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-death experiences.
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Speaker 1: And then after the initial trauma of the experience has passed,
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Speaker 1: they're like, okay, I'm good now, I'm safe, everything's fine.
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Speaker 1: But no, they were not okay, as they would soon learn.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's stories, if you're a
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Speaker 1: fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format,
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Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
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Speaker 1: every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please
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Speaker 1: miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into
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Speaker 1: today's stories. On the morning of April 29th, 1963, a
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Speaker 1: woman named Sofia Perez was riding in the passenger seat
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Speaker 1: of her car, her husband Julian was driving, and they
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Speaker 1: were traveling down a narrow city street in Sevilla, Spain.
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Speaker 1: It was a Monday, but Julian, who was the primary breadwinner,
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Speaker 1: he didn't have work that day. And so the couple
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Speaker 1: had decided, since it was such a beautiful spring day
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Speaker 1: as well, that they would get out and go on
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Speaker 1: a nice drive and just spend some time together. And
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Speaker 1: for Sofia, I mean, this was like a perfect day.
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Speaker 1: She adored her husband and she really loved the city
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Speaker 1: of Sevilla. You know, all the people there were so
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Speaker 1: nice and friendly and it was such a beautiful place
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Speaker 1: that like this was shaping up to be really a
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Speaker 1: tremendous day. And so Sofia and her husband, they are
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Speaker 1: all smiles as they continue driving down this road. You know, Sofia,
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Speaker 1: she's looking out, taking in the sights and the sounds
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Speaker 1: and Then at some point, she just has this inclination
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Speaker 1: to pull out her lipstick and, you know, apply her lipstick.
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Speaker 1: And so she reaches down and she grabs her purse,
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Speaker 1: which she brought with her everywhere. She was a very
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Speaker 1: organized person. And she opened it up and she's rifling
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Speaker 1: through it and she finds her lipstick. And then she
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Speaker 1: grabs the rearview mirror and she turns it and she
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Speaker 1: uses 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 1: we do for the rest of the day? Like, beyond
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Speaker 1: this drive, what else should we do? And as she's
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Speaker 1: sort of half looking at the mirror and half looking
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Speaker 1: at Julian, she sees a blur of motion out in
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Speaker 1: front of the car. And then she turns and she
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Speaker 1: realizes there's someone in the intersection that they're going to hit.
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Speaker 1: It's a guy on a motorcycle. And before she could
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Speaker 1: say anything, Julian is swerving hard to the right to
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Speaker 1: try to avoid this guy. It's like absolute madness. And
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Speaker 1: then the motorcyclist, he tips over and he goes into
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Speaker 1: a slide. And then Julian and Sophia, they ram off
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Speaker 1: the road onto the sidewalk and smash into this huge pole.
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Speaker 1: And pretty much right away, Sophia, after the car had
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Speaker 1: come to a stop in front of this huge, you know,
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Speaker 1: metal pole, Sophia began like patting herself down to sort
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Speaker 1: of assess the damage to make sure she was okay.
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Speaker 1: And then she looked over at her husband, Julian, who
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Speaker 1: was sort of doing the same thing. And they realized that,
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Speaker 1: you know, obviously, despite the horribleness of this crash, that
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Speaker 1: they were okay. But then their attention turned to the motorcyclist.
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Speaker 1: Because even though Julian didn't hit him, they narrowly missed him.
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Speaker 1: 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. But,
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Speaker 1: you know, they're okay. And they walked a little ways
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Speaker 1: across the street to this other sort of side street
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Speaker 1: where the motorcyclist had skidded off to. And right over there,
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Speaker 1: he was standing. The man who was on the motorcycle,
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Speaker 1: he was standing next to his bike. And obviously, his
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Speaker 1: bike had had some damage done to it. But the man,
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Speaker 1: the motorcyclist, he looked unhurt as well. So this was
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Speaker 1: like an enormous, in some ways, stroke of luck. Obviously,
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Speaker 1: it was bad to get into the accident, but all
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Speaker 1: three of them appeared to be okay. And so Sophia
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Speaker 1: and Julian, they walk over to the motorcyclist and, you know,
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Speaker 1: the three of them were really amicable. I mean, the
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Speaker 1: motorcyclist understood that, you know, accidents happen, you know, thank
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Speaker 1: 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, Sophia looks over
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Speaker 1: at Julian and she realizes, you know, he was basically unhurt,
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Speaker 1: but not entirely unhurt. He had this scratch on his
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Speaker 1: face that was bleeding a fair amount that very likely
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Speaker 1: was from the crash. And even though by no means
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Speaker 1: is this like life threatening or anything like that, Sophia
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Speaker 1: was not at the moment talking to the motorcyclist. And
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Speaker 1: so she figured she would just go back over to
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Speaker 1: the car and grab her purse because she's very organized
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Speaker 1: and she has something in that purse for every situation.
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Speaker 1: She figured she very likely had like a bandage or
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Speaker 1: something she could use to clean up her husband's cut.
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Speaker 1: And so she told her husband and the motorcyclist she
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Speaker 1: was going to go get her purse and go grab
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Speaker 1: a bandage or something. She goes over to the car,
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Speaker 1: which is still 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. It would turn
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Speaker 1: out that when Julian swerved to avoid that motorcyclist and
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Speaker 1: crashed into that pole, neither he nor Sophia realized that
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Speaker 1: that pole was was actually connected to a power line
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Speaker 1: that held up electrical lines carrying a huge amount of
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Speaker 1: electrical voltage. And during the crash, a few of those
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Speaker 1: lines from the pole had been knocked down to the
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Speaker 1: ground and they fell around Sophia and Julian's car. When
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Speaker 1: the couple first got out of the vehicle, they sort
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Speaker 1: of miraculously avoided stepping on those lines. And if they
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Speaker 1: had just stayed over there, you know, with the motorcyclist
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Speaker 1: and just hadn't gone back to the vehicle, they would
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Speaker 1: have been fine. But Sophia, whose purse always had exactly
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Speaker 1: what she needed, was in the car and she wanted
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Speaker 1: to get it and get that bandage. And so when
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Speaker 1: she went back, she stepped on one of those lines
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Speaker 1: and she was electrocuted. And so she's on the ground.
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Speaker 1: She can't move. And her husband and the motorcyclist, they
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Speaker 1: see this happening. They hear it happening and they run
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Speaker 1: over unaware of the danger. And they too are hit
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Speaker 1: by those electrical lines. They fall to the ground and
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Speaker 1: all three were electrocuted to death. On January 11th, 2018,
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Speaker 1: around 10 a.m., 55-year-old Ray Wright sawed through a wooden
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Speaker 1: board inside of his workshop, which was located about 20
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Speaker 1: minutes outside of Rockland, California. Now, Ray had only just
7:51
Speaker 1: begun his workday, but he was already covered in sawdust. However,
7:55
Speaker 1: he barely noticed because this was just a normal part
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Speaker 1: of his job as a carpenter, something he absolutely loved.
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Speaker 1: He loved his career. In fact, Ray really just sort
8:04
Speaker 1: of loved everything about his life and sort of how
8:07
Speaker 1: it was going these days. And that had not always
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Speaker 1: been the case. So about six years earlier, Ray was
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Speaker 1: in a very different and much worse place 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, you know, further and further out of
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Speaker 1: control until one night he'd gotten really drunk and then
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Speaker 1: hopped behind the wheel. And he caused a terrible accident
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Speaker 1: when he crashed head on into another vehicle. Now, Ray
8:34
Speaker 1: was more or less okay after that crash. But he'd
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Speaker 1: actually severely injured the people in the car that he
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Speaker 1: had hit. And so Ray had been arrested and sentenced
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Speaker 1: to 18 months in prison. And he was ordered to
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Speaker 1: pay a huge monetary settlement to the victims of this crash.
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Speaker 1: And so really, this had been like the true rock
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Speaker 1: bottom moment of Ray's life. But by the time Ray
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Speaker 1: actually got out of jail... he was determined to really
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Speaker 1: turn his life around and become a better person. He'd
9:04
Speaker 1: stopped drinking and he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous, which is
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Speaker 1: a very well-known support group that helps keep people sober.
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Speaker 1: He'd started spending way more time with his three kids
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Speaker 1: and also his brother Dean. And he'd been renting this
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Speaker 1: particular workshop that he was in right now to revamp
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Speaker 1: his carpentry business, Ray Wright Design. And then also, like,
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Speaker 1: in addition to these specific behavioral changes... Overall, Ray had
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Speaker 1: made this huge effort to really shift his thinking about
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Speaker 1: the way he approached life. He decided he was going
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Speaker 1: to really try hard to just have a much more
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Speaker 1: positive attitude in general and just try to be happier.
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Speaker 1: He believed it was more of a mindset, and he
9:42
Speaker 1: really was trying hard to stay in that positive, happy mindset. However,
9:47
Speaker 1: despite these wholesale changes in Ray's behavior and his mindset,
9:52
Speaker 1: which were definitely all good... The one thing he was
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Speaker 1: up against that was very difficult to change you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: since coming out of prison was his financial situation. I mean,
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Speaker 1: he really just didn't make a whole lot of money,
10:04
Speaker 1: you know, despite working really hard as a carpenter. Now
10:07
Speaker 1: he just, he just didn't make a lot of money
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Speaker 1: and this really didn't just affect his life. It affected
10:11
Speaker 1: other people's lives as well. because, you know, he needed
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Speaker 1: to make those huge settlement payments to the victims of
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Speaker 1: the crash, which he intended to do. But so far,
10:21
Speaker 1: you know, he had not made enough money to make
10:23
Speaker 1: those payments and it was definitely stressing him out. You know,
10:26
Speaker 1: he knew he needed to make those payments, but Ray
10:29
Speaker 1: was sort of determined that he would just continue to
10:32
Speaker 1: work really hard, continue to build up his business, continue
10:35
Speaker 1: to stay positive, stay happy, you know, be a good person.
10:38
Speaker 1: And eventually he was sure to make these payments and
10:41
Speaker 1: everything would be okay. So in essence, Ray still had problems,
10:44
Speaker 1: but he was working really hard to just stay on
10:47
Speaker 1: the straight and narrow and do the right thing. Now,
10:49
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 then,
10:54
Speaker 1: as he was about to start on the next thing,
10:56
Speaker 1: he realized one of the tools that he needed was
10:59
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 1: So the workshop where Ray worked was in a fairly
11:08
Speaker 1: rural area with only one immediate neighbor who lived in
11:11
Speaker 1: a trailer right next door on the same property. And
11:14
Speaker 1: the person who owned the trailer was a woman named Katie. But,
11:17
Speaker 1: you know, despite there only being Katie next door, there
11:20
Speaker 1: was still a fair amount of people just sort of
11:22
Speaker 1: coming and going around the place, like Katie's friends and
11:26
Speaker 1: Ray's clients. So the area was actually usually pretty lively.
11:30
Speaker 1: But this morning, as he stepped outside onto the driveway,
11:34
Speaker 1: it was pretty quiet. So Ray just made his way
11:36
Speaker 1: out to his truck and grabbed what he needed from inside.
11:39
Speaker 1: And then he turned and began walking back towards the shop. However,
11:43
Speaker 1: before he actually got to the shop, he heard footsteps
11:47
Speaker 1: on the driveway right behind him. Two days later, Ray's
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Speaker 1: brother Dean drove his car through some back roads as
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Speaker 1: he made his way towards Ray's house in Rockland, California.
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Speaker 1: Dean had just been to Ray's workshop, and now he
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Speaker 1: was making the 20-minute drive back to Ray's home yet again.
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Speaker 1: And the reason he was doing that is because Dean
12:07
Speaker 1: was really worried. He hadn't heard from his brother in
12:10
Speaker 1: two days. And neither had Ray's kids or any of
12:13
Speaker 1: Ray's friends. And this was like very unusual. Dean, you know,
12:18
Speaker 1: himself talked to Ray every single day. And he also
12:21
Speaker 1: knew that Ray was a very involved and responsive dad
12:24
Speaker 1: who would definitely not just disappear on his kids. And
12:27
Speaker 1: he was also definitely in touch with other friends. I mean,
12:29
Speaker 1: this was just very unusual for Ray. So over the
12:33
Speaker 1: past 48 hours, Dean had been increasingly getting more and
12:37
Speaker 1: more worried about Ray and He had been talking to
12:39
Speaker 1: anyone he could to try to figure out, like, why
12:42
Speaker 1: his brother was just suddenly gone. He'd already gone to
12:45
Speaker 1: Ray's workshop and his house repeatedly, and he hadn't found
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Speaker 1: Ray or any sign of Ray or any sign of
12:51
Speaker 1: where he might have gone. And also Ray's truck was
12:54
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found either. And that was actually particularly
12:57
Speaker 1: concerning because, you know, deep down, Dean was worried that,
13:01
Speaker 1: you know, despite the changes Ray had made in his
13:03
Speaker 1: life to be a better person and to do right
13:05
Speaker 1: by people, He was worried that, you know, maybe Ray
13:09
Speaker 1: had fallen off the wagon and was drinking again. Like
13:11
Speaker 1: maybe that's why he's gone. He's on a bender somewhere. Now,
13:15
Speaker 1: Dean really didn't want to face that reality. That would
13:18
Speaker 1: be like devastating for so many reasons, not to mention,
13:21
Speaker 1: you know, if Ray was off drinking somewhere, who knows
13:24
Speaker 1: what trouble he could be in. Like he could be
13:26
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble or hurt or something. And
13:28
Speaker 1: so Dean, by this point, 48 hours into his brother's disappearance,
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Speaker 1: he's just doing his best to kind of pushed down
13:34
Speaker 1: this growing concern that maybe that's what happened. And in fact,
13:38
Speaker 1: it was actually that sort of nagging fear that Dean
13:41
Speaker 1: had that had kept him from going to the police
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Speaker 1: and reporting Ray missing. There was just this fear that
13:47
Speaker 1: if he did that, it would sort of expose Ray
13:49
Speaker 1: if he was, you know, not doing what he was
13:51
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing. And so by this point, you know,
13:53
Speaker 1: Dean had held off. Now, Dean parked his car outside
13:56
Speaker 1: of Ray's house again, and he got out and, you know,
13:59
Speaker 1: Ray's truck was not back yet. But Dean was determined
14:03
Speaker 1: that he would just go back inside and take another
14:05
Speaker 1: look around to see if maybe he had missed something.
14:08
Speaker 1: You know, maybe there was some clue as to where,
14:10
Speaker 1: you know, Ray went or what he was up to.
14:12
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 know,
14:56
Speaker 1: who was looking right at him, basically gesturing for Dean
14:59
Speaker 1: to get out of the house. But Dean, he's sort
15:01
Speaker 1: of like, what's going on here? He looks at this
15:04
Speaker 1: guy and he's like, who are you? What are you
15:06
Speaker 1: doing in here? And the guy went very quickly from
15:09
Speaker 1: being sort of demanding to Dean to very spooked, turning
15:13
Speaker 1: and sprinting out the door out of sight. Within the hour,
15:17
Speaker 1: a police officer with the Rockland Police Department pulled his
15:20
Speaker 1: cruiser up outside of a small one-story home in Rockland
15:23
Speaker 1: and parked. He saw a man waiting outside the garage,
15:27
Speaker 1: and as the officer got out of his car, the
15:29
Speaker 1: man rushed up and introduced himself as Dean, the person
15:32
Speaker 1: who had called 911. Dean explained to the officer that
15:35
Speaker 1: he had just seen an intruder here inside of his
15:38
Speaker 1: brother's home, and that his brother was also missing. And
15:41
Speaker 1: so the officer took down some notes, both about the
15:44
Speaker 1: intruder and also about, you know, Dean's brother's absence, and
15:47
Speaker 1: why him being gone for two days was really out
15:50
Speaker 1: of character. And so after the officer finished speaking to Dean,
15:53
Speaker 1: he went inside of Ray's house to take a look
15:55
Speaker 1: around and see if, you know, there was any evidence
15:58
Speaker 1: left 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. But once inside the home, the officer saw
16:11
Speaker 1: there was no sign of forced entry or any kind
16:15
Speaker 1: of mess or violence, so it didn't immediately seem like
16:18
Speaker 1: the intruder had robbed the place or gotten into some
16:21
Speaker 1: kind of physical fight with its owner. But still, the
16:24
Speaker 1: officer left the property and went back to his cruiser,
16:27
Speaker 1: and called it in. And so over the next few days,
16:29
Speaker 1: the Rockland Police Department sort of led two parallel investigations.
16:34
Speaker 1: There was the investigation into this intruder inside of Ray's home,
16:37
Speaker 1: which really wasn't going very far. They had very little evidence.
16:40
Speaker 1: There was barely a description of this guy 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 Ray's 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 Ray's family and friends, they determined that no
17:02
Speaker 1: one had seen or spoken to him since January 11th.
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 Ray's
17:11
Speaker 1: bank account and phone activity, and they learned he hadn't
17:14
Speaker 1: used them since January 11th, 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 21st, so 10 days after
17:30
Speaker 1: 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. He was not in it. It had
17:41
Speaker 1: been found totally abandoned in this apartment complex that was
17:44
Speaker 1: not far from his workshop. A couple of months later,
17:57
Speaker 1: on an afternoon in late March, Rockland Police Sergeant Zach
18:01
Speaker 1: Lewis sat at his desk at the station going over
18:04
Speaker 1: Ray'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 come in. And even that, the finding of Ray's
18:14
Speaker 1: truck really had not been the break that the police
18:17
Speaker 1: had really hoped it would be. The truck was basically
18:19
Speaker 1: in decent working condition. The only thing that really stood
18:22
Speaker 1: 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 whether or not this intruder
18:35
Speaker 1: had something to do with Ray. It just really didn't
18:38
Speaker 1: go anywhere. So Sergeant Lewis was feeling pretty stuck when
18:42
Speaker 1: it came to this case. And so right now he
18:44
Speaker 1: was just looking through the information they already had on
18:47
Speaker 1: this case to see if maybe he had missed something. However,
18:50
Speaker 1: as he began doing this, another officer ran through the
18:54
Speaker 1: station towards his desk, waving around some sheets of paper.
18:57
Speaker 1: And this officer ran right up to Lewis and he
19:00
Speaker 1: slammed the papers down on his desk and explained that
19:03
Speaker 1: the California Highway Patrol had just sent a report over
19:06
Speaker 1: because they thought it might contain a lead in Ray's case.
19:09
Speaker 1: 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.
19:16
Speaker 1: And it's about this van that had gotten in an
19:18
Speaker 1: accident at the end of January and a few miles
19:20
Speaker 1: south of Rockland in Sacramento. The driver of this van
19:24
Speaker 1: had been extremely drunk and was going over 100 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 charges of drunk driving and
19:37
Speaker 1: reckless driving. But the reason this report was sent over
19:41
Speaker 1: to Rockland was because the driver was a man named
19:44
Speaker 1: Victor Gray. That's what his license said. So after the crash,
19:47
Speaker 1: the police discovered that the licensee plate on the van
19:51
Speaker 1: that Victor had been driving was definitely the right license plate. However,
19:55
Speaker 1: the registration stickers that were on the license plates were
19:59
Speaker 1: not the right ones. Basically, you and put them on
20:07
Speaker 1: this van's plates to give the impression that their vehicle,
20:10
Speaker 1: this van, was registered. But when they tracked those registration stickers,
20:16
Speaker 1: they discovered those stickers actually belonged to Ray Wright's abandoned truck. Now,
20:23
Speaker 1: Rockland's police department knew this was a huge lead, and
20:27
Speaker 1: they could not screw it up. And so they wanted
20:29
Speaker 1: to make sure that they handled whatever they did next
20:32
Speaker 1: exactly right, and they leveraged whatever resources they could get. So,
20:37
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks, Lewis and his team reached
20:40
Speaker 1: out to the FBI to help them process Victor's van
20:43
Speaker 1: and collect any potential evidence that was associated with Ray's disappearance.
20:47
Speaker 1: And a little over a month later, on May 8th, 2018,
20:51
Speaker 1: Lewis stood with a few of his other officers in
20:53
Speaker 1: a parking lot not far from Rockland, watching as a
20:56
Speaker 1: team of FBI agents searched Victor's van. Now, by this point,
21:01
Speaker 1: they had discovered that this van not only had Ray's
21:05
Speaker 1: registration stickers on it, But also, inside of the van
21:09
Speaker 1: was a lot of Ray's stuff. They had found Ray's glasses,
21:13
Speaker 1: which were smashed. They had found Ray's cell phone, which
21:16
Speaker 1: was also smashed. They found his wallet. They found a
21:19
Speaker 1: hat that said Ray Wright Design on it. And critically,
21:23
Speaker 1: they found Ray's rain jacket, and it was covered in
21:26
Speaker 1: blood and partially charred, like it had been burned. And
21:29
Speaker 1: so at this point, it seemed fairly obvious to investigators
21:33
Speaker 1: that Ray was not just missing. You know, he didn't
21:36
Speaker 1: just you know, go off the wagon and start drinking
21:38
Speaker 1: again and go disappear somewhere. No, he very likely had
21:42
Speaker 1: been killed. And very likely this guy, Victor Gray, had
21:45
Speaker 1: something to do with it. But the problem was there
21:49
Speaker 1: was no obvious connection between Victor Gray and Ray Wright,
21:54
Speaker 1: like they were total strangers. And when they tried to
21:57
Speaker 1: speak to Victor to interrogate him, to try to get
21:59
Speaker 1: him to open up and explain if he had something
22:02
Speaker 1: to do with this, if he knew who Ray was...
22:05
Speaker 1: Victor was not talking. So that was a total dead end.
22:08
Speaker 1: And so now investigators were just hoping that, you know,
22:10
Speaker 1: whatever evidence they found in this van, that once it was,
22:13
Speaker 1: you know, sent off and analyzed, that hopefully that would
22:17
Speaker 1: sort of maybe begin to explain what actually happened here.
22:20
Speaker 1: You know, was this just a random robbery gone wrong?
22:23
Speaker 1: You know, Victor was just robbing Ray and it got violent?
22:27
Speaker 1: Or was it something else? Or who knows what? They
22:29
Speaker 1: just didn't know. Now, Lewis watched as the FBI agents
22:32
Speaker 1: wrapped up the search of the van and You know,
22:34
Speaker 1: they began packing things up. So it was clear they
22:37
Speaker 1: had sort of pulled all the evidence they were going
22:38
Speaker 1: to pull. And, you know, Sergeant Lewis and his team,
22:42
Speaker 1: they were about to leave when suddenly one of the
22:45
Speaker 1: FBI agents who was searching the front of the van
22:47
Speaker 1: in the front two seats, he began waving his arm
22:50
Speaker 1: like he had found something. And so Lewis and the others,
22:52
Speaker 1: they go running over and they look inside the van.
22:55
Speaker 1: And this agent is pointing down to like the center
22:58
Speaker 1: of the front of this van, basically near the center console.
23:01
Speaker 1: And there was this little space underneath the center console
23:04
Speaker 1: that apparently nobody had looked in yet. And inside of
23:08
Speaker 1: this little space was another cell phone. Five months later,
23:13
Speaker 1: on an afternoon in October, Lewis pulled his cruiser into
23:16
Speaker 1: the dirt driveway right outside of Ray's workshop. But when
23:20
Speaker 1: Lewis and the other detective that he was with got
23:22
Speaker 1: out of their car, they ran past Ray's workshop and
23:26
Speaker 1: went to the trailer next door. where Lewis knew a
23:29
Speaker 1: woman named Katie Barnard lived. And so Lewis stood back
23:33
Speaker 1: as the other detective knocked on the door of the trailer.
23:35
Speaker 1: And a few seconds later, a very timid looking woman, Katie,
23:39
Speaker 1: came to the door and she asked what was going on.
23:42
Speaker 1: And when Lewis explained to her why they were there,
23:46
Speaker 1: Katie went from looking timid to looking downright terrified. And
23:50
Speaker 1: she just began to shake like she clearly understood why
23:53
Speaker 1: they were here. So they took her down to the
23:55
Speaker 1: station and pretty much as soon as she was sitting
23:58
Speaker 1: inside of an interrogation room and they began asking her questions,
24:02
Speaker 1: Katie just completely broke and told them everything she knew.
24:06
Speaker 1: So ever since Ray got out of prison for that
24:08
Speaker 1: drunk driving accident, he really had been single-mindedly focused on
24:12
Speaker 1: trying to be a better person and not letting his
24:15
Speaker 1: rock bottom moment sort of ruin his life. And he'd
24:18
Speaker 1: done a great job doing that. He'd gotten sober. He'd begun,
24:21
Speaker 1: you know, spending much more time with his family. He
24:24
Speaker 1: was like a very present father now. He was very
24:26
Speaker 1: well liked in the community. However, even though Ray, you know,
24:30
Speaker 1: had good intentions here, the reality was, is he was
24:33
Speaker 1: just sort of focusing on rebuilding his own life. He
24:37
Speaker 1: wasn't really trying to help other people. Like his, his
24:39
Speaker 1: post jail efforts were sort of all about him and
24:43
Speaker 1: his self-improvement journey. had really not been beneficial for everyone.
24:49
Speaker 1: Because Ray had really not truly atoned or done right
24:53
Speaker 1: by the person he had hurt the most, one of
24:56
Speaker 1: the victims of his drunk driving accident, a man named
25:00
Speaker 1: Bob Manor. Bob had been absolutely furious with Ray after
25:04
Speaker 1: the accident because the accident had severely injured him, Bob,
25:09
Speaker 1: to the point where Bob had a permanent limp. And
25:12
Speaker 1: then Ray had had stopped making those court-mandated settlement payments
25:15
Speaker 1: to Bob. He was supposed to, but he just wasn't
25:18
Speaker 1: making them. And so Bob is like incensed. It's like,
25:21
Speaker 1: how dare you? You hurt me, you hurt my family,
25:24
Speaker 1: and you're not even paying for it. Like, jail isn't enough.
25:28
Speaker 1: And so, for Bob, it became like an obsession that
25:32
Speaker 1: he really wanted to get his revenge on Ray. And
25:36
Speaker 1: it just so happened that Bob was not just a
25:39
Speaker 1: guy with a grudge. Bob was a very violent drug
25:43
Speaker 1: dealer as well. So this was a really big deal
25:47
Speaker 1: for him. So basically, after Ray got out of prison,
25:51
Speaker 1: Bob began obsessing over where Ray was. Like he wanted
25:56
Speaker 1: to literally discover his address so he could physically go
26:00
Speaker 1: and take his revenge. But he couldn't find Ray. He
26:04
Speaker 1: could not find the information. No one was going to
26:06
Speaker 1: give it to him, you know, for this reason exactly.
26:09
Speaker 1: And so he was just furious all the time. He
26:11
Speaker 1: wants to find Ray, but he has no way of
26:14
Speaker 1: knowing where he lives. Then, just by pure happenstance, Bob
26:20
Speaker 1: ends up dating a woman named Katie Barnard, who just
26:23
Speaker 1: so happens to live in the trailer right next door
26:26
Speaker 1: to the shop in Rockland, California, where Ray worked. And,
26:30
Speaker 1: you know, Bob had no idea. He's just over visiting
26:33
Speaker 1: with Katie all the time. And one day he looks
26:36
Speaker 1: out the window. And who does he see walking out
26:39
Speaker 1: of the doors of that shop? Ray Wright. After that,
26:43
Speaker 1: and you have to understand that some of this stuff
26:45
Speaker 1: actually was never fully explained, Bob hired a man named
26:50
Speaker 1: Victor Gray to kidnap Ray for him. Because he wasn't
26:54
Speaker 1: going to do it himself. He needed to catch Ray
26:56
Speaker 1: off guard. And so Victor Gray kidnaps Ray. And he
27:01
Speaker 1: apparently brings Ray to Bob. so that Bob can exact
27:06
Speaker 1: his revenge on Ray. Now, we don't know exactly what
27:09
Speaker 1: happened once Bob potentially received Ray. We don't know if
27:13
Speaker 1: Ray ever actually made it to Bob. But we do
27:16
Speaker 1: know at some point, Victor did kidnap Ray. And there
27:19
Speaker 1: was definitely revenge, you know, on the agenda. But what
27:24
Speaker 1: Bob ultimately failed to do that got him caught and
27:28
Speaker 1: got Victor caught and got this whole thing blown up
27:31
Speaker 1: was he didn't pay Victor. for the kidnapping. So the
27:36
Speaker 1: very thing that Bob was so mad about really was like,
27:40
Speaker 1: how dare Ray do this to me and then not
27:42
Speaker 1: pay me? Well, Bob did the same thing to Victor.
27:45
Speaker 1: He didn't pay him. And Victor was also a violent person.
27:49
Speaker 1: He's a convicted felon and he didn't take that lightly.
27:53
Speaker 1: And so what did he do? He wrote a letter
27:55
Speaker 1: to Bob basically being like, hey, I kidnapped this guy
27:59
Speaker 1: for you and I handed him to you. Like I
28:01
Speaker 1: handed him over and you haven't paid me yet. And
28:04
Speaker 1: then he took pictures of this letter and those pictures
28:09
Speaker 1: were on that phone that was found underneath the center
28:12
Speaker 1: console of Victor Gray's van. Those pictures of this letter
28:17
Speaker 1: are what connected Victor and to Bob, and then the
28:20
Speaker 1: connection from Bob to Ray was already known. And then
28:23
Speaker 1: also critically, because Victor hadn't been paid by Bob for
28:27
Speaker 1: this kidnapping, he took the liberty of not only kidnapping Ray,
28:32
Speaker 1: but he went back and stole the registration stickers off
28:36
Speaker 1: of Ray's truck, and he put them on his own van.
28:39
Speaker 1: And then ultimately, it was that that led to Victor
28:42
Speaker 1: getting caught and and this whole, you know, con being exposed. Now,
28:46
Speaker 1: we actually don't know specifically what happened to Ray Wright.
28:51
Speaker 1: All we know is that he definitely was kidnapped, and
28:54
Speaker 1: that Bob ordered the kidnapping, and that realistically, you know,
28:59
Speaker 1: Bob is a pretty violent guy, Victor's a violent guy,
29:02
Speaker 1: there's blood found all over, you know, Ray's stuff. It
29:05
Speaker 1: seemed pretty apparent that the revenge that was exacted on
29:08
Speaker 1: Ray involved his murder. But Ray's body was never found.
29:13
Speaker 1: and so we don't really know what happened to him. However,
29:16
Speaker 1: using overwhelming circumstantial evidence, both Bob Manor and Victor Gray
29:21
Speaker 1: were both convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping, and they
29:25
Speaker 1: were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Thank you
29:32
Speaker 1: so much for watching today's episode. Let me know what
29:34
Speaker 1: you thought of it in the comments below. And remember,
29:37
Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of places you can... Go
29:40
Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now. So go
29:43
Speaker 1: ahead and click here and give them a watch. All right,
29:46
Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.