Latest / Crime and Horror / This cell phone revealed a cycle of REVENGE - MrBallen

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This cell phone revealed a cycle of REVENGE - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, we have two stories about people who have near
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Speaker 1: death experiences and then after the initial trauma of the
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Speaker 1: experience has passed, they're like, Okay, I'm good, now, I'm safe,
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Speaker 1: everything's fine. But no, they were not okay, as they
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Speaker 1: would soon learn. But before we get into today's stories,
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Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
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Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you come to the right place,
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Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three
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Speaker 1: even four.
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Speaker 2: Times every week.
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Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into
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Speaker 1: the like Button's house and on their bathroom mirror right,
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Speaker 1: I'm watching you in red lipstick.
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Speaker 2: Also, please subscribe.
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Speaker 1: don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get
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Speaker 1: into today's stories. On the morning of April twenty ninth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, a woman named Sophia Perez was riding
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Speaker 1: in the passenger seat of her car. Her husband Julian,
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Speaker 1: was driving, and they were traveling down a narrow city
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Speaker 1: street in Sevia, Spain. It was a Monday, but Julian,
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Speaker 1: who was the primary breadwinner, he didn't have work that day,
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Speaker 1: and so the couple had decided, since it was such
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Speaker 1: a beautiful spring day as well, that they would get
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Speaker 1: out and go on a nice drive and just spend
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Speaker 1: some time together. And for Sophia, I mean, this was
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Speaker 1: like a perfect day. She adored her husband, and she
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Speaker 1: really loved the city of Sophia. You know, all the
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Speaker 1: people there were so nice and friendly, and it was
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Speaker 1: such a beautiful place that like this was shaping up
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Speaker 1: to be really a tremendous day. And so Sophia and
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Speaker 1: her husband, they are all smiles as they continued driving
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Speaker 1: down this road. You know, Sofia she's looking out, taking
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Speaker 1: in the sights and the sounds, and then at some
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Speaker 1: point she just has this inclination to pull out her
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Speaker 1: lipstick and you know, apply her lipstick.
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Speaker 2: And so she.
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Speaker 1: Reaches down and she grabs her purse, which she brought
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Speaker 1: with her everywhere. She was a very organized person, and
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Speaker 1: she opened it up and she's rifling through it and
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Speaker 1: she finds her lipstick. And then she she grabs the
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Speaker 1: rear view mirror and she turns it and she uses
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Speaker 1: it to apply the lipstick. And as she's doing this,
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Speaker 1: she begins asking Julian, like, hey, you know, what should.
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Speaker 2: We do for the rest of the day, like, beyond
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Speaker 2: this drive, what else should we do?
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Speaker 1: And as she's sort of half looking at the mirror
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Speaker 1: and half looking at Julian, she sees a blur of
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Speaker 1: motion out in front of the car, and then she
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Speaker 1: turns and she realizes there's someone in the intersection that
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Speaker 1: they're gonna hit.
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Speaker 2: It's a guy in a motorcycle.
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Speaker 1: And before she could say anything, Julian is swerving hard to.
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Speaker 2: The right to try to avoid the sky.
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Speaker 1: It's like absolute madness, and then the motorcyclist he tips
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Speaker 1: over and he goes into a slide, and then Julian
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Speaker 1: and Sofia they ram off the road onto the sidewalk
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Speaker 1: and smash into this huge pole and pretty much right
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Speaker 1: away Sofia, after the car had come to a stop
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Speaker 1: in front of this huge metal pole, Sofia began like
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Speaker 1: patting herself down to sort of assess the damage, to
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Speaker 1: make sure she was okay, And then she looked over
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Speaker 1: at her husband Julian, who was sort of doing the
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Speaker 1: same thing, and they realized that, you know, obviously, despite
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Speaker 1: the horribleness of this crash, that they were okay. But
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Speaker 1: then their attention turned to the motorcyclist because even though
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Speaker 1: Julian didn't hit him, they narrowly missed him.
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Speaker 2: You know, he swerved away and they crashed into this pole.
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Speaker 1: Despite that, one of the last things Sophia saw before
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Speaker 1: they swerved is the motorcyclist had tipped over and gone
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Speaker 1: into a skid, so they had no idea if he
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Speaker 1: was okay or not. And so Sophia and Julian they
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Speaker 1: carefully climbed out of their pretty wrecked vehicle, and again
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Speaker 1: they stood and kind of checked to make sure they
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Speaker 1: really were okay, because now they're standing for the first time,
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Speaker 1: but you know, they're okay. And they walked a little ways,
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Speaker 1: you know, across the street to this other sort of
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Speaker 1: side street where the motorcyclist had skidded off to and
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Speaker 1: right over there he was standing. The man who was
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Speaker 1: on the motorcycle, he was standing next to his bike,
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Speaker 1: and you know, obviously his bike had had some damage
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Speaker 1: done to it, but the man, the motorcyclist, he looked
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Speaker 1: unhurt as well. This was like an enormous in some way.
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Speaker 2: Stroke of luck.
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Speaker 1: Obviously it was bad to get into the accident, but
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Speaker 1: all three of them appeared to be okay, and so
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Speaker 1: Sofia and Julian. They walk over to the motorcyclist, and
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Speaker 1: you know, the three of them were really amicable. I mean,
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Speaker 1: the motorcyclist understood that, you know, accidents happen, you know,
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Speaker 1: thank goodness, nobody was hurt, and just for a few minutes,
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Speaker 1: the three of them just, you know, just chatted and
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Speaker 1: sort of just talked about how lucky they really were here,
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Speaker 1: and they exchanged information, you know, so they could cover
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Speaker 1: the damages if they needed to, of the respective vehicles.
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Speaker 1: And as they're just sitting there having this you know,
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Speaker 1: relatively calm and just normal conversation here, Sofia looks over
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Speaker 1: at Julian and she realizes, you know, he was basically.
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Speaker 2: Unhurt, but not entirely unhurt.
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Speaker 1: He had this this scratch on his face that was
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Speaker 1: bleeding a fair amount that very likely was from the crash.
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Speaker 1: And even though by no means is this like life
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Speaker 1: threatening or anything like that. Sofia was not at the
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Speaker 1: moment talking to the motorcycle and so she figured she
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Speaker 1: would just go back over to the car and grab
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Speaker 1: her purse because she's very organized and she has something
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Speaker 1: in that purse for every situation. She figured she very
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Speaker 1: likely had like a bandage or something she could use
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Speaker 1: to clean.
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Speaker 2: Up her husband's cut, and so she told her.
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Speaker 1: Husband and the motorcyclist she was gonna, you know, go
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Speaker 1: get a purseon and go grab.
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Speaker 2: A bandage or something. She goes over to the car,
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Speaker 2: which is still.
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Speaker 1: You know, smashed up on the side of the road,
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Speaker 1: of course, and there's a little bit of a crowd
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Speaker 1: of people sort of you know, relatively nearby. Kind of
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Speaker 1: assessing the scene, she makes her way around towards the
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Speaker 1: passenger side because her purse was still in the car,
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Speaker 1: in the passenger seat. And as she was coming around,
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Speaker 1: getting ready to reach through the open door to grab
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Speaker 1: her purse, which was sitting right there on the seat,
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Speaker 1: something happened, like she got close enough to the car
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Speaker 1: where like suddenly she felt this intense pain all through
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Speaker 1: her body. And then it was like she couldn't even move,
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Speaker 1: and she found herself falling towards the ground, looking up
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Speaker 1: at the sky and like her muscles are beginning to spasm,
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Speaker 1: and the last thing she saw was her husband and
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Speaker 1: the motorcyclist running over to her, and then, to her horror,
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Speaker 1: as she's laying there looking up at them, they too
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Speaker 1: began to sort of seize up and spasm and fall
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Speaker 1: to the ground right next to her.
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Speaker 2: It would turn out.
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Speaker 1: That when Julian swerved to avoid that motorcyclist and crashed
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Speaker 1: into that pole, neither he nor Sofia realized that that
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Speaker 1: pole was actually connected to a power line that held
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Speaker 1: up electrical lines carrying a huge amount of electrical voltage,
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Speaker 1: and during the crash, a few of those lines from
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Speaker 1: the pole had been knocked down to the ground and
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Speaker 1: they fell around.
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Speaker 2: Sofia and Julian's car.
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Speaker 1: When the couple first got out of the vehicle, they
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Speaker 1: sort of miraculously avoided stepping on those lines.
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Speaker 2: And if they had just.
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Speaker 1: Stayed over there, you know, with the motorcyclist, and just
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Speaker 1: hadn't gone back to the vehicle, they would have been fine.
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Speaker 1: But Sophia, whose purse always had exactly what she needed,
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Speaker 1: was in the car and she wanted to get it
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Speaker 1: and get that bandage, and so when she went back,
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Speaker 1: she stepped on one of those lines and she was electrocuted.
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Speaker 1: And so she's on the ground, she can't move, and
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Speaker 1: her husband and the motorcyclist they see this happening, They
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Speaker 1: hear it happening, and they run over unaware of the danger,
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Speaker 1: and they too are hit by those electrical lines. They
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Speaker 1: fall to the ground, and all three were electrocuted to death.
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Speaker 1: On January eleventh, twenty eighteen, around ten am, fifty five
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Speaker 1: year old Ray Wright saw it through a wooden board
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Speaker 1: inside of his workshop, which was located about twenty minutes outside.
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Speaker 2: Of Rockland, California.
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Speaker 1: Now, Ray had only just begun his workday, but he
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Speaker 1: was already covered in sawdust. However, he barely noticed because
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Speaker 1: this was just a normal part of his job as
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Speaker 1: a carpenter. I think he absolutely loved he loved his career.
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Speaker 1: In fact, Ray really just sort of loved everything about
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Speaker 1: his life and sort of how it was going these days.
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Speaker 1: And that had not always been the case. So about
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Speaker 1: six years earlier, Ray was in a very different and
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Speaker 1: much worse place.
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Speaker 2: In his life.
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Speaker 1: He'd been recently divorced and had started drinking a lot,
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Speaker 1: and he'd spiraled further and further out of control until
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Speaker 1: one night he'd gotten really drunk and then hopped behind
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Speaker 1: the wheel and he caused a terrible accident when he
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Speaker 1: crashed head on into another vehicle.
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Speaker 2: Now Ray was more or.
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Speaker 1: Less okay after that, crash, but he'd actually severely injured
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Speaker 1: the people in the car that he had hit, and
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Speaker 1: so Ray had been arrested and sentenced to eighteen months
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Speaker 1: in prison, and he was ordered to pay a huge
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Speaker 1: monetary settlement to the victims of this crash. And so
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Speaker 1: really this had been like the true rock bottom moment
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Speaker 1: of Ray's life. But by the time Ray actually got
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Speaker 1: out of jail, he was determined to really turn his
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Speaker 1: life around and become a better person. He'd stopped drinking,
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Speaker 1: and he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a very
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Speaker 1: well known support group that helps keep people sober. He'd
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Speaker 1: started spending way more time with his three kids and
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Speaker 1: also his brother Dean, and he'd been renting this particular
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Speaker 1: workshop that he was in right now to revamp his
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Speaker 1: carpentry business, Rey Wright Design.
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Speaker 2: And then also, like in addition to these.
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Speaker 1: Specific behavioral changes overall, Ray had made this huge effort
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Speaker 1: to really shift his thinking about like the way he
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Speaker 1: approached life. He decided he was going to really try
9:34
Speaker 1: hard to just have a much more positive attitude in
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Speaker 1: general and just try.
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Speaker 2: To be happier.
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Speaker 1: Like he believed it was more of a mindset and
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Speaker 1: he really was trying hard to stay in that positive,
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Speaker 1: happy mindset. However, despite these these wholesale changes in Ray's
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Speaker 1: behavior and his mindset, which were definitely all good, the
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Speaker 1: one thing he was up against that was very difficult
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Speaker 1: to change, you know since coming out of prison was
10:00
Speaker 1: his financial situation. I mean, he really just didn't make
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Speaker 1: a whole lot of money, you know, despite working really
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Speaker 1: hard as a carpenter. Now, he just didn't make a
10:08
Speaker 1: lot of money. And this really didn't just affect his life,
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Speaker 1: it affected other people's lives as well, because, you know,
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Speaker 1: he needed to make those huge settlement payments to the
10:17
Speaker 1: victims of the crash, which he intended to do, but
10:20
Speaker 1: so far, you know, he had not made enough money
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Speaker 1: to make those payments, and it was definitely stressing him out.
10:26
Speaker 1: You know, he knew he needed to make those payments.
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Speaker 1: But Ray was sort of determined that he would just
10:31
Speaker 1: continue to work really hard, continue to build up his business,
10:34
Speaker 1: continue to stay positive, stay happy, you know, be a
10:37
Speaker 1: good person, and eventually he was sure to make these
10:40
Speaker 1: payments and everything would be okay. So, in essence, Ray
10:43
Speaker 1: still had problems, but he was working really hard to
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Speaker 1: just stay on the straight and narrow.
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Speaker 2: And do the right thing now.
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Speaker 1: Ray blew some of the sawdust off the board that
10:51
Speaker 1: he had just cut and he set it aside, and
10:53
Speaker 1: then as he was about to start on the next thing,
10:56
Speaker 1: he realized one of the tools that he needed was
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Speaker 1: out in his truck, so he walked through the shop's
11:01
Speaker 1: big warehouse style doors that opened out onto a dirt driveway.
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Speaker 2: So the workshop where Ray worked was in a fairly.
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Speaker 1: Rural area, with only one immediate neighbor who lived in
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Speaker 1: a trailer right next door on the same property, and
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Speaker 1: the person who on the trailer was a woman named Katie.
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Speaker 1: But you know, despite their only being Katie next door,
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Speaker 1: there was still a fair amount of people just sort
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Speaker 1: of coming and going around the place, like Katie's friends
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Speaker 1: and raised clients, So the area was actually usually pretty lively,
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Speaker 1: but this morning, as he stepped outside onto the driveway,
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Speaker 1: it was pretty quiet.
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Speaker 2: So Ray just made his way out to.
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Speaker 1: His truck and grabbed what he needed from inside, and
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Speaker 1: then he turned and began walking back.
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Speaker 2: Towards the shop.
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Speaker 1: However, before he actually got to the shop, he heard
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Speaker 1: footsteps on the driveway right behind him. Two days later,
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Speaker 1: Ray's brother, Dean, drove his car through some backroads as
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Speaker 1: he made his way towards Ray's house in Rockland, California.
11:57
Speaker 1: Dean had just been to Ray's workshop, and now he
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Speaker 1: was making the twenty minute drive back to Raise home
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Speaker 1: yet again. And the reason he was doing that is
12:06
Speaker 1: because Dean was really worried. He hadn't heard from his
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Speaker 1: brother in two days, and neither had raised kids or
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Speaker 1: any of Ray's friends, and this was like very unusual. Dean,
12:18
Speaker 1: you know, himself talked to Ray every single day, and
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Speaker 1: he also knew that Ray was a very involved and
12:23
Speaker 1: responsive dad who would definitely not just disappear on his kids.
12:27
Speaker 1: And he was also definitely in touch with other friends.
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Speaker 1: I mean, this was just very unusual for Ray. So
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Speaker 1: over the past forty eight hours, Dean had been increasingly.
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Speaker 2: Getting more and more worried about Ray.
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Speaker 1: He had been talking to anyone he could to try
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Speaker 1: to figure out, like why his brother was just suddenly gone.
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Speaker 1: He'd already gone to Ray's.
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Speaker 2: Workshop and his house repeatedly.
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Speaker 1: And he hadn't found Ray or any sign of Ray
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Speaker 1: or any sign of where he might have gone. And
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Speaker 1: also Raised truck was nowhere to be found either, and
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Speaker 1: that was actually particularly concerning because you know, deep down,
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Speaker 1: Dean was worried that, you know, despite the changes Ray
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Speaker 1: had made in his life to be a better person
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Speaker 1: and to do right by people, he was worried that,
13:08
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Ray had fallen off the wagon and
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Speaker 1: was drinking again, Like maybe that's why he's gone. He's
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Speaker 1: on a bender somewhere. Now, Dean really didn't want to
13:17
Speaker 1: face that reality. That would be like devastating for so
13:19
Speaker 1: many reasons, not to mention, you know, if Ray was
13:23
Speaker 1: off drinking somewhere, who knows what trouble he could be in,
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Speaker 1: Like he could be in a lot of trouble or
13:27
Speaker 1: hurt or something. And so Dean, by this point, forty
13:29
Speaker 1: eight hours into his brother's disappearance, he's just doing his
13:33
Speaker 1: best to kind of push down this growing concern that
13:36
Speaker 1: maybe that's what happened. And in fact, it was actually
13:38
Speaker 1: that sort of nagging fear that Dean had that had
13:42
Speaker 1: kept him from going to the police and reporting Ray missing.
13:46
Speaker 1: There was just this fear that if he did that
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Speaker 1: it would sort of expose Ray if he was, you know,
13:50
Speaker 1: not doing what he was supposed to be doing. And
13:52
Speaker 1: so by this point, you know, Dean had held off.
13:54
Speaker 1: Now Dean parked his car outside of Ray's house again
13:58
Speaker 1: and he got out, and you know, his truck was
14:00
Speaker 1: not back yet. But Dean was determined that he would
14:03
Speaker 1: just go back inside and take another look around to
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Speaker 1: see if maybe he had missed something, you know, maybe
14:08
Speaker 1: there was some clue as to where you know, Ray
14:10
Speaker 1: went or what he.
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Speaker 2: Was up to.
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Speaker 1: So Dean walked up to his brother's front door and
14:14
Speaker 1: he let himself inside, and immediately Dean stopped because he
14:19
Speaker 1: smelled something. It smelled like marijuana smoke inside the house,
14:23
Speaker 1: which was really really odd. I mean one because the
14:27
Speaker 1: last time he was here, he definitely did not smell
14:29
Speaker 1: marijuana smoke. But more than that, Ray, his brother, had
14:33
Speaker 1: definitely once been a very heavy drinker, that was true,
14:37
Speaker 1: but he had always hated marijuana. Like he did not
14:42
Speaker 1: smoke marijuana. And so Dean standing in the doorway trying
14:45
Speaker 1: to make sense of this, when from the other side
14:47
Speaker 1: of the room, he hears somebody shouting at him to leave,
14:51
Speaker 1: and he sees on the other side of the room
14:53
Speaker 1: this man has suddenly popped up who Dean did not
14:56
Speaker 1: know who was looking right at him, basically gesturing for.
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Speaker 2: Dean to get out out of the house.
15:00
Speaker 1: But Dean, He's sort of like, what's going on here?
15:03
Speaker 1: He looks at this guy and he's like, who are you?
15:06
Speaker 1: What are you doing in here? And the guy went
15:08
Speaker 1: very quickly from being sort of demanding to Dean to
15:12
Speaker 1: very spooked, turning and sprinting out the door out of sight.
15:16
Speaker 1: Within the hour, a police officer with the Rockland Police
15:19
Speaker 1: Department pulled his cruiser up outside of a small, one
15:22
Speaker 1: story home in Rockland and parked. He saw a man
15:25
Speaker 1: waiting outside the garage, and as the officer got out
15:28
Speaker 1: of his car, the man rushed up and introduced himself
15:31
Speaker 1: as Dean, the person who had called nine to one one.
15:34
Speaker 1: Dean explained to the officer that he had just seen
15:36
Speaker 1: an intruder here inside of his brother's home and that
15:39
Speaker 1: his brother was also missing, And so the officer took
15:42
Speaker 1: down some notes both about the intruder and also about
15:45
Speaker 1: you know, Dean's brother's absence and why him being gone
15:48
Speaker 1: for two.
15:49
Speaker 2: Days was really at a character.
15:50
Speaker 1: And so after the officer finished speaking to Dean, he
15:53
Speaker 1: went inside of Ray's house to take a look around
15:56
Speaker 1: and see if you know, there was any evidence left
15:59
Speaker 1: behind by the intruder to indicate who they were or
16:02
Speaker 1: if there was any evidence about, you know, where Ray was,
16:05
Speaker 1: and maybe that this intruder had something to do with
16:08
Speaker 1: Ray's absence.
16:09
Speaker 2: But once inside the home, the.
16:11
Speaker 1: Officer saw there was no sign of forced entry or
16:14
Speaker 1: any kind of mess or violence, so it didn't immediately
16:18
Speaker 1: seem like the intruder had robbed the place or gotten
16:21
Speaker 1: into some kind of physical fight with its owner. But
16:23
Speaker 1: still the officer left the property and went back to
16:26
Speaker 1: his cruiser and called it in.
16:28
Speaker 2: And so over the next few days, the Rockland Police.
16:30
Speaker 1: Department sort of led two parallel investigations. There was the
16:34
Speaker 1: investigation into this intruder inside of Ray's home, which really
16:38
Speaker 1: wasn't going very far.
16:39
Speaker 2: They had very little evidence.
16:40
Speaker 1: There was barely a description of the sky from Dean
16:43
Speaker 1: who did not get a good look at him. And
16:45
Speaker 1: then the other investigation was into Ray's disappearance, and there
16:49
Speaker 1: was definitely some thinking that the intruder and raised disappearance
16:52
Speaker 1: could be connected, but as of right now they didn't know.
16:55
Speaker 1: But with regards to Ray's disappearance, after the police had
16:59
Speaker 1: spoken to Raised family and friends, they determined that no
17:02
Speaker 1: one had seen or spoken to him since January eleventh.
17:06
Speaker 1: That was like the first sort of hard date and
17:08
Speaker 1: hard fact that they had. They also checked into raise
17:11
Speaker 1: bank account and phone activity and they learned he hadn't
17:14
Speaker 1: used them since January eleventh, when apparently he went missing.
17:18
Speaker 1: But beyond those details, like as the weeks went on,
17:21
Speaker 1: really nothing else came in, not about the intruder or
17:25
Speaker 1: about Ray. Then on January twenty first, so ten days
17:29
Speaker 1: after Ray went missing, the Rockland Police Department got their first,
17:33
Speaker 1: you know, big new lead, and that was Ray's truck
17:38
Speaker 1: had been found.
17:39
Speaker 2: He was not in it.
17:40
Speaker 1: It had been found totally abandoned in this apartment complex
17:44
Speaker 1: that was not far from his workshop. A couple of
17:56
Speaker 1: months later, on an afternoon in late March, Rocklandgeant Zach
18:01
Speaker 1: Lewis sat at his desk at the station going over
18:04
Speaker 1: Rai's case file for what he felt like was the
18:06
Speaker 1: millionth time so since finding Ray's truck, basically no new
18:11
Speaker 1: leads had come in, and even that the finding of
18:14
Speaker 1: ray'sed truck really had not been the break that the
18:17
Speaker 1: police had really hoped it would be. The truck was
18:19
Speaker 1: basically in decent working condition. The only thing that really
18:22
Speaker 1: stood out was the plates had been taken off of it.
18:25
Speaker 1: But after they searched the truck extensively. They basically didn't
18:29
Speaker 1: find anything, nothing that gave away what happened to Ray
18:32
Speaker 1: or where he was, or you know, whether or not
18:34
Speaker 1: this intruder had something to do with Ray.
18:37
Speaker 2: Like, it just really didn't go anywhere.
18:39
Speaker 1: So Sergeant Lewis was feeling pretty stuck when it came
18:42
Speaker 1: to this case. And so right now he was just
18:45
Speaker 1: looking through the information they already had on this case
18:48
Speaker 1: to see if maybe he had missed something. However, as
18:50
Speaker 1: he began doing this, another officer ran through the station
18:54
Speaker 1: towards his desk, waving around some sheets of paper. And
18:57
Speaker 1: this officer ran right up to Lewis and he's slammed
19:00
Speaker 1: the papers down on his desk and explained that the
19:03
Speaker 1: California Highway Patrol had just sent a report over because
19:06
Speaker 1: they thought it might contain a lead in Ray's case.
19:09
Speaker 2: And here was the lead, and so Lewis is really excited.
19:12
Speaker 1: He grabs the document and he sees it's a report
19:15
Speaker 1: and it's about this van that had gotten in an
19:18
Speaker 1: accident at the end of January a few miles south
19:21
Speaker 1: of Rockland in Sacramento. The driver of this van had
19:24
Speaker 1: been extremely drunk and was going over one hundred miles
19:26
Speaker 1: an hour when he crashed, and somewhat miraculously, nobody got hurt,
19:31
Speaker 1: including the driver, and so the driver he survives, and
19:34
Speaker 1: now he's facing all these.
19:36
Speaker 2: Charges of drunk driving and reckless driving.
19:39
Speaker 1: But the reason this report was sent over to Rockland
19:42
Speaker 1: was because the driver was a man named Victor Gray.
19:45
Speaker 2: That's what his license said.
19:46
Speaker 1: So after the crash, the police discovered that the license
19:50
Speaker 1: plate on the van that Victor had been driving was
19:53
Speaker 1: definitely the right license plate. However, the registration stickers that
19:57
Speaker 1: were on the license plates were not the right once. Basically,
20:02
Speaker 1: you know, Victor or somebody had had taken stickers from
20:05
Speaker 1: some other vehicle and put them on this van's plates
20:08
Speaker 1: to give the impression that their their vehicle, this van
20:11
Speaker 1: was registered. But when they tracked those registration stickers, they
20:16
Speaker 1: discovered those stickers actually belonged to Rey Right's abandoned truck.
20:22
Speaker 2: Now Rockland's police department.
20:24
Speaker 1: Knew this was a huge lead and they could not
20:28
Speaker 1: screw it up, and so they wanted to make sure
20:30
Speaker 1: that they handled, you know, whatever they did next exactly right,
20:33
Speaker 1: and they leveraged whatever resources they could get so over
20:37
Speaker 1: the next few weeks, Lewis and his team reached out
20:40
Speaker 1: to the FBI to help them process Victor's van and
20:43
Speaker 1: collect any potential evidence that was associated with Ray's disappearance.
20:47
Speaker 2: And a little over a month later, on.
20:49
Speaker 1: May eighth, twenty eighteen, Lewis stood with a few of
20:52
Speaker 1: his other officers in a parking lot not far from Rockland,
20:55
Speaker 1: watching as a team of FBI agents.
20:58
Speaker 2: Searched Victor's van.
21:00
Speaker 1: Now, by this point they had discovered that this van
21:03
Speaker 1: not only had Ray's registration stickers on it, but also
21:08
Speaker 1: inside of the van was a lot of Ray's stuff.
21:11
Speaker 1: They had found Rai's glasses, which were smashed. They had
21:14
Speaker 1: found Ray's cell phone, which was also smashed. They found
21:17
Speaker 1: his wallet, they found a hat that said Ray Wright
21:20
Speaker 1: design on it, and critically, they found Ray's rain jacket
21:25
Speaker 1: and it was covered in blood and partially charred like
21:28
Speaker 1: it had been burned. And so at this point it
21:31
Speaker 1: seemed fairly obvious to investigators that Ray was not just missing.
21:35
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't just you know, go off the
21:37
Speaker 1: wagon and start drinking again and go disappear somewhere. No,
21:41
Speaker 1: he very likely had been killed, and very likely this guy,
21:45
Speaker 1: Victor Gray, had something to do with it. But the
21:48
Speaker 1: problem was there was no obvious connection between Victor Gray
21:53
Speaker 1: and Ray Wright, like they were total strangers. And when
21:56
Speaker 1: they tried to speak to Victor to interrogate him, to
21:59
Speaker 1: try to get him to open up and explain if
22:02
Speaker 1: he had something to do with this, if he knew
22:03
Speaker 1: who Ray was, Victor was not talking. So that was
22:06
Speaker 1: a total dead end. And so now investigators were just
22:09
Speaker 1: hoping that you know, whatever evidence they found in this
22:12
Speaker 1: van that once it was you know, sent off and analyzed,
22:15
Speaker 1: that hopefully that would sort of maybe begin to explain
22:19
Speaker 1: what actually happened here. You know, was this just a
22:22
Speaker 1: random robbery gone wrong, you know, Victor was just robbing
22:25
Speaker 1: ray and it got violent, or was it something else
22:28
Speaker 1: or who knows what they they just didn't know. Now,
22:30
Speaker 1: Lewis watched as the FBI agents wrapped up the search
22:33
Speaker 1: of the van, and you know, they began packing things up,
22:36
Speaker 1: so it was clear they had sort of pulled all
22:38
Speaker 1: the evidence they were going to pull and you know,
22:40
Speaker 1: Sergeant Lewis and his team they were about to leave
22:43
Speaker 1: when suddenly one of the FBI agents who was searching
22:46
Speaker 1: the front.
22:47
Speaker 2: Of the van, in the front two seats.
22:49
Speaker 1: He began waving his arm like he had found something,
22:51
Speaker 1: and so Lewis and the others they go running over
22:54
Speaker 1: and they look inside the van, and this agent is
22:56
Speaker 1: pointing down to like the center of the front of
22:59
Speaker 1: this van, basically the center console, and there was this
23:02
Speaker 1: little space underneath the center console that apparently nobody had
23:06
Speaker 1: looked in yet, and inside of this little space was
23:09
Speaker 1: another cell phone. Five months later, on an afternoon in October,
23:15
Speaker 1: Louis pulled his cruiser into the dirt driveway right outside
23:18
Speaker 1: of Ray's workshop. But when Louis and the other detective
23:21
Speaker 1: that he was with got out of their car, they
23:24
Speaker 1: ran past Ray's workshop and went to the trailer next door,
23:29
Speaker 1: where Louis knew a woman named Katie Barnard lived, And
23:31
Speaker 1: so Louis stood back as the other detective knocked on
23:34
Speaker 1: the door of the trailer, and a few seconds later,
23:37
Speaker 1: a very timid looking woman, Katie, came to the door,
23:40
Speaker 1: and she asked what was going on, and when Louis
23:43
Speaker 1: explained to her why they were there, Katie went from
23:46
Speaker 1: looking timid to looking downright terrified, and she just began
23:50
Speaker 1: to shake like she clearly understood why they were here.
23:54
Speaker 1: So they took her down to the station, and pretty
23:56
Speaker 1: much as soon as she was sitting inside of an
23:58
Speaker 1: interrogation room and began asking her questions, Katie just completely
24:03
Speaker 1: broke and told them everything she knew.
24:06
Speaker 2: So Ever, since Ray got out.
24:07
Speaker 1: Of prison for that drunk driving accident, he really had
24:10
Speaker 1: been single mindedly focused on trying to be a better
24:13
Speaker 1: person and not letting his rock bottom moment sort of
24:17
Speaker 1: ruin his life. And he'd done a great job doing that.
24:20
Speaker 1: He'd gotten sober, he'd begun, you know, spending much more
24:22
Speaker 1: time with his family. He was like a very present
24:24
Speaker 1: father now. He was very well liked in the community. However,
24:29
Speaker 1: even though Ray you know, had good intentions here, the
24:32
Speaker 1: reality was is he was just sort of focusing on
24:35
Speaker 1: rebuilding his own life. He wasn't really trying to help
24:38
Speaker 1: other people. Like his post jail efforts were sort of
24:42
Speaker 1: all about him and his self improvement journey had really
24:46
Speaker 1: not been beneficial for everyone because Ray had really not
24:51
Speaker 1: truly atoned or done right.
24:53
Speaker 2: By the person he had hurt the most.
24:56
Speaker 1: One of the victims of his drunk driving accident, a
24:59
Speaker 1: man named Bob manor Bob, had been absolutely furious with
25:03
Speaker 1: Ray after the accident because the accident had severely injured
25:08
Speaker 1: him Bob to the point where Bob had a permanent limp.
25:12
Speaker 2: And then Ray had.
25:13
Speaker 1: Stopped making those court mandated settlement payments to Bob. He
25:16
Speaker 1: was supposed to, but he just wasn't making them, and
25:18
Speaker 1: so Bob is like incensed. It's like, how dare you?
25:22
Speaker 1: You hurt me, you hurt my family, and you're not
25:25
Speaker 1: even paying for it, Like jail isn't enough. And so
25:29
Speaker 1: for Bob it became like an obsession that he really
25:32
Speaker 1: wanted to get his revenge on Ray. And it just
25:36
Speaker 1: so happened that Bob was not just a guy with
25:39
Speaker 1: a grudge. Bob was a very violent drug dealer as well,
25:45
Speaker 1: so this was a really big deal for him. So basically,
25:49
Speaker 1: after Ray got out of prison, Bob began obsessing over
25:54
Speaker 1: where Ray was, Like he wanted to literally discover his
25:58
Speaker 1: address so he could physically go oh and take his revenge.
26:01
Speaker 1: But he couldn't find Ray. He could not find the information.
26:05
Speaker 1: No one was going to give it to him, you know,
26:07
Speaker 1: for this reason exactly, and so he was just furious
26:10
Speaker 1: all the time.
26:11
Speaker 2: He wants to find Ray, but he has no way
26:14
Speaker 2: of knowing where he lives.
26:16
Speaker 1: Then, just by pure happenstance, Bob ends up dating a
26:20
Speaker 1: woman named Katie Barnard, who just so happens to live
26:24
Speaker 1: in the trailer right next door to the shop in Rockland, California.
26:29
Speaker 2: Where Ray worked. And you know, Bob had no idea.
26:32
Speaker 2: He's just over visiting with Katie all.
26:34
Speaker 1: The time, and one day he looks out the window
26:37
Speaker 1: and who does he see.
26:38
Speaker 2: Walking out of the doors of that shop.
26:41
Speaker 1: Ray. Right after that, and you have to understand that
26:44
Speaker 1: some of this stuff actually was never fully explained, Bob
26:49
Speaker 1: hired a man named Victor Gray to kidnap Ray for
26:53
Speaker 1: him because he wasn't going to do it himself. He
26:55
Speaker 1: needed to catch Ray off guard, and so Victor Gray
27:00
Speaker 1: kidnaps Ray and he apparently brings Ray to Bob so
27:04
Speaker 1: that Bob can exact his revenge on Ray. Now we
27:08
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what happened once Bob potentially received Ray.
27:12
Speaker 1: We don't know if Ray ever actually made it to Bob,
27:16
Speaker 1: but we do know at some point Victor did kidnap Ray,
27:19
Speaker 1: and there was definitely revenge, you know, on the agenda.
27:23
Speaker 1: But what Bob ultimately failed to do that got him
27:27
Speaker 1: caught and got Victor caught and got this whole thing
27:30
Speaker 1: blown up was he didn't pay Victor for the kidnapping.
27:36
Speaker 1: So the very thing that Bob was so mad about
27:38
Speaker 1: really was like, how dare Ray do this to me
27:42
Speaker 1: and then not pay me. Well, Bob did the same
27:45
Speaker 1: thing to Victor.
27:45
Speaker 2: He didn't pay him.
27:46
Speaker 1: And Victor was also a violent person. He's a convicted felon,
27:51
Speaker 1: and he didn't take that lightly.
27:53
Speaker 2: And so what did he do.
27:54
Speaker 1: He wrote a letter to Bob basically being like, Hey,
27:58
Speaker 1: I kidnapped this guy for you, and I handed him
28:01
Speaker 1: to you, like I handed him over, and you haven't
28:03
Speaker 1: paid me yet. And then he took pictures of this letter,
28:07
Speaker 1: and those pictures were on that phone that was found
28:11
Speaker 1: underneath the center console of Victor Gray's van. Those pictures
28:16
Speaker 1: of this letter are what connected Victor to Bob, and
28:20
Speaker 1: then the connection from Bob to Ray was already known.
28:23
Speaker 1: And then also critically, because Victor hadn't been paid by
28:26
Speaker 1: Bob for this kidnapping, he took the liberty of not
28:30
Speaker 1: only kidnapping Ray, but he went back and stole the
28:34
Speaker 1: registration stickers off of Ray's truck and he put.
28:37
Speaker 2: Them on his own van, and then ultimately it.
28:40
Speaker 1: Was that that led to Victor getting caught and this
28:44
Speaker 1: whole you know, con being exposed. Now, we actually don't
28:48
Speaker 1: know specifically what happened to Ray Wright. All we know
28:52
Speaker 1: is that he definitely was kidnapped, and that Bob ordered
28:55
Speaker 1: the kidnapping, and that realistically, you know, Bob pretty violent guy.
29:01
Speaker 1: Victor's a violent guy. There's blood found all over, you know,
29:04
Speaker 1: Ray's stuff. It seemed pretty apparent that the revenge that
29:07
Speaker 1: was exacted on Ray involved his murder, but Ray's body
29:12
Speaker 1: was never found, and so we don't really know what
29:15
Speaker 1: happened to him. However, using overwhelming circumstantial evidence, both Bob
29:19
Speaker 1: Manner and Victor Gray were both convicted of first degree
29:23
Speaker 1: murder and kidnapping, and they were sentenced to life in
29:26
Speaker 1: prison without parole. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
29:34
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
29:35
Speaker 1: comments below, And remember, we have a whole playlist of
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29:46
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see it