Pocono News Section

I-Team Cold Case: The Disappearance of Ray Gricar

I-Team Cold Case: The Disappearance of Ray Gricar - Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 11:00PM EST

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Sunday, Nov 16, 2008 @ 11:00pm EST
LEWISBURG, UNION COUNTY- All this month the I-Team is taking a close look at cold cases in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania. These are the cases that people still talk about, because they've left a permanent impression on our area. Andy Mehalshick takes a closer look at the disappearance of Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar. It's a story that gained national attention.

Ray Gricar was the kind of person that would help anyone in need, a no nonsense man who got right to the point, especially when it came to fighting crime. A family man who loved life, on the morning of April 15, 2005 he vanished. Some would say he dropped off the face of the earth. He called his girlfriend and said he was going for a ride.

He was never heard from again. His Mini Cooper was found in Lewisburg. He was last seen at an antique shop nearby. And in a bizarre twist to the story, his laptop was found in the Susquehanna River. The hard drive from that laptop was also found in the river, removed from the laptop.

There were so many questions, but no answers. Mike Madiera is now the Centre County District Attorney. Gricar was his friend and mentor. Now he’s trying to solve the mysterious disappearance.

"Well, where it stands right now, we're really reacting to any new leads that come in. As for moving ahead on something, there hasn't really been significant new leads in quite a while," he says.

As a prosecutor for some 20 years, Gricar dealt with and convicted many bad people. What about revenge? "The most obvious ones of the thousands of cases I’m sure he did either have alibi's or the timeline doesn't fit. He did not follow his normal routine that day. It would be a very random thing where he wouldn’t normally be on a Friday," says Madiera.

Investigators say there are three possibilities. Suicide, murder, or did Ray Gricar simply walk away? Did he have a secret life that no one knew about? Madiera says, "I know his girlfriend Patty lived in the county with him, he had a daughter with whom, by all accounts he was very, very close with, along with other family members and to just walk away seems very, very odd."

And what about that computer hard drive, found in the Susquehanna River? "We were unable to retrieve anything from the hard drive. That does not say there isn't something on there, simply says they are unable to retrieve any data from it," says Madiera.

But people who eat at the Diamond Deli on Main Street in Bellefonte, across from the Centre County Courthouse, say the mystery is still the talk of the lunch crowd. Arlene Milton serves up the food and an opinion. "I just think he disappeared on his own, I mean he just vanished. I think he went on his own, they relocated him. I don't think he's dead. That’s my belief and I think a lot of people think the same thing," she told the I-Team.

And at this point in time that possibility, as with any other, can not be ruled out, until Ray Gricar is found, alive or dead.