Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
E040: Pamela Ray
1.6k Plays5 years ago
It was a last-minute vacation turned nightmare that left two children motherless. With no fewer than seven eyewitnesses, how could Pamela Ray have just disappeared?
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/CoffeeAndCases)Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Gratitude
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Sleuthhounds. Maggie and I are super excited to be back together with you again this week. I said a few weeks ago that this podcast has been a lifesaver for us. So when so much of our world has been topsy turvy and out of our control, this podcast has been something constant for us to look forward to. And before we continue on, I just want to take a minute and congratulate Maggie.
00:00:28
Speaker
She has just taken a teaching position at a different school and I'll go ahead and admit to all of you Sleuth Hounds, I literally cried multiple times. Maggie can attest to this. But I can't be selfish forever and this move is going to be the best one for Maggie and her family since it is far closer to her home.
00:00:47
Speaker
Plus, Maggie and I will have the podcast as our shared baby, so we will still be getting together for episodes, and it gives us an excuse to hang out, which we don't need, but I'm glad to have it anyway. Plus, Maggie's teaching gifts are going to be shared with all kinds of other students who will be blessed to have her as their teacher. So, please continue to listen, to share, to reach out to us, to show us your support, and actually, I have an idea.
00:01:13
Speaker
As a congratulations to Maggie, how about you take a moment and write us a review? I like it. That would make you feel good, right, Maggie? Yeah, it would make you feel good in my heart. Let's show Maggie some love. And until everything can return to normal, take care of yourselves. Know that things may look different than they did before, as it will for Maggie and me too. But please don't lose faith. Continue to love one another and to know that with each other, we will get through this.
00:01:42
Speaker
Stay together, Sleuthhounds, and stay safe. Now, on to this week's episode.
Pamela June Ray's Disappearance
00:01:49
Speaker
The car was parked there, silent but filled with sleeping life, glistening with the early morning fog coming in from the ocean.
00:02:01
Speaker
As the officer approached the 1991 Plymouth Sundance that had been reportedly sitting in the motel parking lot all night long, he saw the five-year-old little girl and the 12-year-old boy sleeping peacefully. In the front seat was a woman's purse. The darkening rain clouds were rolling in and the first few cold heavy drops were beginning to fall as the officer tried the door.
00:02:30
Speaker
It was locked tight, so the officer knocked. I cannot imagine the fear the children must have felt when they were not only startled awake by an officer, but also when they realized that their mother was no longer in the car with them. What was supposed to be an impromptu beach vacation before school began again had morphed into a nightmare.
00:02:56
Speaker
This is the story of Pamela June Ray.
00:03:36
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron.
Encouraging Audience Involvement
00:03:45
Speaker
We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement.
00:03:53
Speaker
So justice and closure can be brought to these families. With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:04:14
Speaker
Okay, so as you know, here we are again for our promotion. Every week. Every week. We do want to take a second, just in case you're a new listener maybe, to let you know about a promotion that Allison and I have been running for quite a while now. A little while now. Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
We really want to get to 150 ratings on Apple Podcasts. Like, we want to get there, guys. And we will only get there if you guys can help us. To help us, this week we're asking that you share our podcast with at least two people, then we'll be able to reach our goal just a little bit quicker. Yes. If you haven't taken a second to rate the show, you still can!
00:04:58
Speaker
And if you have even a few seconds longer, please consider leaving just a few words about what you enjoyed most about the podcast. We have listeners from everywhere around the world. So while this is a really big favor, we know that you guys can come through. When we get to those 150 ratings, we will do a bonus episode for you. So make sure that you're following us on social media.
00:05:22
Speaker
Coffee and Cases podcast on Facebook, or at Coffee Cases podcast on Instagram, or as always, listen in each week to know when that bonus episode will air. So for real, we're gonna get to the show this time.
00:05:37
Speaker
So, it was only a few short days before school was set to begin, much like right now, Maggie. The most anxious time. Oh my gosh, yes. And the woman at the center of our story today just needed to get away for a few days. I feel her. Yes, I do too. She just wanted to celebrate the peacefulness, so to speak, before the chaos, and I get it. Yeah, that's all of her. Like, I want to be on vacation right now too.
00:06:02
Speaker
And I've already been on vacation this year safely and socially distanced, but with all the added stress of the new school year, I could totally just go away for a few days. Yeah, me too. Like get away from it all. In the car. Yep, drive. Yeah, go
Last-Minute Trip to Panama City Beach
00:06:17
Speaker
wherever.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah. And that's exactly what Pamela Ray was thinking when she began the five to six hour drive from her home in Villarica, just 30 miles outside of Atlanta, Georgia to Panama City Beach, Florida. We love it there. I know. And this case stood out to me because that's the beach that we love going to visit for vacation.
00:06:39
Speaker
I don't want to knock any other beaches that we used to visit, but situated in the Gulf of Mexico, Panama City Beach or PCB, as it is lovingly called, has plenty of rentals to choose from. Delicious seafood restaurants with freshly caught Gulf shrimp. Oh, so good. And other seafood. It's a family friendly place and the water is so clear that you can be chest deep and look down and see your feet.
00:07:07
Speaker
That's my favorite. Love it. This year, when we went, we looked down from our 21st floor condo that we rented and we saw dolphins playfully swimming and jumping all on the coast. I sent the video to Maggie. I was like, oh my gosh, look at what I can see from my window. And these are also likely the images in Pamela's head as she drove through the night with her two children, her five-year-old daughter and her 12-year-old son.
00:07:36
Speaker
Now, before I really get into the episode, there are a couple of details that I read about I personally don't understand and I wanted to get your take on it, Maggie. Okay. First, Pamela and her children, well Pamela as the adult, decided to leave for this last-minute trip at 10 o'clock at night.
00:07:58
Speaker
Pamela reportedly had called local motels in Panama City Beach just to ensure that there were vacancies in the area and assured that there were had decided to set out that night. Now, maybe I'm too much of a penny pincher, but if I were going on vacation, I wouldn't want to waste a night of payment by arriving at a hotel at like 3 to 4 a.m. and then have to pay just to sleep for a few hours.
00:08:24
Speaker
I instead, I would have left at like 5 to 6 a.m., gotten there around noon, parked the car, gone to the beach until time to check in, and then, you know, paid for that night. Well, I thought you just, when they left that late,
00:08:39
Speaker
which I had forgot, you said it was only like six hours away, but sometimes we leave for vacation at night and drive through the night. But it's a longer drive, usually. Yeah, but it's a longer drive. I know, and so, and I guess the other reason is I'm a morning person, I'm not a night owl. Yes, you are a night owl. Oh, okay.
00:08:57
Speaker
I can't sometimes, I stay up until like two writing episodes. She's basically just one of those people that doesn't need sleep. But once I do get tired, I cannot make myself stay awake. And that might be at eight o'clock at night, it might be at two in the morning, but I can't make myself stay up. So instead, I could sleep from say midnight until two a.m. though, and then I could get up and I could stay up.
00:09:22
Speaker
Maybe if I were a night owl this leaving at 10 p.m. would make sense to me I don't know but I don't it just stands out to me because that's not something it just isn't Like again, you're only five hours away. So why waste the money? It just isn't right like something up. It's not people. It's not Sensible, right
00:09:43
Speaker
And the second detail is that Pamela had decided to go on this vacation just her and her children, 12-year-old son Shane and 5-year-old daughter Brandi.
Eyewitness Accounts and Suspicions
00:09:54
Speaker
Her husband, Michael Ray, couldn't go because he had to work.
00:09:59
Speaker
Now, I personally would feel so guilty going on a vacation by myself. Plus, I probably wouldn't have any fun. You know, like I want everybody there. And I don't know. I didn't find it anywhere in the reading why she would have gone.
00:10:17
Speaker
you know gone ahead and gone even though her husband couldn't go but maybe she had promised her kids a trip and maybe he thought he could get off of work but he wasn't able to you know and thinking well I promise the kids school's about to start. Anthony would be like you are not going until I can go with you to the beach.
00:10:38
Speaker
And I couldn't find a reason listed Slutown's anywhere just that he couldn't go. I did read that Pamela's sister Rhonda Bishop had been thinking about going and taking her son. So it would have been I guess some family together. But Rhonda and her son had already been on vacation that year and she still needed to buy school clothes and supplies which PS are expensive.
00:11:02
Speaker
I mean, our district has kindly purchased school supplies for every child for the upcoming school year, but my daughter is attending school in another district. And I told Maggie this, well, I complained to Maggie about this, but I spent almost $200 on school supplies. So, I get that that could stop you from going on vacation. Yeah, because that's a pretty significant chunk of vacation money. Right, and that wasn't even close. That was just the supplies. Right.
00:11:31
Speaker
Pamela's sister Rhonda decided to stay home and save her money instead. In hindsight, Pamela's sister considers that the biggest mistake of her life.
00:11:42
Speaker
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, she stated the following, quote, that was a horrible decision I made. If I could take that one decision back, that's the decision in my life that I would take back. Oh my gosh, that's heartbreaking. And I mean, she couldn't have known. I mentioned this in my last episode. It's not natural to think that something like this would happen.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you don't naturally think right in most instances, the family would have gone to the beach, enjoy the warm weather, come home tired, but with sun kissed skin ready to settle back in the day to day details, go to school. But this wasn't the normal circumstance.
00:12:24
Speaker
Pamela's children fell asleep soon into the drive, the excitement of the destination, not enough to keep their heavy lids open. So when she pulled onto Front Beach Road around 3.30 in the morning on August 12th, 1992, looking for a place to stay to rest her own eyes, she was likely very anxious to be sleeping as peacefully as her children were. Trying to find a vacancy, she began her search at White's Motel.
00:12:52
Speaker
Most sources report that the hotel told her that a room was not immediately available. So, she decided to wait in her car. I would have just decided to stay in the car. It's 3.30 in the morning. I know. Yeah, why waste the money? Exactly. Several eyewitnesses, as well as two police officers, recall seeing her car in the parking lot.
00:13:17
Speaker
at around five to five thirty a.m., so about two hours later, the next sightings were given. At this time, witnesses say they saw a woman meeting Pamela's description, walk from her car to the hotel lobby, well to the door to the hotel lobby, and then head towards the hotel's swimming pool.
00:13:39
Speaker
Apparently, when she left her car, she had left her children locked in there along with her purse. And the only thing I can think, Maggie, is that maybe she went to either try to check in and was thinking, well, I'll just let the kids sleep a little bit longer until I get the room key. You know, and I can start and see where the room is. I can start unloading things.
00:14:00
Speaker
But according to reports, she never checked into the hotel and she left her purse in the car containing her travelers checks. Which she would need. Exactly. That's an odd thing to leave behind if you're going to need money to check into a hotel. So,
00:14:17
Speaker
I also don't know what would have made her go toward the pool instead of heading back to the car once she couldn't check in and then the only thing I could think is maybe she wanted to like stretch her legs. Maybe see the amenities, the hotel bed. Yeah, breathe in the cool morning air and then you know come back because she knew she was gonna have to wait a little bit longer.
00:14:38
Speaker
The report of one Panama City Beach officer seems to support this theory as he had seen Pamela sitting in the car reading a newspaper. So obviously biding time until check-in and she was obviously awake at that point. So maybe she did just get out to stretch her legs. Who knows for Pamela for being able to like function on only two hours of sleep. I know. I'm like an eight-hour type person. I gotta have my sleep. Seven hours is pushing it.
00:15:08
Speaker
Well, some of the witnesses who spotted Pamela around 5.30 believe that she could have been followed to the pool by a white male, a quote, Sandy-haired beach bum with a ferret. Okay, well, let's just say if I were to be awake at 5.30 in the morning and I saw a man with a ferret, my first instinct is gonna be, hey, can I put your ferret?
00:15:40
Speaker
And you know I talk a lot about eyewitness testimony and memory and I'm gonna go more into detail into the psychological reasons of my skepticism later in the episode but I do believe and Maggie and I've talked about this before that odd things happening do make memory more reliable and
00:15:57
Speaker
And I would imagine that seeing a petite five foot three, 110 pound brunette, followed by a man carrying a ferret is something that would definitely have stood out in my mind. Like it makes sense that somebody remembered that.
00:16:11
Speaker
Others in the hotel later reported that around that time, around 5 30 in the morning, they heard faint screams that sounded like help me or save me coming from outside. But since none of the hotel rooms had a phone,
00:16:30
Speaker
no one called the police. And I thought that was a weird detail because even from my childhood vacation memories, I never remember going to a hotel that didn't have a phone in the room. I thought that was odd. Yeah, even now they have them and people have cell phones. Right. Like I've never seen a hotel room that did not have a phone. Also, and I know that like
00:16:52
Speaker
When you hear somebody saying help me or see someone being hurt in public and there's a lot of people around, isn't it less likely someone will actually help them? So maybe that was kind of the thing. They thought somebody else would poke their head out the door to check and make sure somebody was okay. But I would hope that if I heard someone shouting help me or save me, I would at least make Anthony go investigate. Have you heard of the Kitty Genovese case?
00:17:19
Speaker
This is the woman who was attacked three separate times and she yelled as the attacker was stabbing her. People threw their windows open, turned lights on, saw it happening, but as soon as they would open their windows, the killer would leave.
00:17:35
Speaker
And nobody called the police. And then a second attack happened. Same thing. She's screaming, I'm dying. He's killing me. People throw windows open and they look and the killer runs away. Nobody calls the police. And then the third time he came back again.
00:17:51
Speaker
And he killed her. And it was only after she was dead that somebody called the police. And people were like, oh, I didn't want to get involved. Yeah, I was scared. And I'm thinking, in your favor, she was scared. Right. Right. And so I guess, I mean, psychologically, that is a phenomenon. And that's sad to say, but I guess it could be the case.
00:18:16
Speaker
here too. One of the police officers who had seen Pamela that morning wanted to try to remember every potentially significant detail from that night and he even underwent hypnosis in order to recall potentially suppressed memories. So he's like maybe I saw something that you know I can't recall. So
00:18:36
Speaker
under hypnosis. The officer also recalled seeing Pamela followed by a six foot tall white male in his twenties with sandy blonde hair and a lean build roughly 150 pounds wearing a striped shirt.
00:18:52
Speaker
But he recalled seeing Pamela speak with the man, lock her car with the key in her hand, and walk with the man to the parking lot near the pool of the Wilhite Motel. So a motel across the street from the White's Motel, which is where other people had witnessed seeing her. So still like in that same vicinity, similar description of the man.
00:19:18
Speaker
Regardless, the woman who so many had seen was now gone and had left her purse and her children behind. So obviously the police knew to suspect foul play and her family knew it was foul play as well. Pamela's mother, Helen Bennett, in August 1993 told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, quote,
00:19:42
Speaker
I know a lot of people think she just ran off somewhere, but I've had 36 years and I know her. They don't. She would have never left those children." End quote.
00:19:55
Speaker
Immediately, Pamela's sister Rhonda and her husband Michael bolted to Panama City Beach to get the children, Shane and Brandy, and to help search for Pamela. They immediately posted a $10,000 reward hoping that would help clues to come in, which sadly is probably true if you post money.
00:20:16
Speaker
The first attempts were made to find the sandy-haired man from the eyewitness accounts and they were successful. Police quickly found the man meeting the description, Ferret and All, on August 15th, 1992. So only three days after the disappearance. Okay, so that's good. Yeah. And he was a man whom people had seen hanging around the area the preceding week, sleeping on the beach. So he was a loner, an outsider.
00:20:44
Speaker
However, according to Middle Tennessee mysteries writer Michelle Willard, the man had a quote, fair alibi. That's fair. Yeah. I have no idea what that means. Uh, what the heck a fair alibi is. Okay. Right. Um, and now I did read one source where this man was linked to another crime, but because of conflicting eyewitness accounts,
00:21:12
Speaker
they couldn't verify whether he had, so I don't really know what fair alibi means, but either way, apparently it was enough to dismiss him as a suspect. So, ferret man, gone. Clear. Yeah. Pamela's family stayed in town to post literally thousands of missing posters and to wait.
00:21:34
Speaker
Wait for news. Yeah. Wait for something. Anything to hang their hopes onto. The days following Pamela's disappearance were plagued by torrential rains though. One report stated two inches of rain on the 12th and an additional four inches of rain on the 13th. Yeah. And this is the kind of rain, of course,
00:21:54
Speaker
that impeded search efforts in the surrounding sand dunes, the wooded areas near the motel, and ultimately the police found no other evidence. So if there were any, it was washed away. Bleeds fizzled until a few months later when a man was picked up who also met the hypnotized officer's description. So similar description to the Farrah man.
00:22:21
Speaker
No ferret though? No ferret. This man was also one who had committed violence against women. He had been arrested for the rape and kidnapping of a woman in Florida only five months before Pamela disappeared.
00:22:36
Speaker
but with police investigations, no connection with Pamela Ray's disappearance could be established. So even though he met the description and he- Was he just like walking around through this man that raped someone? Well, he was also, again, because of conflicting accounts, couldn't be held for those crimes. So, yeah. And then years with nothing.
00:23:06
Speaker
until six years later. And that had to be six long years for Pamela's family after the disappearance.
Mark Rebe's Confession and Skepticism
00:23:16
Speaker
But six years later, a man by the name of Mark Rebe confessed to killing Pamela Ray.
00:23:23
Speaker
Mark Reby's confession was made while he was already in prison for another murder. Reby's half-brother, William Alex Wells, had at a Bible study session, while he was in prison for a robbery charge, admitted to being an accessory to the murder of 29-year-old pregnant Donna Callahan of Florida.
00:23:51
Speaker
He told those in the Bible study that his brother, his half-brother Mark, had killed Donna, but he admitted that he had helped Mark by driving the car and helping him bury the body. Well, I hope that Bible study was good because they need Jesus. I know. Well, to show the veracity of the testimony, he then told investigators where to find Donna's remains.
00:24:16
Speaker
When police swarmed the property of William Alex Wells and Mark Rebbe's childhood home, sure enough, they found Donna's remains in the exact place that William had said they were. Both Wells and Rebbe were then charged with Donna Callahan's murder and are serving still life sentences for that crime. But while in prison for that murder charge, Mark Rebbe admitted to other murders,
00:24:45
Speaker
12 in total, including that of Pamela Ray. With Pamela, the officer said that Mark had given details about Pamela's investigation that someone who wasn't the perpetrator wouldn't have known. One detail was that Pamela was holding a single key to her vehicle in her hand, something that Pamela notably did. So not multiple keys, not on a key ring, just
00:25:13
Speaker
the single key to the car ignition. So that is like an odd detail and that's something that Mark Rieby reported to police. Rieby said that the night of August 11th into the morning of August 12th 1992, he and his wife had been partying hard and had run out of money.
00:25:35
Speaker
He said that they then were out scouting the strip and their red firebird looking for someone to rob. So he admits to this. So him and his wife are just like, hey, let's go rob people. Let's rob somebody. Anthony and I were like, we need some more money. Anthony and I were like, hey, let's put a Dairy Queen for your blizzard. I know. Let's gather up our change. Yeah, in the swaths in the couch. It was then that Ruby spotted Pamela's car with its out-of-state plates.
00:26:04
Speaker
He said he approached her, flipped open a switchblade, and in his confession, he states, quote, she made, it wasn't what you call a real loud scream, but she made some noise. I told her to shut up, and if she made another sound, I'd kill her right then and there.
00:26:27
Speaker
end quote. So maybe that's what the help me. Right and why it was faint and maybe maybe it was so faint even the people doubted hearing it and they were like because if you hear a noise and it wakes you up you're probably not registering what the noise was that woke you up. So maybe if it wasn't repeated or like and I know this is bad too but like
00:26:47
Speaker
sometimes you say help me or like save me if you don't really mean it like maybe Anthony's like tickling me and I'm like save me! Right right right so maybe you wouldn't know to think oh my gosh somebody is being abducted exactly
00:27:03
Speaker
However, this confession becomes problematic for me for two reasons, Maggie. First, if his goal was to rob Pamela, then I wonder how he could have done it in such a way without waking the kids. And second, if the goal to rob someone is to get money, right, why would he have let her lock her purse and her traveler's checks in the car?
00:27:34
Speaker
So do we know if maybe she had like cash on her at the time like in her pocket? I don't know but I'm assuming, now we obviously we don't use traveler's checks anymore but I can remember when I was younger when we would go on vacation we would go and we would get traveler's checks with the money so you wouldn't be carrying
00:27:54
Speaker
cash because you could use it like cash but you would have to sign it so it was like a secure way because you didn't have like debit cards right like you have now and so usually if you have travelers checks you're not also gonna have cash and so I don't that part doesn't make any sense to me and the second reason for my skepticism is the strongest though
00:28:16
Speaker
And it's the fact that Mark Rebe later recanted his confessions to the murders of Pamela Ray and the 11 other women. So he took it back. He said, just kidding. Take that, Cease. Right. I said that, but I didn't do it. And before I tell you from where my skepticism stems in any recanted confession,
00:28:40
Speaker
I also wanna tell you that according to an article in the Panama City News Herald published on March 17th, 2019, police did later admit that all of the information contained in Reby's confession concerning the case of Pamela Ray had indeed already been reported by either law enforcement or by local media. Oh, so people would have already known. Right, so it's unclear whether he really gave details that only a perpetrator
00:29:10
Speaker
would have known and that detail, I feel like it has to be noted for what I'm getting ready to tell you. The central element of my skepticism for some confessions comes from my distrust of memory in general in most circumstances because memory is fallible, right? I can misremember something and memory is moldable.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, so I can change what I remember to fit what I wanted to be. Or even like, I can tell my child, I can say, oh, this is something that happened to you when you were younger. And then she believes that she has the memory of that event.
00:29:52
Speaker
But she only has it because I told it to her, right? So Elizabeth Loftus of the Association for Psychological Science performed experiments in which she was able, this is crazy Maggie, to prompt individuals to recall memories that had never happened. What? Yes.
00:30:12
Speaker
So Loftus made them quote unquote remember being lost in a mall as a young child and the longer Loftus prompted the individuals with details about their quote unquote memory, the more they became convinced that the memories were real.
00:30:30
Speaker
And so I bring this up because the implications of her experiment on confessions is astronomical. The inference of course is that the longer an interrogation goes on, the more details that are given.
00:30:45
Speaker
Which we've seen that before. Like when police keep pushing and then they're finally like, yeah, I did, you know, just so that it ends. Exactly. Yeah. So the more prompting that's given, um, the more details, the more the suspect can begin to doubt their own recollections and maybe even potentially believe that they actually did commit the crime. So now you see obviously where my doubt stems.
00:31:09
Speaker
I need to read up on this because I just want to know how she got these people to believe something that didn't and it was like the majority of the people who she spoke with.
00:31:18
Speaker
I'm gonna have to read up on this. It's fascinating. Well, also fascinating. A man by the name of Saul Cassin, he is a professor of psychology and the recipient of the American Psychological Association's Presidential Citation for his work on false confessions, has studied this connection with some shocking results. The Innocence Project, I know you've heard of that, cites that nearly 30% of convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved false confessions.
00:31:49
Speaker
and it happens to be more common than what we want to believe, and obviously the repercussions are irreparable. Well, Cassin found that even when confessions were deemed coerced or false, so we know that they are coerced, we know that they are false, the conviction rate remains high in those cases.
00:32:09
Speaker
Interestingly, false confessions often contain a high level of detail about why and how a crime happened. And it's that level of detail that investigators and jurors have a hard time getting past, right? So they're like, well, how would they have so many details if it were a lie? The other problem is that many states mandate a taped confession
00:32:37
Speaker
but not the interrogation that happens previous. And since memory is malleable and prompting of memories has such a powerful effect without seeing that interrogation, if I'm judging the confession, I have no idea really what details were voluntarily provided by the suspect and which were insinuated by the interrogators and then just agreed to. So now you see why confessions
00:33:07
Speaker
are problematic. Well, in his experiments, Cassin even found that seemingly irrefutable and tangible evidence like fingerprints.
00:33:18
Speaker
can fall prey to influence. So he did experiments of his own and in one of them he found that forensic fingerprint experts even changed their stories when prompted by law enforcement to believe that their previously correct judgments on matching fingerprints had been deemed incorrect.
00:33:38
Speaker
And then they like, you have something in my face right now. Right? Cause you think like, oh, a fingerprint, it's unique to you. There's nothing about it that could be questionable. Right. And even they began to doubt. So this leads to this question, and I'm sure you guys are thinking at two sleuth hounds, well then why do false confessions happen? So Cassin, he came up with three common reasons. First are voluntary false confessions. Those that are done for fame,
00:34:08
Speaker
to protect the real culprit or due to mental health issues or delusions.
00:34:14
Speaker
The second are compliant false confessions. Those in this horrible situation in which they know that they're innocent, but they're told that they're gonna be punished as if they're guilty if they don't confess. So they confess just to get out of the present situation. And you mentioned that earlier, like an escape mechanism, if you will. Like, I've got to get out of this situation, so I, you know, I'll just say that I did it, right? If they're gonna treat me as if I'm guilty anyway.
00:34:44
Speaker
And as soon as those in this category are out of the situation that caused the stress, Cassin says they normally recant. But as we've seen, that's often too late because even if you know it's false, high conviction rate.
00:34:58
Speaker
The third type are internalized false confessions. So you know you're innocent, but due to young age, mental ability, trauma because you've just lost a loved one or some other vulnerability, you're told these lies that
Exploring False Confessions
00:35:18
Speaker
seem to be so true that you yourself can become convinced that you actually did do the crime.
00:35:25
Speaker
And I know that seems crazy, but like, for example, Maggie knows this about me, I try not to lie. Yes, Alison is a very, like, pure person. I try. I try. Like, very nice. So, if somebody told you, Maggie, well, Alison is the one who turned you in, she said that you were there and that you did it, right? And then you're thinking, well,
00:35:55
Speaker
I mean, I trust Allison. Allison doesn't lie. And she's saying that I did it. I mean, it would be like if your mom said that you did something, right? Something heinous, then you'd be like, did I do it? I just don't remember it. Like I blocked it out somehow. And so you begin to doubt yourself.
00:36:14
Speaker
Well, Cassin noted in a podcast interview on speaking of psychology when talking about DNA exonerated men and women, right? So they've already been found innocent because of DNA that quote, 95% of the confessions contained facts about the case that were spot on accurate with regard to the crime and that were not in the public domain. Facts that only the perpetrator could have known.
00:36:43
Speaker
And the problem is, the police knew those facts too. Oh, so they can get later the questioning. Exactly. And so he said, somehow, advertently or inadvertently, those facts made their way into the final statement. So that's why it's so tricky. This is why
00:37:05
Speaker
I doubt. Even as teachers, if you ask the classic question and you get the blank stare, you will reword the question or rephrase it so that you are guiding them to the answer you want them to give.
00:37:24
Speaker
So, I mean, we do that. Right. Or you could say, so you're telling me that you were nervous. And if they say yes, they didn't say they were nervous, you insinuated something they've agreed to it. And what's even scarier that Cassin found is that we can't tell the difference between a real true confession and a false one.
00:37:47
Speaker
He said, what we do know is that most of those who make false confessions actually waive their Miranda rights.
00:37:55
Speaker
What? Thinking that hiring a lawyer will make them look guilty. Yeah, they look bad. And then they're pinning their hopes on this idea that innocence proves itself, right? Like if I'm innocent, I'll be found innocent. And even though Maggie and Sleuthounds, we all know that this world is corrupt, we so desperately want to believe that justice still rules.
00:38:19
Speaker
And we want to believe that people are good, ultimately, at heart. Yeah, because you all know I'm naive. Like, I believe... Oh, I totally am. The government is there to protect me. You know, like, I trust my government. I trust my police. Like, this is just mind-blowing to me. Right. And we want to think that the truly guilty will be punished. And, you know, if I'm innocent, everybody's gonna be able to see that innocence. It is, as Cassin calls it, though,
00:38:46
Speaker
the illusion of transparency. It's an illusion. We think that when we tell a lie, others will automatically see through it and that when we tell the truth, that others will automatically feel it to be true, giving quote, comfort to the person who did no wrong, right? Because we're like, oh, if I tell that people will be able to tell. Well, sadly, a naive belief that justice needs no proof other than the statement of innocence
00:39:23
Speaker
So hopefully you understand now, Sleuth Hounds. I know that was long-winded and it was backed up by a lot of psychological reasons but this is why I continually question memory and even in some cases confessions especially those that have been recanted, right? Like so obviously this guy could be guilty and I'll talk about all the red flags and the reasons but then at the same time
00:39:39
Speaker
can lead to injustice, es
00:39:46
Speaker
because it's recanted does he fall into one of those categories where he's like taking back what he said because he realizes he's out of that high-pressure situation right and now it's too late what do we know what type of situation he was in when he confessed I did not see that discussed so I don't know
00:40:10
Speaker
Notably, Crystal Dawn of the Lost and Found blog claims that special agent Dennis Haley, to whom Mark Ruby confessed, admits that he himself believes that many of the confessions that Mark Ruby made about the 12 women were indeed false because they were filled with vague details.
00:40:32
Speaker
details that didn't match actual evidence in some of the crime scenes or in one case actually matched the confession of killer Otis Toole with whom Ruby had been jailed with in the past. So he could have like overheard this other guy say yeah now he's confessing to that crime too. And even in the case of Pamela Ray, there were discrepancies.
00:40:55
Speaker
So like in one instance in his confession he said he buried her body in Port Washington and in another he said he put her body in the ocean.
00:41:05
Speaker
So with all that said, my skepticism in this instance could be completely misguided, right? And Rebbe could be guilty. I just wanted us to note that there is a more complete picture, right? To all of this before we cast judgment. And admittedly, there are red flags with Rebbe that seem to imply guilt despite his recantation. So I'm gonna tell you the red flags.
00:41:34
Speaker
The first is that in 2000, police reopened the excavation of the same property in which they found the remains of Donna Callahan. And 30 yards away from where they had located Donna's remains, more human remains were found.
00:41:51
Speaker
So obviously. So yeah, he's killed multiple people. Right. Serial killer. And then you've got to think, okay, well, if he's killed multiple times before, is it that, you know, far of a stretch to say that he killed Pamela Ray as well? The hope was obviously that those remains belonged to Pamela, but Maggie, I couldn't find verification anywhere.
00:42:15
Speaker
despite those statements by Pamela's sister and the findings of further remains that those bones belonged to Pamela. Instead, I read reports like those in the Panama City News Herald that the bones were sent for forensic testing but that Pamela Ray's case remains an open investigation. So we don't know whose bones these bones are? Right and that becomes a little bit more complicated sadly in a detail I'm about to tell you.
00:42:45
Speaker
So, the fact that her case remains open, it does seem to tell me either that the bones didn't belong to Pamela, that further evidence was needed to link her death to Wells, Reby, or the both of them, right, to the crime, or that the finding of the human remains was fraudulent.
00:43:08
Speaker
Sadly, the bones were discovered by a cadaver dog by the name of Eagle, whose handler later pled guilty to planting evidence in several instances for her dog to locate so she and her dog could gain prestige.
00:43:27
Speaker
I am shocked. I know. Like that sickens me. Yes. That somebody could do that. You know, when a family is like so desperately searching for their loved one and then to think that you could plant evidence just so you can gain prestige. The second incriminating detail comes from the memories of Ruby's children.
00:43:49
Speaker
While all children were called the same moment from their childhood, it's Mark Levy's daughter, Jelena Hayes, who has joined forces with Pamela's sister, Rhonda, in trying to prove her father's link to Pamela's disappearance and supposed murder.
00:44:06
Speaker
Jelena recalls as a four-year-old child moving in the middle of the night in a rush, and not a small move either, but the move from northwest Florida to Warrensburg, Illinois. Wow. Yeah, so that's about 800 miles or nearly 1,300 kilometers for international listeners. She was riding in the U-Haul with her father, and she remembers seeing these trash bags in bins.
00:44:33
Speaker
and she recalls him telling her not to touch the bags, like not to get near them. When they arrived in Illinois, Mark Reby put all of his children to work digging holes around the property. This is sketchy! Yes, and into those holes, Maggie? The trash bags from the U-Haul.
00:44:57
Speaker
So Jelena is obviously convinced that those bags contained the remains of the women that her father had murdered. And if that's true, again, I can't get past this, that would mean that Mark Ruby knowingly made his own young children accomplices in his murder spree as a serial killer by having them dispose of the remains. So he possibly transported
00:45:26
Speaker
multiple women's bodies in trash bags and then had his children, one of whom was four, dig the hole so that he could hide these. He did not win father of the year. No, he did not. And as Pamela's sister Rhonda Bishop later told Alexis Stevens of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quote, she, meaning Jelena, had to carry that burden throughout her whole life.
Family's Quest for Closure
00:45:57
Speaker
She thinks he killed my sister along with many others." An even Agent Haley, who does admit remember that some of the confessions of Rebe's may have been false, he does believe that Mark Rebe and Mark's half-brother were responsible for the death of several other women
00:46:18
Speaker
for whom Rebe's confessions contain details that no one in his mind other than the killer could have known. And even though those confessions were also recanted, this detective is positive that he, I mean there were specific details. Like one of them I read was that there was another person at the scene and then later DNA testing proved that there was
00:46:45
Speaker
this other person at the scene which was like a detail that they hadn't have known before. But whether he is right this detective and Mark Rebe is guilty of Pamela Ray's death or Rebe has fallen prey to the powers of false confessions
00:47:05
Speaker
It remains to be seen. I mean, we don't know. I just can't get past the making your kid possibly bury somebody. I know. I mean, we take trainings on how childhood trauma affects people throughout their entire life. And I cannot imagine carrying that trauma through life and trying to be successful in life with that guilt. I know.
00:47:32
Speaker
And Jelena, Ruby's daughter, she said she has other reasons to suspect her father as well. She said she remembers photographs of her mother wearing a ring that looks similar to the one that Rhonda says her sister Pamela had been wearing, which could corroborate the confession of a robbery, right? And that his wife was there, knew about it. But we don't know. Was it the same ring?
00:48:01
Speaker
Were there bodies in those trash bags? We don't have answers to those questions nor to where Pamela's remains might be. And before I close and I really do hate to bring up this next part but I honestly feel like if I'm going to present a complete narrative then I need to bring it up. Pamela Ray's disappearance
00:48:27
Speaker
also happens to coincide with a significant life event that I'm going to backtrack to that happened a few years prior.
Potential Motives and Unanswered Questions
00:48:36
Speaker
In 1989, the bank made a grievous error. A bank teller accidentally wired $400,000 into Pamela's father's Ralph Bennett's bank account instead of the one that it was supposed to go into.
00:48:54
Speaker
And instead of reporting the mistake, the family had spent nearly all of the money. They had even purchased a condo in Panama City Beach in Pamela's name.
00:49:10
Speaker
Well, eventually police investigators had traced the error and discovered what Pamela's family had done. Her father pled guilty to theft of mislaid property and had actually been working in the years that followed to repay much of the money.
00:49:27
Speaker
According to Aaron Diane of the Panama City News Herald, quote, he was spared jail time and given probation on the condition he repaid the remaining $100,000. But when he fell behind on payments, everyone involved, including Ray, was indicted. She was out on bond at the time of her disappearance, end quote.
00:49:52
Speaker
So, obviously there is the possibility that her disappearance had something to do with the money owed. And that's why I bring it up, right? It is a possibility. Right, she could just like lift. Or... Right, which I guess is why that explains why her mom is saying she would have never left her kids, though.
00:50:16
Speaker
And I will also say that police have in every instance that I've seen dismissed that as a cause. So, I mean, this is a tough situation because we do have a confession.
Emotional Toll and Call for Information
00:50:32
Speaker
We have a confession by someone believed to be a serial killer who's killing for no legitimate reason. But at the same time,
00:50:45
Speaker
has recanted his confession, given vague details, given details that the public already knew about the case and could have been coerced. So if you guys just heard a loud bump, I just knocked my funny bone on the desk. Because you got so frustrated. My brain is like, I don't even have any like comments to say because my brain is just like,
00:51:15
Speaker
going so many different, it hurts. It's going so many different places. I know. It's like you think this is true. Oh, nope. But it could be false. And then, well, no. No. Just kidding. I know. And yet, we have a family in the wake with no answers.
00:51:32
Speaker
While the remains found on Reby's previous property may not have been Pamela's, her sister Rhonda has not given up hope. She remains convinced that clues found during that investigation will lead to a conviction for her sister's death and will finally allow her to bury her sister right next to her parents.
00:51:54
Speaker
She told WJHG News Station, quote, everything we uncovered fits together like a puzzle. We're just missing that last little piece so we can bring Pam home, end quote.
00:52:10
Speaker
Pamela's son, Shane, a father himself, just wants closure. While he himself did not come as close to blaming Rebe for his mother's death as his aunt does, he did tell the Atlanta Journal Constitution, quote, when you do something, you know what you did and you know where things are. You don't play games. It's just playing with people's emotions and it's not a good thing, end quote.
00:52:39
Speaker
He continued on to say, quote, I'm at the state of mind that I don't think we'll ever find out what really happened. There's a big hole of not knowing that's even worse than knowing, end quote. It's the unknown that's the scariest of all. There's comfort in knowledge, even if the news is bad.
00:53:04
Speaker
We've all experienced this feeling recently with COVID. It's scary because we know nothing. Just when we think we do, just when it seems there's answers, everything changes. Now imagine the same is true for the knowledge of the person you love most in this world. Someone out there knows something. Someone has been living with a memory, eating at them for all these years, or recalled by the details of hearing Pamela's story today.
00:53:34
Speaker
Someone out there heard Pamela's cries and perhaps something else. Do your part to bring more peace into this worry-worn world.
00:53:47
Speaker
Anyone with information regarding this case can call the Panama City Police Department at 904-233-5000 or the Macon County, Illinois Sheriff's Department at 217-424-0867.
00:54:07
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:54:37
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.