PA PA - Ray Gricar, 59, Bellefonte, 15 April 2005 - #11

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JMO, as always. I want to know if RFG was murdered. I think he was. He had everything to look forward to..... If he walked away I don't need to know where he is, I'd be happy he was still alive.
 
MissJ, I agree with you about just wanting to know something.
Then, I go to the entire " Missing" section here at WS and the number of adults whose status is just " Missing' is enormous.
More people than I can read about in a week, much less discuss the cases with other posters.
Some posters, maybe even most posters, do have a few missing persons cases which stay with them, no matter what. I used to have a very long list of daily cases to read.. always hoping there would be new evidence.. A decade later, most of those people are still missing.

I don't know what happened to Mr. Gricar, of course, but his case is slightly different to me in that he was not a young adult female drinking after a concert, or was not a hot young thing with at least 3 married boyfriends in LE, was not a young person with high risk controllable behavioral circumstances, IOW.
Part of my reasons for being interested in what happened to him is because I think he made a huge difference throughout his career, and that the justice he helped achieve sets him apart. Not that he is better, simply that he gave quite a lot of himself intellectually and professionally for many years to public service, and he absolutely deserves justice of his own if he is deceased through the actions of another person.

The main reason I don't want him to be murdered, other than that he would not still be in this world to make a difference, is that it would mean that some criminal out there outsmarted him. I've never said this before but I can't stand to think of him losing a fight for his life to a or hit man. I do realize the possibility is good that he is deceased due to homicide. The nature of his career made him a higher risk than most people, of course.

I don't claim to understand every aspect of every suicide, and I have advanced degrees in psychology. There are many aspects to the suicidal mind, and anger is one of them. Depression/ suicidal ideation, as I know you know, is basically stated as "anger turned inward." I keep remembering how utterly angry Mr. Gricar looked in the last photo taken of the group at a press conference. I don't equate that look with a suicidal person, but with a very controlled yet angry person. IMO, he was very mad at that time, in stark contrast to his usual expressions in photographs in the pubic domain.
I think that if he had committed suicide, he would have told the people he loved " Good- bye". Especially his daughter, in the form of a letter, most likely. My perception of this is based upon the fact that I had a dad much like Mr. Gricar, and I was my father's only child and adopted daughter. My dad had a heart a mile wide for me. :) I think Lara's dad did for her, too.

Then there's the theory which is not discussed very often but which I have been thinking about lately- Accidental death, possibly covered up by a third person or more. Since we really do not know much about where he was or what he did before the Mini showed up in the SOS parking lot, and only have hearsay evidence that he was there, I have put together some scenarios in which someone accidentally caused his death ( say hit and run) or he accidentally died alone in the marsh beyond the river and hasn't been found. Since it's theoretical, I don't speculate on his forum.

Last, we have walkaway. I am just a few years away from being the age he was when he disappeared. I would love to disappear and never ever see or hear from anyone I ever have known. I do not have the finances to pull off a great getaway, not post 9/11, and I also don't have anywhere I would really like to go to and start over. Maybe it's a male vs. female difference. I would go tomorrow to go TO someone, to go to a new life, but really don't want to uproot myself for the unknown. However, if this is what Mr Gricar chose to do, then it's his business, and his choice. He owed no one any explanations. He had no dependents, and no spouse. I think that's how he and most single men would look at leaving " home" for good.

I just wish we knew, like so many other families and posters in the " Missing" section wish about the other missing adults.
 
I wish we could get a good look at the hard drive from Ray Gricar's laptop. The link referenced in an early post IMO does not show the hard drive so IMO it is unknown whether the hard drive was actually smashed or if when they refer to "damage" it strictly means water damage.

Here is a picture of the Laptop, CD-ROM, and Floppy Drive that was recovered with the Laptop. http://imgick.pennlive.com/home/pen...riot-news/photo/2012/04/-ebfc895ae1d41d23.jpg

That actual Hard Drive from the Micron Trek II is very small at 2.5 inches which is not pictured. :(

For those you interested in learning more about RG's laptop here is the Manual.

1. Removable hard disk drive
Your computer includes a removable 2.5-inch IDE hard disk
drive (12.7mm in height) with 1.44GB or more storage
capability. The TREK 2 PC’s BIOS automatically detects IDE
drive types. Consult your dealer for information on changing
your TREK 2’s HDD

http://www.eol.ucar.edu/homes/oncley/micron/trekman.pdf
 
"On July 30, two fishermen pulled the laptop from the Susquehanna, under a bridge directly behind the park where Gricar was last seen. The hard drive had been removed.

On September 23, a woman walking the low banks of the river came across a piece of electronic equipment one inch by three inches — a hard drive. This was near a railroad bridge a half mile upstream from where the Mini Cooper was parked. The hard drive is the same make and model as Gricar’s laptop, but Centre County did not keep tabs on the serial numbers, so Zaccagni can only assume it’s the one he’s looking for while he awaits confirmation from a lab in California. Says Zaccagni: “It looks like a duck, but we’re waiting to see if it quacks like a duck.” After the five months the equipment spent in the water, he’s not holding his breath.

Psychic Carla Baron, who has weighed in on cases for Court TV, called from L.A. to tell investigators she thought someone involved in government murdered Gricar. She said his body could be found near an old farmhouse, by a river or a lake."
 
"On July 30, two fishermen pulled the laptop from the Susquehanna, under a bridge directly behind the park where Gricar was last seen. The hard drive had been removed.

On September 23, a woman walking the low banks of the river came across a piece of electronic equipment one inch by three inches — a hard drive. This was near a railroad bridge a half mile upstream from where the Mini Cooper was parked. The hard drive is the same make and model as Gricar’s laptop, but Centre County did not keep tabs on the serial numbers, so Zaccagni can only assume it’s the one he’s looking for while he awaits confirmation from a lab in California. Says Zaccagni: “It looks like a duck, but we’re waiting to see if it quacks like a duck.” After the five months the equipment spent in the water, he’s not holding his breath.

Psychic Carla Baron, who has weighed in on cases for Court TV, called from L.A. to tell investigators she thought someone involved in government murdered Gricar. She said his body could be found near an old farmhouse, by a river or a lake."

is this a snip from the link you just posted above? tia:seeya:
 
Maybe it is the male/female thing. Many times I've thought I'd like to walk away. But without my credentials and years of savings who would walk away from their retirement and social security? A few million in the bank might do it. JMO
 
Jana, I thought I'd follow up without snipping. :)

Part of the anger might have been at Corbett; he was not a fan and the two had a run-in in 1998, when Corbett was a defense attorney.

The hit and run theory was actually suggested by a local blogger at the time: http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2005-05-02T08:14:00-04:00

It is in my 1% category today, but it was a lot larger in 2005. The problem is, as always, no body.

On voluntary departure, if I was sure, I'd say, "Ray Gricar, I salute you. You're a smarter guy than I am." Then I'd stop posting on the thread.

The problem is, there just isn't enough evidence to say that.
 
Maybe it is the male/female thing. Many times I've thought I'd like to walk away. But without my credentials and years of savings who would walk away from their retirement and social security? A few million in the bank might do it. JMO

I can't get too far too long without about 2 dozen needles. :)

In RFG's late teens, a lot of popular culture was centered on a male or males just taking off. Route 66 and The Fugitive are two examples; several episodes of the first were filmed in Cleveland and two featured Central PA. There was also song "King of the Road."

Looking at those influences, I've often wondered if he saw walking away as a bit romantic. RFG was in his late teens at the time.

One of the questions is money. They checked to 2001, and there were no unaccounted for funds, except about $16,000 in cash. That works out to about $125 a week.
 
One possibility we can't discount absolutely was that there was a second person involved in the leave-taking. Perhaps someone who went up to a year ahead, or who came later, but did not leave at the same time and did not leave from PA, probably.
IF that person had wealth, then Mr. Gricar would not have needed his own.

I know no body has been found, but in the past year, since I started reading international news where every little detail makes a STORY, they publish incidents of skeletal remains found in fields, stored in attics, stored in trunks, in storage rental facilities, in basements, for anywhere from a decade to a century. It's gruesome, and I know none of us want to think of a fine man's body being desecrated in such a way but the photos and statements from European law enforcement has shown me that it does happen. Obviously, the more rural and remote the setting, the greater the likelihood that a death can be obscured for a long time. In most of the cases I have read about, the deceased person was not murdered ( or the remains showed no signs of trauma). People can be downright weird and ghoulish about funerals, I guess...

In truth, after this long a time, there is NO ordinary or good conclusion to him being missing for 8 years and counting. Each of us has to face this truth before we can push through to asking the questions that follow this fact.

FWIW, my husband, who has had computers since there was an Internet to surf, and who is a genius, said 2 years ago or more that there is NO WAY to prove the destroyed hard drive is the one from Mr Gricar's computer, even if it is the same brand and model, because no data was recoverable. Anyone in the mid-2000s could purchase an extra hard drive for next to nothing for a laptop, and Micron laptops were very common then.
I thought he was being funny until I remembered that 2 hard drives were found in or on the banks of the Susquehanna River fairly near the bridge. One was said to have fit, one didn't.
 
It could be a duplicate drive, but who, other than RFG knew what was on the laptop. Anything that could incriminate someone else could be copies to the home or office desktops, printed out, stored on a removable device, or stored on-line.

If RFG wanted to save the data on the drive, and take it on some new journey, why not download everything to thumb drive?

One thing LE should check is if he purchased another drive for the laptop.
 
If Mr. Gricar purchased an extra hard drive, it's very possible that he did so from a source which would leave no paper trail, such as from a used computer source. Even the thrift stores such as Goodwill and Salvation Army used to have half a store devoted to used computers. No idea if they do now.. but there used to be a brisk giveaway of laptops.. People weren't that careful with their used electronics. Those types of purchases leave no paper trail. Just one example.

I agree that it should be checked, even should have already been looked into.
 
The model was rare enough, though not really rare, that buying one without a paper trail could be difficult.

I was thinking more along the line of a replacement when returning the computer to the county. It could possibly show that RFG was planning to return from Lewisburg. If that was the case, he wouldn't need to worry about covering his path.
 
Is it possible that if there was foul play, that the computer along with other computer components and hard drives were dumped in the river by a local who pilfered them for parts and dumped what he/she did not need? The laptop could have been found by a local teen computer techie after he/she found it laying somewhere else and discarded after pulling the hard drive which was in better shape than theirs.
 
There was a scenario where RFG took the laptop to Lewisburg, and left it out someplace. Someone else, especially a teen techie type, comes on to it later and thinks, **Free Laptop.** A week later, techie realizes he picked up a key piece of evidence in the case of a missing DA and panics. He has already used it, so his data is on the drive, and he tosses it, in the area where the DA was reported (a few hundred yards away).

In May 2005, the family started offered a reward for information. That is an incentive to tell the police.

In 2008, there was a great deal of controversy surrounding this investigation, which was how Kroll was brought in; a description is here: http://www.centredaily.com/2009/09/16/2396685/the-investigation-part-13-mr-madeira.html It was quite public. There were people on line, including me, basically saying, **If there was something somebody else put on the drive, Kroll will see it.** That could have provided an incentive to come forward.

In neither case did that shake anything out.

In October 2008, LE released the results from Kroll, which were negative, and the information information that RFG had been asking others about how to get rid of the data on the drive about a year prior to his disappearance.

In April 2009, LE announced that RFG had done the searches on his home desktop about how to destroy a drive (though they had the information since at least late 2006).

The idea that someone could have picked up RFG's laptop that was left in Lewisburg was possible, however, there were incentives for the finder to come forward. Also, that would not explain RFG's asking people about how to get rid of the data nor those computer searches.

Just for the record, until it came out that RFG had been asking people about how to get rid of the data, I considered this a very solid possibility.
 
J.J. do you know of any information regarding a Mini being spotted by a few driving in, through, and from a Quarry right off of 192 near Lewisburg?
 
J.J. do you know of any information regarding a Mini being spotted by a few driving in, through, and from a Quarry right off of 192 near Lewisburg?


192 is Buffalo Rd and the Quarry is on Dale Quarry Road. I am not sure how anyone could see a vehicle driving in from Dale Quarry unless they were sitting at the intersection. And you cannot drive through the quarry regardless of what google maps is showing. Campbell Mill and Strawbridge form a T. Strawbridge becomes a dirt path for about 50 yards or so past the T and peters out to scrub.

Trying to search the quarry would be a daunting task, even with ground penetration radar.

I doubt anyone would put a body in the wooded section behind the quarry as the quarry and it's equipment could but a body at least 12" underground at any spot, pack the dirt back down and put a stone pile on top of it. Putting a body in the woods leaves too much chance for discovery by hunters and kids.
 
192 is Buffalo Rd and the Quarry is on Dale Quarry Road. I am not sure how anyone could see a vehicle driving in from Dale Quarry unless they were sitting at the intersection. And you cannot drive through the quarry regardless of what google maps is showing. Campbell Mill and Strawbridge form a T. Strawbridge becomes a dirt path for about 50 yards or so past the T and peters out to scrub.

Trying to search the quarry would be a daunting task, even with ground penetration radar.

I doubt anyone would put a body in the wooded section behind the quarry as the quarry and it's equipment could but a body at least 12" underground at any spot, pack the dirt back down and put a stone pile on top of it. Putting a body in the woods leaves too much chance for discovery by hunters and kids.

This was a Q&A session on the CDT.

""Q: Was a search done along state Route 192, the road Gricar said he was on when he was last heard from?

A: Bellefonte police officer Darrel Zaccagni said both state Route 192 and state Route 45 were searched soon after Gricar was reported missing on April 15. A few people came forward and said they saw a red-and-white Mini Cooper -- the same type of car Gricar was driving when he disappeared -- in the area on April 15 and 16, but police could not confirm that the car seen was actually Gricar's.

At least one person reportedly saw the Mini Cooper leaving a stone quarry located along Route 192 about a mile from where the car was found in a Lewisburg parking lot. Zaccagni said police have searched the quarry twice and have talked to quarry workers there, some of whom said they also remember seeing a Mini Cooper driving away from the quarry.

The quarry has two small, shallow sludge ponds, but nothing unusual was found there, Zaccagni said. Bellefonte police officers also walked through a small wooded area near the quarry but found nothing out of the ordinary there, either."
 
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