The Vanishing Man /// Part 2 /// 178 | Forensic Files

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a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime this was a case that you wrote about yeah I I I actually wrote about
this case when I was still a crime reporter I was working at the free times up in Cleveland in 2006 about a year
after he disappeared how much time did you spend looking into Ray's case um I I'd say it was a good month to six weeks
kind of learning the ins and outs of of the Greek card disappearance and you know we only had we only had a little
bit of information at the time uh because it was only about a year after he disappeared but it was all already it
struck me as a mystery that was going to last it was very weird in the same way that Mor Murray's case kind of stuck out
for me because just like Mor Murray here we have somebody who disappeared there's
no evidence of a crime and it the clues can take you any way you want to go you've got possible
suicide you've got motive for murder was it a murder um did he walk away to start
New Life somewhere um there's evidence for that too and beyond that there's like a there's like a a sparkle of the
Paranormal in this one too that suggests some sort of connection to of all things
and I know how crazy this is going to sound oh here we go time travel okay um and and I want to get into James has
lost this is mine I've just lost all credibility but but stick around you you'll like there's there's some neat
things that that uh about Greek car and and this idea of time I'm not saying he he he was a time traveler I'm saying he
might have disappeared in a way that would lead people to believe that anyways we'll get um so yeah you have
the you've set up the case well the the particulars of the case um but you know I I guess we could go you know in order
of you know Poss possibilities here you know look at suicide I and I kind of don't think it's you know I I don't
think it's suicide but to support that you've got the fact that his brother Roy disappeared in
1996 and his body was found in the river um and then you look at Ray grear and his Mini Cooper was uh found
by the river mhm and that's where he disappeared they eventually found his computer and hard drive in the river the
some fishermen fished up the hard drive or some fishermen fished up the laptop and then about a month later a woman
finds the hard drive so but then they never found Ray's body mhm and if you're going to jump into a river if you're
going to walk into a river you know do the was it Virginia wolf or uh you know weigh your pockets down with rocks and
walk in the body is going to turn up it's really hard to get rid of a body by committing suicide by jumping into a
river it'll it'll float it'll show up it'll you know we found the laptop we found the hard drive but no Ray so right
so that almost leads the the evidence that he did jump in cuz you found those other items but again yeah if he did
where's the where's the body there to support that theory you know you've got you know some people look at how he was
uh looking to retire and you know didn't really know what to do with himself and
uh you know was looking at that and kind of depressed and you know he had his his
job was his life more so than any of the women because he'd been married twice and divorced twice and you seeing this
this coworker there so um well you see that a lot with men is their their work is their identity once they lose their
work they lose their identity and they don't know what to do with themselves so you so the theory is
that well I'm going to retire and I have I'm nobody anymore so I'll just end it but another thing about the the suicide
theory is that he had this daughter Laura and and by all accounts you know he loved her very much and and they were
close when she was growing up in fact he was kind of when they moved there his wife had the job and he was stay-at-home
dad now it's it's interesting to note that Laura is is adopted um it's not his biological daughter and I've never
really figured out the the backstory to that like how that adoption process worked was it did they adopt from
somebody that they knew or did they go through the typical adoption process and it was you know um so that that's
something I'd really like to know about but if it was suicide Ry didn't really set things up to take care of Laura in
his absence this is one of the more interesting things about Ry in my opinion he was was the da of Center
County Penn State you know is his jurisdiction but when he died he there's almost no money in his his accounts MH
um his bank account has hardly any money in it there's he he never bought anything in his name the car was in his
girlfriend's name um he had no assets so where's all that money that he was making did he really spend it all did he
not budget well or or did did he have some sort of separate account you know the police looked at the suicide Theory
and thought maybe he had been contemplating suicide for a while because the day before his
disappearance he was seen in another body of water near this Reservoir and he seemed to be like walking around in kind
of contemplating life the witnesses said and you know he was he thinking about his brother and reminiscing about that
and wondering about that so you know there's that possibility of suicide um just like the mor case though there are
a lot of rabbit holes that you could go down because there are clues that don't seem to make much sense uh you go back
to the Mini Cooper there was some cigarette Ash found inside the car he was vehemently against smoking he didn't
smoke himself it smelled of smoke when the detectives opened the car as if somebody had just been smoking before
shutting it up and uh his cell phone was in there so who was smoking in that car
right um there was a witness uh at this antique like Mall antique store where the Mini Cooper was found it was found
in this parking lot Ray was seen there with an unidentified woman um beautiful you know attractive woman so who was
that you know and what does she have to do with with this whole thing um he was very much a charmer you know he very
private person on one on one hand very private but was also very very flirtatious with
with women and was known you know at the local Diner to you know pick favorite waitresses and always you know flirt
with them and um you know always be you know with with his other wives there was
always you know these rumors of infidelity and you know hanging out with women and so did that have something to
do with his disappearance was that on his mind or did he have a a side piece right that was now breaking it off or
who was married and yeah or who was breaking it off yeah or or maybe he was not telling some of these ladies that he
was married and had a kid and you know what I mean like yeah well he wasn't married at the time of his disappearance
he was he had a he had this girlfriend that was they were living together they were very you know of course right but
still he could have been telling you know the girls that he meets oh W I'm single right and I don't have anybody in
my life and blah blah blah and then once the you know the side piece then finds out he does have a life they're like
well I'm going to tell on you right CU that happens often whoever this was hasn't come out you know since The
Disappearance then you look at the case for murder and you know there are a lot of times I kind of lean this way um
because there's definitely motive for murder and but at the time in 2006 when I reported on this it seemed very
unlikely like who would have had the who would have had the balls to kill a DA in
Center County well you know 5 years later after my article came out uh Jerry sanduski is arrested and charged with
all these counts of you know molesting boys at Penn State and then it comes out that the prosecutor in charge of Center
County who was Ray grear knew about this in 1998 yeah he had investigated it for he
had investigated for some time having spoken to um one of the victims right however they had no evidence to pursue
the charges other than this boy statement the boy statement and they actually got sanduski to come in and and
they like tape this interview where it was this weird thing that Ry had set up where he got the boy in the same room as
sanduski just to see like what sanduski would say or his body language and there
was an expert there that told that told grear he's like look this guy you know without a doubt this guy's a pedophile
and you know he could have charged sanduski at that time and saved you know maybe further victimization or whatever
but if if anybody really runs Center County Penn State at that time it's Joe pno right right um this revered you know
coach and you know his reputation as we saw was destroyed along with sandusky's uh the question is you know
how much he knew and for how long was it ry's ultimate decision to not prosecute
sandeski was it was it somebody else was it pno was it was it pressure from somewhere you know was this something
that that Greek are always felt guilty about and I wonder if you know he was looking at retiring in
December of 2005 he disappeared in April was he thinking about opening that case opening that can of worms before he
retired so that he would have a clear conscience um and be able to go on um was he reopening that and did he you
know did he meet with pno did he meet with sanduski or or somebody else that was you know wrapped up in all this and
was it that person was he trying to keep it kind of off the Record until he had more those people certainly had a motive
to get rid of Ray Greek car I think um well well it's similar to like Spotlight too I mean with the idea of well we
don't want to go after you know the Catholic church because of how big they are right and I
would and we could argue that college football at Penn State is possibly bigger yeah than Church oh for sure for
some people it is church you know um absolutely and I think there there they might be wrapped up in there somewhere
yeah there's another possibility here one of the reasons um Greek car didn't prosecute sanduski was some sort of
culpability um you know there there were some weird internet searches mhm on Greek car's computer before he
disappeared and the one of the police officers who was investigating the case suggested to me that um some of the
searches had to do with um you know being on the down low you know was there some sort of you know sexual promiscuity
you know something weird going on there I tend to not not really buy into that because it by all appearances it seems
that you know Ry was really really into women you know so meaning that the searches he was looking
up were you know possibly that he let um a gay lifestyle outside of the public eye some of the police wondered if he
wasn't cruising these parks for men okay um because he was seen at these Parks you know right before he disappeared and
they were some of the places he was seen were known you know cruising spots at the time right and but maybe possibly
the you know if I if I act like a ladies man sure then that you know and I'm kind
of flamboyant about that well that I think flamboyant might not been the right choice awards but if I'm you know
outwardly oh man I love women then that's a pretty easy cover up for my alternative lifestyle I I don't know how
much I I buy into that um or how much you know evidence there really is to that and and that still doesn't explain
where the B body is you know if if it does turn out to be murder um yeah but that would also
possibly be a reason for suicide somebody that has lived such a long life and they feel for whatever reason that
they can't you know live their live a life where they can be true to themselves right and he like without a
doubt in my mind Greek car is the one that wrecked his computer and hard drive so what was on the computer and hard
drive that needed to be destroyed right somebody in Greek car's home that he was
sharing with Patty fornicola some and this is probably Ray himself uh was searching was Googling you know how to
destroy a hard drive uh how water destroys hard drive so he had this plan when he went there to destroy this hard
drive what was on there was it something to be murdered for was it something he was going to be shamed for and he
committed suicide was it plans to run away was it his you know bank accounts and uh the the things he had set in
motion to walk away and as more time goes by I find myself just like in Mar Murray's case I'm leaning to this idea
that he that he planned to start a new life and well but possibly again cuz if you're leading this other lifestyle that
maybe you can't come out as your yourself sure but the idea that well I can start a new life start a new name
and I don't have to worry about being shamed at all because I'm just this new person new person but again it's one of
those pieces of evidence that like can lean either way right but have we had anybody that has come out in the last uh
10 years or so that has said that they've had a romantic relationship with them as as like a man saying that not
that I not that I know not that I know and that's and that's why I think that that that might be not actually what was
going on there I mean he certainly had characteristics that would seem a little you know effeminate or or prissy you
know he's a very clean meticulous type of person but I think that was just his you know kind of slightly on the autism
spectrum you know ocess that was Ray I want to talk a little bit more about the like the the theories that back up the
walk away like why he like he's about to turn 60 he's going to retire why then why is he retiring then MH well it it
seems to me like or not retiring but why would he walk away at that point right because that seems like the least likely
time to walk away he's going to get a retirement he's going to get a pension for this job that he's done forever um
it's he had plans to travel um these don't point to anything any reasons to walk away unless he was a
spy for Slovenia which out of context sounds ridiculously silly but let me break it
down okay and this now pulls into question whether or not his brother's suicide was in fact a suicide right um
after keep in mind that Greek card disappears he's making good money but nobody can find any accounting of that
money he's got no Assets in his name um a couple years ago uh uh Deadspin uh one of their reporters puts
in a public records request for the FBI file and CIA file of Ray grear and it comes back redacted for national
security reasons and the CIA is involved and says you can't we can't release certain bits of information related to
Ray gard's disappearance now what is in the world is the CIA doing involved in Ray Greer's disappearance and this
disappearance of this um this um da well right there is a really good sighting of
Rey after his disappearance in Southfield Michigan this is so cool because the person who who spotted Greek
car was a retired police detective who did when he was working for the police did composite sketches okay so this is
the guy you go to yeah this is the eyewitness you want this is the best eyewitness ever and he says he
definitely saw Ray Greek car after he disappeared in Southfield Michigan now what's important about Southfield
Michigan it's nothing we I don't give a [ __ ] about Michigan Right nothing's up
there except except for the Macedonian consulate and if you're on if you're laying low and you want to leave the
country and get a visa to Slovenia you would go through the Macedonian that would be the closest place that Ray
grear could get to go through GRE there and he has citizenship his um I think grandfather or something uh his
ancestors came from Slovenia um so he could apply for a Visa and get taken over there and everything
would be kosher that's how he could escape the United States under under radar the FBI file also shows that grear
took two trips to Yugoslavia which is now part of Slovenia he took two trips to Yugoslavia during the Cold War um in
1973 and 1984 for the FBI these are red flags why is this young man in 1973 traveling to
Yugoslavia into the Soviet Union well but it is it is his motherland it's his yes right but does he I I don't know
that he would have any living relatives there they would be distant but that doesn't really matter right but let's
consider he was turned at that point he and his brother turn to uh to protect the motherland to gather
information um to be a sleeper agent essentially what better job would there be than you know a a district attorney
uh in Pennsylvania um which is near shoot Center county is is very close to another uh there is this very famous
case of this directly north there's another County in Pennsylvania north of Center
County very famous case where this government official uh was uh turned out to be very corrupt and was uh laundering
money through uh the government system and disappeared he ends up in Slovenia um with all these foreign connections so
U I'm not saying this is exactly what happened but if GRE car and his brother were involved in Espionage it would
explain the FBI's presence the CIA presence it would explain possibly the brother's suicide that wasn't actually a
suicide maybe it was murder um and it would explain why Gard decides to disappear then because he's finished his
mission he's finished his uh his his duty which is to work in government in America uh and to do what he can for
this the the Homeland and now he gets to go home right you know but in order to go home he has to burn his old id you
know he's got the Burn Notice um yeah but also too I mean it could be you have this um talented smart
prosecutor and it could be not working for his motherland it could be working for the United States as well right you
could take it the other way right you know and that's why he' visit in 73 then ' 84 and then well we're going to have
to have you go missing here so then exactly when you go back home you're a new person
was he one of our spies was he one and you think you know and that sounds crazy too but people have to understand like
the the FBI and the CIA they recruit people well they they got to depending on what the mission is they're going to
recruit somebody in their 20s or 30s 40s 50s and so on and you know he's already
working in the system mhm you know and somebody like that might go well this is a prestigious move up you know right um
right they could set up the secret accounts for him the Swiss bank accounts that he must have had you know to funnel
his money we'll take care of all the stuff and then when it when it comes out that you're um you're you're missing I
mean we're going to be investigating this but you know you've worked the mara Murray case for so long to get the FBI
or the CIA involved in a missing person case it's really hard to do and you got both of them in this Cas which is
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Nick is in Florida he's having a good time keeps on sending me pictures of beers and uh I think he's drunk in every
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one now at true Crim garage.com and click on the store page so let's get back to the conversation that we had
with James rener about the vanishing Man Ray Greek [Music] car and then you've got the time travel
as I was in investigating his disappearance back in 2006 somebody directed me I was directed
to this book this obscure sci-fi book called 2020 Vision written by Pamela West uh in the
80s and I it was hard to track down a copy I think it's out of print but I was able to get one through
Amazon and I picked it up and at first glance you're like what does this have to do with Ray grear and you read the
book and it's about this detective who had this one case he could never for solve near Penn
State and uh he ends up growing old and in some ways this this has shades of Primrose Lane in it and uh grows old and
then uses uh time travel in order to go back and save this woman from being killed like Quantum Leap kind of like
Quantum Leap yeah right and the interesting thing about it is the date that this guy disappears in the book is
April 15th and there are Clues like a little bit of cigarette Ash found inside his vehicle
and he didn't smoke and his car was found by a river and every you realize that everything from this sci-fi book
about time travel this guy that disappears inside the book matches up with everything about Ray's
disappearance even the date MH and you would think this is total coincidence Until you realize and find out that Ray
grear was the consultant on the book 2020 vision right and Pamela West was a journalist
professor at Penn State and she's writing under a pen name and for a while I wondered if Ray grear wasn't in fact
Pam West but he's not she really does exist and what she wanted to do was she wanted to write a true crime book called
uh about the Betsy arsma case right which is a famous unsolved case out of Penn State have you guys done that one
yet no but was that the girl that was killed in the library yes her body stabbed y her body was found in the
stacks and this was like back in 69 that her body was found in the stacks in the
library at Penn State and when they found her body they couldn't figure out how she died she was just dead on the
floor and what they found later was she was stabbed once directly through the chest into her heart um and it was a
clean cut in out and she bled inside so there's no blood outside of her body and
she dropped dead like that to this day that case remains unsolved now Pamela West thought she knew who did it and she
wanted to write a book explaining who did it and all of her evidence for it and she went to Greek car asking help
you know how do I do this without getting sued and he said well why don't you put all the details in there and
just make it fictitious you know add some sci-fi to it and that way you get you get you know what you've done all
this research can go to something but you know you're you're not going to be able to name the person you think did it
so was this if if Greek car is going to walk away you know was he doing it in some sort of funny you know was he
having a little fun with it oh he's leaving a clue right like I helped with this book one of the big things was that
this guy has to go missing or back in time right and and what happened in the book okay well I need to go Miss SC I'm
just going to do that yeah and somebody's going to get the reference it might take him a while that's what I'm
think but you got the reference right right so I hope that that's what happened and and he was having a little
fun with his disappearance it seems too much of a coincidence to me the exact date the fact that GRE car was the
consultant on this cigarette Ash the cigarette Ash everything matches those are that that's tiny details if it was
just guy went back in time and here was the date and then he went missing I'd go
well there's that's one right and but once you get those little small right details isn't that weird yeah the the
other thought that people have had along those lines is you know was he close to
did he want to go after Betsy arts's killer before he retired and did he try to meet with Betsy arsouth killer there
and there was a scuffle and he was murdered and but then again you you still don't have a body so um well and
it doesn't explain the the hard drive and the computer in the the lake exactly well maybe you could clear up a few um
things since you did speak with the investigator yeah sure um there was there was rumor from his
co-workers and his girlfriend that he was may have been suffering from depression mhm that he was acting
strange that and out of character that week leading up to his disappearance uh one thing that keeps coming up as a
question mark amongst a lot of people is his his day his morning before he disappeared was he did he leave work
early did he not go into work at all that day I've I've seen it reported both ways from what I've heard he you know so
he disappears on a it's a Friday Friday April 15th and from what I understand he
was at work the day before but then he called off he was playing hookie you know he he was
supposed to be in a work but and nobody thought that that was too weird because he was you know getting ready for
retirement and he would often take these days where he'd just drive into the country and go antiquing you know um
where he was possibly meeting up with this other woman who knows but anyways it wasn't that out of
character what was odd is so he calls off on that that Friday one of his Co co- workers also prosecutor swears 100%
swears he saw Greek car there that day in somebody in the passengers seat of somebody else's car and he had come in
it looked like he had come in and maybe forgot something and was you know but he
was pulling out of the prosecutor's office in the passenger seat of somebody else's car and he made note of it
because he's like what you know he's not supposed to be in today he's here he's in who's driving the car so what's he
doing back at at the office that day but there's no record of him actually going
into the office not that we've not that we found no uhuh he was oh I forgot to mention this Greek car was also obsessed
with an Ohio case uh unsolved case um that he mentioned to a number of co-workers in the weeks leading up to
and the months leading up to his disappearance and that's the unsolved disappearance of Mel Wy Mel was the
chief of police in I want to say bath but I'm not entirely sure it was near bath Ohio and uh this was in the 70s or
80s I believe but he disappeared one day and they found his shoes and clothes and
uh his wallet tucked into his shoes on uh Edgewater Beach up in Cleveland and they're like wow he must have drowned
out there but they never found a body M and then they went back and went to his typewriter and were able to extract like
all the letters that he had written and very obviously this guy had planned for his disappearance and was you know going
off to California but he did it in a way he was never found again and he was working in government and he had this
top position and this guy just up and disappeared started a new life and GRE car knew about it and was kind of
weirdly obsessed about it and had mentioned that case to a couple people so it was on his mind mhm yeah or again
maybe leaving little bread crumbs right right right like I can't tell you where I'm going but when I disappear I'm
going to be okay yeah I think might have been what he was telling people was very
strange with the lack of money in the bank that to me says volumes it says that there's an account out there we
don't know about he didn't seem to be living a frivolous lifestyle yeah he wasn't like no extravagant living he
didn't have his own house he was living with his his girlfriend um if he was bro
he could have attempted to get reelected and keep his position exactly for another four years right right he wasn't
broke we just don't know where his money is yeah he's probably at least making six figures you would think so 10 State
yeah yeah so he calls off there is an eyewitness that says that they believe they saw him at work in the parking lot
that clears up the discrepancy of did he actually go into work and just do a half
day and leave as far as his vehicle goes we should probably set this up a little
bit because he had a Mini Cooper red Mini Cooper yeah and this wasn't just like oh go out and buy a um fuel
efficient car to get you to and from work he was a a driver yeah he liked to take long drives he seemed to be
particular about his vehicle yeah um the vehicle that was in his girlfriend's name it was his which is weird and so
that makes the that makes the cigarette ashes even more strange because it he doesn't we don't see any signs that he
would have allowed somebody to smoke in his car right just kind of willy-nilly it seemed like something that he that he
wouldn't let happen absolutely unless it's his last last time in that car you know I I picture what I picture is his
sexy CIA Handler you know coming in and you know they they sit in the car for a minute and then he and she's like you
know got the cigarette in her mouth and she's like well Ray it's been a trip take one last look at Happy Valley
before we get to before I take you back to Slovenia right um and then they get into a waiting black sedan and you know
drive off into the sunset so his his uh laptop that's later found it's a county issued right laptop and that's why I
brought up the whole thing of whether he was at work that day or not because a lot of people have questioned well if he
called off and didn't go into work How likely would it be that he would have had that computer with him at the time
of his disappearance right I think I from what I understand it was a it was issued through work but it was a laptop
that he could take home and do his work there so you know I I don't I don't put too much into that um I wouldn't look
too hard into that for Clues his cell phone's found in his vehicle uh his keys wallet never found
oh that's right yeah right and is the vehicle locked I can't remember but I do know locked the vehicle's locked no keys
in the cell phones in the car but turned off that sounds right yeah and this is a
county issued cell phone as well I you know again like I don't want to get tracked so I'm leaving this cell phone
here I've got my burner on Me Maybe um or if he was murdered you know nobody else wants that bit of evidence being
able to tie them to it later mhm so again you've got these clues that can lead you both ways I tend to lead more
towards you know these these all seem like clues that he himself was responsible for mhm I'd love to see what
was on that laptop they've never been able even though they recovered the hard drive they've never been able to extract
any data out of it because it was in the river so long yeah and if anybody's going to be able to would have been the
CIA or right FBI they had a a group that works with NASA examine the the hard drive and they weren't able to pull
anything out of it yeah well it's interesting to me because like like you said the connection with the book The
Connection to this Ohio case it seems like he had some in interest in starting over it does you know and if none of
that were to happen you know it would look more it really would look more like a a murder you know abduction mhm well
the tough thing about you know when they're like well we think the body went in the river I mean yeah suicide or
murder you would expect that at some point you'd find the body there is always that possibility that you sure
that random case that they just right you know and getting to the abduction you know Murder thing that's very
unlikely with a 60-year-old Man Too unless it's like I mean if he was if we're talking abduction from the scene
and murder it would suggest organized crime to some extent yeah well possibly and
well then if it's then you got to look into his brother's death as well exactly right yeah you know cuz maybe that was
not a suicide and then it's how now how are these murders connected right well maybe not though his brother's not a
district attorney a district attorney can create a lot of enemies that's true yeah yeah especially over a
20year time frame yeah definitely but what was his brother involved in because you know what I mean cuz sometimes you
it's like maybe his brother was I I don't know much about his brother at all but I'm just saying if you wanted to
start speculating going down that rabbit hole it's like what is this you know yeah I'm this uh prosecutor and I'm
doing well for myself but this guy's struggling so maybe I know some people that can help him out or maybe he's just
a bad seed right the the brother too could just be a legitimate suicide right although you know suicides very rarely
just walk into a River you know that's very determined you know there are better ways to kill yourself especially
for men men are usually gun you know to the mouth uh more violent you know they don't usually walk into a river to drown
themselves well his his brother you know in the river kills himself vehicle found
near a bridge yep Ray disappears his items are found in or on the banks of the river yep and his vehicle's found
near a bridge yep if he disappeared he wanted to you know that clearly that would have been
on his mind you know is he does he want us to think about that is is he trying to suggest that it was suicide really
walk away I you know the more I think about this case as weird as it sounds I lean towards the Spy theory that he was
either one of us or you know spying for them and I'd love to go I'd love to go to Slovenia and just like look around
for a while well he'd be how old now oh shoot he'd be 70 mhm 74 yeah but the thing here is here's
what I question about him walking away or being a spy and choosing that okay now it's time for me to
go isn't it in an extreme poor taste to leave your vehicle in the same situation
that you're brother's vehicle was found in when you have a daughter I don't care
adopted or not you have a nephew uh that was the son of his brother uh you do have some family that lived through an
experience where a relative went missing vehicle found near a bridge he's missing
for about a week until they figure out that he's in the river and then they ultimately rule it a suicide so now I'm
planning my disappearance I'm planning to walk away I'm going to in the poorest of taste leave my vehicle
next to a bridge in in my items in the river that's a really good that's a really good point I hadn't thought about
before that would be kind of a uh a mean thing to do for your for your who who you you know assume would be his loved
ones um but let me ask you this like let's say he was a spy and it was time to go back home to the motherland how
would you do it without telling everybody you were a spy how would you disappear me I would personally I think
that walking away is is rude and bad enough on its own well I I kind of wish you would walk but what I'm saying is
you can attempt to do it without a trace but but you you could leave the veh you
know you could drive the vehicle off into the woods somewhere yeah but you could leave the vehicle at your house
and it actually then becomes even more of a mystery cuz it's like what so he disappeared from his house and but his
cars here and maybe he was doing them a favor by by not not leaving it at the house so the investigators wouldn't look
at the people that live there aspects okay so he drives it out there and he's got his brother in mind yeah I
just don't know that if if that's your if that's who you are if that's your identity and you you have to do this one
way or another is there is there a decent way to do it that's true and now you know I didn't even think about that
until we start talking but yeah of course if he's doing that he's going to make sure that he doesn't disappear from
home because he doesn't want his loved ones to be sus don't implicate Patty in anything that she was unaware of yeah so
yeah it's that weird piece of evidence where it goes back and forth cuz in one in one sense it's like well this is in
really bad taste right but in the other sense it basically leads you to believe that you know because of his brother and
because of everything going on in retirement that he was so depressed that he took his own life you know and also
he he does it during the day when he knows his girlfriend's at work and has witnesses that put her at work MH so
he's furthering right like doing damage control for her well yeah damage control
there but also almost damage control for the family where it's like yeah they've
been through that before and that was traumatic yeah but it's almost understandable right you know the second
time it's like well he was depressed and his brother and maybe this was his way of being with his brother right you know
right I think we've solved it here I think he's I don't like the other woman Theory
no not at all and I'll tell you why we're not talking about a guy that had been married for 30 years right had 14
children with the same woman right he's been divorced twice mhm uh he's coming up on a retirement where he's going to
receive a decent retirement that he's earned he's worked a lot of years to earn it right I just don't and the
relationship with Patty obviously I don't know the ins and outs of it but they weren't married right they shared a
place together I I don't I can't get into the other woman Theory because I think there's it it would be very easy
for him to just end the relationship with Patty and and start this new relationship or bring this going on
relationship to light exactly and continue his life and retire and you know set up a life with the new woman
rather than this whole walking away unless unless that woman was his Handler you know um or how about this um this
this is another weird detail about this case so this other woman that he was seen with people recognized her as like
to a person like the the one of the people that saw him with her said yeah and it wasn't just some beautiful woman
it was this specific beautiful woman who's a journalist sltv I think she was involved in TV um like news up there too
okay so the police are like wow okay we got to find her and they went to find her she had also called off work that
day and she she they tracked her she was like and I think if I'm getting this right Upstate New York but she had like
traveled out of the city right and so they track her down and I think she was at like a wedding of a of a family
member or something she had a pretty good excuse but how weird is that that like the person that this that the
witnesses sure was with Rey also called off that day mhm just a bad coincidence for her or is there more to that you
know how thorough do you think that they tried to track him the authorities because I mean there's no crime
committed here but we're also talking about an active district attorney goes missing right they're going to try to
track this guy it's not like well that's another weird part of this too because the FBI didn't take over the case right
away um it should have been a state case it should have been state troopers it should have been um the Attorney General
office involved but everybody kind of stepped back and they're like okay let let the State College Police take this
over and we're talking about a department that had like three police officers they weren't prepared to look
for a missing district attorney but all the bigger agencies are like no let them
handle it is that because the the bigger agencies had access to the information um that Greek car was a spy and that we
knew he was disappearing and and you know let him go that's weird like they it should have been a bigger case but it
was left to the smallest Department that could have been involved well yeah it was left to it at first but then
everybody else then comes in but maybe they all come in to go see well we tried maybe Hush Hush yeah it looks like that
at some point but um um the FBI weren't really ever involved with the hunt for it as far as we can tell um the state
becomes involved in it eventually and they seem to step in and do their own investigation but at every turn the AG
seems to like kind of scuttle it you know or just weirdly silent about it or uh yeah it's just there's a lot of
weirdness surrounding why the the people put in charge were this this very small
police department so what do you think you got a hunch I have no hunch I just I personally I just
see a lot of reasons to not walk away that's what I keep coming back to I was unaware about the bank account thing
right because in and this is kind of a vague broad statement but when you look into this case you know they say well
they checked his bank accounts they checked his credit cards they checked his phone records and there was found no
clues right right and that's kind of all they leave you with so you assume when I
read that statement I assume well all is well you know uh they found no clues well no bank account that's a that's a
clue is a clue yeah I think what what you got to go back to exactly how they word it at newspaper accounts too
because they're very careful with the semantics of that but they're like um you know we yeah we looked into his
accounts but we found no uh you know something like no evidence there to suggest or whatever but um the fact yeah
exactly right the fact that there is no money in there right should tell you something that's a big thing yeah but
what does that point to because as because that can point to Suicide pretty easily here's this guy that exactly
didn't save anything you know worked a bunch of years but nothing to show for it his car is not even in his own name
and so he just I'm walking away this is a guy who's very meticulous in every other part of his life I would think he
would be very meticulous about his financial situation there yeah so is it just that that the fact that there's no
money I mean there has to be some transactions on those accounts he uh I think there were some I don't know how
much but we're talking about I mean I think it's like hund a couple hundreds of dollars in like a you know an account
that was left when he disappeared and no assets by the way everything else was in
everybody else's name like like his girlfriend's or his wife's name he never had assets so we have a successful da
who disappears and then when you look into his financial background if you didn't know his job or the the length of
his career you would assume you're looking at some 27-year-old dude that's living paycheck to paycheck right no not
even that cuz the the transaction history wasn't that in depth though right right so it's almost like you're
looking at a 15-year-old kid that has a savings account with his father's name on it and he only puts money in it when
he has a birthday or right or Christmas you know what I mean like right coming I
that's what I used to do I was a banker so no a lot of people on that level would have their own personal banker
would have a portfolio sure especially you know prosecutors you know cops yeah right like stocks and ponds
yeah and building up for retire that can go away pretty quickly and that could be a motive right cuz that would
be the other motive too is like well what if he did have all this money and he was divorced twice that's like it all
went to alimony it all went to the well I I would want to know how he was cashing his checks that would be a big
question for me how is he cashing his checks because let's just say there would be a motive you know a lot of
people would go well you need to put your money in the bank I was a banker for a long time and we had a bunch of
really rich um you know retired you know guys in their 70s and 80s that um they had really small accounts low activity
but they came into the bank every week and I I know they were just stockpiling their money at their house you know in a
safe or whatever cuz they didn't trust because of the depression and stuff like that they didn't trust the
banks now I'm not saying he didn't trust the banks because of the depression but
why would trust the banks or have any assets when your last possibly with your last two divorces and that would be
public record of what they got in the divorce sure so if he got you know taken to the cleaners twice then it's like
well I'm going to take all my money and put it on a in the mattress in a safe or
something but that would also become another reason for motive if one of his friends or somebody found out hey you
know this guy doesn't put any money in the bank right right and he doesn't have all these assets and he had took all his
money he just hides in the way Greek's got like 100,000 in cash sitting in his house yeah yeah that'd be a motive it
doesn't explain the computer though no well but the computer's not as weird as the searches yeah the Google searches of
how to you know destroy the hard drive the police wondered if he had a journal on the computer that he was a personal
Journal that he was keeping yeah or you know he's district attorney is that where he kept all the dirt he had on
everybody else and and somebody's getting real scared cuz he's up for retirement is he going to transfer that
dirt file over to the next prosecutor right um yeah again we're going around and
and oh what was that movie um Jad gerer yeah where he every time there was a new
person in his like whole mission was to get the dirt file oh sure and then give it to him may be like don't worry I got
my own copy you know what I mean so it's like right right maybe he had some of those dirt files and
somebody the weird thing too about the search is would they be able to know when those searches happen like was it
you know that day I don't know because if it's that day it could really be in the murderer's hands yeah they
don't go ahead I'm sorry I I think oh the the the you the search from home where he's like how to destroy a hard
drive right I think that was from the night before I think I think I've read that that that happened there okay so
those searches were actually going from his home computer not computer that he shared with his girlfriend right it's
neat to travel down there too down to they call it happy valley mhm it's beautiful I mean just a just a beautiful
drive and uh I always picture him you know jetting through the valley and you know looking for these antique stores
and you know maybe go it would be an excellent place to do the you know the Spy drops you know at a park you know
put it underneath the park bench and take off and your handler comes and I I I I hope he's in Slovenia just
you know eating some fish and whatever they do in Slovenia and he's listening to the show
right now going they're still talking about me if you could time travel you you brought it up so here we go if you
could time travel back to a a decade mhm do you have does one pop immediately in mind oh for sure I
definitely without a doubt go back to the 60s you know you pre pre HIV free love free
drugs uh that sounds like a very fun time how about you um oddly enough oddly enough I would
pick the 60s as well all right for different for different reasons oh yeah uh yet I mean that was the decade of the
assassinations you know sure yeah there's a lot of questions he wants to go back to shoot some
people it's uh similar to um your book The Man on Primrose Lane where he goes back and he's he's aware of this victim
and he believes if he can follow her around long enough that he can intercept the killer or her abductor and stop the
crime from happening it's like like the captain said here Quantum Leap yeah yeah
I'd love to sit there like as JFK is coming down the the with the motorcade see if you know anybody really was in
that grassy null or peeking over the the fence there was definitely somebody in the
grassy all you have to do is read it it's in the Warren report a lot of people don't know that in the Warren
report they claim that there was possible shots from the grassy null so the government hasn't like fully
dismissed this idea I really think what happened that day is the somebody contracted three different people and
they didn't tell the other ones yeah mhm you know so you had this and whoever was
going to get busted was going to get busted you know yeah uh question for you so now that we're on the time traveling
so we we said what decade right so but what case would you solve oh 100% Amy mahalic you know I'd be I'd be right at
the plaza you know at at the end of the day as she's coming in just to see who comes up to her and uh well then you
could stop it though yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah but but if you do that I mean now we're in the realm of fiction
so you've got James rener showing up in 1989 and this guy comes up to Amy mahalic and now I'm 100% sure I've got
the killer so I Pummel him to death or whatever and uh so then now I'm in prison
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The Vanishing Man /// Part 2 /// 178

Part 2 of 2

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Friday, April 15, 2005 - 59 year old Ray Gricar, the district attorney for Centre County, Pennsylvania called into work. He said he would not be coming into work that day. He let his girlfriend know that he planned to take a drive and do some antique shopping. He never returned home. The next day investigators found his vehicle parked at an antique shop's dirt lot. The car was locked and Ray's cell phone was found inside the car. The scene was eerily familiar to that of Ray's brother's suicide years ago. What happened to Ray Gricar? Had many years as a prosecutor made him one too many enemies? Was Ray's case tied to the Penn State scandal? Or was Ray living a secret life and decided to walk away? Tonight we discuss one of the most fascinating disappearances from the state of Pennsylvania. Beer of the Week - Brawler by Yards Brewing Company Garage Grade - 3 and a half bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

Ray Grecar, a district attorney, mysteriously disappeared in 2006; theories include suicide, murder, and espionage.

Key points

Discover Unique Home Decor. Explore Mrs. Be's clearance for unique decor and up to 80% off!
True Crime Garage Introduction. Join Nick and the captain as they dive into today's true crime case.
The Mysterious Disappearance. A deep dive into the case of Ray Grear, a DA who vanished without a trace.
The Mysterious Disappearance. Exploring the strange circumstances surrounding Ray's vanishing act and potential espionage links.
The Connection to the Book. A sci-fi book eerily mirrors Ray's disappearance, raising questions about coincidence.
Unsolved Cases and Obsessions. Ray's interest in unsolved cases hints at deeper connections to his own disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Was he a time traveler?

5:15WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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