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Ray Gricar Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
0:32
Speaker 1: of our three part series on the unsolved disappearance of
0:35
Speaker 1: Ray Greecar. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
0:38
Speaker 1: on what we talked about in our previous episode.
0:41
Speaker 2: Well, this is one of the more famous missing person's
0:43
Speaker 2: cases the modern era. It took place in two thousand
0:46
Speaker 2: and five and the victim was fifty nine year old
0:48
Speaker 2: Ray Griecar, who had a very long and storied career
0:51
Speaker 2: as the District Attorney of Center County, Pennsylvania, and was
0:55
Speaker 2: planning to retire at the end of the year, but
0:57
Speaker 2: he would vanish under very strange circumstances. He lived in Bellefonte,
1:01
Speaker 2: and he decided to take the day off from work
1:04
Speaker 2: and told his girlfriend that he was going on a
1:06
Speaker 2: road trip to go antique shopping, but he never turned home,
1:10
Speaker 2: and then the following day, his abandoned car was discovered
1:13
Speaker 2: sixty miles away in the town of Leuisbourg, parked across
1:16
Speaker 2: the street from an antique small but there was no
1:18
Speaker 2: sign of Ray, and there was cigarette ash outside his car,
1:22
Speaker 2: even though Ray detested smoking and would never let anyone
1:26
Speaker 2: smoke near him, suggesting that someone else may have been
1:29
Speaker 2: driving the vehicle, and there were also unconfirmed sightings of
1:32
Speaker 2: Ray in the presence of another woman, but she was
1:35
Speaker 2: never identified and they never confirmed that she actually existed.
1:38
Speaker 2: They discovered that Ray's work issued laptop was missing, and
1:42
Speaker 2: it would not be until several months later when they
1:44
Speaker 2: found the laptop in a nearby river which was near
1:47
Speaker 2: a bridge, and sometime after that they found the hard drive,
1:51
Speaker 2: which had been screwed from the laptop, but they were
1:53
Speaker 2: unable to figure out what was on it and if
1:56
Speaker 2: perhaps Ray or someone else tossed it into the river
1:59
Speaker 2: because there was something on there they didn't want to find.
2:02
Speaker 2: Because it turned out that Ray had made some Google
2:05
Speaker 2: searches on his home computer about how to erase a
2:08
Speaker 2: laptop and stuff like water damage to a laptop, there
2:12
Speaker 2: was speculation that Ray could have disappeared voluntarily, so speculation
2:17
Speaker 2: that he could have been the victim of foul play.
2:19
Speaker 2: He had several years earlier looked into a sexual assault
2:23
Speaker 2: charge against Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, but
2:28
Speaker 2: decided not to press charges. But it was a couple
2:31
Speaker 2: of years after Ray's disappearance when the whole Penn State
2:33
Speaker 2: scandal broke out where it turned out that Sandusky had
2:36
Speaker 2: been sexually abusing a number of boys and that the
2:40
Speaker 2: college had helped cover it up. So people wondered maybe
2:42
Speaker 2: Ray found out something about that and may have been
2:45
Speaker 2: murdered to keep him silent. And they also looked at
2:47
Speaker 2: the possibility that raised disappearance might have been a suicide,
2:50
Speaker 2: because years earlier, his brother had actually taken his own
2:54
Speaker 2: life by jumping off a bridge into a river, So
2:57
Speaker 2: they looked at the possibility perhaps the Raising he wasn't
3:00
Speaker 2: found is because he did jump off the bridge into
3:02
Speaker 2: the same river where they found the laptop and just
3:05
Speaker 2: have not found his body. But we recently passed the
3:08
Speaker 2: twenty year anniversary of raised disappearance, and unfortunately, we don't
3:12
Speaker 2: seem to be any closer to solving now than we
3:14
Speaker 2: were back in two thousand and five.
3:17
Speaker 1: Over the past several years, there have been at least
3:19
Speaker 1: two accounts of an informant coming forward and sharing his
3:23
Speaker 1: story about Ray being murdered. In September twenty thirteen, the
3:27
Speaker 1: Altuna Mirror newspaper reported that the authorities were investigating claims
3:32
Speaker 1: from an informant that a former member of the Health
3:35
Speaker 1: Angels motorcycle club had killed Ray as revenge for prosecuting
3:39
Speaker 1: and convicting this guy on an aggravated assault conviction, which
3:44
Speaker 1: led to him receiving a multiple year prison sentence. The
3:47
Speaker 1: story goes that the biker damaged to raise kneecaps and
3:50
Speaker 1: slid his throat before dumping his body into a mine
3:54
Speaker 1: shaft in rural Pennsylvania, which had since been capped and
3:57
Speaker 1: covered with several feet of dirt. The informant reportedly decided
4:01
Speaker 1: to come forward because he was under the impression that
4:04
Speaker 1: the biker was dead, but soon learned that he was
4:07
Speaker 1: actually still alive and living in another state. As a result,
4:11
Speaker 1: the informant was reluctant to lead authorities to the location
4:14
Speaker 1: of the mind shaft since it supposedly contained four other
4:17
Speaker 1: bodies and some guns, and since this evidence could have
4:21
Speaker 1: implicated the informant in other crimes, he wanted to arrange
4:25
Speaker 1: full immunity from prosecution. It's unclear how exactly this part
4:29
Speaker 1: of the investigation turned out, but it sounds like this
4:32
Speaker 1: man's story was never substantiated.
4:36
Speaker 3: Here's what's interesting about that one is that we've talked
4:38
Speaker 3: about Sandusky and the fact that you know that he
4:41
Speaker 3: was looking into that case and decided not to prosecute.
4:45
Speaker 3: But then you bring in the Hells Angels motorcycle club
4:48
Speaker 3: and saying, hey, is it possible that he was linked
4:51
Speaker 3: to a prosecution of one of those members and therefore
4:55
Speaker 3: became a target as well. But this person who came
4:58
Speaker 3: forward one what would they have to gain by coming
5:01
Speaker 3: forward against such a dangerous organization If he was scared
5:06
Speaker 3: that this person was alive and then said, wait, I
5:09
Speaker 3: think he's dead, I'm going to come forward with information,
5:12
Speaker 3: then finds out he's alive again and withdraws that story,
5:15
Speaker 3: or maybe doesn't follow through with any of the leads
5:19
Speaker 3: that he had. It could be out of fear. It
5:22
Speaker 3: could also be that he has potential involvement right and
5:26
Speaker 3: brought it forward just to get attention back on it
5:29
Speaker 3: and push the blame on someone he thought was dead,
5:32
Speaker 3: or like you said, could he have also just been
5:34
Speaker 3: involved in nefarious things that maybe then Ray was prosecuting
5:40
Speaker 3: or should have been prosecuting, and was worried about getting
5:43
Speaker 3: in trouble and so just completely drops all of it.
5:46
Speaker 2: That's what's so frustrating is because this made the news
5:49
Speaker 2: back in twenty thirteen, and then they talked about how
5:51
Speaker 2: he was trying to arrange full immunity to share everything
5:54
Speaker 2: he knew, and then this part of the story just disappeared.
5:57
Speaker 2: We never heard any follow up, which makes me think
5:59
Speaker 2: they find out this guy's story wasn't credible. I mean,
6:02
Speaker 2: the idea that right because he was a prosecutor may
6:05
Speaker 2: have angered someone, that's someone he sent to prison, may
6:08
Speaker 2: have wanted to get revenge, is not that far fetched,
6:11
Speaker 2: but it just doesn't sound like there was any evidence
6:13
Speaker 2: to corroborate it, and also doesn't explain why Ray would
6:16
Speaker 2: travel sixty miles to another town and then just happened
6:19
Speaker 2: across paths with this biker who would kill him.
6:22
Speaker 1: And I also question how many mine shafts are in
6:25
Speaker 1: the area. It seems like quite a risk if you're
6:28
Speaker 1: going to dump a body somewhere to keep that mind
6:30
Speaker 1: shaft open, and just to dump three other bodies and
6:34
Speaker 1: then some guns there because it's there found in that
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Speaker 1: one place, it's like jackpot for authorities, and if they
6:41
Speaker 1: can trace it back to you, then your goose is cooked.
6:45
Speaker 2: Exactly. If you're going to do that, you're better off
6:47
Speaker 2: just sealing the mind so that no one will ever
6:49
Speaker 2: find it to begin with so. In twenty twenty, journalist
6:53
Speaker 2: Wallace McKelvey published a fifteenth anniversary article about Rai's disappearance
6:58
Speaker 2: for The Patriot News at Penn Live, which detailed his
7:01
Speaker 2: interactions with a man he only referred to as the informant,
7:05
Speaker 2: though from my understanding, this is a completely different informant
7:08
Speaker 2: than the man who shared the previous story about the
7:10
Speaker 2: Hall's Angels. According to this informant, while he was incarcerated
7:14
Speaker 2: at this state correctional institution at Camp Hill, a former
7:18
Speaker 2: cellmate told him that he and another man have been
7:20
Speaker 2: contracted to kidnap and murder Ray Greecar because of a
7:23
Speaker 2: drug investigation. Both these men have paid a female acquaintance
7:27
Speaker 2: to Lurerey to the street of shops in Louisbourg with
7:30
Speaker 2: the promise of giving him information of about a drug ring.
7:33
Speaker 2: But after the woman took Ray to a local motel,
7:35
Speaker 2: the sal MAT's surprise Ray by snapping his neck and
7:38
Speaker 2: putting his body into the trunk of a car. Afterward,
7:42
Speaker 2: the salve Mat and his accomplice dumped Ray's body down
7:44
Speaker 2: an abandoned, flooded mind shaft. By the time the informant
7:48
Speaker 2: shared this story, both the sal mate and the woman
7:50
Speaker 2: were deceased, though the male accomplice was still alive. Just
7:54
Speaker 2: over two weeks before his disappearance, Ray did hold a
7:57
Speaker 2: press conference in which he announced that the largest drug
8:00
Speaker 2: bust and the history of Central County had taken place,
8:03
Speaker 2: as charges were filed against nine suspected dealers who were
8:06
Speaker 2: involved in a heroin and cocaine trafficking ring. However, the
8:10
Speaker 2: case was mostly handled by another attorney from Ray's office,
8:13
Speaker 2: and his personal involvement was mostly limited to giving statements
8:16
Speaker 2: to the media. No evidence has ever been found to
8:19
Speaker 2: link the drug bust to raise disappearance, and once again,
8:22
Speaker 2: the informant story has never been substantiated. In spite of
8:25
Speaker 2: all the different theories surrounding this case, we have recently
8:28
Speaker 2: passed the twenty year anniversary when Ray Driecar went missing,
8:32
Speaker 2: but there's still no conclusive answers about what actually happened
8:35
Speaker 2: to him. So I guess you could say the path
8:38
Speaker 2: went Chile.
8:40
Speaker 3: What are the chances though, that there's two informants saying
8:43
Speaker 3: something about a mind shaft. Are mind shafts peppered all
8:46
Speaker 3: over this place, So it's kind of a logical lego
8:48
Speaker 3: of a body's you know disappears and it's going to
8:51
Speaker 3: go here. And remember Ray was supposedly seen with a
8:54
Speaker 3: woman at some point, So is it possible that this
8:57
Speaker 3: second story is actually more believable than the first one.
9:01
Speaker 2: It could be. I mean, I know that we have
9:03
Speaker 2: all these informants coming forward, but this was a pretty
9:06
Speaker 2: high profile missing person's case, so I guess it would
9:09
Speaker 2: not be surprising if an informant wanted attention to suddenly
9:12
Speaker 2: insert himself into the case and give what sounds like
9:15
Speaker 2: a believable story on the surface, that this former district
9:18
Speaker 2: attorney was targeted by a criminal out of revenge for
9:21
Speaker 2: some sort of investigation. But once again, like I know,
9:24
Speaker 2: it seems like a coincidence that a drug bust just
9:27
Speaker 2: happened to take place so shortly before Ray went missing.
9:30
Speaker 2: But Ray's roll, like I said, was just limited strictly
9:33
Speaker 2: to giving press conferences and he did not actively work
9:36
Speaker 2: on the case, so it seems weird that anyone involved
9:38
Speaker 2: with this drug organization would decide to target him. So,
9:43
Speaker 2: like I mentioned in the intro to our first episode,
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Speaker 2: I think a big reason that Ray Greekar's disappearance has
9:48
Speaker 2: become one of the most high profile missing person's cases
9:51
Speaker 2: of the modern era is because he was an individual
9:53
Speaker 2: who devoted his career to closing cases and putting criminals
9:57
Speaker 2: behind bars, but found himself at the center of his
9:59
Speaker 2: own unsolved mystery right before he was scheduled to retire. Yes,
10:04
Speaker 2: people who work in law enforcement for such a long
10:06
Speaker 2: period of time are going to receive threats because of
10:09
Speaker 2: what they do, and sometimes they will even be murdered.
10:12
Speaker 2: But very rarely will you find a situation where the
10:15
Speaker 2: victim completely vanishes without a trace. And what further complicates
10:19
Speaker 2: this story is that there is no definitive evidence that
10:22
Speaker 2: Ray was murdered or that his disappearance had any connection
10:25
Speaker 2: to his career, as it's entirely possible he was feeling
10:28
Speaker 2: suicidal and made the decision to take his own life.
10:32
Speaker 2: But to give you an idea of just how out
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Speaker 2: of the ordinary this situation is, Ray Greecar might be
10:37
Speaker 2: the only person who has ever been interviewed on an
10:39
Speaker 2: episode of a true crime show for helping solve the case,
10:43
Speaker 2: but then became the subject of an episode of another
10:45
Speaker 2: true crime show over a decade later because he went missing.
10:50
Speaker 2: In October of nineteen ninety nine, the Discovery Channel true
10:53
Speaker 2: crime series The FBI Files released an episode titled A
10:57
Speaker 2: Stranger in Town, which chronicled the murder of a seventeen
11:00
Speaker 2: year old runaway named Dawn Marie Bernbaum, whose body was
11:04
Speaker 2: found alongside Interstate eighty near Belfont, Pennsylvania. A truck driver
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Speaker 2: named James Robert Cruz Junior would be charged and convicted
11:12
Speaker 2: of the murder, and since Ray Gricar was the Center
11:14
Speaker 2: County District Attorney at that time and prosecuted Cruise at
11:18
Speaker 2: his trial, he was extensively interviewed during the FBI Files episode.
11:23
Speaker 2: You can find this episode on YouTube, and needless to say,
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Speaker 2: it's quite easy to watch this interview with Ray knowing
11:29
Speaker 2: that he would go missing five and a half years later.
11:32
Speaker 2: I know that I first became familiar with Ray's story
11:35
Speaker 2: when it was featured on an episode of Disappeared, which
11:37
Speaker 2: aired in February of twenty eleven. It's very rare that
11:40
Speaker 2: you get to see interview footage with a missing person
11:43
Speaker 2: before they vanished. But during his appearance on the FBI Files,
11:46
Speaker 2: Ray does come across like everyone described him as. He
11:49
Speaker 2: seems like a decent, straight shooting guy who genuinely cared
11:53
Speaker 2: about getting justice for his victims, but he's also got
11:56
Speaker 2: a pretty reserved and low key personality for.
11:59
Speaker 3: Someone who's so driven and someone who is so close
12:02
Speaker 3: for retirement and kind of has these big plans with
12:04
Speaker 3: his wife and daughter. And I wonder we had the
12:08
Speaker 3: idea floated that he simply ran away on his own
12:11
Speaker 3: or maybe completed suicide right as another explanation, But it
12:14
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like that fits his personality unless we know
12:19
Speaker 3: other things that are going on. Of course, I think
12:21
Speaker 3: we might have even compared him to the Ray rivera
12:23
Speaker 3: case where there were some odd things that occurred. But
12:27
Speaker 3: for this Ray, it almost seems like he had to
12:32
Speaker 3: have run into some kind of foul play. It's that
12:35
Speaker 3: smoked cigarette in his car that I just can't buy
12:38
Speaker 3: the idea that he would smoke it as one last
12:41
Speaker 3: act before he took his own life or ran away.
12:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go either way. And a lot of
12:47
Speaker 2: people think that because he was such a reserved and
12:50
Speaker 2: low key guy, that if Ray was experiencing mental health
12:53
Speaker 2: issues or he was depressed or had something wrong with him,
12:56
Speaker 2: that he would mask it like he would not tell
12:58
Speaker 2: anyone about it. So you are correct that on the surface,
13:01
Speaker 2: he doesn't seem like a guy who was suffering and
13:03
Speaker 2: would choose suicide as an option, But his brother had
13:07
Speaker 2: done the same thing years earlier, so for all we know,
13:09
Speaker 2: maybe something was going on with Ray which nobody knew about.
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Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, this case has also been featured on a
13:17
Speaker 1: number of true crime podcasts such as Generation Why, True Crime, Garage,
13:22
Speaker 1: and Trace Evidence. But in April of twenty twenty one,
13:26
Speaker 1: a new long form, multi episode podcast was released titled
13:30
Speaker 1: Final Argument The Disappearance of Ray Greecar. It was created
13:34
Speaker 1: and hosted by a reporter named Rebecca Knight, who managed
13:38
Speaker 1: to get access to the original case file and revealed
13:41
Speaker 1: some new pieces of information which were never made public before. However,
13:45
Speaker 1: the podcast has become a bit of a mystery in
13:48
Speaker 1: its own right, as it had a very erratic release
13:51
Speaker 1: schedule and dropped only six episodes over the course of
13:54
Speaker 1: one year. At one point, Knight mentioned that she'd received
13:57
Speaker 1: a death threat, and it appeared that she experienced lot
14:00
Speaker 1: of obstacles which caused lengthy delays between episodes. The podcast
14:05
Speaker 1: last episode was released in May twenty twenty two, and
14:08
Speaker 1: if you visit the Final Argument Facebook page, you'll see
14:11
Speaker 1: this final post from Night in April twenty twenty three. Quote,
14:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to release the final episodes in a few weeks.
14:18
Speaker 1: My hiatus was due to having a serious surgery and
14:21
Speaker 1: a long recovery. I'm on the mend and excited about
14:24
Speaker 1: getting these last episodes out to you. My mission has
14:27
Speaker 1: always been to see a statewide jury convene to investigate
14:30
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Ray Greekar. As we're all seeing now,
14:34
Speaker 1: the mighty and powerful are being held accountable. No one
14:38
Speaker 1: is above the law, and I will be laser focused
14:40
Speaker 1: on exposing shocking information never released to the public that
14:44
Speaker 1: I hope will turn the tide so there'll be justice
14:46
Speaker 1: for Ray Greecar. They murdered him because he was getting
14:49
Speaker 1: ready to charge who is they Stay tuned, and I
14:53
Speaker 1: promise you will be able to connect the dots just
14:55
Speaker 1: as I have done. End quote. While these final episodes
14:59
Speaker 1: never did get released, and even though numerous comments on
15:02
Speaker 1: the Facebook post have stated that they've tried to contact
15:05
Speaker 1: Night about this, she's never provided a response. Now, Night
15:09
Speaker 1: has continued to publish articles for such websites as Business Insider,
15:13
Speaker 1: so it's good to know that she's still active and
15:15
Speaker 1: nothing bad happened to her. But it sounds like her
15:18
Speaker 1: reasons were deciding to abandon The Final Argument podcast are
15:22
Speaker 1: a pretty odd mystery within a mystery.
15:25
Speaker 3: I wonder what it could have been. There could have
15:27
Speaker 3: been legal ramifications, right, someone saying, hey, listen, I heard
15:30
Speaker 3: that you know you interviewed somebody. I know we're gonna
15:34
Speaker 3: come after you civilly if you won't if you mentioned
15:36
Speaker 3: us on this podcast. I always wonder when you have
15:39
Speaker 3: suspects that end up not actually being the person who
15:42
Speaker 3: commits the crime, right, and they've been on on hours
15:46
Speaker 3: and hours of a show about Hey, this was the
15:50
Speaker 3: first suspect, and then all of a sudden it pivots
15:53
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, it wasn't him, though that person's
15:55
Speaker 3: still living a life somewhere. So could it have been
15:58
Speaker 3: something as simple as someone saying, and if you're going
16:01
Speaker 3: to mention me in this podcast, I've already been clear
16:03
Speaker 3: to this and I'm going to sue you. Or could
16:06
Speaker 3: it have been something way more sinister of someone saying
16:09
Speaker 3: you're getting too close, you need to back off, or
16:11
Speaker 3: maybe a combination of both.
16:13
Speaker 1: But don't you think that if it was the case
16:15
Speaker 1: of somebody saying I could sue you, then that would
16:19
Speaker 1: be potentially predicated on the fact that she would have
16:21
Speaker 1: mentioned that person in previous episodes, and if that was
16:25
Speaker 1: the case, then those episodes would be scrubbed because you
16:27
Speaker 1: could just use a pseudonym going forward and say allegedly
16:31
Speaker 1: and be covering your bases legally.
16:33
Speaker 3: That's true, That's very true.
16:36
Speaker 2: I did listen to the entire podcast, and no one
16:38
Speaker 2: was ever pushed forward as a potential suspect, like she
16:41
Speaker 2: was hinting that there was some cover up and that
16:43
Speaker 2: perhaps his disappearance was related to the Penn State scandal.
16:47
Speaker 2: But even though, like most other podcasters, seem to be
16:51
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty and in big you us about whether
16:53
Speaker 2: this was a suicide or foul play, it really does
16:55
Speaker 2: seem clear that Rebecca and I believes that Ray was
16:58
Speaker 2: murdered and that there was some sort of cover up.
17:00
Speaker 2: But she was always very uh on the down low
17:03
Speaker 2: about what she really thought was happened. And unfortunately we
17:06
Speaker 2: may never know, and I do have to wonder did
17:08
Speaker 2: she feel threatened or did she find that she was
17:11
Speaker 2: going down the wrong track and potentially pointing the finger
17:14
Speaker 2: at suspects who were innocent. We just may never know.
17:18
Speaker 1: Well, and if she found out information that she believed
17:20
Speaker 1: could be somehow maybe tied to Penn State or like
17:23
Speaker 1: the institution itself, then maybe she was fearful that if
17:28
Speaker 1: she was going to put information out there, it would
17:30
Speaker 1: be considered libelous, and like Ashley had said earlier, maybe
17:33
Speaker 1: they would be taking her to court. So she just
17:35
Speaker 1: abandoned it completely.
17:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can definitely understand why, Like, obviously, do you
17:40
Speaker 2: accuse someone like Jerry Sandusky who's already in prison, it's
17:43
Speaker 2: probably not going to be a big deal. But if
17:45
Speaker 2: there's an implication that people who are still out there
17:47
Speaker 2: and walking free might have had something to do with
17:50
Speaker 2: what happened to Ray, I can understand the fear of
17:52
Speaker 2: making that information public.
17:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, And thinking about it, if she was talking about a
17:56
Speaker 3: cover up, you know, is it someone in the prosecutor's
17:58
Speaker 3: office that's trying to quote cover up but murdered. Did
18:01
Speaker 3: they have loose ends that they didn't want Ray to
18:03
Speaker 3: share or things like that. So, I mean, it's not
18:06
Speaker 3: even necessarily a suspect in the criminal world, right, like
18:10
Speaker 3: the Hell's Angels or something like that. Think about if
18:12
Speaker 3: it was professional people that she was heading at, and
18:15
Speaker 3: the kind of power and control and money that could
18:18
Speaker 3: be behind someone saying hey, you need to back off
18:20
Speaker 3: of this story.
18:22
Speaker 2: So, like I just said, I did listen to all
18:24
Speaker 2: the episodes of Final Arguments, and while Rebecca Knight never
18:27
Speaker 2: explicitly said what she believes happened, it seemed clear that
18:31
Speaker 2: she suspected foul play in a cover up, even though
18:34
Speaker 2: the podcast was never finished. I do want to share
18:36
Speaker 2: a couple of new pieces of information that I learned
18:39
Speaker 2: from listening to it. Now the three main theories which
18:42
Speaker 2: have always been pushed forward in this case or that
18:44
Speaker 2: Ray's disappearance was a homicide, suicide, or intentional walk away,
18:48
Speaker 2: though most people would agree that the third theory is
18:50
Speaker 2: far less likely than the first two. One detail which
18:53
Speaker 2: has always been cited as evidence that Ray was murdered
18:56
Speaker 2: and had another person with him at the time he
18:58
Speaker 2: went missing is the presence of cigarette ash on the
19:01
Speaker 2: floor of as Mini Cooper. As Ray detested smoking and
19:05
Speaker 2: would not allow people to smoke inside his car. Since
19:08
Speaker 2: there were two cigarette butts on the ground near the
19:10
Speaker 2: passenger side of the vehicle, it's possible the ash could
19:13
Speaker 2: have been caused by someone smoking while leaning in through
19:16
Speaker 2: the side window to speak with Ray. But even so,
19:19
Speaker 2: who could this person have been and why were they
19:21
Speaker 2: chatting with Ray and Louisbourg. Well, according tonight, there was
19:25
Speaker 2: no mention of the ash or a cigarette smell or
19:27
Speaker 2: anything cigarette related in the original police reports, even though
19:31
Speaker 2: many accounts state that the police detected the strong scent
19:34
Speaker 2: of cigarette smoke when they first entered the vehicle. I'm
19:38
Speaker 2: not saying that the detail about the cigarette ash is false,
19:41
Speaker 2: as it's been reported many times by many different sources,
19:44
Speaker 2: and was even specifically mentioned by one of the investigators
19:47
Speaker 2: during an interview on Disappeared. But perhaps the story about
19:51
Speaker 2: the cigarette smell has been greatly exaggerated for dramatic purposes,
19:55
Speaker 2: you know, and or.
19:56
Speaker 3: Someone at some point said there was a cigarette ash
19:59
Speaker 3: or cigarette app you know, cigarette ashes found in the car,
20:03
Speaker 3: and maybe the cigarettes were outside the car, right, And
20:05
Speaker 3: so they're going, hey, is it linked? And then it
20:08
Speaker 3: was like a game of telephone where all of a
20:10
Speaker 3: sudden it takes on its own life of its own
20:13
Speaker 3: and they're saying, oh, remember there were cigarette ash found
20:16
Speaker 3: in the car. I mean, if it's on the original
20:18
Speaker 3: police report, it's possible it went from there's two cigarette
20:22
Speaker 3: butts outside the car to then somehow there's evidence of
20:25
Speaker 3: that inside the car, when maybe that wasn't even the case.
20:29
Speaker 2: I would definitely believe that, And if that is the case,
20:32
Speaker 2: then it's possible that the cigarette butts were smoked by
20:35
Speaker 2: someone completely unrelated who had nothing to do with Ray
20:37
Speaker 2: and just happened to put their butts out in that
20:39
Speaker 2: parking lot.
20:41
Speaker 1: It's been confirmed that latent fingerprints were found on the
20:44
Speaker 1: exterior drive side passenger window and door handle, which matched Ray,
20:49
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Patty, and a receptionist to work to the
20:52
Speaker 1: Center County Courthouse and will raised. DNA and a fingerprint
20:56
Speaker 1: were on the label of the water bottle inside the car.
20:59
Speaker 1: This print, it was too smudge to be of any use. However,
21:02
Speaker 1: on the Final Argument podcast, it's revealed that other than
21:05
Speaker 1: the water bottle, there were no fingerprints found inside the
21:08
Speaker 1: Mini Cooper at all, not even Rays. Another detail which
21:12
Speaker 1: has never been reported before. It's very unlikely that anyone
21:16
Speaker 1: who owns and drives a vehicle could avoid leaving their
21:18
Speaker 1: fingerprints behind, which suggests that someone intentionally wiped down the
21:23
Speaker 1: interior of the Mini Cooper. Of course, there doesn't seem
21:26
Speaker 1: to be any logical reason for Ray to do that
21:28
Speaker 1: himself if he was planning suicide, which lends credence to
21:32
Speaker 1: the idea of an unknown third party being inside the
21:34
Speaker 1: vehicle who did not want their prince being found. As
21:38
Speaker 1: you know, Ray's cell phone was left behind in the
21:41
Speaker 1: Mini Cooper, and final argument does answer the question we've
21:45
Speaker 1: always had about whether or not the phone records were checked.
21:49
Speaker 1: The podcast confirms that the only call made that day
21:52
Speaker 1: was when Ray called Patty at eleven thirty am to
21:55
Speaker 1: let her know that he was going antique shopping, and
21:58
Speaker 1: the only call is the cell phone received was when
22:00
Speaker 1: Patty kept calling Ray's voicemail after he failed return home
22:04
Speaker 1: that night. But interestingly enough, it turns out that there
22:08
Speaker 1: was also a reported sighting from a Louisbourg store owner
22:11
Speaker 1: who said she saw a man matching Rai's description come
22:14
Speaker 1: into her store on the afternoon of his disappearance. He
22:18
Speaker 1: appeared to be pacing around while holding his hand up
22:20
Speaker 1: to his ear and looked out the window at one point.
22:24
Speaker 1: While the witness could not confirm that the man had
22:26
Speaker 1: a cell phone, this opens up the possibility that he
22:29
Speaker 1: may have had a wireless Bluetooth device in his ear,
22:33
Speaker 1: which was also a burner phone. When Ray was seen
22:36
Speaker 1: wandering around outside the Packwood House Museum that same afternoon,
22:40
Speaker 1: the witness thought he appeared to be talking to himself,
22:43
Speaker 1: even though he did not have a cell phone in
22:45
Speaker 1: his hand, though they don't discount the possibility that he
22:48
Speaker 1: had a bluetooth. Ray's cell phone was a county issued
22:52
Speaker 1: one for wark purposes, so if he was secretly communicating
22:55
Speaker 1: with someone and did not want his calls to be tracked,
22:58
Speaker 1: it makes sense that he would use some sort of
23:00
Speaker 1: wireless burner device.
23:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes sense. But then you also have this
23:05
Speaker 3: idea of when when you look at the fingerprints in
23:08
Speaker 3: the car, like you said, let's say Ray did walk
23:11
Speaker 3: off or Ray did go complete suicide, why would you
23:14
Speaker 3: wipe your car down? Because obviously your prints are going
23:17
Speaker 3: to be in your car for the years that you
23:19
Speaker 3: own this car. Obviously your wife's prints are going to
23:22
Speaker 3: be in the car, right your children's prints would be
23:24
Speaker 3: in the car if they had visited. So the idea
23:26
Speaker 3: of not even his fingerprints are there is the is
23:30
Speaker 3: another idea almost like the cigarette ashes, where it says,
23:33
Speaker 3: doesn't that point more towards someone else taking that vehicle?
23:37
Speaker 1: Last, what if Okay, if we're going to entertain the
23:41
Speaker 1: possibility that Ray potentially completed suicide and he was not
23:46
Speaker 1: in a good place mentally. We knew that he was
23:48
Speaker 1: enigmatic and that he likely masked a lot of his feelings.
23:51
Speaker 1: He was sleeping a lot. There seemed to be something
23:53
Speaker 1: going on, and if he was dealing with things and
23:57
Speaker 1: maybe not able to properly, like think a Ray rivera
24:02
Speaker 1: situation where you know what was real and what was fake,
24:06
Speaker 1: and how could you discern between the two. If his
24:10
Speaker 1: reality and some type of fantasy had merged in some way,
24:14
Speaker 1: or he was experiencing psychosis, then perhaps if he was
24:18
Speaker 1: going to complete suicide and didn't want people to know
24:20
Speaker 1: that that's what he was indeed doing, then the wiping
24:24
Speaker 1: of the fingerprints was some type of subterfuge where he
24:27
Speaker 1: was trying to confuse whomever was going to find the vehicle,
24:30
Speaker 1: and maybe he would think that it would lead to
24:33
Speaker 1: evidence that he was indeed killed. In case, he didn't
24:37
Speaker 1: want to upset people in his family given that his
24:39
Speaker 1: brother had completed suicide, maybe he thought that that would
24:42
Speaker 1: be too much for people to grasp.
24:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are documented cases of that of people intentionally
24:48
Speaker 2: staging their suicides to try to make them look like
24:51
Speaker 2: homicides because they don't want their families or their friends
24:54
Speaker 2: to know that they had done this. And if this
24:57
Speaker 2: is what Ray did, perhaps he was thinking, well, I'm
25:00
Speaker 2: going to make myself disappear. If I jump into the river,
25:02
Speaker 2: hopefully my body will never found. But if I wipe
25:05
Speaker 2: the prints down in my car, then that's going to
25:08
Speaker 2: make everyone assume that I was the victim of foul
25:10
Speaker 2: play and they don't have to live with the stigma
25:12
Speaker 2: knowing that I took my own life. But here's the
25:15
Speaker 2: most surprising revelation from the Final Argument podcast. I'm sure
25:19
Speaker 2: you know that there was a reported sighting of Ray
25:21
Speaker 2: with an unidentified woman inside the street of shops in
25:24
Speaker 2: Louisbourg on the day he went missing. However, I was
25:27
Speaker 2: surprised to learn that there were other reported sightings of
25:30
Speaker 2: Ray with an unidentified woman in the weeks prior to
25:33
Speaker 2: his disappearance, and they took place at antique shops in
25:36
Speaker 2: other towns besides Louisbourg, some of which were located in
25:40
Speaker 2: entirely different counties, such as Blair County and Clearfield County.
25:44
Speaker 2: In most of these sightings, the man and the woman
25:46
Speaker 2: were described as quietly talking with each other, though they
25:49
Speaker 2: didn't do anything intimate to give off the impression they
25:52
Speaker 2: were a couple. Now, obviously virtually every missing person's case
25:56
Speaker 2: is going to have all sightings for my witnesses who
25:59
Speaker 2: were mistaken, and it's possible that the witnesses here mistook
26:02
Speaker 2: another man for Ray. But the issue is that some
26:05
Speaker 2: of these witnesses specifically were called Ray driving and climbing
26:09
Speaker 2: out of a Mini Cooper, which is a very distinct
26:11
Speaker 2: looking vehicle, and there were only a handful of Mini
26:14
Speaker 2: Coopers registered in the state of Pennsylvania in two thousand
26:17
Speaker 2: and five. This would add an extra ore of credibility
26:21
Speaker 2: to these eyewitness accounts, but we can't even be certain
26:24
Speaker 2: if he was meeting up with the same woman in
26:26
Speaker 2: each of these sidings. Now, since Rebecca Knight got access
26:29
Speaker 2: to the case file, she was able to review his financials,
26:33
Speaker 2: but said she did not turn up any red flags
26:35
Speaker 2: to suggest that Ray was having an affair during this
26:38
Speaker 2: time period. If you're traveling to other towns to have
26:41
Speaker 2: secret rendezvous with women, unexplained charges for things like motel
26:45
Speaker 2: stays or dinners are probably going to show up in
26:48
Speaker 2: your financial statements, but that doesn't appear to be the
26:51
Speaker 2: case here, and the podcast also confirmed that investigators did
26:56
Speaker 2: check the local hotels and motels around Louisbourg and found
27:00
Speaker 2: nothing to indicate that Ray ever stayed at or visited
27:03
Speaker 2: one on the day he disappeared. So Knight presents her
27:06
Speaker 2: own potential theory that perhaps Ray was secretly working on
27:09
Speaker 2: his own independent investigation into the allegations that Jerry Sandusky
27:14
Speaker 2: was sexually abusing young boys, but he did so under
27:17
Speaker 2: the radar without telling anyone. These women Ray was seen
27:21
Speaker 2: with could have been the mothers of some of the
27:22
Speaker 2: victims that Sandusky had abused, and Ray wanted to meet
27:26
Speaker 2: up and get their stories in towns outside Center County.
27:30
Speaker 2: In order to avoid attracting attention. Ray may have chosen
27:34
Speaker 2: various antique shops as his meeting spots, since he had
27:37
Speaker 2: a known interest in antiques, so traveling to other towns
27:40
Speaker 2: to go shopping for them would not have seemed unusual
27:43
Speaker 2: if Ray was collecting information for an investigation. This would
27:47
Speaker 2: explain why he took his county issued laptop to Louisbourg,
27:51
Speaker 2: as it was apparently very unusual for him to bring
27:53
Speaker 2: his work computer on non work related trips. Now, this
27:57
Speaker 2: theory is all just pure speculation, as no women have
28:00
Speaker 2: ever come forward to admit having any secret meetings with
28:03
Speaker 2: Ray in two thousand and five. I mean, I can
28:06
Speaker 2: understand the being too frightened to say anything after Ray
28:09
Speaker 2: turned up missing, But Jerry Sandusky was tried, convicted, and
28:13
Speaker 2: sent to prison nearly thirteen years ago, and the people
28:16
Speaker 2: who covered up for him have been held accountable, so
28:19
Speaker 2: there would be no reason to remain silent. As the
28:22
Speaker 2: years have gone on, I get the impression that law
28:24
Speaker 2: enforcement has pretty much dismissed any connection between Ray's disappearance
28:29
Speaker 2: and the Penn State scandal, which is why this new
28:31
Speaker 2: theory took me by surprise, and I only wish that
28:34
Speaker 2: Final Argument had released their final episodes in order to
28:37
Speaker 2: provide more context about it.
28:40
Speaker 3: Well, what if it's not about the Penn State scandal.
28:42
Speaker 3: What if there is, let's say, like the one informant
28:45
Speaker 3: actually had told us, hey, you know, there was this
28:48
Speaker 3: woman who actually lured him out saying she was going
28:50
Speaker 3: to give him information. And what if that's the case.
28:55
Speaker 3: It's also a potential that there is just simply an
28:58
Speaker 3: actual informant that he's going to meet again. I wonder
29:02
Speaker 3: how much he would have shared with his wife before
29:04
Speaker 3: knowing if it was paying off or you know, where
29:06
Speaker 3: he was going. Does it put her at risk if
29:08
Speaker 3: he tells her so? Could he have been going to
29:11
Speaker 3: meet somebody not an affair, simply to gather information about
29:17
Speaker 3: this drug case, about a future case he was working on. Yes,
29:21
Speaker 3: he was getting close to retirement, but I'm assuming he
29:23
Speaker 3: was working right up until he was going to retire.
29:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm pretty certain that if he was working
29:29
Speaker 2: on something, he wouldn't have told his spouse or anyone
29:31
Speaker 2: else about it if he felt it would put their
29:33
Speaker 2: lives at risk. And while this is all speculation, they
29:36
Speaker 2: never found any evidence to suggest it. I could see
29:39
Speaker 2: Ray feeling that I'm about to retire at the end
29:41
Speaker 2: of the year. I really want to get whatever this
29:43
Speaker 2: case I'm working on solved before this happens. So I'm
29:47
Speaker 2: going to use whatever time I can to gather up information,
29:50
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do so under the radars so
29:52
Speaker 2: that it doesn't put anyone else's lives in jeopardy. And
29:56
Speaker 2: You're right, it may not even have been the Penn
29:58
Speaker 2: State scandal. It could have been an unrelated criminal matter
30:01
Speaker 2: where the responsible parties are still alive and out there
30:05
Speaker 2: free and could potentially be a threat. So if he
30:08
Speaker 2: was meeting up with any women who were informants, that
30:11
Speaker 2: would explain why they never come forward.
30:14
Speaker 1: So we'll talk more about the penn State connection a
30:17
Speaker 1: little later, but right now, let's explore some different theories
30:20
Speaker 1: surrounding the disappearance. And there are some pretty wild ones,
30:24
Speaker 1: some of which have no substance, but there's still worth mentioning.
30:28
Speaker 1: For starters, you might recall that the Trail went Cold
30:31
Speaker 1: and the Pass Went Chile have both released episodes about
30:34
Speaker 1: the unexplained death of thirty eight year old Jonathan Luna,
30:37
Speaker 1: another cold case which has some eerie similarities to this one.
30:41
Speaker 1: Luna was a prosecutor who worked as an assistant United
30:44
Speaker 1: States Attorney in Baltimore and Maryland, but on the evening
30:47
Speaker 1: of December third, two thousand and three, he inexplicably decided
30:51
Speaker 1: to leave his office at the Federal District Court Building
30:54
Speaker 1: and went on an all night tri state road trip
30:57
Speaker 1: in which he drove hundreds of miles through Maryland, Delaware,
31:01
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. Early the following morning, Luna's car was discovered
31:05
Speaker 1: in a rural creek in Lancaster County, and his body
31:09
Speaker 1: was lying in the water next to it. Luna had
31:11
Speaker 1: been stabbed thirty six times all over his body with
31:14
Speaker 1: his own pen night, But even though the FBI believed
31:17
Speaker 1: the wounds were self inflicted and his death was a suicide,
31:21
Speaker 1: the local Lancaster County authorities disagreed and thought he was
31:24
Speaker 1: the victim of foul play. The whole thing is one
31:27
Speaker 1: hell of a baffling mystery, and if you want to
31:30
Speaker 1: hear more details, we suggest you go back and listen
31:32
Speaker 1: to our previous podcast episodes about it. Even though ray
31:36
Speaker 1: Greek Car has never been found, it's incredibly odd that
31:39
Speaker 1: we have two separate cold cases which took place only
31:42
Speaker 1: sixteen months apart and involved prosecutors who traveled to a
31:46
Speaker 1: rural affection of Pennsylvania before their vehicles were discovered near
31:50
Speaker 1: a body of water. Investigators have never found anything to
31:54
Speaker 1: indicate that the two cases are linked, and they probably aren't,
31:57
Speaker 1: but it's still a pretty odd coincidence. Another cold case
32:01
Speaker 1: which has been mentioned in conjunction with this one is
32:04
Speaker 1: the unsolved disappearance of forty seven year old mel Wylie,
32:08
Speaker 1: who was the police chief in Hinckley Township, Ohio, before
32:11
Speaker 1: he vanished in July nineteen eighty five. Wiley's abandoned car
32:15
Speaker 1: would be discovered in a park near Lake Erie, and
32:18
Speaker 1: while it was initially assumed that he drowned, his body
32:21
Speaker 1: was never found and evidence was uncovered to suggest that
32:24
Speaker 1: he staged his own disappearance and took off voluntarily. It's
32:29
Speaker 1: been reported that Ray Greecar had interest in this case
32:32
Speaker 1: and made mention of it, as Hinckley Township is in
32:35
Speaker 1: fairly close proximity to Cleveland, and it's possible, though never confirmed,
32:39
Speaker 1: that Ray might have crossed paths with Wiley back Wiley
32:43
Speaker 1: was still working as a prosecutor in Ohio before has
32:46
Speaker 1: moved to Pennsylvania. I'm sure you've seen the parallels between
32:49
Speaker 1: these two cases, since both involved missing law enforcement officials
32:53
Speaker 1: whose abandoned car was found near a body of water.
32:56
Speaker 1: So if you believe that Ray staged his disappearance, it's
32:59
Speaker 1: possible that he used Wiley's cases inspiration. Otherwise, there's nothing
33:04
Speaker 1: to really link these stories, though. The disappearance of mel
33:07
Speaker 1: Wiley is a pretty intriguing mystery in its own right,
33:10
Speaker 1: and if you want to learn more details. Robin released
33:12
Speaker 1: a bonus episode about this case on his Trail Went
33:15
Speaker 1: Cold Patreon page three years ago.
33:17
Speaker 3: Okay, then I need to go listen to that one,
33:19
Speaker 3: because this is really bizarre when you look at the
33:22
Speaker 3: idea that we have very similar basic case facts. Now,
33:26
Speaker 3: like you said, in some we have the individual was
33:30
Speaker 3: you know, their body was recovered and different different assumptions
33:33
Speaker 3: were made one, you know, a suicide or was it?
33:36
Speaker 3: But I don't know. When you look at the idea
33:39
Speaker 3: that they are in the same proximity, they have very
33:42
Speaker 3: similar case facts. Really, the only thing we know are
33:45
Speaker 3: those basic case facts, and yes, it's incredibly bizarre, but
33:49
Speaker 3: linking them, like you said, without further information, you know,
33:52
Speaker 3: is nearly impossible. I mean, do we have some serial
33:55
Speaker 3: killer going around doing vigilanti justice to get prosecutors who
33:59
Speaker 3: put people away and you know they are trying to,
34:02
Speaker 3: I don't know, make a name for themselves. Maybe not.
34:07
Speaker 3: But interestingly enough, when you look at this case, the
34:11
Speaker 3: idea that his computer was thrown over into the water,
34:14
Speaker 3: it makes sense if he was going out to actually
34:17
Speaker 3: work a case and someone followed him because they were
34:20
Speaker 3: paranoid or were thinking he's onto them, he meets with
34:23
Speaker 3: this informant, they get into his car after they abduct him,
34:27
Speaker 3: hurt him, and then they go in discard of his
34:29
Speaker 3: work computer so that nothing he was working on could
34:31
Speaker 3: be discovered. All of that makes sense way more than
34:35
Speaker 3: I think him walking away from a life that was
34:37
Speaker 3: just about to be calm and relaxing and full of
34:40
Speaker 3: time with his family. Yes, change is stressful, but he
34:44
Speaker 3: was excited and they had plans, and the biggest plan
34:46
Speaker 3: he had was spending a lot of time with his daughter,
34:48
Speaker 3: who was his pride and joy. So I just am
34:51
Speaker 3: leaning towards the idea that something was going on behind
34:54
Speaker 3: the scenes that his wife didn't know about, and it
34:56
Speaker 3: got him into trouble where someone killed him and then said, Okay,
35:01
Speaker 3: not only are we going to get rid of him,
35:03
Speaker 3: but we need to make sure we get rid of
35:04
Speaker 3: any device that could possibly have information about this case
35:08
Speaker 3: on there.
35:10
Speaker 2: Well, before we move on, I want to briefly discuss
35:12
Speaker 2: one of the wilder theories surrounding this case, which has
35:15
Speaker 2: been used as evidence to suggest that Ray might have
35:18
Speaker 2: staged his own disappearance. In nineteen eighty seven, Ray was
35:22
Speaker 2: approached by a professor from Penn State, who wrote under
35:24
Speaker 2: the pen name of Pamela West, and told him she
35:27
Speaker 2: was working on a book about the nineteen sixty nine
35:29
Speaker 2: murder of Betty Aardsma, a twenty two year old graduate
35:32
Speaker 2: student who was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant
35:35
Speaker 2: in the campus library. West was certain she knew the
35:38
Speaker 2: killer's identity, but didn't think she could publish his name
35:41
Speaker 2: without being sued. She wanted to raise advice on how
35:44
Speaker 2: to handle the situation, and he told her to keep
35:46
Speaker 2: investigating before she went public with her belief. Well. West
35:50
Speaker 2: ultimately got around the situation by publishing a science fiction
35:53
Speaker 2: novel titled twenty twenty Vision Who Done It? Where the
35:57
Speaker 2: details of the crime were loosely based on the Betsy
36:00
Speaker 2: Aridzma murder, and the plot involves a detective traveling back
36:03
Speaker 2: in time in order to solve the case. The reason's
36:06
Speaker 2: people attempt to tie this book to Ray Greecar's case
36:09
Speaker 2: is because the lead character is a veteran who was
36:12
Speaker 2: close to retirement, much like Ray was, and the book's
36:15
Speaker 2: murder takes place on April to fifteenth, the same date
36:18
Speaker 2: Ray went missing. In addition, the detective character drives a
36:22
Speaker 2: car with a personalized vanity plate, and Ray's Mini Cooper
36:25
Speaker 2: had a vanity plate which read e FO, a reference
36:29
Speaker 2: to his girlfriend Patti Foornicola. Some other loose parallels have
36:32
Speaker 2: been made between the plot and Raised disappearance, such as
36:35
Speaker 2: ashes from an urn being a vital clue to solve
36:38
Speaker 2: the fictional case, and the presence of cigarette ash and
36:41
Speaker 2: the Mini Cooper. Long story short, it has been theorized
36:44
Speaker 2: that Ray may have used twenty twenty Vision as inspiration
36:48
Speaker 2: to stage his own disappearance, though I personally think that's
36:51
Speaker 2: a major stretch. By Pamela Wes's own admission, even though
36:55
Speaker 2: she had consulted with Ray for advice about her book,
36:57
Speaker 2: she never sent him a copy and as no idea
37:00
Speaker 2: if he even read it. Indeed, they never found a
37:03
Speaker 2: copy of twenty twenty Vision and Raised Belongings following his disappearance,
37:07
Speaker 2: and Wes said that she had not spoken to him
37:09
Speaker 2: for many years. The book came out in nineteen ninety,
37:12
Speaker 2: and I don't think it made a big splash, as
37:14
Speaker 2: it looks like it is long out of print. So
37:16
Speaker 2: I had my doubts that Ray would decide to use
37:18
Speaker 2: the book as inspiration to stage a cryptic disappearance fifteen
37:22
Speaker 2: years later. While the idea of a voluntary disappearance has
37:26
Speaker 2: not been completely ruled out, most people do not believe
37:29
Speaker 2: that's what happened here, as it's an extremely difficult thing
37:32
Speaker 2: to pull off in the twenty first century, particularly if
37:36
Speaker 2: you're a prominent figure looked like Ray Ricar whose face
37:38
Speaker 2: has been plastered everywhere. One theory which has been pushed
37:42
Speaker 2: forward is that Ray could have taken off to Slovenia,
37:45
Speaker 2: as he was fluent in the language and had traveled
37:47
Speaker 2: to the country in the past and had relatives living
37:50
Speaker 2: over there. Interpol has actually gone so far as to
37:53
Speaker 2: distribute missing Persons flyers for Ray and Slovenia, but they've
37:56
Speaker 2: never turned up anything in two thousand and five, and
38:00
Speaker 2: American would not be able to leave the country and
38:02
Speaker 2: travel internationally without a passport, So unless Ray was somehow
38:06
Speaker 2: able to pain a fake one, I don't see this
38:08
Speaker 2: as a viable option.
38:10
Speaker 3: No, And I don't think this book has a tie
38:12
Speaker 3: in either. I mean, April fifteenth is also tax day,
38:15
Speaker 3: you know, so you could say, like, oh, you're stressed
38:16
Speaker 3: about his taxes. I mean you could always you could
38:19
Speaker 3: always tie any date or any kind of detail like
38:22
Speaker 3: that into a conspiracy theory. But also remember we're not
38:27
Speaker 3: even sure if the cigarette ashes existed. We know that
38:31
Speaker 3: there were cigarettes fun outside the car in the police report,
38:34
Speaker 3: but it was a cigarette ash something that was added
38:36
Speaker 3: on in a story of telephone. And then oh, if
38:39
Speaker 3: there's cigarette ash, maybe it's the same as the ashes
38:42
Speaker 3: from the urn. I mean, it's starting to get a
38:44
Speaker 3: little bit ridiculous.
38:46
Speaker 2: I think you solved the case there, Ashley by saying
38:48
Speaker 2: that it was April to fifty. He just wanted to
38:50
Speaker 2: avoid paying his taxes.
38:51
Speaker 3: So that I'm just saying, I feel that grief deeply.
38:56
Speaker 2: Everybody. He wants to disappear every year on that particular
38:59
Speaker 2: date that.
39:00
Speaker 3: In the day property taxes are doing. That's right.
39:04
Speaker 4: Now.
39:04
Speaker 1: There have been some conflicting info out there about Ray's finances,
39:08
Speaker 1: as journalist Wallace McKelvey published a fifteenth anniversary article about
39:12
Speaker 1: this case in which he revealed that he found a
39:15
Speaker 1: state inheritance tax form for Ray's estate, which had been
39:19
Speaker 1: filed in twenty thirteen and listed his total assets as
39:22
Speaker 1: one thousand and fifty seven dollars in eighty six cents. However,
39:26
Speaker 1: the Disappeared episode stated that Ray had a bank account
39:30
Speaker 1: containing around one hundred thousand, which was never touched after
39:33
Speaker 1: he went missing. Given that Ray was drawing a yearly
39:36
Speaker 1: salary of one hundred and twenty nine thousand at that
39:38
Speaker 1: point and was not known for living a frivolous lifestyle,
39:42
Speaker 1: having just over one thousand dollars worth of assets does
39:45
Speaker 1: seem unusual. This has led to speculation that perhaps Raised
39:49
Speaker 1: secretly moved or withdrew a lot of money in order
39:51
Speaker 1: to plan his escape. But I know that his finances
39:54
Speaker 1: seemed to have been investigated very thoroughly, as they never
39:58
Speaker 1: found any large, unexplained sum of money suddenly appearing or
40:01
Speaker 1: disappearing from his account, or any improprieties with the Center
40:05
Speaker 1: County District Attorney's office financial account. Everyone has said that
40:09
Speaker 1: Ray was looking forward to retirement and spending more time
40:12
Speaker 1: with his family, and even if he didn't have a
40:15
Speaker 1: great deal of money saved up, his job still entitled
40:18
Speaker 1: him a pretty good pension which would keep him financially secure.
40:21
Speaker 1: Given the circumstances, there really is no logical reason for
40:25
Speaker 1: him to run away on his own accord. Ray's loved
40:28
Speaker 1: ones also don't believe that he would have caused a
40:30
Speaker 1: great pain for them by intentionally disappearing and not letting
40:34
Speaker 1: them know what happened, particularly when it came to his daughter, Laura,
40:38
Speaker 1: whom he was very close to. As someone who devoted
40:41
Speaker 1: his life to practicing criminal law, I'm sure Ray had
40:45
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea about how a missing person's investigation
40:48
Speaker 1: would be handled and the type of questioning his friends
40:51
Speaker 1: and family would face. Theoretically, if Ray wanted to disappear,
40:56
Speaker 1: he could have secretly contacted the people that he cared about,
40:58
Speaker 1: such as his daughter, to say, quote, Hey, just wanted
41:01
Speaker 1: to let you know that I'm alive and well, but
41:03
Speaker 1: I needed to get away, so please don't tell anyone
41:05
Speaker 1: you heard from me. End quote. But we know that
41:08
Speaker 1: Laura was extensively questioned and passed a polygraph, and I
41:11
Speaker 1: doubt Ray would have wanted to put her into a
41:13
Speaker 1: position where she was forced to lie to law enforcement
41:17
Speaker 1: and perhaps even perjure herself in order to protect him.
41:20
Speaker 1: An additional theory which has been pushed forward is it
41:23
Speaker 1: Ray entered the witness Protection program, but this has pretty
41:27
Speaker 1: much been debunked as it seems unlikely that his case
41:30
Speaker 1: would keep receiving so much attention in the media. If
41:33
Speaker 1: the authorities already knew where he was. When you look
41:36
Speaker 1: at the big picture, I do not believe that Ray
41:38
Speaker 1: lived much longer after he arrived in Louisbourg. But the
41:41
Speaker 1: big question is was his death suicide or murder.
41:46
Speaker 3: I don't really find his bank account balance or the
41:48
Speaker 3: idea that his total assets were just over one thousand dollars.
41:51
Speaker 2: That odd.
41:52
Speaker 3: This is someone who was making really good money. I mean,
41:55
Speaker 3: and this is in two thousand and five. He's making
41:58
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars and that's just
42:00
Speaker 3: what we know of from his salary. But he's also
42:03
Speaker 3: probably invested in things he has real estate. Now, when
42:07
Speaker 3: you're starting to talk about taxes and you know, being
42:12
Speaker 3: accountable for the things that you do have, it's not
42:15
Speaker 3: abnormal for wealthy people or people that are pretty stable
42:18
Speaker 3: to access an accountant or a financial advisor or things
42:22
Speaker 3: like that to help you move things around or put
42:25
Speaker 3: them in you know, trust for other people or things
42:28
Speaker 3: like that so that you're not taxed on it. And
42:31
Speaker 3: so it's possible too that he was just intelligently moving
42:34
Speaker 3: money around so that oh shucks, my total assets are
42:36
Speaker 3: one thousand dollars. Good luck, if you want to come
42:38
Speaker 3: after me, if you want to assume me in civil court,
42:41
Speaker 3: all of those things, and so I wouldn't be shocked
42:43
Speaker 3: if it's something that has a very, i don't know,
42:47
Speaker 3: intelligent explanation behind it, where he's protecting his family's assets
42:50
Speaker 3: by showing that he doesn't have much of anything.
42:53
Speaker 2: I do think that's possible, because they said they found
42:55
Speaker 2: this inheritance tax form in twenty thirteen, which was eight
42:59
Speaker 2: years after he went missing, So who knows where all
43:02
Speaker 2: that money would have gone in that time. Maybe his
43:04
Speaker 2: family moved it around or something like that. But when
43:07
Speaker 2: you have a case a high profile is this, they're
43:09
Speaker 2: going to investigate his finances very thoroughly, and thus far
43:13
Speaker 2: they have never said that they found anything unusual, anything
43:15
Speaker 2: to suggest that he might have been in debt or
43:18
Speaker 2: having financial problems, or that he was embezzling money. It
43:21
Speaker 2: just seemed like everything was completely ordinary. So I think
43:25
Speaker 2: they're just kind of stretching things when they're saying that, oh, yeah,
43:27
Speaker 2: he had so little assets that he must have moved
43:29
Speaker 2: it to some Swiss bank account and he's over in
43:32
Speaker 2: Europe somewhere living a new life.
43:34
Speaker 1: Robin, do you know if that hundred thousand dollars ended
43:37
Speaker 1: up going to Laura.
43:40
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure because it's just kind of a
43:42
Speaker 2: throwaway detail they say on the disappeared episode, saying that
43:45
Speaker 2: Ray had a bank account containing around one hundred thousand dollars,
43:48
Speaker 2: and I have to assume that if it existed, then
43:51
Speaker 2: the money would have gone to Laura because that was
43:53
Speaker 2: his only daughter. But unfortunately I just don't have that information.
43:58
Speaker 2: So I think that about brings an end to Part two.
44:00
Speaker 2: We have our three part series Joy and Us next
44:02
Speaker 2: week for part three, as we conclude our analysis about
44:05
Speaker 2: the disappearance of Free.
44:07
Speaker 4: Car Robin, do you want to tell us a little
44:09
Speaker 4: bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
44:12
Speaker 2: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
44:14
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
44:18
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
44:21
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
44:24
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
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Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
44:34
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
44:38
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier, Tier three, the
44:40
Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
44:43
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
44:48
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
44:51
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
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Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
45:01
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
45:04
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
45:07
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
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Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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45:17
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
45:18
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
45:21
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
45:24
Speaker 4: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
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Speaker 4: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
45:29
Speaker 4: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
45:32
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
45:35
Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
45:36
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45:44
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45:47
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45:50
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45:55
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy