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

Now things are getting interesting. I am starting to agree that the keys were taken knowing that PF would have a second set and that duplicates could be made. It is possible that there were additional keys for, say a storage locker somewhere under a different name. The earlier attempt to dispose of the hard drive, the deception towards PF on the reason for going to Lewisburg and the eventual disposal of the drive and laptop clearly indicate to me that there was something going on that RFG did not want PF to know about. Was RFG trying to dispose of the hard drive before someone else got their hands on it or before PF got curious, or was it to erase evidence of the planned walk away? Hmmm... Now here is the part that has me stumped, I would NEVER walk away without my adult son and daughter knowing I was OK. I could no sooner leave them in the dark about my fate than cut off my right arm. Even more so for my grandchildren. Seems it would be callous behavior to treat a lover as a throw away and leave one's children in the dark. I am also not so sure "the money" went out of country. Could have been slowly withdrawn in cash and stored in a safe place until needed.

Snipped to focus on one point.

Trackergd said:

Now here is the part that has me stumped, I would NEVER walk away without my adult son and daughter knowing I was OK. I could no sooner leave them in the dark about my fate than cut off my right arm. Even more so for my grandchildren. Seems it would be callous behavior to treat a lover as a throw away and leave one's children in the dark. I am also not so sure "the money" went out of country. Could have been slowly withdrawn in cash and stored in a safe place until needed.

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RFG was a lawyer. RFG would know that, if he vanished, for his heirs to get the money, he would have to be declared dead. To be declared dead, his daughter would have to go to court and say, under oath, that she had not heard from him since he disappeared. If RFG disappears and directly tells LG, she would have to commit perjury. Would he put LG in a position where she has to commit perjury?

If that were me, I would not do that to a loved one, especially one that I wanted to inherit. I'm not RFG.

There is too much of a chance that someone would focus on LG, or that she would slip up and say something. She was polygraphed in September 2005, and passed. There was no guarantee that was the last time she would be asked.

RFG could have sent her a signal; he could have used certain elements from 20/20 Vision to show LG that he was still alive and walked away. An important plot point in that is a faked death.

There are similarities with that book. All the action takes place on 4/15 of different years. The hero, approaching retirement, drives west to east in a valley past the book's version of Mt. Nittany. RFG made the phone call to PEF traveling east to west in a valley, after going over the ridge that terminates in Mt. Nittany.

RFG had a copy of 20/20 Vision in the summer of 1990, when RFG was living with LG. He might have hoped LG would have picked up on it.

I have a question about the Dell Fast Ethernet Card. I looked up PCMCIA cards on line and am not sure if this is a memory expansion card, a network link card, or both. If it has expanded memory, then it would also contain files and information.

From: https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/p/pcmcia.htm

"Short for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, PCMCIA is a trade association founded in 1989 that is responsible for the ongoing development of the PCMCIA standard. PCMCIA cards are hardware interfaces that are slightly bigger than a standard credit card and enable additional functionality for laptop computers and other portable devices. If you're familiar with expansion cards in desktop computers, you can think of a PCMCIA card as an expansion card for a laptop."

First, would the Dell card be universal? The laptop was a Micron.

Second, In about 2006-08, TG was active on some boards. I did ask if the laptop had wi fi capacity. He said no, but noted that it could be connected to the Internet by connecting by a phone line and that he could easily have bought one on 4/15.

IIRC, there as a Staples Store on Route 15 in 2005 (it has moved to the the road connecting with Water Street). Lewisburg is and was a university town, so I would expect getting a connecting line would be easy. Students have computers and there were 2,500-3,500 at Bucknell.

Snipped to focus on the question.

Trackergd said:

I am also not so sure "the money" went out of country. Could have been slowly withdrawn in cash and stored in a safe place until needed.

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In the 2.5 years prior to RFG's disappearance, RFG had taken about $16,000. http://www.post-gazette.com/frontpa...n-photos-of-DA-his-look-alike-from-Texas.html

That works out to about $125.00 a week, which is not a lot. It would be enough to buy a used car and live on for a 1-2 months, but nothing beyond that. LE never looked prior to that.

Over that period, RFG was making between $116,000 and $120.000 per year, excluding 2005. In 2004, assuming RFG had no deductions, and no other income, he should have had a net salary of around $85,000. At $125/week, that would account for about $6,500 of that.

I really would like opinions about what you'd do ( the collective you reading here).

IF you left your long- term area and possibly country of residence, your long- term career which was obviously winding down to an end, and went elsewhere for reasons of your own, and things didn't go well in the new location for one reason or another, would you return?

Would it be humiliating after all the international press and " manhunt' for you if you were a public figure in the judiciary system gone missing?
Would you be too ashamed because whatever you'd planned ultimately failed ( not fatally failed but just didn't turn out to be paradise on earth)?

What would you do? I'd feel totally trapped, I think. IF there were financial assets at my disposal, not so much. In the absence of disease processes, a smart man like Ray could probably blend in, make new friends somewhere else, maybe have some cosmetic surgery, but to risk so much by leaving ( for whatever reasons if he did leave)?

Think about it. Walking away from everything you have, all the photos of your parents and family, your grown child, your accolades in your professional life, all of it. It would take strong motivation to deliberately leave, wouldn't it?
Thus, strong emotions were invested.

Maybe it's not the actual act of possible disappearance we should be thinking about so much as the psychological and other emotional aspects of walking away from a somewhat settled life at the age of 59 ( I say somewhat because I don't believe his relationship with Patty was " settled").

How did the final destination and outcome live up to his expectations and dreams? Was he happy? Is he happy now if he's still alive? It matters to me. I don't know why but it matters that a person might have gone to quite a lot of effort, time, planning, use of extensive personal knowledge and strength of will to leave it all behind. So, at this point in my life, at the age he was when he left, I do wonder if the payoff was spectacular. ( If he did, in fact, walk away).

Snipped for emphasis only.

SeekingJana said:

IF you left your long- term area and possibly country of residence, your long- term career which was obviously winding down to an end, and went elsewhere for reasons of your own, and things didn't go well in the new location for one reason or another, would you return?

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My answer is no, because RFG never had strong attachment to Centre County. He took the Cleveland paper, took PEF and Sloane to Cleveland for fun, and even maintained Ohio Bar membership. A lot of people go to PSU, fall in love with the area, and move. RFG went there because his then wife got a job there. He was always looking at some place else. After his career ended, he would have no reason to be there.

Would it be humiliating after all the international press and " manhunt' for you if you were a public figure in the judiciary system gone missing?
Would you be too ashamed because whatever you'd planned ultimately failed ( not fatally failed but just didn't turn out to be paradise on earth)?

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It depends on what RFG's goal was. If it was to demonstrate how superior he was, he succeeded.

I employed the assistance of a computer tech service about the ethernet card. "That add-in card is from around that era [2000's]. Those add-in cards could be used on a multitude of laptops for network access, dell’s, plus others. They were not for any storage of data."

So we know that the card works with RFG's computer and it was used to access a network, not store data. Who's network, County and/or other?

Trackergd said:

I employed the assistance of a computer tech service about the ethernet card. "That add-in card is from around that era [2000's]. Those add-in cards could be used on a multitude of laptops for network access, dell’s, plus others. They were not for any storage of data."

So we know that the card works with RFG's computer and it was used to access a network, not store data. Who's network, County and/or other?

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A private network, as opposed to the Internet?

It did have Internet access via a connecting cable.

J. J. in Phila said:

A private network, as opposed to the Internet?

It did have Internet access via a connecting cable.

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It appears that this card is for a private network. One might assume it is for the County. Not sure what other network he would have been hooked into.

The dial up internet connection would have been a phone plug on the PC itself.

Trackergd said:

It appears that this card is for a private network. One might assume it is for the County. Not sure what other network he would have been hooked into.

The dial up internet connection would have been a phone plug on the PC itself.

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It did have the plug-in connection for the Internet, according to TG. The connecting line was at home, but RFG could have purchased one fairly easily in Lewisburg.

What I'm wondering is if the card was part of an internal modem or if it was part of what they found. That is the only photo that I have seen it in.

If it was for a private network, I'd be surprised for the office. They were not the most technologically advanced organization in the US. In 2005, Courthouse was still using a switchboard.

That card is a curious tidbit. What are the chances that the hard drive had court reporter transcripts? Not sure if they were sill using steno pads and shorthand, Stenotype or laptops in the court room. Bugs me...what network would RFG been hooked into if not the county and if he was using dial up at home... How do we go about tugging on this string? Could the card have been used to transfer data from one laptop to another before if was disassembled and tossed?

Trackergd said:

That card is a curious tidbit. What are the chances that the hard drive had court reporter transcripts? Not sure if they were sill using steno pads and shorthand, Stenotype or laptops in the court room. Bugs me...what network would RFG been hooked into if not the county and if he was using dial up at home... How do we go about tugging on this string? Could the card have been used to transfer data from one laptop to another before if was disassembled and tossed?

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If they were digitized, it would probably as an attachment in Word at worst, but probably a PDF. The Sandusky trial transcripts were not scanned but saved to a PDF. Some of the filings in the Paterno suit were scanned to a PDF.

As for moving the data, it is possible that everything that was on the laptop was on the home computer. I think there are easier ways to transfer data than with putting a card into a computer, especially for someone that is not particularly good with computers. Transferring data to a thumb drive or to a separate drive would be two methods. A bit later, I used a program to transfer data from one computer to another directly.

Are we sure that this wouldn't something for an Internet connection? Would the port have been embedded in the plastic of the computer?

So what I have found out is that this card fit in a PCI expansion slot in the computer. It replaces the dial up by connecting via a hard cable with an internet router which then connects to the internet.

Trackergd said:

So what I have found out is that this card fit in a PCI expansion slot in the computer. It replaces the dial up by connecting via a hard cable with an internet router which then connects to the internet.

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I am not the most computer savvy person around. This would not be a wi fi thing? Is it a DSL type thing?

Also, where, generally, would it be attached within the computer?

So I grabbed our IT consultant and did some further digging and have the whole story. The "card" is a plug in addition. The computer already had a phone plug to connect for dial up service. The "card" allowed RFG to access a LAN (Local Area Network). In many cases you could access the internet from a LAN. If the county did not have a LAN at that time, who's LAN was RFG connecting to? One possible scenario is that he accessed one in a hotel room as most hotels had a LAN to access the internet prior to WiFi. Or it could have been a LAN that is currently unknown to us. Something new to sleuth! Curious if RFG used dial up at home or a router and cable. If he used dial up and the county did not have a LAN, then we have a new mystery on our hands.

I used to do this to access internet at hotels. Old technology now. You had to have an Ethernet cord as well or borrow one from the hotel.

I have an email out to determine who knows what IT infrastructure was available in Centre County Offices in 2000

The is a rather bizarre blog in Centre County, all around, that is doing some things on RFG. It is "Happy Valley Citizen." I refuse to link to it. The blog claims that RFG dated a daughter of Joe O'Kicki.
O'Kicki lived several counties over and a had a mutual friend of one of his daughters, who was younger than I am.

J. J. in Phila said:

The is a rather bizarre blog in Centre County, all around, that is doing some things on RFG. It is "Happy Valley Citizen." I refuse to link to it. The blog claims that RFG dated a daughter of Joe O'Kicki.
O'Kicki lived several counties over and a had a mutual friend of one of his daughters, who was younger than I am.

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More than likely, there are very very old threads here with mention of the last name " O'Kicki". Judge Joseph O'Kicki was a judge who disappeared for quite some time after he did some " bad stuff" and turned up alive and well in Slovenia. No idea if the daughter went with him, or with Ray or what. ( just kidding, mostly).
As I recall, a time or two, the young lady in question had a nickname here with a kink instead of a kick in a non- serious way because of the alleged age difference.... Steve Sloane mentioned both O' Kicki's a few times after Ray went missing..
There's more I remember from right here, years ago, but I don't feel comfy posting what all this speculation led to. I know " Ivy Butterworth" and her long blonde haired daughter were also mentioned along with the O'Kicki girl.... I think it's likely silly unfounded rumors, and we deduced the same at the time.. but if the O' Kicki female is not in PA and might be in Slovenia, then I'd be willing to re-evaluate things.