 The unsolved disappearance of Ray Grecar is one of the most shocking and confusing true crime cases in Pennsylvania history. Once a well-respected district attorney, Ray Grecar would suddenly and tragically go missing in 2005 after taking a drive to clear his head after a long week at work. The only problem is, Ray would never come back. His notebook computer was later found at the bottom of a lake, but the hard drive was mysteriously missing. These whereabouts have never been uncovered, and most people believe that he was likely involved in a secret life of crime that ultimately led to his demise. The story of Ray Grecar has been requested dozens of times over the years, so I figured I'd do a deeper dive into Ray's disappearance this week. And by the way, if there's any other stories you'd like me to cover, just let me know in the comments. Most of the topics I cover are recommendations from you guys, so I'm always looking for suggestions. The story of Ray Grecar may seem a bit boring and rather mundane at the beginning, but that's how some of the greatest true crime stories start out, making the crimes even more bizarre and unexpected. Ray was never a guy that you would expect to go missing under such mysterious circumstances, and his early years are certainly telling him this. Ray Grecar is most well known for being a lawyer who practiced in Pennsylvania for most of his life. Ray was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in what was once considered one of the greatest areas in all of Cleveland, Collinwood. In the years since, the town has certainly seen a bit of a decline, later leading to what many would call the city's downfall. It's now considered a historic region in Cleveland, but it's also known for being rather crime-ridden, an impoverished area these days. As of 2020, the area is home to around 26,000 people, but the median income is just 27,000, with a population that's around 10% Caucasian and 85% African-American. Considering Ray grew up during the glory days of this area, he was quite privileged as a teen and a young adult, eventually attending a well-to-do Catholic school in Gates Mills. After leaving high school, he attended the University of Dayton, where he began studying law and interning at the local prosecutor's office, an internship that would drive him for pretty much the rest of his life. As he realized, he didn't just have a passion for being a lawyer, but he had a passion for law and justice. Now, that may sound kind of redundant, but you've gotta realize there's a big difference between being a criminal lawyer and being a criminal lawyer, and it seems like most lawyers fall into the latter category these days. Sorry for any lawyers who may be watching this, but you and I both know that's just the honest truth. If we fast forward a bit, Ray finished up his schooling and internship programs, and a few years later, eventually accepted a job at the county prosecutor's office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, specializing in homicides. By 1980, Ray had made his way to Pennsylvania in order to be with his newfound wife, who'd recently accepted a job at Penn State University. But in a shocking move to many of his family members and peers, Ray decided to quit his career as a lawyer and prosecutor entirely, opting to become a stay-at-home father to his children. If Ray was anything, he was a great father and a great husband. No one has ever spoken ill about his family or his home life. He was a man who seemed to have put his family first in all of his endeavors, so it made things even more strange when, without any prior notice, Ray packed up his car and disappeared, leaving his family, his friends, and one hack of a mystery in his wake. While Ray was enjoying his life at home, raising his children and attending the family matters, his new lifestyle didn't last too terribly long before Ray got an itch to begin working again. He was soon contacted by David E. Grime, who worked with the Center County District Attorney's Office in Pennsylvania. David had heard great things about Ray, so he made him an offer that he couldn't refuse, leading Ray to begin working again, accepting a new position as the Center County District Attorney. This took place around 1985, when the former District Attorney had decided not to run for re-election, paving the way for Ray to swoop in and claim the election by a margin of just 600 votes. When Ray accepted this new position, he agreed to work only part-time. But by 1996, he had campaigned to begin working full-time, and this request was ultimately granted. The people of Pennsylvania loved Ray, re-electing him in 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001. But it was around 1998 when Ray's relationship with the public began to sour a bit. Even though he managed to get re-elected in 2001, his election wasn't without its share of controversy. In 1998, news began to break about the Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. For any of you who may not be aware, Jerry Sandusky is a name that's now gone down in infamy in the world of football. While Jerry may have been a great coach in his own right, he had many dark secrets that he was hiding behind closed doors, 52 secrets to be precise. Jerry had been putting on a front that he was a family man and all around a nice guy. But as it would turn out, he had been accused by countless young boys of, well, you can fill in the blank, but he had a thing for them. In 2011, he would be convicted of 52 counts of violations against minors. He was sentenced to serve between 30 and 60 years in prison. But now you may be wondering how all of this pertains to Ray Grecar. As it would turn out, Ray had allegedly known about these crimes all the way back in 1998 and Ray was asked to press charges against Jerry, but he refused. According to Ray, there simply wasn't enough evidence against Jerry at the time, so he let the case slide. Now, in the years since, the details of the situation have faded a bit, so I can't say for sure whether or not Ray was in the wrong here. After all, it wouldn't be the first time an attorney's let things slide, especially when there may or may not have been under the table money involved. Mind you, this has never been proven, but a scumbag is a scumbag, and I wouldn't put anything past Jerry Sandusky. But I haven't found any reason to suspect that Ray was wrong in his claim that there simply wasn't enough evidence against Jerry at that particular moment. We know that the crimes were going on. That much is obvious, but if there isn't enough evidence for a conviction, then there's no reason to begin a lawsuit that's guaranteed to fail from the get-go. Thankfully, the evidence against Jerry mounted over the years, and he was finally sent to prison. But for many people, this raised concerns about Ray Grecar's integrity. Some people even believe that this may have been what led to Ray's eventual disappearance. Maybe it was vengeance by one of the parents of the victims. Some believe that Ray didn't disappear of his own accord. They believe that he was kidnapped. It was 1130 a.m., April 15th, 2005. Ray had moved in with his longtime girlfriend, Patti Fornicola, back in 2003, and the two were living in her childhood home in Bellafont at the time. Ray had called Patti to let her know that he was going to take a drive through the Brush Valley area, just a short distance away from Center Hall. This wasn't out of the ordinary for Ray. According to those that knew him, Ray loved to take long drives to relax and clear his head. It was supposedly something he did quite often. But on this particular day, Ray's drive would take him much farther than he anticipated, and he would never make it home. Ray was expected to be home by dinner that evening, but he never made it back. Patti waited and waited for him to return, or at least call, but she never heard from him. As evening turned into night, Patti grew concerned and reported him missing. It would take investigators nearly 24 hours before they found any clues about where Ray might have gone. As they searched the areas around where he was known to have been driving that day, they eventually encountered a tip that his car had been parked outside of an antique store in Lewisburg. When detectives arrived at the vehicle, they found nothing but his cell phone inside. They knew that he had his notebook computer, wallet, and car keys with him that day, but all of these items were missing. But strangely, officers found no evidence of foul play at the scene of the crime, so wherever Ray had gone, he had gone there willingly and he'd taken his notebook computer with him. Or so it seemed. Police, as well as his family and friends, noticed that the scene of the crime seemed a bit familiar. It didn't take them long to realize that the circumstances in which Ray's car was found bore a striking resemblance to the situation of Ray's brother, Roy, who had taken his own life back in 1996, with Roy's car being found in almost the exact same situation. Ray's brother had left one day, in May of 1996, to allegedly go purchase a few bags of mulch, but he never made it home. A few days later, his car was found after it was abandoned in Dayton, Ohio, near the Great Miami River. Roy had reportedly taken his own life by jumping off of a bridge into the lake after suffering from years of depression. Ray's car was found parked very close to the Suscahanna River. So police naturally suspected Ray may have ended up taking his own life as well. This led them to conduct a very thorough search of the river, but they found no signs of Ray or any of his belongings. Police later brought in sniffer dogs and had them search the area near Ray's car. We don't know specifically what led police to say this, but they claimed that the behavior of the sniffer dogs led them to believe that Ray had been meeting up with someone that day and may have left the scene of the crime in another vehicle. Pennsylvania police at this point asked the FBI to step in. The FBI then gained access to Ray's bank records, credit card statements, cell phone records, and every other aspect of his personal life. Ultimately, they found no clues or anything that seemed suspicious. Ray was in a good financial situation, his life was completely in order, and he planned on retiring later that year. But for reasons unknown, he had simply vanished before being able to live out his golden years. It would be several months later before the case would see any more progress. By July 30th, a group of fishermen had been traveling down the Suscahanna River when they came across a notebook computer at the bottom of the water, located just beneath a bridge that separated Lewisburg and Milton. And I believe this is the same bridge that was within walking distance of Ray's car, the bridge that police initially feared he may have jumped from, but don't quote me on that. Police showed up to collect the notebook computer, but they found that the hard drive was missing. Now, this is interesting for two reasons. The most obvious reason is that it appears as though something was on the hard drive that someone either wanted access to or wanted it destroyed. As it would turn out in the months leading up to Ray's disappearance, he'd spoken with several people inquiring about how he could erase his hard drive so that none of his information could be found or tracked. When Patty told police about this, she revealed that his search history on their home computer had alluded to some rather suspicious activity. He had searched how to fry a hard drive, as well as how to wreck a hard drive and even water damage to notebook computer. Mind you, these searches took place just a few weeks to months before he disappeared. So while we don't know much for certain, it seems that Ray Grecar was hiding something on his notebook computer that for whatever reason the world simply couldn't find out about. If this wasn't weird enough, things are about to get even worse. As police continued looking through his search history, they found that he had visited the MapQuest website and searched the driving directions of getting from Belifond to Lewisburg. But Ray had made this trip countless times before. He knew the journey like the back of his hand. So why would he suddenly need directions? Well, it's possible that he'd been looking up these directions so that he could print them out for someone else. The case got even more bizarre when investigators processed Ray's car for evidence. Inside the car, they found evidence of cigarette ash on the floorboard. They also noticed a strong cigarette odor inside the car. This is strange because not only was Ray not a smoker, but he hated the smell of cigarettes and all of his closest friends knew this. So someone else must have been in the car with him that day. This all became more plausible when just a few months later, someone found a mysterious unmarked hard drive on the banks of the Susquehanna River. Just 100 yards from where Ray's notebook computer was found under the bridge and also in close proximity to where his car had been found. Unfortunately, police weren't able to determine for sure if the hard drive truly belonged to Ray, but it seems a bit suspicious that it'd be found in such close proximity to his notebook computer if that weren't the case. Police sent the hard drive to a team of experts in the hopes of recovering some of the data from the drive, but it had simply been too badly damaged and there wasn't anything to be recovered, not one single file. No one knew what to make of Ray's disappearance. There were no signs of foul play ever uncovered, nor was there any indication that Ray had wanted to start a new life. After all, all of his money had been left behind untouched in his bank accounts. He made no plans to go anywhere other than visit Lewisburg that day. And it seems strange that if he wanted to vanish and leave no trace behind, that he would call his girlfriend and tell her about the upcoming journey. If he wanted to dip and run, he would have just done that without saying a word. Despite all of this evidence that proves otherwise, the Grecar family believed that Ray most likely met with foul play that day. And I'll be honest, I tend to believe them. It's far too much of a coincidence that police found evidence that he printed out instructions for a journey that he'd taken many times before and later found cigarette ash in his car, as well as the sniffer dogs that believe that he left the scene of the crime in another vehicle that just doesn't add up unless there was someone else involved. This all came to a head when a former district attorney and close friend of Ray spoke out in the months after Ray's disappearance. This friend came forward and explained that he'd recently been contacted by a prison inmate. This inmate, whose name has never been released, claimed that he had been cellmates with a man who claimed to have been involved in Ray's disappearance. The inmate claims that his cellmate openly confessed to taking Ray's life and had no problems talking about the crime. The cellmate supposedly wanted to take Ray's life because Ray had been the one who landed him in prison. The cellmate wanted revenge. He says that he claimed to raise life in Lewisburg that day, then dumped his body on hunting grounds just outside of Lewisburg. The only problem was police found no reason to believe that this story is true. They claim that they have no evidence pointing to foul play, even after all these years. The district attorney believes that the inmate is telling the truth, but that police simply won't follow up on the lead well enough. But if this is true and the cellmate did take Ray's life that day, then why was his laptop found in the river and why was the hard drive removed and thrown in a different location? And what about the cigarette Ash in his car? Truth be told, we simply don't know what happened to Ray Grecar. Many people believe his disappearance may have had something to do with his unwillingness to charge Jerry Sandusky back in 1998, but there's no evidence to suggest that there's any relation here, literally nothing. In the end, Ray Grecar was legally declared deceased in 2011. So what happened to him? Well, we may simply never know. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of True Crime Stories. If you liked this video and wanna see more, be sure to subscribe and hit that like button below. Also, leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts or theories about Ray's disappearance. I personally believe that there's a chance that this anonymous inmate may have been telling the truth all those years ago, but that still doesn't explain all the loose ends and there's simply not enough evidence to confirm this, so let me know what you think. But with that, I thank you guys for watching. My name is Ty Nottz and I'll catch you guys in the next video.