appeared with Williams' mother, Marcia Williams, and attorney Benjamin Crump as they announced a wrongful-death suit against Calkins. According to Wikipedia's account, the suit went to non-binding arbitration, the arbitrator ruled in Calkins' favor, and the case was ultimately dismissed. The same source says Williams was declared legally dead in 2009.

The cases have been the subject of television documentaries and of an eight-episode podcast, "The Last Ride," produced by NPR with Florida journalists in 2023. Both investigations remain open with the Collier County Sheriff's Office, and neither man has been found.