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E276: Ray Gricar
1.1k Plays10 hours ago
On April 15, 2005, Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar of Pennsylvania left work for what seemed like an ordinary day off. He called his girlfriend while driving his red-and-white Mini Cooper, promised to be home later, and then—he was never seen again. His locked car was found the next day near the Susquehanna River, his phone still inside but his laptop mysteriously missing. Did Gricar walk away from his life voluntarily? Was his disappearance tied to one of his high-profile prosecutions—or to secrets someone wanted buried? Or did tragedy strike by accident along the water’s edge? Nearly twenty years later, the case remains one of the most haunting unsolved disappearances in America.
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Transcript
The Mysterious Disappearance of Ray Gricar
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, there are some mysteries that don't just gnaw at the edges of your mind. They sink in deep and refuse to let go. They leave you with that gnawing question.
00:00:12
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How does someone who seems so steady, so rooted in a community, just vanish? That's our story this week. A man who spent two decades putting criminals behind bars.
00:00:25
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A man trusted with justice itself. and yet whose own story has become one of the coldest, most haunting disappearances in Pennsylvania history.
00:00:37
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This is the case of Ray Gricar.
Ray Gricar's Life and Career
00:00:54
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you
00:01:14
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. 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.
00:01:30
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 in Cases Podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive.
00:01:47
Speaker
So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. Before we get to the day Ray disappeared, we need to understand who he was, not just the headline, District Attorney Goes Missing.
00:02:01
Speaker
But the person, the son, the husband, the brother, the father, the colleague. Because when a man like this disappears, every detail of his life, every relationship, every choice suddenly feels like it might hold a clue.
00:02:17
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Ray Frank Gricar was born October 9, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio, in the city's Collinwood neighborhood. He attended Gilmore Academy, a private Catholic school in Gates Mills.
00:02:33
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He loved baseball. He was a diehard Cleveland baseball fan, and he carried that passion throughout his life. When he went on to the University of Dayton, Ray's future began to take shape.
00:02:46
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It was there, working as an intern in the prosecutor's office, that he fell in love with the law, the way justice could be pursued, evidence laid out, arguments made, and fairness ideally achieved.
00:03:00
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And college wasn't just about finding a profession. It was also where Ray found love. He met Barbara Gray while studying at Dayton, and the two clicked,
00:03:11
Speaker
After graduation, they married in 1969. Together, they returned to Cleveland, where Ray enrolled at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He worked hard, earned his Juris Doctor, and launched into his career as a prosecutor in Cuyahoga County, focusing on some of the toughest crimes, rape and murder cases.
00:03:34
Speaker
By the late 1970s, Ray and Barbara wanted to expand their family, but they faced challenges conceiving. In 1978, they adopted a baby girl, Laura.
Controversial Decisions and Ethical Questions
00:03:46
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Ray doted on his daughter. Colleagues would later describe Ray as someone who could be incredibly private about most aspects of his life, but when it came to Laura, his face softened.
00:03:59
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Fatherhood mattered to him deeply. In 1980, Barbara was offered a position at Penn State University, and that opportunity brought the family to State College, Pennsylvania.
00:04:11
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Ray initially thought about taking a step back from the intensity of trial work. With Laura still a toddler, he planned to be a stay-at-home dad, taking the chance to be present during her early years.
00:04:24
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But fate had other ideas. Center County's district attorney at the time, David Grine, offered Ray a position as assistant DA. a Ray accepted.
00:04:35
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It didn't take long for his talent to show. He was sharp in the courtroom, meticulous in case prep, and unwilling to cut corners. When Grine stepped down and his successor, Robert Mix, decided not to run in 1985, Ray saw his chance.
00:04:51
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He ran for DA and won by a margin of 600 votes. That victory would shape the next two decades of Ray's life. When Ray Gricar took office in 1985, the Center County DA's role was technically part-time.
00:05:09
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Ray, however, had no intention of treating it lightly. Over the years, he pushed successfully to make it a full-time position, finally achieving that in 1996. re-elected four times and he was reelected four times in 1989, 1993, 1997, and
00:05:31
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His reputation grew steadily. Colleagues described him as even-keeled, methodical, not someone who craved the spotlight, but someone who carried the responsibility of justice with quiet seriousness.
00:05:45
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Defense attorneys who faced him said he was fair, but firm. He wasn't a grandstander, but he wasn't a pushover either. But no DA's career is free of controversy, and in 1998, Ray Gricar made a decision that would shadow his name forever.
00:06:04
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In 1998, a mother brought a disturbing allegation to police in State College. After spending some time with Jerry Sandusky, at the time Penn State's legendary defensive coordinator, her son had returned home with wet hair.
00:06:19
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When she pressed him, the boy admitted Sandusky had showered with him. Alarmed, the mother went to authorities. Sandusky wasn't just any coach.
00:06:31
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He was a larger-than-life figure in the area, having served for decades under Joe Paterno. Beyond the football field, he was celebrated as a philanthropist. His charity, The Second Mile, claimed to give disadvantaged kids opportunities and mentorship.
00:06:48
Speaker
He had connections at the university, within the community, even statewide. In central Pennsylvania, Jerry Sandusky was a household name, and with that came both protection and power.
00:07:03
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When the allegations surfaced, police thankfully took them seriously. They arranged for the boy's mother to confront Sandusky in her home while investigators secretly listened in from another room.
00:07:17
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On the recording, Sandusky admitted enough to make anyone's skin crawl, saying things like he wished he were dead, when asked about the incident and begging the mother for forgiveness.
00:07:31
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For many, this sounded like a confession, but for prosecutors like Ray, who knew the exacting standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, it was trickier.
00:07:43
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The tape caught Sandusky saying disturbing things, but not an explicit admission of sexual assault. Sadly, in the letter of the law, what Sandusky said could be spun by a defense attorney as remorse for poor judgment, not remorse for criminal behavior.
00:08:04
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Ray reviewed the evidence and ultimately declined to press charges. It was a decision that baffled and angered some, even at the time. To others who work in law, it was understandable.
00:08:19
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The case relied heavily on a child and a mother's testimony against one of the most powerful men in the region. Without physical evidence or a clear confession, a jury might have acquitted, and the fallout of losing such a case would have been devastating for the victim and the DA's office.
00:08:40
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Still, that choice weighed heavily in retrospect. Thirteen years later, when Jerry Sandusky was finally prosecuted and convicted of abusing multiple boys, more than 40, the 1998 case resurfaced.
00:08:57
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People asked, if Ray Gricar had acted then, how many children might have been spared years of abuse?
00:09:08
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To some, it looked like another instance of a powerful institution protecting its own. To others, it was an example of a cautious prosecutor making a call that, legally speaking, he believed he had to.
00:09:23
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Ray never had the chance to explain his reasoning publicly in detail. But what we know is that this was not a man careless with evidence. Ray Gricar was described as meticulous, and so his decision not to prosecute Sandusky likely came down to one thing.
00:09:42
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He didn't believe he could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. At the time, the public reaction was muted compared to the uproar years later. Sandusky quietly retired from Penn State in 1999, though he retained emeritus privileges and continued to run his charity.
00:10:02
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Only after the 2011 scandal exploded did people look back at Ray's choice with fresh outrage. painting it as what it was, a missed opportunity.
00:10:15
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Professionally, his colleagues had nothing but praise for Ray. Ray's friend and fellow attorney, Bob Buhner, told Jill Sederstrom of the Oxygen Channel, quote, he was the most serious prosecutor I've ever met.
00:10:29
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He was the most serious guy, the most ethical guy, end quote. and probably the best description of Ray, comes courtesy of a segment based on information from Barbara Petito, a local reporter and longtime friend of Ray's, in an article by Sarah Ganim for the Patriot News, published on PennLive.com.
00:10:49
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Here's a portion of that article. Quote, Griecar was classy, Petito said, the kind of guy you never saw dressed more casually than in jeans and a button-down shirt. He was a high-caliber prosecutor, smart as some of the best, with no ambition for political office.
00:11:06
Speaker
His sights were never set on being a judge or attorney general. He had an honest-to-God soul, Petito said. He would talk for hours to victims. He actually cared.
00:11:17
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which is a little bit surprising in this business. She remembers Gricar spending only about $1,000 during one re-election campaign. Another time, he hired his opponent, attorney H. Amos Goodall Jr., to be his personal lawyer after beating him in a race for district attorney.
00:11:36
Speaker
There are so few people who know what doing the right thing is. And Ray was one of those people, Petito said. It was easy for him, which is why, personally, he was Superman for me.
00:11:48
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End quote. Ray's personal life was more tumultuous, marked by both joy and heartbreak. His marriage to Barbara lasted until 1991. Their divorce was amicable. There were no big scandals, no public fights, just a quiet end.
00:12:04
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He remarried in 1996, but that marriage ended in divorce in
The Day Ray Disappeared
00:12:10
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2001. By the early 2000s, Ray had found love again. This time was someone who also understood the unique pressures of his work.
00:12:19
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Patty Fornicola was an employee in the Center County DA's office. The two began dating, and by 2002 or 2003, Ray had moved into Patty's childhood home with her.
00:12:31
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By all accounts, the relationship was stable and warm. Friends said Patty grounded Ray. They lived quietly with their dog, Honey. In photos, you see Ray, slender with a receding hairline, smiling with Patty at family gatherings or community events.
00:12:48
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But Ray's family also carried a dark history. In 1996, Ray's older brother, Roy, had disappeared under eerie circumstances. Roy left his home in Ohio after telling his wife he was going out to buy mulch.
00:13:03
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His car was found days later, abandoned near a river, and his body was discovered a week after that in the Great Miami River. His death was ruled a suicide.
00:13:16
Speaker
That shadow would hang over Ray's own story in ways no one could have imagined at the time, mostly because Ray was pretty stoic. He didn't let a lot show.
00:13:27
Speaker
People who worked with Ray often had the same description. He was private, not unfriendly. He could be perfectly pleasant with a small smile or a wry joke, but he didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve.
00:13:40
Speaker
According to an article cited in Unresolved Podcast's episode on Ray's case, as one colleague, Jim Bryant, put it, Ray was, quote, as predictable as the sunrise, end quote.
00:13:52
Speaker
He liked long drives. He liked baseball. He liked order. He could vanish for an afternoon on a whim, maybe drive to Cleveland just to catch a game. But he always came back until the day he didn't.
00:14:06
Speaker
At the time of his disappearance, Ray was in a good place, or at least that's how it seemed to most people. He had announced in 2004 that he wouldn't run for re-election in 2005 and that he planned to retire at the end of the year, just after his 60th birthday.
00:14:22
Speaker
He talked about wanting more time for road trips, more time with Patty, more time for life outside the courthouse, time to visit his daughter, Laura, on the West Coast. He had spent 20 years carrying the weight of Cinder County's justice system.
00:14:37
Speaker
Retirement was supposed to be his chance to put that burden down, and he was tired. Yet just months before that retirement became reality, Ray Gricar would step out of his red and white Mini Cooper, call his girlfriend to say he wouldn't be home in time to feed the dog, could she do it, and vanish.
00:14:57
Speaker
vanished so completely that two decades later, his family and community are still left asking, what happened to Ray Gricar? On the morning of April 15, 2005, the people who worked alongside Ray Gricar didn't think much of it when he didn't come into the office.
00:15:15
Speaker
He had called in to say he was taking the day off, though he had originally planned to work a half day. Ray had earned that flexibility. After 20 years as DA, he didn't have to answer to anyone about how he spent his time.
00:15:28
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And only months away from his retirement, he was feeling overwhelmed and tired, even napping more. This was a much-needed day off.
00:15:39
Speaker
By mid-morning, Ray was behind the wheel of his beloved red and white Mini Cooper, heading east. At 11.30 a.m., he called his girlfriend, Patty Fornicola, who was still at work.
00:15:50
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He told her he was driving through Brush Valley, a rural stretch of Route 192 northeast of Center Hall. It was a beautiful spring day, and he had driven this route before.
00:16:00
Speaker
He loved the antique stores in Lewisburg. His tone was calm, unhurried. He even mentioned something so mundane it later became haunting. He wouldn't be home in time to feed and let out their dog, Honey.
00:16:14
Speaker
Could Patty let the dog out instead? She agreed. This was the last normal conversation anyone is known to have had with him. Hours went by and no one heard from Ray again.
00:16:28
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When Patty came home that evening and found that Ray hadn't returned, she wasn't concerned at first. After all, he had told her that he wouldn't be home to take care of the dog. So after she had done so, she went to the local YMCA gym.
00:16:43
Speaker
But when she returned home from that two hours later, and Ray still wasn't back, and additionally wasn't answering his cell, she grew uneasy.
00:16:54
Speaker
Ray wasn't a type to vanish without at least a call. By 1130 that night, 12 hours after their last conversation, her worry boiled over.
00:17:05
Speaker
She picked up the phone and reported Ray missing. Police didn't treat the call lightly. This wasn't just a missing person. This was the sitting district attorney of Center County.
00:17:16
Speaker
But they also knew Ray had a streak of independence. Friends remember times when he had just hopped into a car and driven to Cleveland on a whim to catch a baseball game without telling anyone.
00:17:27
Speaker
It wasn't hard to imagine him doing it again. Still, by the next morning, the unease spread. Local law enforcement alerted the Cleveland authorities just in case a similar trip had happened, and they issued a bolo, be on the lookout for Ray's red and white Minnie Cooper.
00:17:48
Speaker
The first real lead came quickly. On April 16th, the very next day, investigators found Ray's Minnie Cooper parked in an unpaved lot on the edge of Lewisburg, about 45 miles east of his home.
00:18:03
Speaker
The location was telling. The car sat near the Street of Shops, a sprawling antique mall housed in an old building near the Susquehanna River. As I stated before, Ray liked antiques.
00:18:16
Speaker
On the surface, it could have looked like a casual stop on a casual drive, but the details inside the car led to questions. The vehicle was locked.
00:18:27
Speaker
Inside, investigators found Ray's county-issued cell phone and a water bottle with what was later determined to be Ray's DNA on it, but not his keys, his wallet, nor his laptop, though the case and the charger had been left behind.
00:18:44
Speaker
There were no signs of struggle in or around the vehicle. The car wasn't disabled, it had been neatly parked. But most telling for those who knew Ray well, there were cigarette ashes inside the car on the passenger floorboard, and the odor of cigarettes permeated the inside of the car.
00:19:06
Speaker
That was strange. Ray despised cigarettes. Friends swore he would never have allowed someone to smoke in his car.
00:19:19
Speaker
Plus, there was also the issue of the missing laptop. His family said that Ray wouldn't normally take the laptop with him on trips. Perhaps, though, he had it because of his original plan to work a half day, but that still didn't explain why it was missing now.
00:19:38
Speaker
Then there was the dog search. A bloodhound was brought in to track Ray's scent. The dog traced it a very short way before it abruptly stopped, suggesting that Ray may have gotten into another vehicle.
00:19:54
Speaker
If true, it meant someone else could have picked him up willingly or otherwise.
Theories and Investigations into Ray's Disappearance
00:20:01
Speaker
Law enforcement looked through Ray and Patty's home and determined that Ray had not taken luggage nor any clothing with him on the seeming impromptu drive.
00:20:12
Speaker
And in the days following his disappearance, there was no activity on either bank nor credit cards, nor on his cell nor email. The discovery of the Mini Cooper stirred eerie memories in Ray's family.
00:20:27
Speaker
His brother Roy, remember, had disappeared nine years earlier in Westchester, Ohio. Roy, too, had left his home, telling his wife he was going to buy some mulch, left his car near river, and was found dead in the water days later, ruled a suicide.
00:20:45
Speaker
Seeing Ray's car abandoned so close to the Susquehanna River, the parallels were impossible to ignore. Was this coincidence or something darker repeating itself?
00:20:58
Speaker
CNN reporter Sarah Ganim had written that Ray's colleagues and acquaintances had noted that Ray seemed distant in the last couple of weeks. Over the next several days, police scoured the area.
00:21:12
Speaker
Helicopters flew over the river. Officers searched the banks, but there was no Ray. It was as though he had walked away from his car and simply dissolved into the spring air.
00:21:23
Speaker
Then came the sightings. In Wilkes Bar, a bartender and an off-duty police officer both claimed they saw Ray sitting quietly at a bar watching a baseball game.
00:21:35
Speaker
In Michigan, a man and his daughter swore they spotted him dining with an older woman. In Ohio, someone thought they saw him at a grocery store. A woman in Texas even snapped photos of a man in a Chili's restaurant who bore a striking resemblance to Ray.
00:21:53
Speaker
The photos were passed to the FBI, but weeks later they confirmed none of these sightings were Ray Gricar. Each sighting lit up hope, but each ended in disappointment.
00:22:06
Speaker
One of the strangest alleged sightings came years later in Utah. A man was arrested for a minor offense and refused to give his name. He looked eerily like Ray.
00:22:18
Speaker
For a moment, people held their breath. Could this be him, alive, having walked away from his old life? But fingerprints proved otherwise.
00:22:29
Speaker
The man was someone else entirely. Still, the speculation lingered. Was Ray out there somewhere, just choosing not to be found? Seeming to support this theory, though this is a detail I could not corroborate, reporter Gary Senderson for WJAC-TV said that a book was later located on Ray Gricar's desk at his office.
00:22:53
Speaker
The book was opened to a page detailing how to replace a district attorney.
00:23:01
Speaker
Meanwhile, immediately after the disappearance, investigators were looking in Lewisburg specifically. The street of shops drew scrutiny. Shop owners said they thought they might have seen him browsing.
00:23:14
Speaker
Some said they remembered someone who looked like Ray pacing beside his car, as if impatiently waiting for someone. Others recalled seeing a man meeting Ray's description in the company of a pretty, five-foot-nine-inch brunette woman in her late 30s or early 40s, though this woman was not Ray's girlfriend.
00:23:34
Speaker
This woman was never identified. Who was she? A friend? A stranger? Something more? Or was that even Ray with her?
00:23:45
Speaker
Another person stated they saw Ray parking his car in the lot around 5.30 p.m. on April 15th. If that sighting is true and Ray's car is found only 45 miles from his home, yet he called Patty at 11.30 a.m.
00:24:02
Speaker
already on the way there, where did he go in the six hours in between until he was seen parking? It definitely wouldn't have taken that long to drive the rest of the way.
00:24:14
Speaker
Months later, the case took another strange turn. On July 30, 2005, fishermen on the Susquehanna River spotted something unusual. A laptop.
00:24:26
Speaker
Specifically, Ray's County-issued computer. It had been lodged against a bridge pier between Lewisburg and Milton. But the hard drive was missing.
00:24:39
Speaker
Investigators dragged the river for days, hoping to find it, but came up empty. Then, months later, in October 2005, a damaged hard drive was recovered about 100 yards from the spot where the laptop had been found.
00:24:55
Speaker
Experts from the FBI, the Secret Service, and private firms tried everything to extract data, but it was too far gone. Whatever secrets it held were lost forever.
00:25:07
Speaker
As you can imagine, the missing hard drive raised more questions. Why would someone strip it out before tossing the laptop in the water? Had Ray done it himself, deliberately erasing something before vanishing?
00:25:21
Speaker
Or had someone else done it to cover tracks? Adding to the puzzle, years later, in April 2009, Investigators revealed that before Ray disappeared, someone had searched his home computer for phrases like how to wreck a hard drive, how to fry a hard drive, and water damage to a notebook computer.
00:25:46
Speaker
That detail split the room. To some, it pointed to Ray intentionally destroying his own digital trail, preparing either to disappear or end his life.
00:25:57
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To others, it looked like someone else had used his computer to plan exactly how to destroy evidence. As days stretched into weeks, the lack of concrete leads took its toll.
00:26:11
Speaker
Police followed every rumor. Some thought his disappearance tied back to his high-profile cases. Ray had prosecuted violent offenders, even members of Hell's Angels.
00:26:22
Speaker
Could one of them have sought revenge? Others whispered about Penn State, about his 1998 decision not to prosecute Jerry Sandusky. Was there a connection there?
00:26:34
Speaker
Theories bloomed like weeds, but none bore fruit.
00:26:47
Speaker
Ray's daughter, Laura, was living across the country at the time. She flew in, fielded questions from reporters alongside Ray's girlfriend, Patty, and held on to hope, though the uncertainty was agonizing.
00:27:00
Speaker
Ray's nephew, Tony, echoed what many felt. Every new piece of information only made the picture fuzzier. As the investigation dragged on, in 2014, the state police took over, and the case began drawing national attention.
00:27:18
Speaker
It wasn't just the mystery of a missing man. It was the fact that this missing man was a district attorney, a man whose job was to uphold the law, had somehow slipped through the cracks of it.
00:27:30
Speaker
TV specials covered the case. Dateline NBC aired a segment. The show Disappeared featured it. Podcasts have since dissected it. Everyone seems to have a theory, but no one has answers.
00:27:44
Speaker
And if you want to understand why those theories dug in so hard, you have to start with family history. the part that felt to some like a rough draft of this vanishing, with Ray's older brother Roy vanishing in 1996 from Westchester, Ohio.
00:28:01
Speaker
Again, his body was recovered from a nearby river days later. Again, the ruling in Roy's case, suicide by drowning. The river, the car, the quiet exit, it all etched itself into Ray's memory and into the family's in a way that would never quite fade.
00:28:20
Speaker
So theory number one of what happened to Ray Gricar is suicide. The pieces the suicide camp leaned on can look painfully persuasive in a single frame.
00:28:32
Speaker
The abandoned car near the Susquehanna, the locked doors, the phone left behind as if he wouldn't need it again, the bridge, the proximity to water, the echo of Roy's death.
00:28:44
Speaker
The missing laptop and then later the discovery of the laptop in the river, hard drive missing first and then found, too damaged to salvage, suggesting someone had both the knowledge and the intent to make sure nothing useful remain.
00:28:59
Speaker
Add to that the internet searches on the home desktop about how to destroy a hard drive and how water damages laptops, and you can see why some investigators and armchair sleuths alike see a man preoccupied with ending his digital footprint and as he ended his life.
00:29:17
Speaker
If you stand in that spot long enough, many of the details start to come together. Perhaps the book detail, open to the page on how to replace a DA, if that detail is true, showed forethought.
00:29:29
Speaker
Could Ray have felt guilty for not prosecuting Sandusky all those years before? Or could something else have been haunting him? If you accept the premise, a depressed or determined Ray, almost anything can be made to harmonize with it.
00:29:45
Speaker
He takes a day off, he drifts to a favored place, he does what his brother did, and in doing so, he ties up a grief he can never quite unknot. But play devil's advocate for a minute and the frame starts to wobble.
00:29:59
Speaker
Because much of this theory gets tied back to Ray's brother's death, you have to know the part that people closest to Ray have repeated over the years. Ray struggled with the conclusion of his brother's death being a suicide.
00:30:14
Speaker
Ray didn't shout it out in public, but he reportedly questioned whether Roy's death was suicide at all, pointing to the ordinariness of Roy's day, the absence of a note, the lack of a clear precipitating event, and the fact that Ray didn't believe his brother Roy would have left behind his two sons.
00:30:32
Speaker
Ray asked police about updates in his brother's case every time he was in the area. Ray knew how neat narratives can be, how tidy an explanation can sound on paper when the actual truth is jagged.
00:30:47
Speaker
If Ray harbored doubts about his own brother's supposed suicide, imagine how complicated it would be, both emotionally and logically, for him to walk the same path.
00:30:59
Speaker
After all, Ray, too, didn't leave a note. Now, that alone isn't disqualifying. Plenty of suicides don't. But for a meticulous man who knew what loose ends do to those left behind, that silence matters.
00:31:14
Speaker
Ray also had travel dreams for retirement, and he had already mapped a life beyond the courthouse. People close to him did not describe a man spiraling. They described a man nap-tired after long years of stress, yes, but looking forward.
00:31:30
Speaker
His phone was left in the car, which some see as a sign of finality. Yet a person planning suicide rarely makes such elaborate provisions to destroy data.
00:31:41
Speaker
Why not drop a single note? Why not leave the laptop at home? Why not simplify? And then there's the physical fact of Ray himself. He was known to be a poor swimmer.
00:31:52
Speaker
If drowning is the plan, It's an odd, drawn-out, and painful death representing less than 1% of all suicides. And then, where's the body?
00:32:05
Speaker
True, bodies are sometimes never recovered, but two decades is a long time for a river that has given up other secrets. And remember this, if he doubted Roy's suicide in private, would he choose that exact pattern as a personal epilogue, or would he recoil from repeating a family trauma that he himself never accepted?
00:32:30
Speaker
Additionally, Ray had no history of depression nor of suicidal ideation. In fact, friend and fellow attorney Bob Buhner told Melissa Farinish of NorthcentralPA.com, quote, I spoke with Ray right before he went missing.
00:32:45
Speaker
There was no way he was remotely suicidal at that time in 2005. He was getting ready to retire in a few months. He was planning trips across the country.
00:32:55
Speaker
He was going to see his daughter in Seattle, Washington, and he was going to visit national parks. He was going to enjoy himself after 35 years of being a prosecutor, end quote.
00:33:08
Speaker
And Buhner may be right. If we believe this theory, how does the cigarette ash fit? Or how about the fact that his scent abruptly stopped as if Ray got into another vehicle?
00:33:21
Speaker
So let's move on to our second theory, voluntary disappearance. This is the one that refuses to let the mind settle because it's the only one that can make sense of how a man with this much public footprint can glide into a version of anonymity.
00:33:37
Speaker
The details can be arranged into a convincing path. Ray learned how to be private in public. He'd always had a measured, understated demeanor in his job.
00:33:48
Speaker
He didn't grandstand. He didn't cultivate local celebrity. He was semi-fluent in both Russian and Slovenian. He had the kind of face that could blend into a European railway cafe and never lift a glance.
00:34:02
Speaker
The day he vanished, he called to say he wouldn't be home to let the dog out, an act that's, to those who believe this theory, part courtesy, part cover. He left the cell phone in the car, and if you even know a little about tracking, you know a phone, even off, can be a breadcrumb.
00:34:22
Speaker
Leave it behind, it won't ping any towers. His laptop turns up where it, too, can't talk. Its hard drive takes a longer ride before washing ashore, also dead.
00:34:36
Speaker
Search terms on a home computer, how to fry a hard drive, how water ruins computers, could signal preparation, not despair. The Bloodhound's confusion near the lot suggests Ray got into another vehicle, and if you're escaping, that's exactly what you do.
00:34:53
Speaker
You leave the obvious, recognizable red and white Mini Cooper behind, and you glide into someone else's car. If you're going to Europe, you can manage exits and entries for a time if you know how.
00:35:05
Speaker
And Ray had several past trips to Europe where he might have gained some insight. He had traveled to Yugoslavia and Austria for two months in 1974 and had returned for another trip in 1983.
00:35:20
Speaker
Law enforcement at least thought this theory plausible enough that they sent flyers about Ray Gricar to be distributed in Slovenia. Others believe this theory because they think Ray might have been put in witness protection.
00:35:35
Speaker
Some sources I read indicated that prosecutors are not eligible for witness protection, but after some research of my own, it seems that if their life is threatened, they are eligible.
00:35:48
Speaker
And yet the counter arguments to this theory too are weighty. Bank accounts? Untouched. Credit cards? Silent. Email? Dead. He was far too careful a lawyer not to understand what declaring yourself legally dead does to the people you love.
00:36:06
Speaker
To their tax life. To their memories. To the way every holiday is punctuated by an empty chair. Ray adored his daughter. He had a stable relationship with Patty. He maintained friendships.
00:36:20
Speaker
If he had intended to disappear forever, why not a letter held by council to be opened after a fixed time? Something to blunt the blade he would be plunging into people who did not deserve this bewilderment.
00:36:33
Speaker
And then there's the practical piece. In my mind, you don't just go to Europe and stay there for 20 years without dropping breadcrumbs somewhere. An airline manifest, a custom stamp, a rental, a friend who finally breaks down and says, okay, yes, he's here.
00:36:49
Speaker
People do vanish on purpose. They do it all the time. Doing it for decades without a single provable data point is rare. It's not impossible, but it's rare.
00:37:00
Speaker
And law enforcement have stated that there is no indication that Ray's disappearance is linked to anything illegal. So why would he want to disappear in the first place? My only thought is that if Ray did choose to disappear voluntarily,
00:37:17
Speaker
Perhaps in his mind, maybe he thought that might make law enforcement look more deeply into his brother's case as well, as though potentially linked and not, as they predetermined, a suicide.
00:37:32
Speaker
If this were the reason, then there wouldn't be a threat on his life, and it would explain why he might have wanted to disappear, to make his life serve a larger purpose in getting justice for his brother.
00:37:45
Speaker
Then there's the third theory, foul play. This one gathers momentum in any conversation that lasts more than five minutes because it can thread the needle between Ray's meticulousness and the chaos he left behind.
00:37:59
Speaker
There's a version of this story where a prosecutor who has kept harsh company, abusers, traffickers, violent offenders, people with vendettas, finally runs into a longtime grudge with means, and it lands.
00:38:12
Speaker
Think of the car. Neat, locked, no struggle. Think of the ashes. A man who hates smoke now has its residue in his car. Think of the bloodhound tracing his scent to an abrupt stop, then confusion as if Ray got into another car, as if someone else were there.
00:38:31
Speaker
Think of the laptop. Maybe it isn't destroyed because a melancholy man wants to set his affairs in order. Maybe it's destroyed because someone doesn't want whatever's on it to become discoverable.
00:38:44
Speaker
Think of the hard drive, physically removed, tossed separately, found later, ruined. If you squint at these pieces, they resolve into a single picture. Someone lured him or seized him.
00:38:58
Speaker
Some argue that it may have been a Hells Angels member that Ray had sent to prison. This theory developed when another Hells Angels member told law enforcement that there had been an order to kill Ray Gricar and that he was coming forward because the one responsible for Ray's death was dead.
00:39:16
Speaker
However, the member the informant named was not dead, and the lead quickly became a dead end. Then there was the theory that foul play could have been linked to the Sandusky case from either side.
00:39:28
Speaker
Either a family member was angry because Ray chose not to prosecute Sandusky, an act that would have saved countless young boys from sexual abuse, or from the other side, if Ray had threatened to expose a cover-up conspiracy for Sandusky from those in his inner circle.
00:39:46
Speaker
Or was Ray Grekar being blackmailed in some way? It would seem to explain a lot of the inconsistencies. Plus, friend and colleague Bob Buhner believed he knew who was responsible for Ray's disappearance.
00:40:02
Speaker
Buhner even told law enforcement his theory before he passed in 2021. However, because this is what I always do, I have questions about this theory as well.
00:40:13
Speaker
Where are the credible threats? He wasn't the sensationalist DA a type. He didn't cultivate enemies. Law enforcement combed through the obvious high-risk prosecutions. They ran down names. They re-interviewed people.
00:40:27
Speaker
Nothing stuck. No credible stalker, no former inmate with a provable itinerary, no recent courtroom rage that spilled beyond the courthouse steps. In fact, Pennsylvania State Police publicly stated that they do not believe that Ray Gricar's disappearance had any links to his job as DA.
00:40:46
Speaker
There is no concrete proof that his vanishing had anything to do with Penn State or with anyone in that orbit. It is a powerful story because it offers a villain big enough to carry the weight we want to put on it, but stories aren't evidence.
00:41:02
Speaker
And in the years immediately following, there wasn't a single verified link. There is a fourth, more modest theory that sits between suicide and foul play.
00:41:14
Speaker
Accidental death. Maybe Ray took one of the footpaths down by the water while clearing his head, slipped, and maybe he fell into the river. Perhaps he even went there to destroy his laptop hard drive for unknown reasons.
00:41:26
Speaker
Maybe he fell while trying to toss them over. The fact that he was a poor swimmer makes this theory plausible. The problem is the rest of the scene. We still don't know why he would have taken his laptop with him.
00:41:40
Speaker
Why leave his car in the lot and walk to a bridge? The ashes in his car and the lost scent argue someone else was with him. If Ray accidentally fell in, why didn't that person call for help? And again, where is his body?
00:41:58
Speaker
Sometimes the most unsettling truth is that multiple theories can be true in part. Suicide can explain the car and the phone, but not the hard drive handling. Foul play can explain the ashes and the dog's cue, but not the total absence of credible threats.
00:42:13
Speaker
Voluntary disappearance can explain the digital erasure and the second vehicle, but not the multi-year silence of confirmed sightings. Accident can explain a potential death, but not why it appears that someone one else was there.
00:42:28
Speaker
It's like those trick drawings where you can see two pictures in one sketch. The more you stare, the more the lines refuse to resolve into one over the other. And still, after all that parsing, we're back where we started.
00:42:43
Speaker
But this case isn't just a puzzle. It's a family. It's a daughter who had to do the legal work of grief when there was no grave to sit beside. It's a partner who came home to silence and has had to live with uncertainty ever since.
00:42:57
Speaker
On the public side, the case became a touchstone. TV specials, podcasts, anniversary articles, the occasional new tip that briefly flares than Dems. On the private side,
00:43:09
Speaker
There were the tasks that no one sees, canceling the small subscriptions
Ongoing Mystery and Call to Action
00:43:13
Speaker
that keep showing up in the mail, deciding what to keep and what to box, walking a dog who keeps waiting for another set of footsteps at the door.
00:43:22
Speaker
The petition to have Ray Gricard declared legally dead, as he was on July 25, 2011, wasn't surrender, but wasn't a surrender It was an act of stewardship. Without legal death, estates freeze.
00:43:36
Speaker
Decisions can't be made. Life calcifies around unanswered mail. People outside the circle read those headlines and think in absolutes. Inside the circle, it's about keeping the lights on, keeping the taxes lawful, keeping the past from holding the present hostage.
00:43:54
Speaker
For Patty, there is no neat ending. She has had to live with the last phone call that is all logistics and no goodbye. To revisit that window of time when a man she loved drove east and left nothing definitive behind.
00:44:08
Speaker
She has had to deal with strangers defending her and strangers suspecting her, neither of which helps you sleep. For Laura, the story doesn't end with a court order. It ends, if it ends, when she can file memories under safe again.
00:44:24
Speaker
Children of the missing learn that absence is a presence. It's in the way you keep your phone charged. It's in the kind of news you can no longer watch. It's in the way your breath catches when a man with your father's gate appears at the end of a grocery aisle, and for one second, your whole body moves toward him before your mind catches up.
00:44:43
Speaker
And for Ray... Whatever version of 4 Ray exists now, the stories themselves are the bulk of what remains. So we go back to the fragments we do have.
00:44:54
Speaker
The phone in the car, the ashes on the passenger side, the scent that fades at the edge of a parking lot, the laptop against a bridge pillar, the drive ruined, found downstream.
00:45:06
Speaker
the searches on a home computer, the bridge within walking distance, the brother years before in another state by another river. You can arrange those pieces into a hundred shapes.
00:45:17
Speaker
You can build a mosaic that looks like certainty and then step two feet to the left and see a different picture entirely. That isn't satisfying. It isn't supposed to be. Closure is a word we invented to name an absence that we don't understand.
00:45:31
Speaker
What we can do, the only thing we can do, is keep telling Ray's story with care. We can hold the humanity of a prosecutor who was also a father, ah partner, a brother, a baseball fan, a man who liked long drives and small antique shops.
00:45:47
Speaker
We can refuse to harden into a single answer, and we can also refuse to stop asking questions. We can grieve the man and still question the ending.
00:45:57
Speaker
And we can promise the people who loved him that when we say his name, we'll remember he was more than a case file and more than a headline and more than the gaps he left behind.
00:46:09
Speaker
Anyone with information concerning Ray Gricar's disappearance is asked to call the Pennsylvania State Police at 1-800-4-PA-TIPS submit information online. tips or submit information online Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases Podcast, to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode.
00:46:32
Speaker
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00:46:43
Speaker
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00:46:55
Speaker
Stay safe. We'll see you next week.