Ray Gricar had an enviable legal career throughout the ’80s and ’90s. But his legal career was second in his life next to his daughter, Lara. Ray was a doting dad and even spent Laura’s younger years as a stay-at-home dad.
Ray grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a big Cleveland sports fan. When his wife took a job at Penn State University, the family moved to Pennsylvania.
In 1985, Ray began his career as a district attorney in Centre County, Pennsylvania.
He took on some of the county’s most serious criminals. However, in 1998 Ray’s decision to not prosecute Jerry Sandusky, one of Penn State’s football coaches, for sexual assault against minors, caused a rift in Ray’s supporters. Many were not happy about that decision.
In 2005, Ray announced that he would not run for re-election that year, and intended to retire. He was looking forward to relaxing, traveling, and visiting his daughter who now lived on the west coast.
On April 15, Ray woke up and spontaneously decided to take the day off. His girlfriend at the time, Patty Fornicola, told him to enjoy the day, and she herself headed to work.
At 11:30 a.m., Ray called Patty to tell her he was taking a drive to visit some antique shops, and that he wouldn’t be home to let the dog out that afternoon.
Patty said no problem, she’d go right home after work. And that’s exactly what she did.
By late evening, however, Ray still wasn’t home and wasn’t answering his phone.
Patty reported Ray as missing, and authorities started looking for Ray immediately- they considered their District Attorney as one of their own in law enforcement.
Ray’s car would be found, but not Ray. Ray Gricar had vanished.
Where is Ray Frank Gricar?
Ray Gricar was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 9, 1945. He grew up with his brother, Roy, and they attended the prestigious private school Gilmore Academy.
Ray was always super-smart, and everyone knew he would be destined for great things.
He went on to attend the University of Dayton after he graduated high school, and after obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in Dayton, he continued his education at the Case Western School of Law.
Ray wasn’t all work and no play, however. He was a big Cleveland sports fan and in particular a huge Cleveland Indians baseball fan. Cleveland Indians are now known as the Cleveland Guardians, and Ray’s favorite thing to do was go to their games.
Ray also met his future wife, Barbara, while in college. He and Barbara married in 1969, and in 1978 they adopted a baby girl they would name Lara.
In 1980, Barbara was offered a job at Penn State University, and they made the decision to move to State College, Pennsylvania.
Ray wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job right away and he could be a stay-at-home dad to their baby girl.
After a while, Ray was itching to get to work, and he was offered a position as an assistant in the District Attorney’s office for Centre County. He took the job, which was part-time, and offered him the flexibility to still be a family man, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
In 1989, Ray would be elected as the District Attorney, which would remain a part-time position.
A couple of years later, in 1991, Ray and Barbara would divorce.
Ray would continue to be re-elected as District Attorney through the years. In 1996, the position became full-time.
Also in 1996, Ray would remarry, although that marriage would also end in divorce in 2001.
1996 would prove to be a difficult year for Ray in other ways. His brother Roy disappeared from West Chester, Ohio and his body would be found in the Miami River a week later. His death was ruled a suicide, and Ray was devasted.
In 1998, Ray faced one of the toughest years of his career yet. He was presented with a case against Jerry Sandusky, a football coach at Penn State. This case was extremely public as Sandusky was well-known in the area, and the accusations were extremely serious. He was being accused of sexual assault cri*mes against minors.
Locals were furious and enraged, and many wanted Sandusky arrested and tried for his crim*es.
Jerry Sandusky as a Penn State Football Coach
But Ray refused to press charges, citing a lack of evidence.
This was controversial at the time, and many wondered if Ray had an ulterior motive.
In 2002, Ray started dating Patty Fornicola, a woman who worked in the Centre County District Attorney’s office. They would eventually move in together.
By 2005, Ray was exhausted and tired of the work at the District Attorney’s office. He had brought in some assistants to help with the workload, and he made the decision to not run for re-election later that year. He was almost 60 years old, he had spent the last 20 years as District Attorney.
Ray was ready to retire.
THE DISAPPEARANCE.
On the morning of April 15, 2005, Ray woke up and just wasn’t feeling like going to work. It was a beautiful spring day, and he spontaneously decided to take the day off instead.
Patty said that was a good idea, and told him to have a nice day while she headed to work.
Around 11:30 a.m., Patty received a phone call from Ray. He told her he was driving through the Brush Valley Area towards Uniontown and he would be home later. He planning on visiting some antique shops and just taking a leisure drive. This was something Ray enjoyed doing on his days off, so she figured it would be good for him. He had been a little down lately and this might be just what he needed.
Ray also told her that he wouldn’t make it home to let their dog out, so Patty said she would go right home after work.
Patty did go right home after work. She let their dog out and then headed over to their YMCA for a workout. She returned home a couple of hours later, but Ray still wasn’t home. He wasn’t answering his phone either.
Thinking he was just driving, and would likely be home soon, she didn’t worry herself too much about it. But as the minutes, and then hours, ticked by, she became increasingly panicked that something might have happened to him.
Patty Fornicola, Ray’s Girlfriend in 2005
Patty knew many of the law enforcement officers in the area because of her work with the District Attorney’s office. And of course, Ray was the District Attorney. She knew if she called the authorities they would help her track Ray down and make sure he was okay.
Her biggest fear was that maybe he had been in a car accident and was unable to call.
Patty made the decision late that night to report Ray missing.
THE SEARCH.
Luckily, with Ray being a prominent public figure in the area, authorities began looking for Ray right away.
They put out a BOLO, a ‘be on the lookout’ for Ray’s red Mini Cooper, and began searching the route they thought he might have taken that day.
Patty decided to make that dreaded call to Ray’s daughter and let her know what was going on. She hadn’t wanted to worry her, but she waited as long as she felt she could.
Lara Gricar
Lara was instantly worried. This wasn’t like her dad at all. He was always in touch, and he didn’t like people to worry about him. He was also excitedly planning a trip to visit Lara on the west coast.
Where was her father?
Authorities checked Ray’s phone records and bank accounts but found no activity. They also searched his home, and along with Patty’s help, were able to determine that Ray hadn’t taken anything with him- no luggage or anything to indicate he wasn’t going to return- except for his county-issued laptop. But, he had left behind the charger for the laptop and the case was left behind.
His cell phone and wallet were also known to be with him.
One of his friends thought that maybe Ray had impulsively decided to drive to Cleveland, Ohio to see the Cleveland Indians play ball as they had a home game at the time.
Because of this, authorities in Pennsylvania alerted the Cleveland Police of Ray’s disappearance as well.
The entire day of April 16th, officers spent searching areas of the highways they believed Ray would have traveled. They searched in their police vehicles, on foot, and even utilized state helicopters to search from above.
Later in the day on April 16, 2005, Gricar’s vehicle was discovered in a gravel parking lot across the Street of Shops antique mall on the outskirts of Lewisburg near the Susquehanna River.
There was no sign of Ray at all, and the car provided no additional clues. Except, for the mysterious cigarette butt on the passenger side of the vehicle.
Ray didn’t smoke, in fact, everyone said he was adamantly against it.
Law enforcement checked with the antique mall that the car was parked near and learned that several people claimed they saw Ray in there the day before, and that he was with a dark-haired woman.
Who was this mystery woman? No one knew. And there were no security cameras either.
A tracking dog was brought in who found Ray’s scent in his vehicle, but lost the scent just a few yards away, leading some to think he may have gotten into another vehicle.
Some also wondered if maybe Ray had driven to the river to end his life in the same manner his brother Roy had several years earlier.
The Susquehanna River, a large and substantial river, was searched, but nothing was found.
Had he wanted to end his life? Perhaps he wanted to just get away and start fresh somewhere else? Or, had he met with foul play, possibly due to any enemies he may have had from his years as a District Attorney?
Ray had been involved in many high-profile m*urder trials, rape trials, and of course, the infamous Jerry Sandusky accusations which put Ray into the spotlight and angered a lot of people.
To add more speculation to this already bizarre mystery, authorities conducted searches of Ray’s home computer. They discovered some interesting search results. He had searched terms like, “how to wreck a hard drive”, “how to fry a hard drive” and “water damage to a notebook computer”.
Ray had also purchased software recently that was designed to wipe a hard drive clean. He had told Patty this was for him to do before he returned the county-issued laptop when he retired.
The search for Ray pressed on, but there just weren’t any clues to go on. Until July 30, three and a half months after Ray’s disappearance.
Fisherman pulled a laptop out of the river, and believing that to be strange, they turned it in to authorities. In fact, it wasn’t submerged in the water either, but sitting up near the banks of the river under a bridge.
It turned out to be Ray’s laptop, but, the hard drive was missing.
A few months later, in October 2005, the hard drive would be found near the river as well. Nothing could be recovered from it.
LEWISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.
Lewisburg would be the center of the search, since Ray’s car was found there and he was believed to have been there on April 15.
Ray was living in the Bellefonte area of Pennsylvania at this time, and Lewisburg was about an hour’s drive to the east. This was an area that Ray particularly liked, and it wasn’t unusual at all that he would choose to go there.
The drive from Bellefonte to Lewisburg is a rural, beautiful drive. Lewisburg sits on the banks of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The Susquehanna, at 44 miles long, is the longest river on the east coast.
Lewisburg is close to the center of the state and offers access to many major cities from there.
Philadelphia is about a 3-hour drive to the southeast. New York City is about three and a half hours to the east. Baltimore, Maryland is just two and a half hours to the south.
Lewisburg also sits on the outskirts of the beautiful and picturesque Pocono Mountains, so there is plenty of rural land surrounding the area.
THEORIES and POSSIBILITIES.
In the years since Ray vanished, there would be several theories that developed. However, three are repeatedly discussed in Ray’s case.
And for every main possibility we are going to mention- there are people who wholeheartedly subscribe to each one.
Ray decided to walk away from his life and start fresh. This is always thought when an adult goes missing, and to further this belief, sightings of Ray would start to come in from all over. However, some of these sightings actually caught the attention of the family.
First, there was a homeless man in Utah that claimed to have no memory of who he was. When the photo of him started to circulate, many pointed out he looked a lot like a disheveled Ray Gricar. However, fingerprints would eventually rule out this man as being Ray.
Another sighting took place in Texas. A woman was dining at a Chili’s restaurant when she noticed a man eating alone. She was familiar with the Ray Gricar case and thought the resemblance was uncanny. She struck up a conversation with him, and while she said he was very friendly, she noted he acted strange when she questioned him. The woman had asked for directions to the zoo, and his response was that he wasn’t from the area. She asked where he was from, and he became fidgety and hesitated before answering Tennessee.
She went back to her table and pretended to be taking a photo of her family and instead took the photo of this unknown man. She took the photo to local police who shared the info with the Centre County, PA police. The police showed a photo lineup to the waitress also — who picked out Gricar’s photo.
They showed the cell phone photo to Patty, who believed it might be Ray. His daughter Lara however points out that the man in the photo is left-handed, and she doesn’t believe it to be him- however- no one disputes the resemblance between the two.
Could Ray perhaps have had an episode and forgotten who he was? Or, was he just tired of living his life in Pennsylvania?
Maybe there was another reason he went on the run. Was he being threatened? I’m sure he made his fair share of enemies as a prosecutor.
SUICIDE.
Some do believe that Ray followed in his brother Roy’s footsteps and committed suicide.
There are some uncanny similarities, as both men had left their cars behind next to a river, and a nearby bridge.
But, the river was thoroughly searched and nothing was found. The river level was also said to be low at the time. Some even said that the old railroad bridge over the water wasn’t high enough to kill you if you jumped off. You could, in fact, land in the water and then walk right back out.
If he did commit suicide in the river, that bridge wasn’t likely to be the spot.
Over the years, the water levels have also fluctuated greatly, and still, no sign of Ray was ever found.
Yet others point out that with the currents and debris in the river, they do believe it’s possible he could be in the river and go undiscovered. Perhaps he floated downstream or was caught in some underwater debris.
Ray had been acting more withdrawn and tired leading up to his disappearance. Maybe no one quite knew how low he had been feeling.
FOUL PLAY.
There are many others who believe that Ray likely met with foul play, including one detective who knew Ray personally and helped investigate his case.
He believes that Ray was lured to Lewisburg.
The question would be — Why?
And there are a couple of theories as to why.
First, Ray was a major player in the Jerry Sandusky case, before it became a case. Ray declined to prosecute Sandusky, and many, to this day, wonder why. Was Ray covering for him? Or was Ray hiding something himself?
Was there evidence on his now-destroyed hard drive?
Photo Credit: centredaily.com
This was a very big deal for the area, and many locals can tell you all about it. When the case was brought to Ray, there was recorded evidence and witness statements, and yet Ray still declined to prosecute. People were not happy.
Second, aside from the Jerry Sandusky case, there were many other high-profile cases that Ray was in charge of prosecuting. This theory would come to light again when a former Hell’s Angel came forward to tell a story about what happened to Ray.
He claimed that another Hell’s Angel had mu*rdered him, blaming Ray for the many years the man had spent in prison.
He went into details about how Ray was lured to Lewisburg and how they got him into another car and took him out of the area.
And, remember, the tracking dogs led authorities to believe that Ray did get into another car because they lost the scent just a few yards from the car.
The informant took authorities to the land where he was supposedly buried, but he wanted immunity before showing them the exact location. This informant also claimed that there were other bodies buried there as well, not just Ray’s.
The informant said he was only comfortable coming forward now because he believed this other Hell’s Angel member was deceased, however, that was not the case.
The informant stopped talking and that lead stalled.
Those are the main three theories people believe when talking about the case of Ray Gricar. But there is one more that is sometimes brought up- Witness Protection.
Ray certainly would have found himself dealing with some dangerous people. Could something have led to him needing witness protection?
This we may never know.
What do you think happened to Ray Gricar?
Ray is described as a Caucasian male, standing about 6’0 tall and weighing 172 pounds at the time of his disappearance, in April 2005. He had graying hair and green eyes.
If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Ray Gricar- or any information at all pertaining to this case, please call the Bellefonte Police Department at 814–353–2320.
