072 - The Disappearance of Ray Gricar

Trace Evidence

Steven Pacheco

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.7 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2019

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fifty-nine year old Ray Gricar had worked as the Centre County District Attorney for nearly twenty years. Having given most of his life to law, he decided that this would be his last term and in January of 2006 he was set to retire... but Ray would go missing nine months before his last day in office.

On April 15th, 2005 Ray decided to skip work and to go for a drive down to Lewisburg, a quiet little town some fifty miles away. He had been there often, and enjoyed visiting the local antique stores. On this particular day, though, Ray never came back.

After being out of contact for twelve hours, Ray's girlfriend, Patty, contacted police who immediately began searching for Ray. Nothing would be found until the next day when his vehicle was discovered in a parking lot in Lewisburg. The car smelled of smoke, and there were cigarette butts outside, but Ray was not a smoker.

The deeper law enforcement probed into the case, the more questions they had. When they discovered that Ray's county issued laptop was missing, and he'd been google searching on how to destroy a hard drive, their interest was piqued. When his laptop was discovered in the Susquehanna river, without its hard drive, investigators were baffled. What was so important that the drive needed to be destroyed?

In the years following, many theories came forward. Could Ray have taken his own life? Was it murder, either by someone he'd sent to prison or perhaps a trusted friend? Or, did Ray choose to leave his life behind, fleeing the country in hopes of avoiding some yet to be discovered issue?

Join host Steven Pacheco as he explores all of the chaos and confusion surrounding this sad and confounding disappearance.

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Sources: https://www.trace-evidence.com/ray-gricar

Transcript

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0:00.0	59-year-old Ray Grecar had been the district attorney of Center County, Pennsylvania for nearly
0:13.5	20 years. After all those years, two divorces and the tragic death of his older brother,
0:20.3	Ray was ready to take a step back. A year before his disappearance, Ray announced that he
0:25.9	would not seek re-election and would be retiring at the end of his term. On April 15, 2005,
0:33.4	Ray told his girlfriend, Patti, that he was going to take the day off. He wanted to enjoy the
0:38.6	warming weather and go for a drive, which was one of his favorite things to do. Later that morning,
0:44.6	Ray called Patti to explain he was driving down state route 192 and heading east. This would be the
0:52.2	last confirmed contact with Ray Grecar. When Ray failed to return home, Patti contacted police who
0:59.7	sprung into action, searching far and wide for the missing DA. When his car was found the next day,
1:06.2	it provided more questions than answers. Later investigation revealed that Ray's county issued
1:12.8	laptop was missing and he'd been searching the internet for knowledge on how to erase and destroy
1:19.1	a hard drive. Months later, his laptop was discovered in the Susquehanna River, missing its hard
1:26.1	drive, which would be found several months after that. Questions abound about Ray's disappearance.
1:33.0	Could he have made the same terrible mistake as his brother and committed suicide? Did he simply
1:38.4	choose to walk away, disappearing into a quiet life of anonymity, or could Ray have been the victim
1:44.5	of foul play, perhaps at the hands of someone who he'd previously sent to prison? And of course,
1:50.7	what exactly was on Ray's hard drive that he wanted to get rid of, and does the answer to this
1:55.7	mystery lies somewhere in that drive? This is Trace Evidence, Episode 72, The Disappearance of Ray
2:05.1	Greekar. Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host, Steven Pacheco. Today's episode focuses on the
2:17.2	highly requested disappearance of Ray Greekar in 2005, before getting into the case just a few
2:24.7	notes about the show. Trace Evidence is a weekly true crime podcast focused on unsolved murders and
2:31.5	disappearances examining a different case each Monday. If you have questions, comments, or case
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