Missing persons advocate attends rally for man who disappeared in 2004

It was late last year when Marcia Bugg’s friend first saw Monica Caison being interviewed on “Larry King Live.”

Caison is the founder and executive director of the North Carolina-based Community United Effort-Center for Missing Persons (CUE), an organization dedicated to working with families and law enforcement to solve missing persons cases.

Bugg’s friend told her about the interview and Bugg said she immediately called to tell Caison the story of her 28-year-old son, Terrance Williams, who has been missing since January 2004.

“I told her my story and she decided to offer help,” Bugg said.

Thursday, at about 8 p.m., Caison stopped in Naples to help Bugg hold a rally to bring public attention back to her son’s case. About 30 people and numerous local media outlets attended the rally at Bethel AME Church on Golden Gate Parkway. Naples is just one of Caison’s stops on a 16-state, eight-day “On the Road to Remember: Missing Person Tour” during which she is highlighting 74 missing persons cases.

“The main focus is to get them more press and to make them headlines again,” Caison explained. “I want somebody in the community who knows something, or someone on the path we’re on, to come forward with information about Terrance.”

Posters of Williams were attached around the building and taped onto car windows. Caison also brought photos, fliers and a CD-ROM of other missing persons being featured on the tour.

“I can’t promise to find your loved one,” Caison said, “but I can promise you’ll get 100 percent of me.”

Williams was last seen with then-Cpl. Steve Calkins of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office near 111th Avenue North and Vanderbilt Drive on Jan. 12, 2004. Calkins said he gave Williams a ride to the Circle K store at U.S. 41 and Wiggins Pass Road.

Calkins, a 17-year agency veteran, was fired in September 2004 because Collier Sheriff Don Hunter said he lost faith in the corporal after he gave inconsistent stories about what happened with Williams in an internal sheriff’s probe.

Another missing man, Felipe Santos, last was spotted with Calkins on Oct. 14, 2003.

Neither man has been confirmed dead or alive since they disappeared, Hunter said in January. He said there is no evidence to link Calkins to any wrongdoing involving the two men.

Williams’ story has been featured recently on CNN, FOX News and Court TV.

D.J. Beddow, a local volunteer with the Southwest Florida K9 Search Unit, said she and about nine members of her organization attended the rally to support Bugg. They have been working on the case for about three weeks, Beddow said.

“After a person’s been missing for 30 to 60 days, it slips out of the press and you no longer get the support you need to keep working the case,” Beddow said. “By CUE conducting their missing persons tour, it brings the press back, which may bring a witness forward.”

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office did not have a representative at Thursday night’s event, but spokeswoman Brigid O’Malley said the department is doing as much as possible to solve the case and get it national exposure.

“We do as much as we can possibly do to keep that story alive,” O’Malley said.

Elisa Sterling of Palm Beach County came across the state to attend the rally. Her son, Matthew Sterling, disappeared on Nov. 6 and she, too, started working with Caison after seeing her on “Larry King Live.” Her son recently was found submerged in his truck in a canal, apparently after falling asleep at the wheel, she said.

Sterling said working with Caison’s team was a great experience because they helped her search and gave her suggestions about ways to look for her son.

“It was a wonderful thing when they would show up because we would spend days actually searching,” Sterling said.

Caison said searching for an adult can be more difficult than searching for a child because they tend to get less attention in the media.

“There are groups all over the country that are trying to bring attention to that when an adult goes missing they didn’t just get up and leave,” she said. “These adults are not missing on their own accord.”

Bugg said she will never give up looking for her son. She said the two oldest of his sons are starting to have problems because of their father’s disappearance. Still, she said she has hope.

“As long as I keep up the faith, I know God is going to do what he said he would do by bringing out the truth,” Bugg said.