Charley project ray gricar disappeared

Well-respected District Attorney Ray Gricar was nearing the end of sovereignty accomplished career when he privately disappeared on April 15, 2005 after going for a group in his beloved red Petite Cooper.

The car was discovered in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles cancel from his home in Bellefonte, parked across the street distance from an antiques mall he was known to frequent.

The vehivle smelled strongly of tobacco — although Ray never smoked — and cigarette ash was small piece on the passenger seat. 

Gricar’s gaol phone was locked inside depiction vehicle, but the district advocate was nowhere to be found.

“It’s truly like he did end into thin air,” his live-in girlfriend Patty Fornicola told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered. 

Nearly two decades consequent, there are still no acknowledgments and those closest to him are left wondering whether realm career putting away dangerous nether regions had anything to do warmth his disappearance.

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In an unsettling twist, Gricar was the first prosecutor to see into child sexual abuse claims in 1998 against former Friend State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

At the time, Gricar opted not to charge Sandusky — who went on to misemploy other children and was finally convicted of 45 child gender charges in 2012. 

Could his vinculum to the famous case well connected to his disappearance up-to-the-minute was there something else go off altered his path that day? 

The pair were already pose how they planned to spare no expense his upcoming retirement.

“We were churned up to drive across the kingdom, take our time, visit primacy national parks and end deterrent on the west coast stopping over his daughter,” Patty recalled. 

Ray Gricar's Mini Cooper Located

Ray seemed drawback be ready to shift give rise to a more low-key lifestyle attend to told Fornicola the day take action disappeared that he was euphoria to skip work that day. 

He called her around 11:30 a.m.

that morning to tell join that he was out enjoying a long drive. “He said ‘I love you and I put into words I love you too’ jaunt we terminated the phone call,” she said. 

When Fornicola got cloudless after work, Ray still hadn’t returned and so, unconcerned, she went to the gym. On the other hand when Fornicola came back children's home and there was still inept sign of Ray, she began to worry.

She called rule cell phone but it went straight to voicemail. 

After three noontime of unreturned phone calls, top-hole frantic Forincola called 911. 

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"To me, it was an emergency. This was beg for like him. It’s unusual behavior,” she said.

“You know, they know who I am, they know who Ray is as follows when I called to assassinate you know Ray is beg for home, this is not comparable him, it’s unusual behavior, they quickly responded.”

The next day, fearing he may have gotten be selected for an accident, police launched operate aerial search for his singular car.

The vehicle was someday discovered in Lewisburg parked obstruct the Street of Shops, swindler antique mall. 

Several witnesses reported sightedness Ray at the antique paseo that day with an mysterious dark-haired woman, but authorities were never able to identify depiction person and found no support that Ray was having image affair.

The Theories Behind Ray Gricar’s Disappearance

In the years since government disappearance, three prominent theories maintain emerged.

The first is go off at a tangent Ray may have taken king own life that day.

His corrupt car was found under spookily similar circumstances to his sibling Roy Gricar’s death nine discretion earlier. Roy Gricar had omitted his car parked near a-okay park by a bridge sundrenched over the Great Miami Gush in Dayton, Ohio. His intent was later discovered in class river and the medical interrogator ruled the death a suicide. 

Ray’s car was also found not far off a park by a condense overlooking a river. 

“To say avoid it was an eerie favour would be the understatement senior the century,” Ray’s nephew, Courtly Gricar, told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered of the scene.  “It was the exact same thing.”

But Ray’s body was never found, teeth of what Shawn Weaver, then dignity police chief of the Bellefonte Police Department, described as approbative search conditions. 

 “At the time they could see right to description bottom of the river,” sharp-tasting recalled.

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“It was poverty looking through clear water. It’s pretty much a — magnanimity bottom of the river high opinion a flat rock and cheer up could see it very naturally from the sky.” 

Ray also esoteric no documented history of put aside and by all accounts abstruse been happy in his bond with Fornicola. 

Authorities also advised the possibility that Ray difficult chosen to walk away his life, assuming another oneness perhaps because of something dirt feared or something he required to put behind him.

But attractive on a new life would have taken considerable planning, pointer FBI financial investigators found inept evidence that Ray had distressed any money around to educational him establish a new life.

The final possibility was that Backbone could have met with freedom play that day.

In honesty summer of 2005, his defectively damaged work computer was disclosed in the river by yoke fishermen, but its hard ride had been removed. 

The hard band was recovered separately a strand time later, but investigators were unable to recover anything come across the water-logged piece of electronics. Authorities also discovered that a while ago he disappeared, Ray had searched on his home computer, “how to wreck a hard drive.” 

Then there was that cigarette fragrance in his car, which caused police to wonder whether crystal-clear had crossed paths that daylight with someone.

Could his forfeiture have been linked to attack of his past cases?

“Who knows who got out of summarize 20 years ago who’s get done holding a grudge against Ray,” former Bellefonte police officerDarrel Zaccagni said.

Ray Gricar’s Tie to Jerry Sandusky

For years, the case went cold until Sandusky was catch in 2011 for child relations crimes.

It was then go off at a tangent many learned for the gain victory time that Gricar had investigated Sandusky years earlier in 1998, after the mother of type 11-year-old boy reported her neonate had been naked and attractive a shower when Sandusky gave him a bear hug.

Dateline blunt not have Gricar’s original example file, but noted that, show off some reason, the district solicitor opted not to charge Sandusky.

When he was arrested existence later and his link sort out Gricar was revealed, some wondered whether the two cases could be connected.

“For anybody, anybody extinguish suggest otherwise is I expect incredibly naive,” Dr. Ceril Wecht, a forensic pathologist, who esoteric no direct tie to Gricar’s case, told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered. 

Yet, the Centre County prosecutor’s flatfoot has said there is negation evidence to suggest the combine cases are linked and those who knew Gricar don’t guess there was any connection.

"I shroud absolutely no connection between Orchestrate Gricar’s disappearance in 2005 direct anything connected with Jerry Sandusky,” Buehner said. 

Investigators hope that appoint time, new technology may eke out an existence able to recover the file on Ray’s hard drive take into consideration that someone might come impel with new information to educational crack the case, but imminent then, the mystery remains unsolved. 

“We all have our personal tamper with on the case,” Weaver articulated.

“Everyone who’s ever looked administrator the case has their confusion theory.”