Episode 073: Calandra Stallworth

When a mother of two doesn’t return home from work one evening, her family is desperate to know the truth: Where is Calandra?

Episode Media

Calandra in her work uniform, which she may have been wearing at the time of her disappearance *(Facebook)*

Antwon Montrex Smith *(Okaloosa County Jail)*

Episode Sources

Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case of a missing mother who seemingly vanished into thin air. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Calandra Rachel Stallworth grew up in Crestview, Florida, about 50 miles east of Pensacola. She graduated from Crestview High School in 2006 and went on to earn her degree from the University of Arizona Global Campus in 2010. While she was working her way through college, Calandra gave birth to two beautiful daughters – Jaziah in 2007 and Xiomara in 2008. Calandra loved being a mother, and her daughters were everything to her. Her Facebook page was filled with pictures of her girls and all the fun things they would do as a family.

In April of 2013, 24-year-old Calandra met the man of her dreams – 30-year-old Antwon Smith. It wasn’t long before her daughters were calling him “Daddy”, and Calandra was head over heels in love. She even got his name tattooed on her chest. Nine months into dating, Antwon popped the question, and Calandra gleefully posted a picture of her engagement ring on Facebook with the caption, “Officially off the market!!!”

In March of 2014, Calandra took a job as a housekeeper at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa. She was excited for the opportunity and posted a picture to mark the occasion, wearing her new uniform and a big smile. The thirty-minute drive to work each day didn’t bother her at all.

On the surface, Calandra’s life seemed to be full of joy and happiness. Her girls were thriving, she was in a committed relationship, and she had a steady job she enjoyed. She even posted a picture of a winning lottery ticket – $10,000 in her pocket. Everything was going her way.

So when Calandra suddenly disappeared, everyone wondered what had gone wrong.

On March 27, 2017, Calandra dropped the girls off at her grandmother’s house next door and headed to work. When her shift was over, she called to say she was on her way home. But hours passed, and Calandra didn’t show up.

Her family was immediately alarmed. This was not like Calandra at all. She was in constant contact with her mother and grandmother, and she would have let them know if her plans had changed. Something was definitely wrong. They contacted the Crestview Police Department and reported Calandra missing.

But here’s where the story gets strange. Two days later, Calandra showed up at the Crestview Police Department and canceled her own missing persons report. She told the officers that she wasn’t missing – she had been in Alabama with her boyfriend. The reason her family couldn’t reach her was because her phone had lost the signal. Then, Calandra walked out of the police station and disappeared.

When Calandra’s family heard about this, they were baffled. Why would Calandra tell the cops she wasn’t missing but not contact her own family? Her grandmother Joan told Dateline, “There’s no way she would leave us. She sure wouldn’t.”

Aside from the fact that Calandra would never leave her daughters without a word, there was also the issue of her medication. Calandra was diabetic and took insulin regularly. Even if she had left town, she wouldn’t have gone without her medication or at least without a way to access more of it.

For four days, Calandra’s family agonized over her silence. She didn’t answer her phone or respond to any of their messages. Her mother, Shelia, told WEAR, “I would give anything right now to hear her voice, you know? I’m very worried… I just want somebody to find her.”

On April 2nd, police in the neighboring city of Destin spotted Calandra’s car leaving a Motel 6 and initiated a traffic stop. But Calandra wasn’t in the vehicle. Instead, Antwon Smith was at the wheel, a different woman beside him: 18-year-old Taleah Durm, who had also been reported missing. It seemed that Antwon had two girlfriends.

Officers searched the vehicle and discovered Calandra’s purse and cell phone. They also found undisclosed amounts of cocaine and marijuana. Antwon was arrested for possession as well as for driving without a license and a probation violation. He was taken to the Okaloosa County Jail and held without bond.

Although they were grateful that the car had been recovered and that Taleah had been found safe, Calandra’s family was now even more concerned about what may have happened to the 28-year-old mother. They contacted the Crestview PD and reported Calandra missing again.

This time, investigators had somewhere to start looking, or rather, someone to talk to. But Antwon Smith had nothing to say. During his arrest, he told the officers that he had dropped Calandra off at some other man’s house, but other than that, he was tight-lipped. He said he didn’t know where Calandra was and that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

Calandra’s family didn’t believe a word of it. From their statements to the media, it was clear that they did not hold Antwon in high regard. As happy as Calandra had seemed on Facebook, her family revealed that everything was not as it seemed. Calandra’s cousin Rebecca told Dateline, “I think that her disappearance is definitely connected to Antwon. He was controlling and you can tell that he was an abusive type of person.”

Calandra’s grandmother agreed. Although Joan never saw Antwon physically harm Calandra, she feared that it would happen. “I told him, ‘If you ever put your hands on her in front of me – me and you are going to go head to head.”

Antwon’s criminal history also played a big part in their perception of him. Antwon had a long record stretching back to at least 2009, and likely even further. He was arrested multiple times for possession, weapons charges, and probation violations. While he was with Calandra, he did several stints in the Escambia County Jail. In fact, he had been there for most of 2016, and was released just three months before Calandra disappeared.

Of course, these charges don’t necessarily mean that Antwon was involved in Calandra’s disappearance, but investigators believed that he was the last person to see her, which automatically made him a person of interest. Based on Calandra’s cell phone data, detectives believed that Antwon picked Calandra up from work on March 27th. The couple then drove around the Florida panhandle rather than going straight home. Unfortunately, once the phone’s battery died, detectives were unable to get any more information, but it was at least a starting point.

However, Major Raymond Harp with the Crestview PD told WMBB that the search area was too wide. “That’s a lot of area when you go between Destin to Crestview to Pensacola and to Crestview to Destin and back towards that area and then it quits. So that’s a lot of area to try and track somebody down. You can’t just go check every piece of woods or everything from here to there.”

I’ll be honest, that statement doesn’t sit right with me. Why can’t you search everything from here to there? I understand that money and resources may be limited, but can’t you at least try? Surely there are volunteers willing to help with the search. Of course, we don’t know how extensively the Crestview PD searched for Calandra, but if Major Harp’s statement is any indication, it doesn’t seem like very much.

As the months passed, rumors began to flood the internet. Many believed that Calandra was dead, or that she had run off to start a new life. A self-proclaimed clairvoyant said that Calandra’s body would be found in the underbrush along State Road 4. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Naturally, investigators were not happy with the rumors. In June of 2017, Crestview Police Chief Tony Taylor issued a statement, saying, “We have no information that she’s been killed or that a homicide has occurred. We have a missing person case right now.”

Operations Support Commander Jamie Grant told reporters that they had exhausted every lead, and they didn’t believe that Calandra was dead. “It’s not that unusual for people to pick up and decide to leave without a word.”

Again, I can’t help but wonder about this statement. Calandra was a dedicated mother with a close-knit family, a steady job and a good support system. Why would she run off to start a new life? I suppose it’s possible that she wanted to leave Antwon, especially if he was abusive as her family believes, but why would she leave her daughters without a word? And why would she leave without her purse or her cell phone, or her life-saving medication? It just doesn’t add up.

In spite of their perceived lack of urgency, the Crestview PD asked the public to call in with any information about Calandra’s disappearance. Chief Taylor said, “We are deeply concerned about Ms. Stallworth. We pursue every lead. No clue is too small. No matter what the circumstances of her disappearance might be, we are not letting this go.”

Calandra’s family and friends were not letting it go, either. One major piece of the puzzle was Calandra’s supposed appearance at the police station on March 29th. Why would she tell the police she was safe but not her family? They needed to get to the bottom of this.

Laura Hudson, a friend of Calandra’s family, contacted Crestview PD and asked for the security camera footage from March 29th. When weeks passed with no response, Laura reached out to the local media for help. Reporters from the Crestview News Bulletin filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the security camera footage. Although they got a response, it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. “Per your request of the video recording regarding Calandra Stallworth, the information is no longer available. This information has been destroyed per Florida State Statutes.”

In other words, there was no video. Police department spokesperson Brian Hughes told reporters, “There was no need to keep it because it was a missing person who has been found because she came in and said, ‘Here I am,’ so there is no need to keep any video.”

But under the Florida State Statutes they invoked in their FOIA response, security footage is deleted on a two week cycle. Calandra’s missing person report was canceled on March 29th and re-filed on April 2nd, just four days later. Why wasn’t the footage checked then? What if the person who walked into the police station wasn’t Calandra Stallworth? Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing for sure without that video.

On the one-year anniversary of Calandra’s disappearance, her family and friends gathered on Joan’s porch to light candles and pray for her safe return.

Calandra’s mother gave an emotional interview with the Crestview News Bulletin. “As a parent, you would wish that you would never have to go through something like this. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would have to go through this. You see stuff like this on TV, but you never think that this would ever happen to you… She used to call me everyday. This has really been hard… The kids — they really miss her. They talk about her a lot, so that’s a good thing. Everybody’s just taking one day at a time. That’s all we can do… I just want … everyone to know that we all love her. We all miss her. There’s not a day goes by that we don’t all think about her.”

In the midst of her grief, Shelia also expressed her frustration with investigators. “I feel like if they would have got on in there a little bit sooner, maybe we could have found some more answers. It seems like it’s just slipping away. Time is slipping away and we still don’t know where she is. It seems like we’re still in the same spot… the same place, like we haven’t moved, and it’s very frustrating.”

Crestview PD insists that this is still an open investigation. In 2019, Major Harp told WMBB, “I feel that this one is solvable. I feel that, you know, whoever did this is – somebody said something to somebody, and that person needs to come forward.”

For a while, the case was quiet. Calandra’s family hoped for answers and tried to keep her name in the public eye. Joan spoke with Dateline about her relationship with her granddaughter and how much she missed her. “She used to call me on her way to work and would sit and talk to me when she got home. I really miss that.”

Then, in October of 2020, Antwon Smith was arrested again, this time on murder charges. But not for Calandra – for the shooting deaths of two men in Alabama.

According to the arrest records, Ryan Frazier and Joshua Carroll were linemen working with a contract company out of Seattle. They were in Alabama installing cable lines as a part of Hurricane Sally relief efforts. On October 9th, they drove to Pensacola to meet up with some co-workers, and during the course of the evening, decided to meet up with a “drug associate” – Antwon Smith. Rather than follow through on his part of the deal, Antwon shot both men execution-style, then stole Frazier’s vehicle and left the scene.

The next day, Antwon was spotted driving the stolen vehicle, and when officers tried to pull him over, he took off. The chase ended after Antwon hit two other vehicles and crashed into a retaining wall. Inside the car, officers found drugs, a 9mm pistol, and Frazier’s wallet, plus a “significant amount of blood”. Antwon was charged with capital murder and taken to the Baldwin County Corrections Center to await trial.

When Calandra’s family learned of Antwon’s arrest, they were stunned. Shelia told the Northwest Florida Daily News, “It’s rough. I’m in shock. I just can’t believe he did something like that to those men. Did he do the same thing to my girl?”

Investigators say that Antwon is still a person of interest in Calandra’s disappearance, but it’s been six years, and they don’t seem to be any closer to finding her than they were before. Antwon is still sitting in jail, and Calandra’s family doesn’t have any answers.

However, they remain hopeful. Shelia believes that someone knows what happened. “I just hope someone comes forward and has some information, someone who knows what he did with her. He may talk and he may never talk. We’re hoping if he doesn’t, somebody else will. We’re hoping someone can help bring us some peace.”

Calandra Rachel Stallworth would be 34 years old today. She was last seen by her family on March 27, 2017. She is 5’7” tall with black hair and brown eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing a dark purple scrub-like uniform and may have been wearing a hotel name tag. If you have any information about Calandra’s disappearance or current whereabouts, please contact the Crestview Police Department at 850-682-3544. And please share her story – her family needs answers.