Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Ray Gricar Pt. One

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Ray Gricar Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
0:33
Speaker 2: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
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Speaker 3: April fifteenth, two thousand and five, Belfont, Pennsylvania. After taking
0:43
Speaker 3: the day off work and leaving on a road trip,
0:46
Speaker 3: fifty nine year old Center County District Attorney Ray Greekar
0:50
Speaker 3: fails to return home and is reported missing. The following day,
0:54
Speaker 3: rais abandoned car is discovered sixty miles away in the
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Speaker 3: town of Louisbourg, parked across the street from the antique
1:00
Speaker 3: small Over the course of the next several months, Ray's
1:04
Speaker 3: county issued work laptop and its hard drive are discovered
1:07
Speaker 3: on separate occasions in the nearby Susquehanna River, but the
1:11
Speaker 3: hard drive is too damaged to recover any data. A
1:14
Speaker 3: number of theories are pushed forward, including the possibilities that
1:18
Speaker 3: Ray completed suicide, disappeared voluntarily, or was the victim of
1:22
Speaker 3: foul play, but there is no conclusive evidence to point
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Speaker 3: to any of these theories, and no trace of Ray
1:29
Speaker 3: is ever found after that.
1:31
Speaker 1: The path went Chile. So today we're going to start
1:34
Speaker 1: tackling one of the most heavily discussed missing persons cases
1:37
Speaker 1: of the modern era, the two thousand and five disappearance
1:40
Speaker 1: of Ray Greecar. We've recently passed the cases twenty year anniversary,
1:45
Speaker 1: and it's not hard to figure out why it captured
1:47
Speaker 1: the public's attention, as this is a rare example of
1:49
Speaker 1: a prominent law enforcement official becoming the center of their
1:52
Speaker 1: own unsolved mystery. For two decades, Ray Greecar had been
1:56
Speaker 1: the District Attorney of Center County and devoted his life
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Speaker 1: to put in murderers, rapists, and other vicious criminals behind bars.
2:03
Speaker 1: But less than eight months before he was scheduled to retire,
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Speaker 1: Ray vanished without a trace. On the day he disappeared,
2:10
Speaker 1: Ray decided to play hooky from work and take a
2:12
Speaker 1: road trip, but he never returned home, and the following day,
2:16
Speaker 1: his abandoned Mini Cooper was discovered sixty miles away in
2:19
Speaker 1: a parking lot across the street from an antique s
2:21
Speaker 1: mall in the town of Louisbourg. Now, since Ray had
2:24
Speaker 1: been to this particular antique small before taking a trip
2:27
Speaker 1: to Louisbourg wasn't all that unusual, but there were a
2:30
Speaker 1: number of odd clues surrounding his disappearance. Even though Ray
2:34
Speaker 1: detested smoking cigarette, ash was found inside his car, and
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Speaker 1: there would be reported sightings of him in Louisbourg alongside
2:40
Speaker 1: a woman who has never been identified. Ray's work laptop
2:44
Speaker 1: and its hard drive were discovered in the nearby Susquehanna River,
2:48
Speaker 1: leading to speculation that had contained information which Ray or
2:51
Speaker 1: someone else did not want to be uncovered. In fact,
2:54
Speaker 1: this would lead to conspiracy theories that Ray's disappearance might
2:58
Speaker 1: be connected to the notorious Pens State child sex abuse scandal,
3:01
Speaker 1: which became a major story six years later. But it's
3:05
Speaker 1: also possible that even though his body was never found,
3:08
Speaker 1: Ray may have been feeling suicidal and decided to end
3:11
Speaker 1: his own life by jumping into the Susquehanna River, as
3:14
Speaker 1: he lost his older brother under similar circumstances years earlier.
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Speaker 1: Even though this is a very high profile missing person's
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Speaker 1: case with a number of different possible scenarios, there's no
3:24
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence which points to any of them, and since
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Speaker 1: we're going to have no shortage of theories to discuss,
3:29
Speaker 1: this will be a special three part series of episodes
3:33
Speaker 1: we'll bring in.
3:33
Speaker 4: On, Robin, Bring it on.
3:35
Speaker 2: Here's what is the first thing that hit me with
3:38
Speaker 2: this is at any time you have a judge or
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Speaker 2: a prosecutor, or anyone who's involved in the justice system
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Speaker 2: and they go missing or there's evidence of foul play
3:48
Speaker 2: or here you know, potential suicide as well. But it
3:52
Speaker 2: makes me question what cases they've been involved in. You
3:55
Speaker 2: mentioned the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, but there's
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Speaker 2: also a lot of other criminals that this man prosecuted
4:03
Speaker 2: right and made sure were put behind bars, And they
4:06
Speaker 2: all have associates, they all have families, they all have
4:09
Speaker 2: access to communicate with the people on the outside. And
4:12
Speaker 2: so you've seen case after case around the country where
4:16
Speaker 2: you'll have a judge killed in their home or a
4:18
Speaker 2: prosecutor killed on their way to work. And so my
4:22
Speaker 2: first thought would be someone related to one of his cases.
4:25
Speaker 2: The Penn State child sex abuse scandal was one of
4:28
Speaker 2: the most horrific cases, and so and a lot of
4:33
Speaker 2: energy and emotions around that. So very potential. But it's
4:38
Speaker 2: also when you named that there was cigarettes and ash
4:41
Speaker 2: everywhere in his car, and that he was known to
4:43
Speaker 2: despise smoking. That rules out a friend an associate, because
4:49
Speaker 2: if I invite you to go on a ride with
4:51
Speaker 2: me and you're a smoker. You are not smoking in
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Speaker 2: my car. If I'm having an intimate relationship with you,
4:57
Speaker 2: you are not smoking in my car. So if I
5:00
Speaker 2: detest smoking, which I do, right, I don't like to
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Speaker 2: smell it or be around it. The last place I'm
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Speaker 2: going to allow someone I know to smoke is in
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Speaker 2: my car, which means it wasn't him, and it likely
5:11
Speaker 2: was not a buddy or at least a buddy who
5:15
Speaker 2: was smoking while he was alive in the car with him.
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Speaker 2: So I am leaning more towards someone who hunted him
5:22
Speaker 2: down and then when they moved his vehicle and things
5:25
Speaker 2: like that, they had a cigarette and they were using
5:27
Speaker 2: his car the way they wanted to. But fascinating. I
5:31
Speaker 2: cannot wait to learn more. My gut is saying someone
5:33
Speaker 2: tied to one of his cases, whether it's the Penn
5:35
Speaker 2: State one or not, who knows, Just out.
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Speaker 1: Of curiosity, Ash, have you heard of this case before,
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Speaker 1: because it is a pretty high profile one which has
5:43
Speaker 1: been heavily discussed the past twenty years. Are you just
5:45
Speaker 1: going and completely blind?
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Speaker 4: Well, I don't know yet, to be honest.
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Speaker 2: When you described it, I'm like, well, there's there are
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Speaker 2: a lot of high profile ones where prosecutors are killed.
5:55
Speaker 2: So I'll have to wait to know if this is
5:57
Speaker 2: a case I know exactly. But when you mentioned Pinn.
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Speaker 4: State with it, I'm like, do I know this case?
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Speaker 4: So I don't know, Robin.
6:03
Speaker 2: You got to tell me more and then I'll chime
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Speaker 2: in if I do remember, and I'll be like, oh,
6:06
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I've heard of this one right now,
6:08
Speaker 2: I'm blind.
6:09
Speaker 3: Did you watch the TV show Disappeared?
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Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know that either, guys, my
6:14
Speaker 4: brain doesn't work.
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Speaker 3: It was a really prominent missing person show where they
6:19
Speaker 3: featured a lot of the most famous cases, including Maura
6:22
Speaker 3: Murray's case, and this is one of the cases that
6:25
Speaker 3: was featured on that show, and it was the first
6:27
Speaker 3: time that I was introduced to the case.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I don't think so, because I feel like I
6:30
Speaker 2: would have remembered Moro's case on that and so I
6:33
Speaker 2: don't believe I've watched that one either.
6:35
Speaker 1: Well, not to worry, we got lots of details to
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Speaker 1: discuss about this particular so that we can all figure
6:41
Speaker 1: this out.
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Speaker 3: Our story begins in Center County, Pennsylvania in two thousand
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Speaker 3: and five, and our central figure is fifty nine year
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Speaker 3: Old Ray Gricar. Originally born in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio,
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Speaker 3: Rays spent the past four decades working in the legal field,
6:57
Speaker 3: as after earning a jurist doctor at Case Western Reserve
7:01
Speaker 3: University School of Law, he launched his career by working
7:05
Speaker 3: as a prosecutor in Cuyahoga County. Ray married his first wife,
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Speaker 3: Barbara Gray, in nineteen sixty nine, and they would adopt
7:13
Speaker 3: their only child, a baby girl named Laura, nine years later.
7:17
Speaker 3: Shortly thereafter, Barbara was offered a new job at Pennsylvania
7:21
Speaker 3: State University aka Penn State, so the family relocated to
7:26
Speaker 3: State College in nineteen eighty and Ray decided to put
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Speaker 3: his legal career on hold so he could become a
7:32
Speaker 3: stay at home dad and raise Laura. But he eventually
7:35
Speaker 3: caught the attention of the Center County District Attorney, who
7:38
Speaker 3: offered Ray a job as an assistant prosecutor and compelled
7:42
Speaker 3: him to return to work. By nineteen eighty five, the
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Speaker 3: position of Center County District Attorney became open, so Ray
7:48
Speaker 3: decided to make his own run for it and wound
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Speaker 3: up winning the election. Over the course of the next
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Speaker 3: two decades, Ray would prosecute a number of cases and
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Speaker 3: was re elected as district attorney four times times. He
8:01
Speaker 3: was known for being a very private and enigmatic person
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Speaker 3: who always kept a low profile, and unlike many others
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Speaker 3: in his field, Ray did not have any higher political
8:10
Speaker 3: aspirations to become a judge or attorney general. However, he
8:14
Speaker 3: did have a reputation for being a very hard working
8:17
Speaker 3: and dedicated prosecutor who truly cared for the victims in
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Speaker 3: the cases he took on. During his run as District Attorney,
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Speaker 3: Ray's personal life would undergo a number of changes as
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Speaker 3: he got divorced from his first wife, Barbara, in nineteen
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Speaker 3: ninety one. Five years later, Ray got remarried to another
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Speaker 3: woman named Emma Lang, but their relationship was described as
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Speaker 3: a fairly tumultuous one and their marriage would end in
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Speaker 3: divorce in two thousand and one. But the following year,
8:45
Speaker 3: Ray began a relationship with Patty Fornicola, who worked as
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Speaker 3: a clerk and victim's rights advocate in the Center County
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Speaker 3: District Attorney's office. Since Patty had also gone through a
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Speaker 3: prior divorce, she and Ray were not in a hurry
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Speaker 3: to get married again, but they still thought they were
9:01
Speaker 3: a perfect match for each other. As a result, Ray
9:04
Speaker 3: decided to move in with Patty at her house in
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Speaker 3: the town of Bellafont, located just over ten miles northeast
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Speaker 3: of State College.
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Speaker 4: You know, I love everything about Ray.
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Speaker 2: Ray was willing to sacrifice his career and say, listen,
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Speaker 2: I get the best job ever, which is to be
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Speaker 2: a stay at home dad with our baby. He moves
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Speaker 2: to support his wife's career, which is amazing. And you know, look,
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Speaker 2: they did a lot together, they raised a baby. Didn't
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Speaker 2: work out, and he tries again, doesn't work out, But
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Speaker 2: when he finds Patty, it really does work. I think
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Speaker 2: it's hard when you work in victim services or you
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Speaker 2: work in the criminal justice system for people to understand
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Speaker 2: your energy and emotions and empathy and those kinds of things.
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Speaker 2: Ray worked to advocate for victims, which is incredible, and
9:51
Speaker 2: then he meets Patty, who is also a clerk and
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Speaker 2: victim's right advocate in the criminal justice system. So their
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Speaker 2: ability to support and understand each other had to be incredible,
10:01
Speaker 2: probably the first time in his life. He said, they
10:03
Speaker 2: really get it right, Like I know everyone else understood,
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Speaker 2: but this person really gets it. And so it sounds
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Speaker 2: like his life's kind of lining up. I got the
10:11
Speaker 2: ability to then the most precious years be a stay
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Speaker 2: at home dad. I'm now happily, you know, in a
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Speaker 2: relationship or in no rush, and my career seems.
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Speaker 4: To be really getting its feet underneath of me again.
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Speaker 4: And he seems happy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what's interesting about Ray is because he had
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Speaker 1: such a high profile job where he often interacted with
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Speaker 1: the media. You can actually find interview clips of him
10:33
Speaker 1: online from the years before he went missing. So this
10:36
Speaker 1: is a rare missing person's case where you get to
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Speaker 1: see the person speaking on video rather than just photographs
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Speaker 1: and kind of get an idea of their personality. And
10:44
Speaker 1: he really does seem like a nice, low key, down
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Speaker 1: to earth guy. But I do think it's appropriate that
10:49
Speaker 1: they describe him as enigmatic, that sometimes he was hard
10:52
Speaker 1: to read, and even though he does look like he's happy,
10:55
Speaker 1: as we're going to talk about later, there was speculation
10:57
Speaker 1: that maybe he was feeling secretly depressed or suicidal, and
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Speaker 1: he seemed like he had the type of personality that
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Speaker 1: if he was having a mental health crisis or something
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Speaker 1: was bothering him, he would keep it bottled up inside
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Speaker 1: and not tell anyone.
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Speaker 2: That's fair, But I do wonder too, when you have
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Speaker 2: a job like he had, where he's a prosecutor, you
11:16
Speaker 2: need to be.
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Speaker 4: Animated and you need to be passionate.
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Speaker 2: But I also think you've got to wear your hurt
11:21
Speaker 2: pretty close to your sleeve, because you know, as much
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Speaker 2: as he's advocating for these victims and he's putting himself
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Speaker 2: out there, at some point, you do kind of have
11:29
Speaker 2: to create this boundary where you say, I'm going to
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Speaker 2: do my professional duty and I'm going to try to
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Speaker 2: survive the emotional side of it. And I think sometimes
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Speaker 2: that comes off where you have more of that reserved,
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Speaker 2: cautious attitude where people admire you and think you're you know,
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Speaker 2: gregarious and things like that, but there's also that kind
11:46
Speaker 2: of affect where there's a little bit of a wall
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Speaker 2: and distance from people.
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Speaker 4: Sometimes.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that would definitely make sense, because if he's working
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Speaker 1: with victims all the time who have suffered from horrific
11:56
Speaker 1: crimes and working with a lot of families, I think
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Speaker 1: he would have to keep a professional demeanor and kind
12:01
Speaker 1: of bottle up some of his emotions just to be
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Speaker 1: able to get through it. So in January two thousand
12:07
Speaker 1: and four, Ray announced that he had decided not to
12:09
Speaker 1: seek a sixth term as Center County District Attorney and
12:12
Speaker 1: would not be running for reelection the following year. He
12:15
Speaker 1: would be stepping down at the end of two thousand
12:17
Speaker 1: and five, shortly after he passed his sixtieth birthday and
12:20
Speaker 1: retire from practicing law. He wanted to spend more time
12:23
Speaker 1: traveling and visiting his daughter, Laura, who was living in Seattle,
12:27
Speaker 1: Washington at that point. On April fifteenth, Ray was in
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Speaker 1: the midst of winding down his career and had just
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Speaker 1: seven and a half months left in office. When he
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Speaker 1: and Patty woke up that morning, Ray told her he
12:38
Speaker 1: was planning to take the day off work and went
12:40
Speaker 1: back to sleep. Patty's ordinary routine was to return home
12:44
Speaker 1: at lunchtime in order to take care of their dog,
12:46
Speaker 1: but since she had to run some errands that day,
12:48
Speaker 1: she wrote a note asking Ray if he could handle
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Speaker 1: the dog before she left. Well. At around eleven thirty am,
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Speaker 1: Ray called Patty from his cell phone to inform her
12:57
Speaker 1: that he was now taking a scenic drive in his
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Speaker 1: red and white Mini Cooper and heading northeast on Route
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Speaker 1: one ninety two through the unincorporated community of Brush Valley.
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Speaker 1: He told Patty that he was planning to do some
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Speaker 1: antique shopping, which was one of his favorite hobbies, and
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Speaker 1: he would not be back in time to take care
13:13
Speaker 1: of the dog. But after the call ended, Patty never
13:16
Speaker 1: heard from Ray again. Ray failed to return home that evening,
13:20
Speaker 1: and when repeated calls to a cell phone kept going
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Speaker 1: to voicemail, Patty became concerned enough to contact the Bellefont
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Speaker 1: Police Department and officially reported him missing some time after
13:30
Speaker 1: eleven PM. Patty also reached out to Ray's daughter, Laura,
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Speaker 1: who confirmed that she hadn't heard from him either. Years earlier,
13:37
Speaker 1: when Ray was married to his second wife, Emma, he
13:39
Speaker 1: decided to leave the residence after they got into a
13:42
Speaker 1: huge fight and made an impromptu trip to his hometown
13:45
Speaker 1: of Cleveland, and since Ray was a fan of the
13:47
Speaker 1: Cleveland Indians baseball team, he decided to blow off some
13:51
Speaker 1: steam by attending a double header and watching back to
13:54
Speaker 1: back games at Jacob's Field. While this was going on,
13:57
Speaker 1: Ray did not bother to contact Emma or anyone else
14:00
Speaker 1: to let them know where he was until he suddenly
14:03
Speaker 1: reappeared to work again on Monday morning, as if nothing
14:05
Speaker 1: had happened. Since the Indians had an afternoon game scheduled
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Speaker 1: on April the sixteenth, the Bellfow PD contacted the local
14:13
Speaker 1: authorities and asked them to check the Jacobs Field parking
14:16
Speaker 1: lot for raise Minnie Cooper, but they did not find
14:18
Speaker 1: it there.
14:20
Speaker 2: So you have to digest the two of those situations.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I understand what she was doing. She was
14:24
Speaker 2: desperate and saying, hey, there's a chance, you know, maybe
14:27
Speaker 2: he did the same thing. He failed to communicate and
14:29
Speaker 2: went to the Cleveland's game, but the Cleveland Indians game.
14:33
Speaker 2: But when you look, he was in a fight with Emma,
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Speaker 2: and he was not in a fight with Patty. He
14:39
Speaker 2: was communicating with Patty. And so as a spouse, if
14:43
Speaker 2: you got into an incredibly large fuss, I could actually
14:46
Speaker 2: see being a little bit of a turd and going
14:49
Speaker 2: to a baseball game, ignoring your wife's calls and making
14:52
Speaker 2: her quote worry about you, which is not healthy, and
14:56
Speaker 2: then just showing back up and pretending like nothing else happened.
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Speaker 2: But here with pat they have plans. He's calling and
15:02
Speaker 2: keeping in contact with her. He has, you know, this
15:06
Speaker 2: day where he's going to do some of his favorite things,
15:08
Speaker 2: which is antique shopping. He was filling her in on
15:10
Speaker 2: what was coming that day, and so her first gut,
15:13
Speaker 2: which is something's wrong, wonder where he is. I need
15:17
Speaker 2: to reach out. That is way more probable than him
15:20
Speaker 2: running off and failing to communicate, because they weren't fighting,
15:23
Speaker 2: and he was giving her the details of what his
15:26
Speaker 2: day was supposed to look like and it just didn't
15:29
Speaker 2: end up the way she thought it was going to.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, as we're going to find out, he technically looked
15:34
Speaker 1: like he was going antique shopping because, as we mentioned
15:37
Speaker 1: in the intro, his abandoned car would eventually be found
15:39
Speaker 1: outside of antique Small So it makes you wonder was
15:42
Speaker 1: he actually telling the truth. Did he plan to go
15:45
Speaker 1: there for that reason, or did he have a trip
15:48
Speaker 1: plan for other reasons which he did not tell his
15:50
Speaker 1: wife about. But all anyone knows is that he never
15:53
Speaker 1: came back.
15:54
Speaker 3: I guess you could look at it like he has
15:57
Speaker 3: his history of disappearing, like he was fighting with his
15:59
Speaker 3: wife the time. Like if it is a pattern, maybe
16:02
Speaker 3: he's setting up an like kind of an alibi for
16:05
Speaker 3: like this is where I am, this is where I've been,
16:08
Speaker 3: and then in doing so, he's going to assuage any
16:12
Speaker 3: concerns that she has or any fears, and that may
16:15
Speaker 3: buy him some time if he decided to disappear voluntarily,
16:19
Speaker 3: which I'm not saying that I think that's necessarily what happened,
16:22
Speaker 3: but just that there is a potential that that could
16:24
Speaker 3: have happened. However, at around six thirty pm on the
16:29
Speaker 3: evening of the sixteenth, a state trooper found the Mini
16:32
Speaker 3: Cooper in the small town of Louisbourg, located sixty miles
16:36
Speaker 3: east of Bellefonte in Union County. The Mini Cooper was
16:40
Speaker 3: in a gravel parking lot located across the street from
16:43
Speaker 3: an antiques s mall called the Street of Shops. Like
16:46
Speaker 3: we mentioned earlier, one of Ray's favorite hobbies was collecting antiques,
16:51
Speaker 3: so he traveled to Louisbourg to visit this mall on
16:53
Speaker 3: previous occasions. The vehicle was locked, but when the police
16:57
Speaker 3: managed to open it and get inside, they found Ray's
17:00
Speaker 3: cell phone, which had been issued to him by the
17:03
Speaker 3: county for work purposes and was turned off. A half
17:06
Speaker 3: filled water bottle was also found in the vehicle's beverage holder,
17:10
Speaker 3: and testing would later find traces of raised DNA on it. However,
17:14
Speaker 3: raised wallet and the keys to the Mini Cooper were
17:16
Speaker 3: nowhere to be found. The strangest clue were small traces
17:20
Speaker 3: of cigarette ash on the passenger side floor mat, and
17:23
Speaker 3: there was also a scent of cigarette smoke. This seemed
17:26
Speaker 3: very unusual since Ray is like smoking and everyone who
17:30
Speaker 3: knew him found it unlikely that he would have ever
17:32
Speaker 3: let anyone smoke inside his car. A pair of cigarette
17:36
Speaker 3: butts were also found on the ground near the passenger
17:38
Speaker 3: side of the vehicle, and while DNA was recovered from
17:42
Speaker 3: them and entered into law enforcement databases containing the DNA
17:45
Speaker 3: of offenders, it failed to produce a match. When the
17:49
Speaker 3: sniffer dog was brought in to track raise scent, it
17:52
Speaker 3: did not go any further than the parking lot, which
17:55
Speaker 3: seemed to indicate that Ray may have climbed into another
17:58
Speaker 3: vehicle and left a scene.
18:00
Speaker 2: That's possible too, but when you think about if he
18:03
Speaker 2: was going to go to another vehicle, who then drove
18:07
Speaker 2: his vehicle and had those cigarettes there again, that is
18:10
Speaker 2: one of those factors that says that was so out
18:12
Speaker 2: of character for him. He's never going to be in
18:15
Speaker 2: an enclosed space. You come in my home, you come
18:17
Speaker 2: in my car, you are not bringing your cigarettes like
18:20
Speaker 2: poor Rebel's parents go outside and smoke, you know, are
18:23
Speaker 2: they ride in their own car?
18:25
Speaker 4: Because it's a hard no.
18:27
Speaker 2: And so when you know, when we think about Ray's
18:31
Speaker 2: car is found with those items in there, in those
18:34
Speaker 2: kinds of details, yes, clearly there's stuff that traces back
18:37
Speaker 2: to Ray because he drove that car. But there's also
18:40
Speaker 2: elements that say, wait a minute, there was someone else
18:42
Speaker 2: there and like I said earlier, likely someone he was
18:46
Speaker 2: not very closely associated with.
18:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and online discussions about this case, I've actually seen
18:52
Speaker 1: people try to put for the cigarette butts as evidence
18:55
Speaker 1: of a suicide, thinking that if Ray wanted to end
18:57
Speaker 1: his life, maybe he just wanted to enjoy one last
19:00
Speaker 1: cigarette beforehand. But no, like this wasn't a former smoker
19:03
Speaker 1: who had quit for a long time and wanted one
19:05
Speaker 1: final cigarette. He was a guy who had detested smoking
19:08
Speaker 1: period and will not let anyone smoke in his car.
19:11
Speaker 1: So that really does suggest that he was in the
19:13
Speaker 1: presence of another person who was in that car. But
19:16
Speaker 1: to this day, they've never been able to figure out
19:18
Speaker 1: who it might be. So there were multiple witnesses who
19:22
Speaker 1: were called seeing Ray and Louisbourg on April fifteenth, and
19:25
Speaker 1: it appeared that earlier that day, before he parked the
19:28
Speaker 1: car in this particular lot, he had parked across the
19:30
Speaker 1: street from another location, the Packwood House Museum. Employees from
19:35
Speaker 1: the museum said they saw Ray pacing around outside in
19:37
Speaker 1: a nearby park as if he appeared to be waiting
19:40
Speaker 1: for someone, but at some point he moved his car
19:43
Speaker 1: to the lot near the Street of Shops. The most
19:46
Speaker 1: intriguing sighting was provided by witnesses who said they saw
19:49
Speaker 1: a man matching Ray's description inside the Street of Shops
19:52
Speaker 1: walking alongside a dark haired woman, and they appeared to
19:55
Speaker 1: be together since they were speaking to one another. During
19:59
Speaker 1: the early stages of the investigation, it was believed that
20:01
Speaker 1: the brown haired woman might have been a close friend
20:04
Speaker 1: of Ray's named Barbara Patito, who had worked as a
20:06
Speaker 1: TV reporter in State College. Not only did Petito match
20:10
Speaker 1: the description, but she was known for being a smoker
20:13
Speaker 1: and a regular customer at the Street of Shops who
20:15
Speaker 1: had an interest in antiques. However, it turned out that
20:19
Speaker 1: Potito was away on vacation in New York on the
20:21
Speaker 1: date Ray went missing, so she was ruled out as
20:24
Speaker 1: being the woman Unfortunately, the sighting of the woman was
20:27
Speaker 1: not made public until thirteen months after Ray disappeared, and
20:31
Speaker 1: investigators would face criticism for not pursuing this lead more aggressively.
20:35
Speaker 2: Well, when you say witnesses saw this, how many witnesses
20:39
Speaker 2: saw this?
20:40
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was quite a few, like not
20:42
Speaker 1: just one, but various witnesses throughout the course of the
20:45
Speaker 1: day who were certain that they had seen Ray walking
20:47
Speaker 1: alongside this woman. And the ones I've been intrigued about
20:51
Speaker 1: is when they say they saw Ray and a woman
20:53
Speaker 1: in close proximity to the Mini Cooper, Because that is
20:56
Speaker 1: a very distinct vehicle. So you have to think that
20:59
Speaker 1: if you saw Ray and a woman or a man
21:01
Speaker 1: and a woman standing beside it, then it's probably Ray.
21:04
Speaker 3: So if this is the woman who was potentially smoking
21:08
Speaker 3: near the vehicle, I could only think of a scenario where,
21:12
Speaker 3: like I was a smoker ten years ago, I haven't
21:14
Speaker 3: touched them since I can't stand the smell now. I'm
21:17
Speaker 3: very put off by it, but I can understand for
21:19
Speaker 3: people it's a very difficult habit to quit. And if
21:23
Speaker 3: it was a woman that he was attracted to or
21:25
Speaker 3: potentially having an affair with, sometimes people. And I'm not
21:29
Speaker 3: saying this is what happened, but sometimes people will forgive
21:32
Speaker 3: vices in others if it is a scenario like that.
21:36
Speaker 4: That's very true. That's very true. He could be like,
21:38
Speaker 4: listen with you, I don't care. Yeah, that's.
21:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes sense to me. I've given people rides
21:45
Speaker 1: with people who have smoked in my car, even though
21:47
Speaker 1: I don't particularly like smoking. But I'm more flexible if
21:51
Speaker 1: I know that they want to smoke and I'm doing
21:52
Speaker 1: them a favor.
21:53
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say, I'm more flexible
21:55
Speaker 3: if I think they're hot.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I didn't want to say. That would never
21:59
Speaker 1: be his podcast.
22:05
Speaker 3: When Patty performed a search of her residents, the only
22:08
Speaker 3: items of Rays which appeared to be missing were a
22:11
Speaker 3: pair of sunglasses and his county issued laptop computer that
22:14
Speaker 3: he used for work purposes. Patty said it was uncharacteristic
22:18
Speaker 3: of Ray to bring his laptop on non work related trips.
22:22
Speaker 3: He also left behind the computer's case, power cord, and
22:26
Speaker 3: sloppy drive, and the laptop's battery was believed to have
22:29
Speaker 3: about two or three hours worth of power. The Mini
22:33
Speaker 3: Cooper had been parked in close proximity to the Susquehanna River,
22:37
Speaker 3: which had two bridges crossing over it. One of them
22:40
Speaker 3: was part of Pennsylvania Route forty five and used by
22:43
Speaker 3: local traffic, while the other was a rusted, abandoned railway trestle.
22:48
Speaker 3: There was some concern that Ray might have decided to
22:50
Speaker 3: intentionally jump off one of the bridges into the river,
22:53
Speaker 3: as the whole scene had some striking similarities to another
22:57
Speaker 3: tragedy experienced by the greek Car family years earlier. In
23:02
Speaker 3: May of nineteen ninety six, Ray's older brother, Roy Greekar,
23:05
Speaker 3: who was fifty three years old at the time, left
23:08
Speaker 3: his home in Westchester Township, Ohio, after telling his wife
23:12
Speaker 3: he was going to buy some mulch, but he never returned.
23:16
Speaker 3: Two days later, Roy's abandoned car was discovered forty miles
23:19
Speaker 3: away at a park in Dayton, located near a bridge
23:22
Speaker 3: overlooking the Great Miami River, one week after he originally
23:27
Speaker 3: went missing. Roy's body was found in the river, down
23:30
Speaker 3: streamed from a spot where his car had been parked.
23:33
Speaker 3: Since Roy had a history of struggles with depression and
23:35
Speaker 3: bipolar disorder, it seemed likely that he jumped off the
23:39
Speaker 3: bridge and drowned, and his death was ruled to be
23:41
Speaker 3: a suicide. The fact that Ray's abandoned car was also
23:45
Speaker 3: found a great distance from his home, near a bridge
23:48
Speaker 3: overlooking a river, caused speculation that he may have followed
23:51
Speaker 3: in his brother's footsteps and ended his own life. While
23:55
Speaker 3: Ray had no documented history of depression or suicidal behavior,
23:59
Speaker 3: and his life ones believed that he was looking forward
24:02
Speaker 3: to his upcoming retirement. However, people had recently started noticing
24:06
Speaker 3: that Ray appeared to be withdrawn and giving off signs
24:09
Speaker 3: that he was fatigued, as he would often take naps
24:12
Speaker 3: after work and at lunch time. In fact, Ray seemed
24:15
Speaker 3: to spend so much time sleeping that in the weeks
24:18
Speaker 3: prior to his disappearance, Patty suggested that Ray go see
24:22
Speaker 3: a doctor, but he never did. On April fourteenth, the
24:26
Speaker 3: day before Ray went missing, he took a half day
24:28
Speaker 3: off from work, and witnesses would recall seeing a Mini
24:32
Speaker 3: Cooper parked at a local lakeside marina during the morning
24:35
Speaker 3: hours with Ray sitting inside. Later that evening, surveillance camera
24:40
Speaker 3: showed Ray arriving at his office at the Center County
24:43
Speaker 3: court House, but he left just under two hours later,
24:46
Speaker 3: and no one could be certain what he was doing there.
24:49
Speaker 3: In search of Ray's office computer would show that he
24:51
Speaker 3: had done an Internet search to look up the route
24:54
Speaker 3: to Bellefonde to Louisbourg, which struck some people as odds
24:57
Speaker 3: since Ray had previously driven to that area. Yeah, on
25:00
Speaker 3: numerous occasions.
25:02
Speaker 4: That is really odd.
25:03
Speaker 2: If he was familiar with the area, you know, why
25:05
Speaker 2: would he need to look it up on the computer.
25:08
Speaker 2: But it is It's sad when you think about they've
25:10
Speaker 2: already suffered a tragedy where his brother completed suicide in
25:16
Speaker 2: a way that they're now assuming could he have followed suit?
25:20
Speaker 2: Could he have been you know, telling Patty, this is
25:23
Speaker 2: my plan, this is where I'm going, right, And instead
25:26
Speaker 2: of the verbal plans, he has these other mental plans
25:29
Speaker 2: that he's actually saying, I'm going to take my own life,
25:33
Speaker 2: and I just don't want her to worry. So he
25:35
Speaker 2: kind of has this quote monotonous routine day and never
25:38
Speaker 2: comes home.
25:39
Speaker 4: But again, I don't know when he's not sleeping much.
25:43
Speaker 2: He's stressed at the end of his career. There's grief
25:46
Speaker 2: that goes into that change, you know. But he has
25:49
Speaker 2: plans to retire so he could spend time with his daughter. Remember,
25:53
Speaker 2: even though the marriage didn't work, that was like the
25:56
Speaker 2: greatest thing he had in his life, more than his
25:59
Speaker 2: career and things like that, He's going to go hang
26:01
Speaker 2: out with Lauren, get to see her more if he retires,
26:03
Speaker 2: and he's not sleeping very much and being encouraged.
26:06
Speaker 4: To the doctor.
26:07
Speaker 2: But I could chalk that up to just stress and
26:10
Speaker 2: grief and venality of saying, you know, a chapter of
26:12
Speaker 2: my life is closing, and I want to make sure
26:14
Speaker 2: I end my cases, wrap up things that I want
26:16
Speaker 2: to get done. But then you look and you say, Okay,
26:19
Speaker 2: we know Ray went to his office. We're not really
26:22
Speaker 2: sure what he was doing there. But if you look
26:24
Speaker 2: at the office computer, he's googling this place that he
26:28
Speaker 2: should be or searching his place. He should be very
26:31
Speaker 2: familiar with what could he need to know that he
26:33
Speaker 2: doesn't already know.
26:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's a possibility if he was
26:37
Speaker 1: planning to meet someone there, that maybe he had to
26:39
Speaker 1: look up the instructions because maybe he knows the route
26:42
Speaker 1: by heart, but he has to get the directions from
26:44
Speaker 1: the computer so that he can provide them to someone.
26:47
Speaker 1: And I know that people have speculated that maybe Ray
26:50
Speaker 1: was depressed and suicidal, because retirement is sometimes difficult for
26:54
Speaker 1: people they don't know what they're going to do with
26:55
Speaker 1: themselves once they no longer work. But this wasn't a
26:58
Speaker 1: force mandatory retirement. He was almost sixty, and he could
27:01
Speaker 1: still continue working for a couple more years if he
27:04
Speaker 1: really wanted to. And even if he didn't win re election,
27:07
Speaker 1: he could have gotten some other job in the Center
27:10
Speaker 1: County Attorney's office. So yeah, everyone just swears that he
27:14
Speaker 1: just didn't show any signs of being suicidal or depressed.
27:17
Speaker 1: But as I'm sure you know, sometimes people can mask
27:19
Speaker 1: those symptoms very effectively. Since there were no obvious signs
27:23
Speaker 1: of foul play at his abandoned vehicle, investigators seriously explored
27:26
Speaker 1: the possibility that Ray elected to take his own life
27:29
Speaker 1: and performed a search of the Susquehanna River. Since the
27:33
Speaker 1: currents were strong and Ray was not known for being
27:35
Speaker 1: a great swimmer, he likely would not have survived, even
27:38
Speaker 1: though the fall from both of the bridges crossing over
27:40
Speaker 1: the river was only twenty five feet. However, a search
27:44
Speaker 1: of the river failed to turn up Ray's body or
27:46
Speaker 1: any other evidence. But since the spring melt had recently
27:49
Speaker 1: taken place, the water level was higher than usual. By
27:53
Speaker 1: the time summer arrived, the water level had considerably lowered,
27:56
Speaker 1: and on July the thirtieth, some fishermen finally discovered ray
28:00
Speaker 1: laptop in the river, lodged against a bridge support on
28:03
Speaker 1: the abandoned railway trestle. A forensic examination of the computer
28:07
Speaker 1: indicated that it had been in the river for months,
28:09
Speaker 1: but the laptop's hard drive was removed and a new
28:12
Speaker 1: search of the area failed to turn it up. But
28:15
Speaker 1: two months later, on October the First, a mother and
28:18
Speaker 1: daughter skipping stones in the water wound up coming across
28:20
Speaker 1: a hard drive on the riverbed near the railway trestle.
28:24
Speaker 1: The spot was about one hundred yards upstream from where
28:26
Speaker 1: the laptop had been found, and it seemed impossible that
28:29
Speaker 1: the hard drive could have been dislodged accidentally. After the
28:32
Speaker 1: computer was tossed into the river, the hard drive had
28:36
Speaker 1: to be manually unscrewed, so someone had clearly gone to
28:39
Speaker 1: the trouble of intentionally removing it. By this point, the
28:43
Speaker 1: hard drive was so badly damaged by the sand and
28:45
Speaker 1: grit from the riverbed that it was impossible to recover
28:48
Speaker 1: or extract any data from it. Even after the FBI's
28:52
Speaker 1: best forensic crew performed an analysis. Prior to his disappearance,
28:56
Speaker 1: Ray had purchased software to erase the computer's hard drive,
29:00
Speaker 1: which did not seem unusual since he was likely planning
29:03
Speaker 1: to wipe his work laptop for his upcoming retirement at
29:06
Speaker 1: the end of the year, but it was eventually revealed
29:08
Speaker 1: that a search of Ray's home computer showed that he
29:11
Speaker 1: had performed Internet searches using such terms as quote how
29:15
Speaker 1: to wreck a hard drive, how to fry a hard drive,
29:17
Speaker 1: and water damage to a notebook computer. So this only
29:21
Speaker 1: increased speculation that Ray may have removed the hard drive
29:24
Speaker 1: from the laptop and tossed both items into the river
29:27
Speaker 1: because there was something on there he did not want
29:29
Speaker 1: people to see.
29:31
Speaker 4: That is incredibly bizarre.
29:33
Speaker 2: I would have just thought, hey, look he's trying to
29:36
Speaker 2: destroy information. Remember he's a prosecutor. There's a lot of
29:39
Speaker 2: sense of information on his computer. But this is also
29:42
Speaker 2: not some backwoods prosecutor's office. I'm sure there is an
29:46
Speaker 2: actual policy of you have to do the following things
29:50
Speaker 2: to destroy information, store information, write vile.
29:53
Speaker 4: Information before you leave.
29:55
Speaker 2: It's real interesting when you look at it's how to
29:58
Speaker 2: wreck a hard drive, how to fry the hard drive,
30:00
Speaker 2: and then water damage, so we're going beyond like, hey,
30:03
Speaker 2: I've got this old computer. I'm going to just try
30:05
Speaker 2: to get rid of it. We don't need to go
30:08
Speaker 2: now submerged in water. And then it's found in water.
30:11
Speaker 2: That's a little bit questionable. And it almost gives me
30:13
Speaker 2: the Ray Rivera vibes a little.
30:15
Speaker 1: Bit that is true, Yeah, because I remember Ray Rivera
30:18
Speaker 1: had made a number of strange Google searches on his
30:20
Speaker 1: computer before he was disappeared and found dead. And my
30:24
Speaker 1: day job, like one of my duties is when employees
30:27
Speaker 1: lead having to do stuff like erase their hard drive
30:30
Speaker 1: or archive all the files that they want to save
30:32
Speaker 1: after they leave. And it's a very like a standard
30:35
Speaker 1: process where if Ray was buying software to erase the
30:39
Speaker 1: hard drive, that wouldn't have been anything unusual. But yeah,
30:42
Speaker 1: the Google searches just seem like too much of a coincidence,
30:45
Speaker 1: and it makes you wonder like was he making plans
30:48
Speaker 1: to destroy what was ever on this computer and what
30:51
Speaker 1: could have been on there if he felt that he
30:53
Speaker 1: needed to do something like toss it into a body
30:55
Speaker 1: of water.
30:57
Speaker 3: And since ash brings up the Ray Rivera case interesting
31:00
Speaker 3: because it's like, is it something that's on there that
31:03
Speaker 3: could be dangerous or is it something that he's just
31:07
Speaker 3: believing that it's dangerous because he's got himself into a
31:10
Speaker 3: mental health situation where he won't go to a doctor
31:13
Speaker 3: for help. But clearly he is experiencing something and maybe
31:17
Speaker 3: masking some symptoms of something because he's sleeping so much
31:20
Speaker 3: that he's taking naps at lunch and this isn't characteristic
31:24
Speaker 3: of him, and his partner noticed that there's something to
31:28
Speaker 3: be worried about here when you're urging your partner to
31:31
Speaker 3: go okay, like you really need to go see a physician,
31:34
Speaker 3: but then they're holding back. But the fact that this
31:37
Speaker 3: laptop is found in the river creates so many different possibilities.
31:41
Speaker 3: Did somebody else take it from Ray because of the
31:44
Speaker 3: information on there that they wanted destroyed because it would
31:47
Speaker 3: be deleterious to them, Or did Ray destroy it because
31:52
Speaker 3: of one of his connections to the cases that he
31:54
Speaker 3: thought something that he did or his conduct could have
31:57
Speaker 3: been damaging, or that the information and may have been
32:01
Speaker 3: threatening if it got out there for him personally. Or
32:05
Speaker 3: did he just want to destroy this laptop because he
32:08
Speaker 3: didn't want anyone to be able to trace where he
32:11
Speaker 3: was going, and somehow there might have been a clue
32:13
Speaker 3: to that on his laptop.
32:15
Speaker 1: Or, to take another analogy to the Ray rivera case,
32:18
Speaker 1: if he was having a mental health crisis. Maybe there
32:20
Speaker 1: was nothing of value on there, but in his own
32:22
Speaker 1: mind he thought there was, which is why he felt
32:24
Speaker 1: the need to destroy it. Or maybe it was just
32:27
Speaker 1: an act of misdirection where he wanted to add some
32:29
Speaker 1: intrigue to his disappearance or suicide, so he just decided
32:33
Speaker 1: to toss this laptop into the water for no reason.
32:37
Speaker 3: When Ray's coworkers returned to his office following his disappearance,
32:41
Speaker 3: they noticed a county codebook lying on the desk of
32:44
Speaker 3: an assistant district attorney, and curiously, it was open to
32:47
Speaker 3: the page describing what to do in the event that
32:50
Speaker 3: a sitting district attorney went missing or died. Even though
32:54
Speaker 3: the authorities explored the possibility that Ray could have voluntarily
32:58
Speaker 3: staged his own disappearance, there would be no further activity
33:01
Speaker 3: on his bank accounts, credit cards, and cell phone records.
33:05
Speaker 3: No discrepancies were found in the district attorney's office financial
33:09
Speaker 3: accounts to suggest that Ray had done anything illegal to
33:12
Speaker 3: compel him to run away, such as embezzling money. There
33:16
Speaker 3: would be a number of reported sightings of Ray, including
33:19
Speaker 3: two witnesses who were certain that they'd seen him watching
33:22
Speaker 3: a Cleveland Indians baseball game at a bar in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania,
33:26
Speaker 3: on April eighteenth, three days after he went missing. One
33:31
Speaker 3: month later, a retired police officer thought he saw Ray
33:34
Speaker 3: and an older woman together at a restaurant in Southfield, Michigan,
33:39
Speaker 3: and another witness became convinced that she'd seen Ray sitting
33:42
Speaker 3: in the studio audience for a taping of an episode
33:46
Speaker 3: of The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago, though in search
33:49
Speaker 3: of the episode's footage turned up empty. One woman was
33:53
Speaker 3: so certain she had seen Ray eating at a restaurant
33:55
Speaker 3: in Texas that she snapped a photo of the man
33:58
Speaker 3: with her cell phone and turned it over to the authorities,
34:01
Speaker 3: but the FBI analysis of the photo concluded that the
34:04
Speaker 3: man was unlikely to be Ray. Even though his daughter
34:08
Speaker 3: Laura lived several states away in Seattle, she maintained a
34:11
Speaker 3: close relationship with him. They frequently spoke on the phone
34:15
Speaker 3: and visited each other several weeks per year, but Laura
34:18
Speaker 3: said she never heard from Ray after he went missing.
34:22
Speaker 3: Laura and Patty agreed to take polygraphs in which they
34:24
Speaker 3: denied any knowledge of raised disappearance, and wound up passing.
34:29
Speaker 3: The authorities considered administering polygraph tests to both of Ray's
34:32
Speaker 3: ex wives, as well as his two nephews, Tony and
34:35
Speaker 3: Chris Greekar, but ultimately decided against it, though they did
34:39
Speaker 3: not believe that any of these individuals knew what happened
34:42
Speaker 3: to Ray. Laura was a trustee of Ray's estate, and
34:46
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven, she petitioned Center County to officially declare
34:50
Speaker 3: him dead before the standard seven year waiting period expired.
34:55
Speaker 3: On July twenty fifth of that year, Ray was declared
34:57
Speaker 3: dead in absentia, and ironically enough, the judge who presided
35:01
Speaker 3: over the decision was David Grine, the former Center County
35:05
Speaker 3: District attorney who gave Ray a job as an assistant
35:08
Speaker 3: three decades earlier, which paid the way for Ray becoming
35:12
Speaker 3: district attorney himself. In an odd coincidence, just one day
35:16
Speaker 3: after this decision was made, and unidentified John Doe was
35:20
Speaker 3: arrested in Utah on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. Since the
35:24
Speaker 3: man refused to reveal his name and bore a striking
35:27
Speaker 3: resemblance to Ray Ricar, there were speculations that he might
35:31
Speaker 3: have been Ray, but a fingerprint check ruled this out,
35:34
Speaker 3: and the man was soon identified as a sixty one
35:36
Speaker 3: year old New Mexico resident named Philip Beavers.
35:41
Speaker 2: Here's what's really interesting. He never contacted Laura. I get
35:45
Speaker 2: wanting to disappear. I get needing to start a new life,
35:48
Speaker 2: but to never reach out to the baby who really
35:51
Speaker 2: was the defining pride of your life, and the fact
35:54
Speaker 2: that he was planning retirement to be with her and
35:57
Speaker 2: all of these things is just I mean, imagine a
35:59
Speaker 2: father who's very well educated and who is very sensitive
36:04
Speaker 2: to victim's needs, saying, look, my family has already been
36:07
Speaker 2: through a suicide with my brother. We I on a
36:12
Speaker 2: daily basis, see what grief and trauma does to a family.
36:15
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna abandon my daughter and never contact her.
36:17
Speaker 2: But I would have run off and have a new life.
36:19
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem probable now if it was a suicide,
36:23
Speaker 2: I don't think you're in the middle state to understand
36:25
Speaker 2: other people's needs and grief. But if it is a
36:29
Speaker 2: choice to just leave. I don't see that here. You know,
36:34
Speaker 2: he's smart, he is involved in the criminal justice system.
36:36
Speaker 4: So could he leave and know what not to do
36:41
Speaker 4: to you know, send any signals to anybody? Sure? I
36:45
Speaker 4: just don't see it. And it's very bizarre that.
36:48
Speaker 2: There's multiple, multiple, multiple sightings of people who can swear
36:52
Speaker 2: and are convinced that they saw him. Now, remember, I
36:55
Speaker 2: think all three of us are on the same page
36:57
Speaker 2: when we say, like a those can always be almost
36:59
Speaker 2: chalked up, not very reliable because you might be looking
37:04
Speaker 2: for him or going back in your mind and trying
37:06
Speaker 2: to put him in a location. But some of those
37:09
Speaker 2: sound really suspicious and interesting.
37:13
Speaker 1: I actually remember the live coverage when they found that
37:17
Speaker 1: John Doe in Utah who bore a resemblance to Ray,
37:20
Speaker 1: and before they confirmed that it wasn't him, they actually
37:22
Speaker 1: published a photograph of him in the newspaper and if
37:24
Speaker 1: you look at it, you're like, wow, I think there's
37:27
Speaker 1: a real possibility this could actually be him. But then
37:30
Speaker 1: they completely ruled it out and found out it was
37:32
Speaker 1: a man named Philip Beavers. But yeah, I do think
37:35
Speaker 1: after all these years that Ray disappearing voluntarily is the
37:38
Speaker 1: least likely of any of these theories. I remember when
37:41
Speaker 1: I saw this case on Disappeared, it was only about
37:43
Speaker 1: five or six years after a had gone missing, so
37:46
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, it's not impossible he could be hiding
37:49
Speaker 1: out somewhere. But now we've just passed a twenty year anniversary.
37:52
Speaker 1: There's been no confirmed sidings, no activity on his bank accounts,
37:55
Speaker 1: so it seems really really unusual that he's still alive
37:58
Speaker 1: and might still be out there. So I think that
38:01
Speaker 1: the two lit most likely explanations are probably either suicide
38:04
Speaker 1: or him becoming a victim of foul play. So by
38:07
Speaker 1: the end of twenty eleven, a major story would make
38:10
Speaker 1: national headlines, which just happened to have a link to
38:13
Speaker 1: raise career as Center County District Attorney. In November of
38:17
Speaker 1: that year, a grand jury indicted Jerry Sandusky, a retired
38:21
Speaker 1: assistant coach from the Penn State Nitney Lyons football team,
38:24
Speaker 1: with fifty two counts of sexual abuse. Sandusky ran a
38:28
Speaker 1: nonprofit charity called The Second Mile, which assisted underprivileged and
38:32
Speaker 1: at risk children, but he had used his position of
38:35
Speaker 1: power to sexually abuse several boys over a period of
38:38
Speaker 1: at least fifteen years. When Sandusky went on trial the
38:41
Speaker 1: following year. A jury found him guilty on forty five
38:44
Speaker 1: of the charges. He would receive a thirty to sixty
38:47
Speaker 1: year prison sentence and is still incarcerated to this day.
38:51
Speaker 1: Given that the Penn State football team was such a
38:53
Speaker 1: beloved institution, the story ballooned into a major scandal, amidst
38:57
Speaker 1: allegations that high ranking officials had known about Sandusky's abusive
39:01
Speaker 1: behavior for years but swept all the allegations against him
39:05
Speaker 1: under the rug in order to protect the school's reputation. Well.
39:09
Speaker 1: Sure enough, it would emerge that in May of nineteen
39:11
Speaker 1: ninety eight, Sandusky was accused of inappropriately touching a pair
39:15
Speaker 1: of eleven year old boys in a locker room shower,
39:18
Speaker 1: and the case wound up reaching the Center County District
39:21
Speaker 1: Attorney's office, where it was personally reviewed by Ray Gricar.
39:25
Speaker 1: Ray decided to set up a sting operation where the
39:28
Speaker 1: mother of one of the boys would confront Sandusky at
39:30
Speaker 1: her house while police secretly recorded their conversation in another room.
39:35
Speaker 1: When the confrontation took place, Sandusky did admit that he
39:38
Speaker 1: had showered alongside the boy and hugged him in an
39:41
Speaker 1: inappropriate fashion. Though he stopped short of admitting that he
39:44
Speaker 1: intentionally molested him. He told the mother quote, I understand
39:48
Speaker 1: I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I
39:51
Speaker 1: know I won't get it from you. I wish I
39:53
Speaker 1: could die end quote. A child psychologist who interviewed the
39:57
Speaker 1: boy concluded that Sandusky was likely a pet file, but
40:00
Speaker 1: a second opinion was provided by a counselor who did
40:03
Speaker 1: not believe that Sandusky was an habitual abuser. In the end,
40:07
Speaker 1: Ray decided not to press any charges against Sandusky and
40:11
Speaker 1: closed the case, though it does not sound like he
40:13
Speaker 1: shared the reasons for his decision with anyone. When Sandusky
40:17
Speaker 1: went on trial fourteen years later, the boy from the
40:19
Speaker 1: shower incident, known only as Victim six, was one of
40:23
Speaker 1: the survivors who testified against him. Well. Needless to say,
40:27
Speaker 1: since Ray had been a missing person for six years
40:29
Speaker 1: by the time the Penn State scandal broke, there was
40:32
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation that was connected to his disappearance.
40:35
Speaker 1: When a search was performed to raise old files and
40:38
Speaker 1: handwritten notes, it failed to uncover a single mention of
40:41
Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky or The nineteen ninety eight investigation into the
40:45
Speaker 1: shower incident. Of course, given that Sandusky's abuse allegations were
40:49
Speaker 1: swept under the rug for many years, it has been
40:51
Speaker 1: theorized that Ray may have chosen to participate in the
40:54
Speaker 1: cover up as well, which is why he elected not
40:56
Speaker 1: to press charges. However, Ray's nephew, Tony Greeko, who his
41:00
Speaker 1: function as the family's official spokesman, disputed this, stating quote,
41:04
Speaker 1: One thing I can say is that Ray was beholden
41:07
Speaker 1: to no one, was not a politician. He developed a
41:09
Speaker 1: bitter taste in his mouth for the program and its coach,
41:12
Speaker 1: and that was not much of a secret. So I
41:14
Speaker 1: wouldn't imagine he'd give favorable treatment to anyone associated with
41:17
Speaker 1: the team for any reason. End quote. Indeed, no conclusive
41:22
Speaker 1: evidence has ever been found to suggest that Ray's disappearance
41:25
Speaker 1: was linked to the Penn State scandal.
41:28
Speaker 2: To be honest, had you said that he fought hard
41:30
Speaker 2: and when after Sandusky and brought down Penn State and
41:34
Speaker 2: did press charges, I would be more likely to think
41:37
Speaker 2: there was a tie in here. I remember this case
41:39
Speaker 2: so vividly, and there's an incredible documentary done about the
41:43
Speaker 2: boys who were abused by him. How you think he
41:46
Speaker 2: wasn't a serial perpetrator child sex abusers. Man, we've talked
41:50
Speaker 2: about this before. They groom and they have a method
41:53
Speaker 2: that works so well. It's so clear by the time
41:57
Speaker 2: they're successfully grooming and assault multiple children that this is
42:02
Speaker 2: not their first rodeo. So that comment pretty much disgusted me. However,
42:07
Speaker 2: that's a sidetrack. I think the fact that he didn't
42:10
Speaker 2: pursue charges would be more inclined to say that this
42:14
Speaker 2: is not related to that. At the time when this broke,
42:18
Speaker 2: there were people harassing the accusers, There were people blaming
42:22
Speaker 2: the children. There were people, you know, just rioting and
42:26
Speaker 2: doing all kinds of things because they loved the football
42:29
Speaker 2: program and like Penn State football. And I'm thinking this
42:32
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with Penn State football. This is
42:34
Speaker 2: a man hurting little boys and manipulating them, and looking
42:38
Speaker 2: for kids that need a father figure and don't have one,
42:40
Speaker 2: and he's taking advantage of them and giving them opportunities
42:43
Speaker 2: that they would never have at these university football camps
42:46
Speaker 2: and all kinds of things at his home. It was disgusting,
42:50
Speaker 2: but people truly identified him as a hero being falsely
42:54
Speaker 2: accused and manipulated when he was protected by the university
42:58
Speaker 2: there's several emails. There was a graduate assistant who said,
43:01
Speaker 2: I just walked in on him being intimate in the shower,
43:04
Speaker 2: like not just showering with the boy, like you know,
43:06
Speaker 2: doing things to the boy at a camp and they
43:09
Speaker 2: told him to be quiet, and they escalated it and said, oh,
43:12
Speaker 2: you know, this is what happened. And they were told
43:15
Speaker 2: shut it down and hide that, get rid of that information.
43:18
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I think if he had pursued and chased.
43:22
Speaker 2: Him, there would have been a lot more people who
43:25
Speaker 2: had these grandy oaths kind of I don't know, unnatural
43:29
Speaker 2: obsession with the football team and felt it was a
43:32
Speaker 2: personal vendetta to make sure this man was vindicated.
43:35
Speaker 4: So I'm kind of leaning away from that theory.
43:39
Speaker 3: I'm with you. I think that the probability seems a
43:42
Speaker 3: lot lower given the fact that he decided not to
43:44
Speaker 3: pursue charges. If he had, I would be more inclined
43:47
Speaker 3: to believe that it could be something associated with the case.
43:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk more about this on our later episodes.
43:53
Speaker 1: But a podcast came out a few years ago which
43:56
Speaker 1: was exploring the possibility that maybe Ray was doing a
43:59
Speaker 1: secret invest on the side without telling anyone trying to
44:02
Speaker 1: break this scandal wide open, because apparently, even though he
44:06
Speaker 1: didn't press charges against Sandusky, the whole incident apparently haunted him,
44:10
Speaker 1: and it's possible that he only decided not to bring
44:13
Speaker 1: him to trial not because he was covering anything up,
44:15
Speaker 1: but because he knew that there would be a major
44:17
Speaker 1: backlash for going after someone associated with the Penn State
44:20
Speaker 1: football program. So he probably knew I need an airtight
44:23
Speaker 1: case if I'm going to prosecute anyone for this, and
44:26
Speaker 1: I just don't have it right now. But yeah, when
44:30
Speaker 1: you talked about all these people being harassed and threatened
44:32
Speaker 1: when the scandal broke open, even though a lot of
44:35
Speaker 1: that went on, nobody actually went missing or was murdered
44:38
Speaker 1: over the whole thing. So it makes me think that
44:40
Speaker 1: a phrase disappearance was connected to the Penn State scandal.
44:43
Speaker 1: That so much time has passed and the case is
44:45
Speaker 1: now closed that I think evidence would have surfaced about
44:48
Speaker 1: that by now. So I think that about brings an
44:51
Speaker 1: end to part one of our series. Next week, we
44:54
Speaker 1: are going to share additional information and discuss a long
44:57
Speaker 1: form podcast which was produced about this case. We also
45:00
Speaker 1: wound up having its own inconclusive resolution so join us
45:04
Speaker 1: next time as we present part two of our three
45:06
Speaker 1: part series on the disappearance of Ray Greekar Robin.
45:11
Speaker 5: Do you want to tell us a little bit about
45:12
Speaker 5: the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
45:14
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
45:16
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Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
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Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
46:03
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
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Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
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46:19
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46:20
Speaker 5: about the Jewels and nashty patreons. So there's early ad
46:23
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Speaker 5: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
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46:37
Speaker 3: We'll link them in the show notes.
46:39
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46:49
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46:58
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Collors Comedy