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Ray Gricar Pt. Three · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part three
0:32
Speaker 1: of our series on the unsolved disappearance of Ray Greecar. Robin,
0:36
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up when we talked
0:38
Speaker 1: about in our previous two episodes.
0:40
Speaker 2: Well, like I've said many times, this is one of
0:42
Speaker 2: the most famous missing persons cases of the modern era
0:45
Speaker 2: because Ray Greecar was a prosecuting attorney in CenTra County
0:49
Speaker 2: who had a long and storied career and was planning
0:52
Speaker 2: to retire at the end of two thousand and five.
0:54
Speaker 2: But while he was fifty nine years old, in April
0:57
Speaker 2: of that year, he decided to go on a road
0:59
Speaker 2: trip to a town called Lewisbourg, located about sixty miles
1:02
Speaker 2: away from where he lived, and he said he was
1:04
Speaker 2: going to go antique shopping, but he never returned home.
1:08
Speaker 2: His abandoned car was found park near an antique shop,
1:11
Speaker 2: but there was no sign of Ray. But there were
1:13
Speaker 2: a number of strange clues, like cigarette ash found near
1:16
Speaker 2: his vehicle, and it appeared that the interior of his
1:19
Speaker 2: car had been wiped clean of fingerprints. A couple months later,
1:22
Speaker 2: they found his county issued work laptop in a nearby river,
1:26
Speaker 2: and a couple months after that, they found a hard
1:28
Speaker 2: drive which had been removed from the laptop, and Ray
1:30
Speaker 2: had apparently made some Google searches about how to destroy
1:33
Speaker 2: a laptop, how to destroy a hard drive, how to
1:36
Speaker 2: get water damage on a laptop, and a hard drive,
1:39
Speaker 2: which makes cause speculation that Ray may have tossed it
1:42
Speaker 2: in there himself, or alternatively, someone else tossed it in
1:45
Speaker 2: the water because there was something on there that they
1:47
Speaker 2: didn't want anyone to find. Their speculation that Ray's death
1:50
Speaker 2: may have been a suicide because yours earlier, his brother
1:53
Speaker 2: had decided to end his own life by jumping off
1:56
Speaker 2: a bridge into a body of water, so the respeculation
1:59
Speaker 2: that Ray may have done the same thing and they
2:01
Speaker 2: just never found his body. But there's also been a
2:04
Speaker 2: number of theories involving foul play, and one of the
2:06
Speaker 2: most prominent involves the infamous Penn State scandal, where assistant
2:11
Speaker 2: football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged and convicted of sexually
2:16
Speaker 2: abusing a number of young boys, and his actions were
2:19
Speaker 2: covered up for decades, causing an immense amount of controversy,
2:23
Speaker 2: and Ray, in nineteen ninety eight, seven years before he
2:26
Speaker 2: went missing, have been asked to look into an incident
2:29
Speaker 2: where Sandusky had allegedly groped a young boy in the shower,
2:33
Speaker 2: but he felt that there was not enough evidence to
2:35
Speaker 2: press charges, so the whole matter came to an end.
2:39
Speaker 2: But there's been speculation that maybe Ray was digging deeper
2:42
Speaker 2: into the Sandusky allegations and that he could have been
2:45
Speaker 2: murdered in order to cover the whole thing up. And
2:47
Speaker 2: we also talked to in our last episode about a
2:49
Speaker 2: podcast that was released a few years ago called Final
2:52
Speaker 2: Argument The Disappearance of Ray Greekar, in which the host
2:56
Speaker 2: promised that she was going to have these earth shattering
2:58
Speaker 2: revelations was pointed to being the victim of foul play
3:01
Speaker 2: and was going to reveal them on her final episodes,
3:04
Speaker 2: but they were never released, and she pretty much stopped
3:06
Speaker 2: communicating with everyone and ghosting the listeners of the podcast,
3:10
Speaker 2: so we really have no idea what she may have found.
3:12
Speaker 2: So it's kind of an intriguing mystery within a mystery,
3:15
Speaker 2: and all we know for certain is that twenty years
3:17
Speaker 2: have now passed and we still don't know what happened
3:20
Speaker 2: to Ray Grigar. So now we're going to spend the
3:24
Speaker 2: rest of this series discussing whether Ray's death was a
3:26
Speaker 2: suicide or if he was the victim of foul play.
3:29
Speaker 2: Even though Ray's loved ones insisted that he had no
3:31
Speaker 2: outward signs of depression or that he was feeling suicidal,
3:35
Speaker 2: we can't deny the fact that the press people sometimes
3:37
Speaker 2: don't give off any warning signs and keep all the
3:40
Speaker 2: pain they're experiencing bottled up inside. Therefore, when their suicide
3:44
Speaker 2: does take place, it takes everyone by complete surprise. Ray
3:49
Speaker 2: was described as being a very private and reserved person
3:51
Speaker 2: and does not strike me as someone who would be
3:53
Speaker 2: open to discussing any mental health struggles he might have experienced.
3:58
Speaker 2: Many people acknowledged that in the week's prior to his disappearance,
4:01
Speaker 2: Ray seemed fatigued and was napping a lot more than usual,
4:04
Speaker 2: and excessive sleep can definitely be a sign of depression. Now,
4:08
Speaker 2: a new detail I had learned during the Final Argument podcast,
4:11
Speaker 2: which I did not know before, is that Ray had
4:14
Speaker 2: scheduled a number of future appointments and engagements on his
4:17
Speaker 2: office desk calendar which were weeks and even months into
4:20
Speaker 2: the future, which do not seem like the actions of
4:23
Speaker 2: someone who was planning to end their own life. But
4:25
Speaker 2: the issue is that suicidal people are not always in
4:28
Speaker 2: a rational state of mind, so you can't apply standard
4:31
Speaker 2: logic to their actions. On April the fourteenth, the date
4:35
Speaker 2: before he witnessing, Ray, took a half day off work
4:38
Speaker 2: and was seen sitting inside his car next to a
4:40
Speaker 2: lakeside marina. So could he have possibly spent this time
4:43
Speaker 2: contemplating a suicide in which he drowned himself in a
4:46
Speaker 2: body of water. The main reason the suicide theory gets
4:50
Speaker 2: so much traction is because Ray's brother, Roy ended his
4:53
Speaker 2: own life nine years earlier by parking his car near
4:56
Speaker 2: a bridge located many miles away from his home before
4:59
Speaker 2: jumping into the Great Miami River. And here we have
5:03
Speaker 2: Ray driving sixty miles to Louisbourg and parking his car
5:06
Speaker 2: near a bridge and an abandoned railway trestle which overlooked
5:09
Speaker 2: the Susquehanna River. So maybe he decided to follow in
5:13
Speaker 2: his brother's footsteps. Of course, the key differences between these
5:16
Speaker 2: two scenarios is that Roy had a documented history of
5:19
Speaker 2: bipolar disorder and depression, and his body was actually found now.
5:25
Speaker 2: In a twenty eighteen article from the State College based
5:28
Speaker 2: newspaper The Center Daily Times, Bob Yuner, a former Montour
5:32
Speaker 2: County District attorney who is friends with Ray, made this
5:35
Speaker 2: controversial statement quote, Here's the interesting thing. Ray never believed
5:39
Speaker 2: his brother committed suicide. The most important reason was that
5:43
Speaker 2: he thought his brother would never orphan his two sons,
5:45
Speaker 2: rais nephews end quote. Buner also mentioned that whenever Ray
5:50
Speaker 2: went to Ohio, he would check in with the police
5:52
Speaker 2: to see if there were any new leads with Roy's case. Well,
5:56
Speaker 2: this statement is heavily disputed by Roy's son, Tony Greekar,
6:00
Speaker 2: who is the official family spokesman and has frequently shared
6:03
Speaker 2: his thoughts in various Reddit threads and comments sections about
6:06
Speaker 2: this case. Tony has always maintained that the family accepted
6:10
Speaker 2: the suicide ruling and never believed there was any foul
6:13
Speaker 2: play involved in Roy's death. If Ray felt otherwise, he
6:16
Speaker 2: never said so in front of his family.
6:19
Speaker 3: Which you would think he would. You would think that
6:21
Speaker 3: if he was worried about his brother's death and that
6:23
Speaker 3: he said, you know, he would never orphan these boys,
6:26
Speaker 3: he would have never completed suicide. Well, then wouldn't that
6:29
Speaker 3: be something that he and Roy's wife would have talked about,
6:33
Speaker 3: that he would have talked to with the kids, like,
6:35
Speaker 3: your daddy loved you so much, there's no way he
6:37
Speaker 3: left you. Maybe one day I'll be able to vindicate
6:40
Speaker 3: him and get you answers. You know, I'm a prosecutor.
6:43
Speaker 3: I just feel like there would have been some kind
6:44
Speaker 3: of conversation, not that he would have sat there silent,
6:47
Speaker 3: and that the son would say, listen, we accept this information.
6:52
Speaker 3: Do they accept it because they know their daddy had
6:54
Speaker 3: been sick, that he was bipolar, that he was struggling.
6:57
Speaker 3: I mean, the boys would have known that situation, probably
7:01
Speaker 3: even more intimately than Ray would, wouldn't they.
7:04
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. And we see so many cases where someone's
7:07
Speaker 2: death is ruled to be a suicide, the police rule
7:10
Speaker 2: it that way, but their family are certain that they
7:12
Speaker 2: are the victims of foul play. But this is the
7:14
Speaker 2: complete opposite. Whether family is saying no, we accept the
7:17
Speaker 2: suicide ruling, we have no reason to believe there was murder.
7:20
Speaker 2: And of course Ray if he felt otherwise, he was
7:23
Speaker 2: also a district attorney, so he would have had the
7:25
Speaker 2: resources to spread awareness about his brother's case and possibly
7:30
Speaker 2: open an investigation. So the fact that he never did
7:32
Speaker 2: anything like that makes me think that Bobyuter's statement was
7:36
Speaker 2: false and that Ray never believed his brother was murdered.
7:39
Speaker 1: So I couldn't think of the exact study to cite
7:42
Speaker 1: that I'd read, and it was talking about time spent
7:45
Speaker 1: that people prior to a suicide attempt would consider suicide,
7:50
Speaker 1: and I think this is extremely relevant, So I'm going
7:52
Speaker 1: to read what AI came back with, specifically perplexity on
7:57
Speaker 1: the studies concerning this. So I asked studies on time
8:01
Speaker 1: spent contemplating suicide before attempting in those who were unsuccessful
8:05
Speaker 1: with completing suicide, and says key findings from studies, Nearly
8:10
Speaker 1: half of people who attempt suicide report that the time
8:13
Speaker 1: from the first current suicidal thought to the actual attempt
8:16
Speaker 1: is very short ten minutes or less. In one study,
8:20
Speaker 1: forty seven point six percent of suicide attempters said the
8:23
Speaker 1: period between the first current thought and the attempt was
8:26
Speaker 1: ten minutes or less, while those who took longer to
8:29
Speaker 1: act tended to have higher suicidal intent. A separate study
8:33
Speaker 1: of survivors of nearly lethal suicide attempts found twenty four
8:37
Speaker 1: percent deliberated less than five minutes, twenty four percent deliberated
8:41
Speaker 1: five to nineteen minutes, twenty three percent deliberated twenty minutes
8:45
Speaker 1: to one hour, sixteen percent deliberated two to eight hours,
8:49
Speaker 1: and thirteen percent deliberated one or more days. So these
8:52
Speaker 1: findings indicate that for a significant proportion of attempters, the
8:56
Speaker 1: window between decision and action is extremely brief, often measured
9:00
Speaker 1: in minutes, not hours or days, and so the implications
9:04
Speaker 1: are the short duration between contemplation an attempt highlights the
9:08
Speaker 1: impulsive nature of many suicide attempts, suggesting that prevention efforts
9:12
Speaker 1: must focus on rapid intervention and reducing access to lethal
9:16
Speaker 1: means during a crisis. While some individuals can contemplate for
9:21
Speaker 1: longer periods, most attempts occur soon after the onset of
9:25
Speaker 1: acute suicidal thoughts, limiting the opportunity for intervention. So I
9:29
Speaker 1: thought that was really interesting as it could pertain to Ray.
9:32
Speaker 1: It could have just been something that, yeah, he had
9:35
Speaker 1: all of these appointments and dates that he had marked
9:38
Speaker 1: on a calendar, but perhaps that day he just thought,
9:42
Speaker 1: this is the day I decided that I want to
9:44
Speaker 1: end it, and then he took the actionable steps to
9:47
Speaker 1: make that happen.
9:49
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. I didn't know that it was such
9:51
Speaker 2: a high percentage who made an impulsive decision and went
9:54
Speaker 2: through with the act only minutes afterwards. So theoretically, if
9:58
Speaker 2: this applied to Ray, we know that as his last
10:00
Speaker 2: phone call to his girlfriend was that I'm going to
10:02
Speaker 2: drive and go do some antique shopping in this little
10:05
Speaker 2: town he had visited before, So who knows, maybe that's
10:08
Speaker 2: how he intended to start the day, just go to
10:10
Speaker 2: Louisbourg do some shopping, and then once he arrived, he
10:13
Speaker 2: suddenly decided I want to end my own life. I'm
10:16
Speaker 2: feeling suicidal, and then just made an impulsive decision to
10:19
Speaker 2: just walk over to the nearest bridge and jump into
10:21
Speaker 2: the river.
10:23
Speaker 1: Indeed, it sounds like what happened to Roy is pretty
10:25
Speaker 1: cut and dried, but without a body, you definitely cannot
10:29
Speaker 1: say the same thing about Ray. At the time Ray
10:31
Speaker 1: went missing, the water level in the Susquehanna River was
10:34
Speaker 1: higher than usual because of the spring melt, but it
10:37
Speaker 1: eventually went down in subsequent months, which explains why the
10:41
Speaker 1: laptop and hard drive were found in relatively close proximity
10:45
Speaker 1: to the spot where the Mini Cooper had been abandoned.
10:48
Speaker 1: So if these much smaller items were eventually found. Why
10:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't Ray's body turn up if it was in the river? Well,
10:55
Speaker 1: I guess it would depend on where the currents could
10:57
Speaker 1: have taken him. If Ray's body had floated downstream and
11:01
Speaker 1: traveled southeast for about ten miles, it would have reached
11:04
Speaker 1: the town of Sunbury, which contained the Adam T. Bauer
11:08
Speaker 1: Memorial Dam, the world's largest inflatable dam. The dam is
11:12
Speaker 1: installed every spring, and it's apparently confirmed that it was
11:15
Speaker 1: already in place by mid April of two thousand and five,
11:19
Speaker 1: So if Ray's body made it there, it's possible the
11:21
Speaker 1: dam could have showed him up and made his remains
11:24
Speaker 1: a lot more difficult to recover. That really does provide
11:27
Speaker 1: the best explanation for how Ray's body could have wound
11:31
Speaker 1: up in the Susquehanna River without being found, but of
11:34
Speaker 1: course there's no concrete evidence to support this theory. If
11:38
Speaker 1: Ray did jump into the river from the bridge or
11:40
Speaker 1: railway trestle, there's also been some question about whether he
11:44
Speaker 1: could have done this without being seen, as the bridge
11:47
Speaker 1: was part of the Pennsylvania Route forty five and often
11:50
Speaker 1: had a lot of traffic. But even though Ray arrived
11:52
Speaker 1: in Louisbourg on April fifteenth. His car was not actually
11:56
Speaker 1: found until the following day, So for all we know,
11:59
Speaker 1: Ray could have hung around the area for a while
12:01
Speaker 1: and not jumped into the river until the middle of
12:04
Speaker 1: the night when there was less of a chance of
12:06
Speaker 1: any witnesses seeing him.
12:08
Speaker 3: Couldn't it also be, though, that someone did hurt him
12:11
Speaker 3: and foul play was involved, And it's a potential that
12:14
Speaker 3: one this is staged where his car's located. Was it
12:17
Speaker 3: very public knowledge of how Roy had completed suicide?
12:22
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure. I mean, I don't think that's
12:25
Speaker 2: something that got a lot of news coverage because he
12:28
Speaker 2: was missing for a short period of time, and it
12:30
Speaker 2: wasn't a foul play investigation, so and it took place
12:33
Speaker 2: years earlier, so if you wanted to find out about it,
12:35
Speaker 2: you would have to go through the newspaper archives. And
12:38
Speaker 2: I'm sure it wasn't something that Ray talked about during
12:40
Speaker 2: his public life when he was addressing the public about
12:43
Speaker 2: the cases he was working on. But if it was
12:45
Speaker 2: someone who had inside knowledge of his life and they
12:48
Speaker 2: wanted to make it look like his death is a suicide,
12:50
Speaker 2: then that would be the most logical solution. Just park
12:53
Speaker 2: his car near a bridge and a body of water
12:55
Speaker 2: and make people think that he decided to follow in
12:58
Speaker 2: his brother's footsteps. Well, even if Ray's death was a suicide,
13:02
Speaker 2: the big mystery, which has still never been explained, is
13:05
Speaker 2: why he removed the hard drive from his laptop. Remember
13:08
Speaker 2: that hard drive was screwed in pretty tight, so it
13:11
Speaker 2: wouldn't have just broken off on its own and someone
13:13
Speaker 2: had to make a concerted effort to remove it. I
13:16
Speaker 2: know that Ray had been performing internet searches about how
13:19
Speaker 2: to wipe a hard drive prior to his disappearance, which
13:22
Speaker 2: isn't unusual on his own, since he would probably want
13:24
Speaker 2: to remove everything from his work laptop before he retired
13:27
Speaker 2: at the end of the year. However, it's been reported
13:30
Speaker 2: that one of the search items he used was quote
13:33
Speaker 2: water damage to a notebook computer, which is quite different
13:36
Speaker 2: than the standard practice of using software to erase your
13:39
Speaker 2: hard drive. But here's the thing that has always troubled me.
13:43
Speaker 2: If Ray was feeling suicidal and there was something on
13:45
Speaker 2: that hard drive that he didn't want people finding out about,
13:48
Speaker 2: why toss it into the same body of water where
13:51
Speaker 2: you're planning to kill yourself. Surely Ray knew that people
13:54
Speaker 2: would search the river if he abandoned his car so
13:57
Speaker 2: close to it. Well, the hard drive suffered too much
14:00
Speaker 2: damage to recover any data from it. There's no way
14:02
Speaker 2: Ray could have predicted this. Remember, he drove sixty miles
14:06
Speaker 2: from Belfont to Louisbourg on a scenic route, which is
14:09
Speaker 2: pretty much open country. If he had disposed of the
14:12
Speaker 2: laptop hard drive before he arrived in Louisbourg, by say,
14:16
Speaker 2: bearing the items in a remote wooded area, it's possible
14:19
Speaker 2: that no one would have ever found them. Well, it's
14:21
Speaker 2: easy to assume that Ray had something horrible on that
14:24
Speaker 2: hard drive that he wanted to destroy. This was a
14:27
Speaker 2: county issued work computer, and I'd like to think he
14:29
Speaker 2: would have been smart enough not to save anything incriminating
14:32
Speaker 2: on there in the first place. It really makes a
14:35
Speaker 2: lot more sense to me that a third party would
14:37
Speaker 2: want to destroy the hard drive because they believed it
14:40
Speaker 2: contain evidence and their first instinct was to toss it
14:43
Speaker 2: into the river.
14:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I absolutely think that. I don't know why he
14:47
Speaker 3: would have searched water damage to a laptop, but when
14:50
Speaker 3: you do have this idea of the hard drive was
14:53
Speaker 3: taken out and destroyed and it's sunk into the river.
14:58
Speaker 3: I don't know that he, like you said, would have
15:01
Speaker 3: been foolish enough to say, hey, let's just put this
15:03
Speaker 3: next to my car and hopefully no one will find me. Now,
15:07
Speaker 3: if he's suicidal, and he's in a state of let's say,
15:11
Speaker 3: a manic state or just a dissociated state, then it's
15:16
Speaker 3: possible that he could do things without being very logical.
15:19
Speaker 3: But it does seem more probable that someone who wanted
15:23
Speaker 3: to make sure a case he was investigating didn't have
15:27
Speaker 3: the information shared after his death would be wanting to
15:30
Speaker 3: destroy that hard drive as well.
15:33
Speaker 1: I'm fifty to fifty I think it's entirely possible that
15:36
Speaker 1: it could have been foul play and that a third
15:38
Speaker 1: party destroyed it. To think back to Ray Rivera's case
15:41
Speaker 1: in reference that, again, the actions that he took seemed
15:46
Speaker 1: completely illogical to the outside person, and we seem to
15:49
Speaker 1: have a little bit more insights because we saw his
15:51
Speaker 1: post it notes. We don't know what was on Ray
15:54
Speaker 1: Greecar's computer. We don't know what he was writing, and
15:57
Speaker 1: we don't know the information and how he was perceiving it,
16:01
Speaker 1: and what could have been his motivation if he was
16:04
Speaker 1: in if he was experiencing psychosis or if he was
16:07
Speaker 1: in a manic state something like that. The way that
16:11
Speaker 1: he would be choosing to go about getting rid of
16:15
Speaker 1: this laptop, it could be for reasons that would be
16:17
Speaker 1: logical or completely illogical. It could be something that just
16:20
Speaker 1: came to him at the moment. When we try to
16:22
Speaker 1: apply logic to somebody in that moment, then it can
16:27
Speaker 1: be really difficult and it can limit the scope of
16:29
Speaker 1: what we think somebody is capable of doing. And so
16:33
Speaker 1: I really can't go one way or the other. I
16:35
Speaker 1: think both are equally possible.
16:39
Speaker 2: Well, since you shared that study about how suicide is
16:41
Speaker 2: sometimes an impulsive decision for a lot of people that
16:44
Speaker 2: they make in minutes, that could explain Ray's actions where
16:46
Speaker 2: he just suddenly decides in Louisbourg that I want to
16:49
Speaker 2: end my own life, and he's just not thinking through
16:51
Speaker 2: the most logical way to get rid of his laptop,
16:54
Speaker 2: so he just makes an impulsive decision to throw it
16:56
Speaker 2: into the river, and that would explain why he didn't
16:59
Speaker 2: take more drastic steps, like say, burying the laptop in
17:03
Speaker 2: like a wooded area or something like that, where he
17:05
Speaker 2: knows it'll never be found. Because he may not have
17:08
Speaker 2: known that he was planning suicide when he left his
17:10
Speaker 2: house that day.
17:12
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, when Ray took the laptop
17:14
Speaker 1: on his trip with him, he left behind the case
17:17
Speaker 1: and charger at his house. If Ray was planning to
17:20
Speaker 1: use the laptop for work purposes and was gathering information,
17:23
Speaker 1: it seems odd that he wouldn't take the charger. What
17:26
Speaker 1: if the battery ran down while he was in the
17:28
Speaker 1: midst of something important. This is one detail which would
17:31
Speaker 1: seem to suggest that Ray only took the laptop to
17:33
Speaker 1: Louisbourg to destroy it. If Ray's death was a suicide,
17:38
Speaker 1: one potential explanation to account for all these oddities is
17:42
Speaker 1: that he didn't want anyone to know that he chose
17:44
Speaker 1: to take his own life, so he left a trail
17:46
Speaker 1: of false clues behind in order to give off the
17:48
Speaker 1: false impression that he was the victim of foul play.
17:52
Speaker 1: Perhaps he removed the hard drive from the laptop and
17:54
Speaker 1: destroyed it even though there was nothing incriminating on there.
17:58
Speaker 1: Or he decided to smoke cigarettes in his car and
18:00
Speaker 1: white fingerprints from the interior to make everyone believe that
18:04
Speaker 1: a third party was with him. Ray still could have
18:06
Speaker 1: felt that there was a stigma surrounding suicide, which is
18:10
Speaker 1: why he didn't want anyone to know that he'd gone
18:12
Speaker 1: through with it. If he intentionally jumped off the ridge
18:15
Speaker 1: into the river, there's no way he could have known
18:18
Speaker 1: his body would never be found, So why not plant
18:21
Speaker 1: some seeds to make others believe that someone murdered him?
18:24
Speaker 1: Once again, this isn't exactly a logical course of action,
18:27
Speaker 1: but suicidal people sometimes do not do the most logical things.
18:32
Speaker 3: Couldn't it also be that he was if he was
18:34
Speaker 3: trying to cover his suicide, that he's waiting for this
18:38
Speaker 3: idea of Okay, I have a life insurance policy that
18:41
Speaker 3: my wife and daughter could get and if I complete suicide.
18:44
Speaker 3: It's possible that his did not have a suicide clause
18:47
Speaker 3: in it, and that the payout wouldn't happen if he
18:51
Speaker 3: was if it was ruled a suicide.
18:54
Speaker 2: That is true. It's never actually been specified if he
18:57
Speaker 2: did have a life insurance policy, though I do know
18:59
Speaker 2: that he was officially declared dead six years after he
19:03
Speaker 2: went missing, rather than the standard seven years, But it's
19:05
Speaker 2: never been shared if his girlfriend or his daughter got
19:08
Speaker 2: any life insurance pay out. But yeah, some people, Some
19:11
Speaker 2: times people will do that is that they'll try to
19:12
Speaker 2: stage their desks to look like a homicide just so
19:15
Speaker 2: that their families will be taken care of.
19:18
Speaker 1: Don't. Most life insurance policies initially have like a suicide
19:22
Speaker 1: identity clause, and then once it's like, you know, five
19:25
Speaker 1: years old or something like that, then it will pay
19:27
Speaker 1: out in the case of suicide.
19:29
Speaker 3: That's how most of them are.
19:30
Speaker 2: I believe.
19:31
Speaker 3: I think the years depend, you know, like get's two years,
19:34
Speaker 3: five years, whatever. That way, someone can't say, oh, you know,
19:37
Speaker 3: I think I'm gonna take my life in six months,
19:39
Speaker 3: let me go ahead and protect my family financially. But yeah,
19:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just I'm wondering maybe the company they
19:46
Speaker 3: use at the prosecutor's office or maybe the private company
19:49
Speaker 3: that he had didn't allow for that.
19:52
Speaker 1: It'd be nice if we knew that information, because I
19:54
Speaker 1: think it would be extremely relevant to maybe how we
19:57
Speaker 1: would feel about what course of action you could have
19:59
Speaker 1: potential taken.
20:02
Speaker 2: So now it would be a good time to revisit
20:04
Speaker 2: this whole angle involving the Penn State scandal and determine
20:07
Speaker 2: whether or not Ray's disappearance or the laptop has any
20:10
Speaker 2: connection to it. It has been theorized that Ray could
20:13
Speaker 2: have been doing his own independent investigation into the allegations
20:17
Speaker 2: of sexual abuse before he was murdered, and the information
20:20
Speaker 2: he had gathered was on that hard drive. Alternatively, perhaps
20:24
Speaker 2: Ray played a role in covering up the allegations when
20:26
Speaker 2: he elected not to charge Jerry Sandusky after he was
20:30
Speaker 2: accused of molesting a boy in the shower back in
20:32
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. If Ray knew that Sandusky was continuing
20:36
Speaker 2: to use his position of power to sexually abuse young boys,
20:39
Speaker 2: he could have become overwhelmed with guilt and decided to
20:42
Speaker 2: kill himself. That idea might make a bit more sense
20:44
Speaker 2: if the Penn State scandal was on the verge of
20:46
Speaker 2: coming to light and Ray felt he was going to
20:49
Speaker 2: suffer a major backlash for his inaction. But this would
20:52
Speaker 2: not become a national story until six years after Ray
20:55
Speaker 2: went missing, and there's no indication that anything was about
20:58
Speaker 2: to surface in two thousand and five. It's no big
21:01
Speaker 2: secret that, in order to protect the reputation of Penn
21:03
Speaker 2: State's football program, allegations about Sandusky's sexual abuse were swept
21:08
Speaker 2: under the rug for years, But everyone who knew Ray
21:11
Speaker 2: said that this would not have been within his character.
21:14
Speaker 2: He was described as a prosecutor who never played favorites
21:17
Speaker 2: and did not care if the person he was investigating
21:20
Speaker 2: was some low level career criminal or a beloved assistant
21:23
Speaker 2: football coach, and since Ray had no higher political aspirations,
21:27
Speaker 2: he probably did not care how taking on a respected
21:30
Speaker 2: figure like Sandusky might harm his career. While it sounds
21:34
Speaker 2: like Ray never spoke about his reasons for not filing
21:37
Speaker 2: charges against Sandusky, Rebecca Knight revealed a very interesting new
21:41
Speaker 2: piece of information on the Final Argument podcast. A source
21:45
Speaker 2: told her that during the fall of two thousand and four,
21:47
Speaker 2: about six months before Ray went missing, he heard Race
21:51
Speaker 2: refer to Sandusky as a quote unquote pedophile and vow
21:54
Speaker 2: that he was going to put him away. If this
21:57
Speaker 2: was true, then this would imply that the only reason
21:59
Speaker 2: Ray did not file charges for the shower incident was
22:02
Speaker 2: because he did not believe the case was strong enough
22:04
Speaker 2: to prosecute at that time, but he was not going
22:07
Speaker 2: to give up on investigating Sandusky well. It eventually came
22:11
Speaker 2: out that Sandusky was a serial abuser who victimized many
22:15
Speaker 2: boys over a period of several years. It's unclear if
22:18
Speaker 2: Ray had that information in nineteen ninety eight, or was
22:21
Speaker 2: aware of any other predatory behavior other than the one
22:24
Speaker 2: incident in the shower. While the recording of Sandusky's conversation
22:28
Speaker 2: with the boy's mother sounded pretty damning, he never flat
22:31
Speaker 2: out admitted to molesting the boy, only that he showered
22:34
Speaker 2: with them and hugged him, so Ray may have wanted
22:37
Speaker 2: to gather more evidence. You have to remember that Sandusky
22:40
Speaker 2: had been a Penn State assistant coach for thirty years
22:43
Speaker 2: and was a highly respected figure because of his work
22:46
Speaker 2: with the Second Mile organization. So if Ray was going
22:49
Speaker 2: to press charges against someone like that and bring him
22:51
Speaker 2: to trial, I'm sure he wanted the case to be
22:53
Speaker 2: air tight. When beloved head coach Joe Paterno had his
22:57
Speaker 2: contract terminated in twenty eleven over allegations that he covered
23:01
Speaker 2: up Sandusky's abuse, Penn State started riding in the streets
23:05
Speaker 2: and causing property damage. I'm sure Ray was well aware
23:08
Speaker 2: that this was the type of backlash you could expect
23:11
Speaker 2: if he tried to take on Sandusky and the Penn
23:13
Speaker 2: State football program without having all of his ducks in
23:16
Speaker 2: a row.
23:17
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's such a huge institution. You'd be
23:20
Speaker 3: up against that we know wenton, tried to cover their
23:24
Speaker 3: tracks and had you know what, billion dollar endowments and
23:29
Speaker 3: stuff protecting them, and so that is an incredibly huge institution.
23:33
Speaker 3: It's like taking on the Catholic Church. And so when
23:36
Speaker 3: he says, Okay, look, I know this man is a pedophile.
23:38
Speaker 2: This is a.
23:39
Speaker 3: Dad who's child was his life, and he said, this
23:44
Speaker 3: guy's a pedophile, I'm going to make sure that I
23:46
Speaker 3: stay on top of his case. I can't imagine a prosecutor,
23:49
Speaker 3: especially when at the end of his career, who's not
23:51
Speaker 3: worried about political backlash and isn't worried about getting reelected
23:55
Speaker 3: or anything like that. I could easily see him saying,
23:59
Speaker 3: I'm going to my teeth into this, but I would
24:02
Speaker 3: never put this case in jeopardy or these victims in
24:04
Speaker 3: jeopardy by going forward until I'm one thousand percent sure
24:08
Speaker 3: we could win it. And I'm pretty sure that's what
24:10
Speaker 3: happened here.
24:11
Speaker 2: And that would make sense. Because he knew he was
24:13
Speaker 2: going to retire, he pretty much did not care if
24:16
Speaker 2: something like this got a public backlash because he's thinking, well,
24:19
Speaker 2: it's the end of my career anyway, so if this
24:21
Speaker 2: ruins me then I really got nothing to lose, So
24:24
Speaker 2: it could be one of those things where this bothered
24:26
Speaker 2: him for years and he just wanted to spend like
24:28
Speaker 2: the last months of his tenure making this right and
24:31
Speaker 2: possibly bringing a pedophile to justice.
24:34
Speaker 1: So now let's discuss this theory from final argument where
24:38
Speaker 1: Ray was meeting up with a number of different women
24:40
Speaker 1: who were the mothers of Sandusky's victims in order to
24:43
Speaker 1: build a case against him. Could there have been some
24:46
Speaker 1: incriminating information on Ray's hard drive which led to it
24:49
Speaker 1: being destroyed and Ray losing his life. Well, even though
24:53
Speaker 1: a lot of covering up was done in the Penn
24:55
Speaker 1: State scandal in order to protect Sandusky for years, I'm
24:58
Speaker 1: not sure this was a t type of scandal which
25:01
Speaker 1: would have crossed the line into murder. I mean it
25:03
Speaker 1: was Sarah Gannon, a twenty three year old reporter with
25:06
Speaker 1: the Patriot News, who first brought the whole thing to
25:09
Speaker 1: light by publishing a story about it in March twenty eleven,
25:13
Speaker 1: and while the paper initially faced criticism for smearing the
25:16
Speaker 1: reputation of Sandusky and Penn State, they received vindication when
25:20
Speaker 1: the grand jury indicted Sandusky in November of that year.
25:23
Speaker 1: It just seems odd that the people in power could
25:26
Speaker 1: make a veteran district attorney like Ray Gricard disappear without
25:29
Speaker 1: leaving any evidence behind, but couldn't prevent this young reporter
25:33
Speaker 1: from breaking the story wide open. The final argument podcasts
25:37
Speaker 1: made it sound like they were building up to the
25:39
Speaker 1: presentation of brand new evidence that would link Ray's case
25:42
Speaker 1: to the Penn State scandal, But because it abruptly came
25:46
Speaker 1: to an end and Rebecca Knight stopped talking about it,
25:48
Speaker 1: we may never know what she uncovered.
25:51
Speaker 3: She was leaning more towards the Penn State scandal. Is
25:54
Speaker 3: there any way that she also could have been maybe
25:58
Speaker 3: going to throw Hell's Angels into it, Because to me,
26:00
Speaker 3: as scary as Penn State is with its political and
26:04
Speaker 3: financial wealth that would be coming after you, Hell's Angels
26:08
Speaker 3: would be very scary, more sea being killed by them
26:13
Speaker 3: versus kind of buried financially by the other group.
26:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I would be more fearful if I was
26:19
Speaker 2: in her shoes that I would be murdered by a
26:21
Speaker 2: biker gang rather than people affiliated with a football program.
26:24
Speaker 2: But she never gave any indication that she was looking
26:27
Speaker 2: into that angle, And I think the reason I always
26:30
Speaker 2: speculated that she was looking into the Penn State link
26:32
Speaker 2: is because she was the one who presented the theory
26:35
Speaker 2: about what if Ray was meeting up with these with
26:38
Speaker 2: the mothers of other victims to try to build a
26:40
Speaker 2: case against Sandusky. But like we've talked about, this scandal
26:44
Speaker 2: ended over a decade ago, Sandusky's in jail, So if
26:48
Speaker 2: she did uncover anything, I don't know why she would
26:51
Speaker 2: be so secretive about it because Penn State's reputation has
26:55
Speaker 2: already been destroyed, so you're not going to lose too
26:57
Speaker 2: much if you come up with new information that pain
27:00
Speaker 2: them in a bad light. Well, even if Ray's disappearance
27:03
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the Penn State scandal, could
27:05
Speaker 2: he have traveled to Louisbourg to gather information about an
27:08
Speaker 2: entirely different case he was working on at a wound
27:11
Speaker 2: up getting him killed. Well that would all depend on
27:14
Speaker 2: the biggest unanswered question in this case, and that's the
27:16
Speaker 2: identity of the woman that Ray was supposedly seeing with
27:19
Speaker 2: at the Street of Shops. I know it's tempting to
27:22
Speaker 2: believe that Ray was conducting a secret affair, as he
27:25
Speaker 2: did have a reputation for liking women around the time
27:28
Speaker 2: he divorced his second wife, Emma, and before he started
27:31
Speaker 2: his relationship with Patty, Ray reportedly fell head over heels
27:35
Speaker 2: in love with a nurse and quickly asked her to
27:37
Speaker 2: marry him, but she turned him down. And it's also
27:40
Speaker 2: been reported that Ray often liked to go to a
27:42
Speaker 2: certain restaurant at Center County, and while there he would
27:45
Speaker 2: always request a particular waitress and flirt with her when
27:48
Speaker 2: she served him. But even if Ray had a flirtatious personality,
27:53
Speaker 2: I've not come across any information that he ever flat
27:55
Speaker 2: out cheated on any of his spouses, and there was
27:58
Speaker 2: apparently nothing in Ray's financial to suggest that he was
28:01
Speaker 2: conducting an affair at the time he went missing. If
28:04
Speaker 2: Ray was meeting up with a woman in Louisbourg, then
28:06
Speaker 2: I would not be surprised if it was in relation
28:08
Speaker 2: to some sort of investigation, which might explain why he
28:11
Speaker 2: decided to take his work laptop along with him. However,
28:14
Speaker 2: one aspect of this case which has never made sense
28:17
Speaker 2: to anyone is why the authorities did not publicly disclose
28:20
Speaker 2: the siding of Ray and the woman until thirteen months
28:24
Speaker 2: after he disappeared. Yes, I know they initially assumed that
28:27
Speaker 2: the woman was a friend of his name, Barbara Patito,
28:30
Speaker 2: but she was ruled out relatively quickly, And it sounds
28:33
Speaker 2: like the rationale is they didn't want to harm Ray's
28:35
Speaker 2: reputation by potentially giving off the false impression that he
28:39
Speaker 2: was conducting an affair. Well, I'm sure his family was
28:42
Speaker 2: much more concerned about finding out if he was dead
28:45
Speaker 2: or alive rather than protecting his reputation, So why wait
28:48
Speaker 2: over an entire year to release this information. The original
28:52
Speaker 2: investigation was handled by the Bellefont Police Department, who have
28:56
Speaker 2: received criticisms for mistakes they made, including their failure to
28:59
Speaker 2: go public about the sighting of the woman. Given the
29:03
Speaker 2: high profile nature raised his appearance, it's believed that the
29:06
Speaker 2: Bellefont PD may have been out of the league, as
29:09
Speaker 2: the case was assigned to only one investigator, who had
29:11
Speaker 2: to juggle it with several other cases he was working on,
29:14
Speaker 2: so it was finally handed over to the Pennsylvania State
29:17
Speaker 2: Police in twenty fourteen.
29:20
Speaker 3: I don't see him being like a philandering, you know.
29:23
Speaker 3: I don't know the way some people make it sound
29:27
Speaker 3: that he was just all over women. He almost sounds
29:29
Speaker 3: like a serial monogamous where he's hunting down like, Ooh,
29:32
Speaker 3: I like this woman, I'm going to date her. Ooh
29:34
Speaker 3: I like this woman. I'm going to go hang out
29:35
Speaker 3: with her. Oh I like this woman, I'm going to
29:36
Speaker 3: marry her. And yes, does he like being in the
29:40
Speaker 3: company of a woman, Yes, but it doesn't ever seem
29:43
Speaker 3: like he's you know, with twenty women are sitting at
29:46
Speaker 3: you know, strip clubs every every single night, you know,
29:49
Speaker 3: after work. And even if he was, if he's single, okay,
29:52
Speaker 3: you know, like I just I don't get any kind
29:55
Speaker 3: of read on him other than he's a man who's
29:58
Speaker 3: used to being with some and so every time he's
30:02
Speaker 3: not in a monogamous relationship, he's kind of on the
30:06
Speaker 3: hunt for another one. It seems like a normal all
30:08
Speaker 3: American human being, doesn't it.
30:11
Speaker 1: Well, let me just play Devil's advocate for a moment,
30:14
Speaker 1: because we have a situation where we have somebody who's
30:18
Speaker 1: been described as enigmatic, who keeps their emotions really close
30:22
Speaker 1: to his. Just he's somebody who's difficult to read, and
30:26
Speaker 1: typically people who are like that are slightly more introverted,
30:29
Speaker 1: and they may have some secrets. So do I think
30:33
Speaker 1: that it's likely that he had all of these women
30:35
Speaker 1: that he was having affairs with. No, But do I
30:38
Speaker 1: think that it's possible that even though they didn't find
30:40
Speaker 1: it in his financials. I mean, at first they said
30:43
Speaker 1: he was worth only one thousand dollars, it took them
30:45
Speaker 1: time to find that he had this other account where
30:47
Speaker 1: he had one hundred thousand. Who's to say that there
30:49
Speaker 1: wasn't some other account. I just I can't completely eliminate
30:53
Speaker 1: it as a possibility, But I can't in good faith
30:56
Speaker 1: say that like this is something that I for sure believe.
31:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did confirm that they didn't find any charges
31:03
Speaker 2: on his credit cards, like him staying at any motels
31:06
Speaker 2: or driving off to have expensive meals to suggest that
31:09
Speaker 2: he was having an extra marital affair behind his girlfriend's back.
31:12
Speaker 2: But like you said, he did have bank accounts, so
31:15
Speaker 2: I suppose he could have paid everything with cash to
31:17
Speaker 2: help cover it up. But once again, it's still just
31:20
Speaker 2: all speculation. They've just never found any hard evidence that
31:23
Speaker 2: he was doing anything behind Patty's back.
31:26
Speaker 1: Now, we've had numerous accounts from informants who've come forward
31:29
Speaker 1: with stories of Ray being murdered by criminals that were
31:32
Speaker 1: connected to investigations he worked on and they supposedly disposed
31:36
Speaker 1: of Ray's body in a mind shaft. And one of
31:39
Speaker 1: these stories, which involved Ray being murdered by a former
31:42
Speaker 1: prison inmate and an accomplice, specifically mentions a woman arranging
31:46
Speaker 1: a meeting with Ray in Louisbourg in order to lure
31:49
Speaker 1: him to his death. Some of the reported eyewitness sightings
31:52
Speaker 1: of Ray described him as pacing around and appearing to
31:55
Speaker 1: be waiting for someone, So I do think it's likely
31:58
Speaker 1: he traveled there for the purposes of something else besides
32:02
Speaker 1: antique shopping. If Ray was meeting with a third party,
32:05
Speaker 1: then I personally think this lessons the possibility of his
32:08
Speaker 1: disappearance being a suicide. But with all the publicity this
32:11
Speaker 1: case is received, you have to wonder why this mysterious
32:15
Speaker 1: woman is never come forward unless she has something to hide.
32:19
Speaker 1: Another complication is that eyewitnesses reported seeing Ray park the
32:23
Speaker 1: Mini Cooper across the street from the Packwood House Museum
32:26
Speaker 1: during the early afternoon of April fifteenth, before he abandoned
32:30
Speaker 1: the car in the lot near the street of shops.
32:32
Speaker 1: According to one witness, Ray parked his car in a
32:35
Speaker 1: spot across from the museum and inexplicably left for a
32:38
Speaker 1: brief period of time before he drove back to this
32:41
Speaker 1: location to park his car in a different spot. He
32:44
Speaker 1: was then seen pacing around in a nearby park as
32:47
Speaker 1: if he was waiting for someone, but it's unclear what
32:50
Speaker 1: exactly he was doing there. But he also appeared to
32:53
Speaker 1: be talking to himself, so if he had some sort
32:55
Speaker 1: of bluetooth device in his ear, perhaps he was making
32:58
Speaker 1: arrangements to meet the unidentified woman at the street of
33:00
Speaker 1: shops later that day. Some of the earliest reporting in
33:04
Speaker 1: this case also stated that there was a few sightings
33:06
Speaker 1: of Ray and Louisbourg on the morning of April sixteenth,
33:10
Speaker 1: which I guess is not impossible since the Mini Cooper
33:13
Speaker 1: was not actually found by the state trooper until six
33:15
Speaker 1: point thirty that evening. However, Ray was still alive that day.
33:19
Speaker 1: There's no paper trail to show where he could have
33:22
Speaker 1: spent the night, unless he slept inside his car, but
33:25
Speaker 1: even so, it's surprising that he wouldn't have at least
33:28
Speaker 1: foam Patty to let her know where he was. Overall,
33:31
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe that the reported sightings of Ray
33:34
Speaker 1: on the sixteenth are mistaken and that whatever happened to
33:38
Speaker 1: him likely occurred on the fifteenth. I know that when
33:41
Speaker 1: a tracker dog was brought in to pick up Ray's end,
33:44
Speaker 1: it didn't go any further than the parking lot where
33:46
Speaker 1: the Mini Cooper was abandoned, since the car was locked.
33:50
Speaker 1: This does suggest that Ray might have climbed into another vehicle,
33:53
Speaker 1: which is another point which goes against the suicide theory,
33:56
Speaker 1: since he simply could have walked to the bridge if
33:58
Speaker 1: he was planning to jump into the South Hannah River.
34:01
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if Ray left in another person's vehicle,
34:04
Speaker 1: it's odd that he would leave his cell phone inside
34:06
Speaker 1: the Mini Cooper unless there's evidence to the theory that
34:09
Speaker 1: he was carrying around a separate burner phone for separate communication.
34:13
Speaker 1: I guess it's possible that Ray could have been forcibly
34:16
Speaker 1: abducted from the parking lot, but there were no signs
34:18
Speaker 1: of any struggle or any witness who could corroborate this.
34:22
Speaker 3: Do we know how common it would be for a
34:25
Speaker 3: prosecutor to have a phone that's not linked. I don't
34:28
Speaker 3: feel like that would be a common idea, because you
34:32
Speaker 3: have somebody who's a prosecutor, and you would want to
34:35
Speaker 3: make sure that everything was done on the up and up,
34:38
Speaker 3: so that your prosecution would actually stick and that there
34:41
Speaker 3: wouldn't be any kind of hidden devices and things like
34:44
Speaker 3: that to call and to question your integrity. Now, I
34:47
Speaker 3: guess to communicate with an informant, maybe you wouldn't want
34:51
Speaker 3: your phone number given out. I don't know, do you
34:53
Speaker 3: guys know how that would work.
34:56
Speaker 2: I mean, I would like to think in most investigations
34:58
Speaker 2: you would want it to be really documented and you
35:01
Speaker 2: would not be using things like burner phones. But I
35:04
Speaker 2: guess it would depend on the nature of the investigation.
35:06
Speaker 2: Because this was Ray's final year before his retirement, and
35:09
Speaker 2: if he was working on something really delicate, it might
35:12
Speaker 2: be one of those things where, well, if this investigation
35:14
Speaker 2: doesn't lead anywhere, I don't want anyone to find out
35:17
Speaker 2: about it, So therefore I don't want to leave a
35:19
Speaker 2: paper trail. So that's why he would use something like
35:21
Speaker 2: a burner phone. Now, there's been a lot of discussion
35:24
Speaker 2: about the cigarette ash inside the Mini Cooper, but what
35:27
Speaker 2: hasn't got as much attention are the two cigarette butts
35:30
Speaker 2: found outside the vehicle. It has been confirmed that DNA
35:33
Speaker 2: was extracted from them, but there were no matches when
35:36
Speaker 2: it was entered into the National Database of Offenders. Of course,
35:39
Speaker 2: we know that a number of coal cases have been
35:41
Speaker 2: solved in recent years by entering DNA into genealogy databases
35:45
Speaker 2: and getting a match which eventually led back to the offender.
35:49
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering if the legalities of that might be
35:51
Speaker 2: a bit more complicated here, since there was no concrete
35:54
Speaker 2: evidence a crime was committed. If these cigarette butts were
35:58
Speaker 2: found at the scene of a murder along SIEID a
36:00
Speaker 2: dead body, that would be one thing. But all this
36:03
Speaker 2: proves is that someone was smoking cigarettes in the same
36:05
Speaker 2: parking lot where a missing person's vehicle was abandoned. It's
36:09
Speaker 2: also never publicly been revealed if investigators were able to
36:12
Speaker 2: determine if the DNA on the cigarette butts was male
36:14
Speaker 2: or female. If it was female, then this would lend
36:18
Speaker 2: a lot more weight to the siding of Ray with
36:20
Speaker 2: the unidentified woman.
36:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean this is really interesting. If it
36:24
Speaker 3: was male or female, like you said, it could also
36:27
Speaker 3: be anybody that just happened to be in that parking lot.
36:30
Speaker 3: I mean, if there's a parking lot, that means people
36:33
Speaker 3: go to this location. And so unless you could do
36:37
Speaker 3: a genealogical reverse look up, which would be exorbitant on
36:41
Speaker 3: two cigarettes you're not even sure linked to this case.
36:45
Speaker 3: It would be very difficult to be able to prove that,
36:48
Speaker 3: even if you track those people down, that they were
36:49
Speaker 3: somehow involved, unless they were specifically tied to one of
36:53
Speaker 3: his cases. I don't know. It just seems like a
36:56
Speaker 3: long shot. Those cigarette butts could be left by any body.
37:01
Speaker 2: It's true, and you can't really prove that they're connected
37:04
Speaker 2: to raise disappearance. And it would be one thing if
37:06
Speaker 2: they were able to match the DNA on the cigarettes
37:09
Speaker 2: to an offender with a criminal record, because that would
37:11
Speaker 2: look pretty damning. But if it's just some regular person.
37:14
Speaker 2: For all we know, it was just someone who decided
37:17
Speaker 2: to smoke on that particular day, and it's just a
37:19
Speaker 2: coincidence that Ray happened to park his car next to
37:21
Speaker 2: their butts.
37:22
Speaker 1: And we don't even know if those butts were there
37:24
Speaker 1: from that particular day. There's no way of dating the
37:27
Speaker 1: time and date that they ended up there.
37:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's like I can understand why there's a
37:32
Speaker 2: reluctance to try to get DNA on them when you
37:34
Speaker 2: can't even know for certain if they're connected to a crime.
37:39
Speaker 1: But what could have compelled Ray to travel to Louisbourg
37:42
Speaker 1: in the first place. Since he was less than eight
37:44
Speaker 1: months from retirement, it sounds like Ray had been passing
37:47
Speaker 1: a lot of his workload onto the attorneys in his office.
37:50
Speaker 1: He also practically had one foot out the door, since
37:53
Speaker 1: he seemed to be playing hooky and taking half days
37:55
Speaker 1: and full days off from work. It doesn't fit the
37:58
Speaker 1: profile of someone who's doing a lot of covert work
38:01
Speaker 1: on an important investigation unless Ray was working on something
38:04
Speaker 1: so secret that he couldn't tell anyone else what he
38:07
Speaker 1: was doing and was making all these trips because he
38:10
Speaker 1: really wanted to get the case resolved before he retired.
38:13
Speaker 1: I know, it's practically a cliche day in fictional cop
38:16
Speaker 1: stories for the grizzled veteran to be working on one
38:18
Speaker 1: last important case before retirement and having their plans spoiled
38:22
Speaker 1: when something bad happens. But that's very well what could
38:26
Speaker 1: have happened here. One detail about this case which doesn't
38:29
Speaker 1: get discussed all that much is how Ray went missing.
38:32
Speaker 1: A County codebook was found on his desk at the
38:35
Speaker 1: Center County District Attorney's office and was lying open to
38:38
Speaker 1: the section which described what to do if a sitting
38:41
Speaker 1: district attorney went missing or died. We have no idea
38:44
Speaker 1: if Ray did this, but surveillance footage confirmed that he
38:48
Speaker 1: did visit the office on the evening of April fourteenth,
38:51
Speaker 1: which would turn out to be the last time that
38:53
Speaker 1: he ever went there. He could have used that opportunity
38:56
Speaker 1: to pull the book out and leave it open so
38:58
Speaker 1: his co workers would know the press to follow if
39:01
Speaker 1: he didn't come back. This could be interpreted as evidence
39:04
Speaker 1: that Ray was planning a suicide, but could also mean
39:07
Speaker 1: that he was about to do something which might potentially
39:09
Speaker 1: put his life in danger, and he wanted to cover
39:12
Speaker 1: all his bases in case something happened. I have to
39:15
Speaker 1: imagine that the answers might be on the hard drive
39:18
Speaker 1: of Ray's laptop, But even though nothing could be recovered
39:21
Speaker 1: from it, I guess we could always hold out hope
39:23
Speaker 1: that technology might improve enough to make it feasible to
39:27
Speaker 1: extract data from the hard drive someday. If it turns
39:30
Speaker 1: out that nothing is important on there after all, then
39:33
Speaker 1: this would support the idea that raised disappearance was a suicide,
39:37
Speaker 1: and he staged the whole situation to look more mysterious
39:40
Speaker 1: than it really was. But it's also possible that the
39:43
Speaker 1: hard drive's contents could shed a lot of light on
39:46
Speaker 1: what happened to him.
39:47
Speaker 3: I think it absolutely could either way. I mean, if
39:50
Speaker 3: he's contemplating suicide, could a hard drive have had rambling notes?
39:54
Speaker 3: Could it have had little things he was trying to
39:57
Speaker 3: your research and plan. We know he was looking at
40:00
Speaker 3: racing the computer and what water would do to damage
40:03
Speaker 3: the hard drive. But again, like we said, he was
40:05
Speaker 3: planning on leaving and so his computer was gonna get
40:09
Speaker 3: scrubbed anyway. But it's interesting because without that, we don't
40:13
Speaker 3: know if there was some you know, incognito investigation that
40:17
Speaker 3: he was doing, if he was if he was saying, listen,
40:20
Speaker 3: there's something so important to me that, even though I'm
40:22
Speaker 3: on my way out, I'm gonna see if I can
40:24
Speaker 3: go behind, you know, the scenes and actually look at
40:27
Speaker 3: at some issue. And I'm going to go meet with
40:29
Speaker 3: people who are willing to talk to me. Maybe this
40:32
Speaker 3: is my last hurrah as a district attorney, or at
40:34
Speaker 3: least maybe I can set my colleagues up to finish
40:37
Speaker 3: this case for me. But in order to do that,
40:39
Speaker 3: I need to protect these witnesses and get information from
40:42
Speaker 3: them before I no longer have that authority and power,
40:45
Speaker 3: and so I could absolutely see that happening. I could
40:48
Speaker 3: see somebody or some organization saying, oh, he cannot look
40:52
Speaker 3: into this anymore. But like you said, I mean without
40:56
Speaker 3: that information, without the hard drive, we can't look for
41:00
Speaker 3: any kind of concerning things he might have left as
41:02
Speaker 3: someone who was maybe secretly struggling with mental health, and
41:05
Speaker 3: we can look for information about some kind of secret investigation.
41:09
Speaker 2: For the longest time, I used to be fifty to
41:11
Speaker 2: fifty on the murder and suicide theory, but some of
41:14
Speaker 2: the information I heard on the Final Argument podcast did
41:17
Speaker 2: give me the impression that Ray might have been the
41:19
Speaker 2: victim of foul play. If he was murdered and a
41:22
Speaker 2: third party tossed the hard drive in the laptop into
41:25
Speaker 2: the Susquehanna River, then I have a feeling they probably
41:28
Speaker 2: disposed of Ray's body at another location. This is one
41:31
Speaker 2: of those frustrating cases with a number of different theories
41:35
Speaker 2: but no concrete evidence pointing towards any of them. So
41:38
Speaker 2: unless something new surfaces, we can only speculate on what happened.
41:42
Speaker 2: Everyone who knew Ray described him as a very dedicated
41:45
Speaker 2: prosecutor who always tried to seek justice for victims. So
41:48
Speaker 2: if he became a victim himself, let's hope the responsible
41:51
Speaker 2: party or parties can be brought to justice. But if
41:55
Speaker 2: Ray's death was a suicide after all, at the very least,
41:58
Speaker 2: it would be nice if his body could be bound
42:00
Speaker 2: to provide answers for his family. So if you have
42:03
Speaker 2: been to have any information about the unsolved disappearance of
42:06
Speaker 2: Ray Gricar, please contact the Pennsylvania State Police at eight
42:10
Speaker 2: one four three five five seven five four five. That's
42:14
Speaker 2: eight one four three five five seven five four five,
42:17
Speaker 2: Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case.
42:21
Speaker 3: What's incredibly hard here is that there's no good answer
42:24
Speaker 3: for this family because I don't believe in any ounce
42:27
Speaker 3: of my body that Rage is left voluntarily to start
42:30
Speaker 3: a new life. I just don't buy that. He had
42:32
Speaker 3: too many things that he was looking forward to. Remember,
42:36
Speaker 3: one of the things that people said was his life
42:38
Speaker 3: was his daughter, and that he was getting ready to
42:42
Speaker 3: be able to retire and go spend more time with her.
42:44
Speaker 3: You got to remember her. His daughter was probably at
42:46
Speaker 3: the age where they were, you know, fantasizing about what
42:49
Speaker 3: if she has a grand baby for us and we
42:51
Speaker 3: can go, you know, have our little house and I
42:53
Speaker 3: don't have to be at work, and just kind of
42:56
Speaker 3: getting a chance to have a second lease on life
43:00
Speaker 3: with your girlfriend and things like that, and your daughter
43:01
Speaker 3: and her growing family. And so that's a no, that
43:05
Speaker 3: didn't happen in my mind. So it is this fifty
43:08
Speaker 3: to fifty idea of was it a murder or was
43:09
Speaker 3: it a suicide? And both would be incredibly horrific as
43:13
Speaker 3: his family because it's been all of these years, and
43:17
Speaker 3: in your head you're playing, okay, if he completed suicide,
43:21
Speaker 3: there's all the standard questions like why did he suffer
43:24
Speaker 3: so quietly? What if I had called him more? What
43:27
Speaker 3: if you know, why wasn't I enough? Even though that's
43:30
Speaker 3: none of those things are you know, truthful things. As
43:34
Speaker 3: someone who's actually planning suicide is thinking about the people
43:37
Speaker 3: they love, but as a survivor, you have all these
43:40
Speaker 3: complex questions that add to your grief and trauma. So
43:43
Speaker 3: if that becomes a reality for them, that's a very
43:47
Speaker 3: difficult outcome, as is if he was murdered and there's
43:51
Speaker 3: nobody who's going to be brought to justice. Also equally
43:55
Speaker 3: difficult in its own way where they're saying, who did this?
43:59
Speaker 3: Is it someone we know? Oh, because how would they
44:01
Speaker 3: know he was out of town? Is it somebody who
44:04
Speaker 3: could put the rest of our family at risk?
44:06
Speaker 2: You know?
44:07
Speaker 3: Why did they hurt him? And they're they're not gonna
44:10
Speaker 3: get caught and we're not going to get justice for him.
44:11
Speaker 3: So both are horrific. And this case is really interesting because,
44:16
Speaker 3: like you said, he's a high profile man who had
44:18
Speaker 3: an incredible career. He seemed very stable and God only
44:22
Speaker 3: knows what was happening behind the scenes. But it really
44:25
Speaker 3: does seem like a total mystery of suicide. Doesn't seem
44:29
Speaker 3: like a clear outcome, and neither does a homicide.
44:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, this case is really confounding, and I'm completely on
44:37
Speaker 1: the fence though for some reason, although like the evidence
44:40
Speaker 1: presented in my rational brain says they could go either way,
44:44
Speaker 1: my gut is leaning towards suicide, and you said, ash
44:48
Speaker 1: either way. It's incredibly tragic because we've got Laara and
44:52
Speaker 1: Patty who are left behind with all of these questions.
44:55
Speaker 1: I just keep hearkening back to the fact that his
44:57
Speaker 1: brother Roy completed suicide years prior, and the manner in
45:02
Speaker 1: which he did it and the scene in which raised
45:05
Speaker 1: car was disposed of, and there's a lot of things
45:09
Speaker 1: that you can kind of interpret either way. But I
45:11
Speaker 1: do think there is a distinct possibility. We know he
45:14
Speaker 1: was sleeping more he was skipping work, and maybe he
45:18
Speaker 1: was working on something, but maybe he was just having
45:20
Speaker 1: his mental health deteriorate and he didn't have an outlet
45:23
Speaker 1: for that. So, although I think both things are possible,
45:26
Speaker 1: I really wish that we would be able to find
45:30
Speaker 1: Gray gree Car so that Laura and Patty would be
45:33
Speaker 1: able to have his body and be able to maybe
45:36
Speaker 1: get some answers in the process.
45:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a really difficult one. I remember seeing
45:41
Speaker 2: it on Disappeared all those years ago and not knowing
45:44
Speaker 2: what to think. But it is clear cut that this
45:47
Speaker 2: is probably one of those missing persons cases where there
45:49
Speaker 2: are only two answers, either murder or suicide. And I
45:53
Speaker 2: do think that the suicide option is a definite possibility,
45:57
Speaker 2: and that there's enough evidence pointing in that direction. But
46:00
Speaker 2: on the other hand, there are just so many oddities
46:02
Speaker 2: with this case that I just can't rule out the
46:04
Speaker 2: possibility that it was the victim of foul play. I
46:06
Speaker 2: mean possible that Ray was the one who disposed to
46:09
Speaker 2: the laptop. But on the other hand, we still don't
46:11
Speaker 2: have an explanation for this mysterious woman who was seen
46:15
Speaker 2: with Ray and Leuisbourg before he went missing. And who knows.
46:18
Speaker 2: Maybe it could be an encounter where Ray met someone
46:21
Speaker 2: that he had a romantic interest in but she didn't
46:24
Speaker 2: reciprocate it and that made him distraught enough to decide
46:27
Speaker 2: to jump off a bridge and take his own life.
46:29
Speaker 2: The possibilities are endless, but I still, though, would love
46:34
Speaker 2: to know what a journalist Rebecca Knight uncovered when she
46:37
Speaker 2: produced the Final Argument podcast, because that seemed like it
46:41
Speaker 2: was leaning towards a major foul play theory and was
46:44
Speaker 2: going to release some sort of bombshell which blew the
46:47
Speaker 2: case wide open, but then nothing but silence, So I
46:50
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe she found out she was looking in
46:52
Speaker 2: the wrong direction and that there was no conspiracy or
46:55
Speaker 2: foul play at all, but she seemed pretty certain that
46:58
Speaker 2: he was the victim of foul and if he was,
47:01
Speaker 2: I don't know what it was related to, if it
47:03
Speaker 2: was related to the Penn State scandal for something else
47:05
Speaker 2: he was working on. But if he was murdered, then
47:08
Speaker 2: whoever did it essentially got away with the perfect crime.
47:11
Speaker 2: Since Ray's body has never been found, and if this
47:14
Speaker 2: laptop contained incriminating information, it was too damage for anyone
47:18
Speaker 2: to see anything, and there is no real evidence pointing
47:20
Speaker 2: towards foul play. I guess the only way we may
47:23
Speaker 2: know for sure is if Ray's body is in the
47:26
Speaker 2: river somewhere. If they are able to recover his remains,
47:29
Speaker 2: then they will be able to determine with certainty whether
47:32
Speaker 2: his death was a murder or a suicide. But if
47:35
Speaker 2: it was disposed of in a mine shaft somewhere, then
47:37
Speaker 2: that's going to make this case a lot harder to solve.
47:39
Speaker 2: But Yeah, out of all the unsolved disappearances we've done
47:43
Speaker 2: from the modern era, I definitely would rank this is
47:45
Speaker 2: one of the ones that I would most like to
47:47
Speaker 2: see solved because I really just don't have any idea
47:50
Speaker 2: what happened.
47:52
Speaker 1: Robin. Do you want to tell us a little bit
47:53
Speaker 1: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
47:55
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
47:58
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
48:01
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
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48:08
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Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
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Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
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Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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48:44
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
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Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
48:51
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49:00
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49:02
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49:20
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy