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GameChanger hey it's it's Nick from True Crime garage and you're listening to this great show so you obviously love
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Crime [Music] [Applause] week [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thank you
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that you got to watch out for because he's moving in
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of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some
00:04:13
true [Music] crime [Music] he [Music] with over 500 episodes the television show Unsolved Mysteries is a household
00:05:12
name the show first aired on the NBC Network on January 20th 1987 this show went on to cover hundreds
00:05:23
of real life Unsolved Mysteries over the course of the next 15 Seasons many of us remember tuning in
00:05:31
each week to see Robert Stack stepping out of the smoke wearing a trench coat and telling us about alien abductions
00:05:40
conspiracy theories and ghost stories this week's True Crime Story like some of the others we have covered
00:05:48
here in the garage was featured on the show today we explore a story that is so much more than a unsolved mystery it is
00:05:59
is really a bundle of many small Mysteries all tied together with the unfortunate loss of a very loved
00:06:09
man this big mystery starts as just a simple question for a woman named Allison and for her that question was
00:06:20
where is my husband he was supposed to be at home working but he was not sensing that something was just not
00:06:29
right she went to look for him soon the entire family was looking for this man and then the police joined
00:06:38
in and this question became a missing person's case then the questions not only grew in number but they got louder
00:06:47
and louder as missing posters went up and suddenly a city was looking for a man named Ray
00:06:58
Rivera his body was eventually found in an old hotel but how did he get there and why
00:07:07
nothing seem to add up and over time this mystery goes nowhere it just sort of sits there and goes cold no one can
00:07:16
seem to agree on just what the hell happened this is a true story did Ray Rivera commit suicide or
00:07:26
was he the victim of Foul Play join us perhaps you can help solve a [Music] mystery Ray Omar Rivera was born on June
00:07:52
10th 1973 to Angel and Maria Rivera Ry had an older brother named angel and a sister Elena at the time of his
00:08:02
disappearance Ry was just 32 years old and recently worked as a finance writer and a video contractor now many of you
00:08:11
from listening to today's trailer already know what case we are talking about and that is because when Unsolved
00:08:17
Mysteries came out in July of this year on Netflix one of the stories was titled
00:08:23
mystery on the rooftop and it was all about the mysterious death of 32-year-old Ray Rivera Ry died in
00:08:31
Baltimore Maryland in May of 2006 but the how and the why are the Unsolved Mysteries here let's start off with some
00:08:41
background information and some key events and dates leading up to Ray's disappearance and death in 2004 Ry and
00:08:50
his girlfriend Allison moved from California to Baltimore Maryland this is for the purpose of Ry
00:08:57
taking a job working for his longtime friend from high school Frank Porter stanbury Porter stanbury is the founder
00:09:05
of Stanbery and Associates which operates under the larger company agore publishing Ry is a writer more
00:09:14
specifically a screenplay writer Ry was hired to be an editor for the financial newsletter that is called The Rebound
00:09:22
report sounds like they're describing my dating life now Captain I think that it's important to mention that Ray does
00:09:29
not seem to have any real Financial background he has a writing background and as said it will be his job to be the
00:09:37
editor of the financial investing newsletter called The Rebound report well it seems like this is a pretty big
00:09:44
shift in his life in in his career yeah the rebound report offers investment advice specifically it tells you these
00:09:54
one-time high- performing High valued stocks that have not been doing so well as of late well they are about to make a
00:10:02
comeback and here is why they're going to make a comeback so it is time for you to buy these stocks while they are still
00:10:10
low now Allison says on Unsolved Mysteries that Ry took the job so he and Allison could get married some sources
00:10:20
say it was to purchase a ring for her but regardless this move does not overly seem like a desirable one for Ray but
00:10:29
the job seems to me Captain like maybe some sort of sacrifice he's willing to make so that he and Allison could start
00:10:37
their marriage life together off on the right foot yeah anybody in the Arts know
00:10:43
that it's a struggle he's with this girl that he loves and she wants to move things forward and he probably felt like
00:10:51
he wasn't able to afford them moving forward in his current position and also they moved across the country true true
00:10:59
and I mean as you're pointing out here I mean even Stephen King one of the most successful authors of our lifetime he
00:11:07
started off as an English teacher because you need some kind of Base some kind of income to build your family life
00:11:15
and your life around while you pursue your dreams if not you're just a starving artist mhm so likely what they
00:11:23
want to do here the goal I'm guessing is to have a good Financial foothold to start off their marriage plus Not only
00:11:33
would this be steady income for Rey the cost of living in Baltimore has got to be less than Los Angeles so it makes all
00:11:42
kinds of financial sense and also he's getting this opportunity from one of his friends that is
00:11:48
successful so I think that when your buddy that is successful and maybe you look up to him in that way and he's
00:11:55
saying hey come over here and I can help you get get where I'm at yeah it's certainly an opportunity in December of
00:12:03
2004 Ray and Allison purchased their home in Baltimore this is for about $280,000 after this Ray starts to
00:12:13
express some unhappiness regarding his job different sources State different reasons for Ray's occupational
00:12:21
unhappiness Allison recalls that the job was simply just not a good fit for Ry Allison says Ry was not a desk guy or
00:12:30
your typical 9-to-5 type of person one thing that is so important to any relationship be it marriage or otherwise
00:12:39
Ry and Allison had a set of shared goals and their plan was not to stay in Baltimore forever as said Ry and Allison
00:12:48
were both working hard to build a good little foundation and a short-term and very
00:12:55
realistic goal for them was to move back to California now I don't have an exact
00:13:01
date for this next event in the timeline I've seen this listed as early as the summer of 2005 but I actually think it
00:13:10
was more likely later in the year of 05 but Ray quit his editing job and according to everything I could find
00:13:20
that this was on good terms so now done with the newsletter job Ray started a video production
00:13:28
company company he took out a $155,000 cash advance from Allison's credit card to buy equipment Ry and his
00:13:38
new startup gets some contract work producing videos for the Agora company on Saturday November 5th 2005 the happy
00:13:48
couple Ry and Allison get married in Isabella Puerto Rico you can see some of the video footage from the wedding on
00:13:55
Unsolved Mysteries both Ry and aliceon are tall and goodlooking and they both look extremely happy in the videos yeah
00:14:05
now here is a weird event on the timeline on December 27th 2005 a friend of rays and an employe of Agora this is
00:14:16
Tom hickling dies in a car accident while visiting his daughter in Africa it is said that Rey was quite suspicious of
00:14:27
this death don't you think that that raises some kind of red flag if your husband or your
00:14:34
partner somebody at their work died now now they're not in the United States they're in a different country mhm but
00:14:42
they're going that's suspicious if they died maybe within the country right it's to me it's more of a
00:14:51
red flag that he's suspicious of a death that happened even in another country like but also who are you working with
00:14:59
it's also a red flag is this some sort of paranoia that's setting in that it's not realistic for him to be suspicious
00:15:08
about this death right you know you could go either way with it and it's really weird too Captain because I
00:15:14
really wish that we knew more details regarding this death and why he believed it to be suspicious I mean we have his
00:15:24
his former wife and his friends who who have said this they've this throughout the years that he was suspicious of this
00:15:32
death I don't know why though right was this guy into some kind of hot water with the company he was working for
00:15:39
right or or did he have gambling debts and like you said if somebody is going to set this guy up this Tom Hinkley guy
00:15:48
to die in what is to look like an accident they're going to have to go to the trouble of going all the way to
00:15:55
Africa to do so now maybe you go there and take care of business there so to speak because you don't think it's going
00:16:02
to be investigated the way it would be investigated here it's just really a a difficult
00:16:09
situation on the surface but also a difficult situation to analyze his thoughts and feelings on it because we
00:16:16
just don't have really any of the details regarding this whole event this tragedy yeah and it wouldn't be that big
00:16:24
of a deal if oh this guy died in a car accident I'm suspicious of that well why ah he was a drinker maybe he was driving
00:16:33
drunk oh well that's a big difference between I think possibly somebody killed him who possibly from the company I was
00:16:44
working for and doing contract work for currently but the the streets and the traffic and traffic laws or lack of
00:16:53
traffic laws in other countries in some other countries not all and I don't know
00:16:58
specifically what country this man was in when he we passed away but they're quite chaotic the traffic itself so I
00:17:07
mean you can see some countries have a much higher rate of accidents than than others so I
00:17:14
mean it really could be could be anything um didn't didn't TLC didn't we lose one of the members of TLC to some
00:17:21
kind of vehicle accident in another country left eye yeah rest in peace left eye in the spring of 2006 and I think
00:17:30
this was in the month of April Ray and Allison returned to Los Angeles now one of the major reasons for this trip was
00:17:40
to start planning their move back to Los Angeles when they return to Baltimore according to Allison she says there is a
00:17:50
noticeable change in Ray behavior and demeanor she says Ry seems to be nervous which is totally out of character for
00:17:58
this guy again another red flag yes she says he is agitated and he seems annoyed maybe with her I don't know with
00:18:10
what she's not specific on this he says that um she says that he was concerned or overly concerned about her doing
00:18:19
things by herself by her doing things alone there's a particular story of Allison going on a pretty routine jog
00:18:28
this is is roughly a week before Ray goes missing to which Ry insists on going with Allison and he does go with
00:18:36
her he sits in the bleachers reading a book while she's running during the run a man enters the track area and Ry
00:18:45
according to Allison has some kind of reaction to this he seems startled or whatever by this man being there but
00:18:54
this man was someone that was unknown to both Allison and if Ry knew this guy he
00:19:00
didn't tell her that he did well think about that for a second you just show up cuz you're want to run around the track
00:19:06
and all of a sudden this guy is causing a scene cuz he thinks you're there to hurt him or possibly him and his wife
00:19:15
and this guy he leaves the area and for all we know he could have just been like you said
00:19:21
showing up to go for a run or just to pass her by now I do want to point out that this quote change in Behavior well
00:19:31
it's only really suspicious if you believe that Rey was murdered or think that Rey was truly afraid of something
00:19:38
or someone Ry does not seem to tell anyone of this if he is in fact afraid of something specific yeah but what
00:19:47
point as the the spouse are you going to say hey I know we moved out here because your friend
00:19:54
had this opportunity but my first question question in this case is was this initial opportunity actually the job
00:20:03
that Ry was telling her it was or was there something a little more involved that he may not have told her
00:20:13
about was this opportunity on the up and up yeah that I don't know and can't say
00:20:20
for certain it appears to me from everything I've seen that that the the job that he was working was in fact the
00:20:28
one that he was offered long distance before he moved out there right but we don't again we have a guy that's
00:20:35
suspicious of people's death that work at that company right and I think what I'm trying to point out here is what I
00:20:43
would really like to know from those closest to Ray when they observe this change in
00:20:50
behavior is this something that clicked for them right away you know when he got
00:20:55
back from La was this something that was just so obvious to them then or is this
00:21:00
only something that they are seeing now in hindsight where they're going well something happened to this poor man oh
00:21:07
and now oh now come to think of it he was acting a little strange he was acting a little different you know it
00:21:13
only is suspicious in itself if it if you think something horrible happened to that this guy was set up or killed right
00:21:22
the other thing that I want to point out here too again I'm going back to let's say he is is agitated let's say he is
00:21:30
afraid of something because that's what Allison says but again he doesn't say anything specific to anyone that we are
00:21:39
aware of he doesn't say hey this happened and this happened and I'm afraid for my wife I'm afraid for me
00:21:44
because of a b and c he doesn't say that to anybody this is all him behaving a certain way and people later saying that
00:21:52
they noticed some kind of change in him you have to wonder since he does not cite anything specific to the people
00:22:02
closest to him at the time could this just be something in regards to his environment that does not have anything
00:22:08
to do with him personally on a personal level right because Rey is relatively new to the area of Baltimore as a whole
00:22:19
I mean we just talked about that he just moved out there in 2004 he disappears in
00:22:24
2006 Baltimore has a higher violent crime rate than most cities is there a chance that this is
00:22:31
something that he just recently became aware of Baltimore had 269 homicides in 2005 now that may seem like a low number
00:22:41
as Baltimore has managed to score over 300 homicides each of the last 5 years but for 2005 269 murders is a high
00:22:53
number the days before Ray goes missing Ry spends time reading the builders it's a story and study of
00:23:02
masonry this is by Joseph Fort Newton there's a different version a few different versions of this book the one
00:23:11
that I'm referencing here is from 194 so it's a new release on Sunday May 14th Ray and Allison go to church this is a
00:23:22
regular weekend activity for this young married couple Allison over hears Rey leaving a voicemail for someone there's
00:23:32
a couple different versions of this story Captain some say that he excused himself from the church service the
00:23:39
other report is that this was shortly after church was over regardless what is the same in all the reports I could find
00:23:49
is that this is coming from Allison his wife who says that she overheard her husband Ry leaving a voice
00:23:57
m for someone she says that he says something like hey man give me a call back I've finally got it all figured out
00:24:07
and that's as much as she says that she hears so who is this call to now I couldn't find anything to formally back
00:24:16
up this next statement but this next statement comes from a Reddit post that says that
00:24:23
Allison at some point later learns that the phone call was to Ray's friend Porter who he worked
00:24:32
for and this post goes on to say when questioned by Angel ry's brother Porter says he didn't know what it was about or
00:24:43
what Ry meant by the the the message hey call me back he wasn't expecting a call
00:24:50
and did not know what the the message meant mhm the next day this is Monday May 15th the Riveras have a home
00:24:58
security system and the alarm goes off at about 1:00 a.m. now police do respond to this alarm and they tell Ry and
00:25:07
Allison after looking around and checking everything out that they believe that it was likely that a
00:25:13
squirrel or some type of wildlife had caused the alarm to go off now this is a little weird and
00:25:21
Allison says this is super weird to her because they had lived there for some time and the alarm had never gone off
00:25:28
before about 24 hours later this is sometime in the early hours of May 16th the home security alarm goes off again
00:25:37
and on Unsolved Mysteries Allison says that this is one of the front downstairs windows and given her description this
00:25:47
appears to be a window that could be easily accessible from the outside yeah cuz I think they had some other windows
00:25:55
but there were bushes in the way so maybe someone was trying to pry this window open yeah or tamper with this
00:26:03
window in some fashion in the middle of the night in the dark I do question this a little bit
00:26:09
like I'm not saying that that she's wrong or wrong to be suspicious it seems very weird to
00:26:15
me that the alarm would go off two nights in a row and they've lived there for months and it's never gone off
00:26:22
before so that I agree with her one 100% seems very strange to me what I kind of
00:26:28
question is the location and knowing what I know about security this does not this would not be the window that I
00:26:36
would choose if I were wanting to gain access to the home it's easily visible from the street it just doesn't seem
00:26:45
like the type of window that someone would pick when you get to choose from multiple windows to try to enter a home
00:26:52
and later that morning the morning of May 16th Ray and Allison spend the morning together and then Allison leaves
00:27:00
to go out of town for a work trip yeah and within hours of her leaving for that trip Ray is going to go miss
00:27:08
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00:29:28
[Music] all right we are back cheers mates cheers to all that morning May 16th Ray
00:29:39
and Allison they spent the morning together Allison says that Ray made her breakfast she
00:29:46
carries he carries her luggage out to the car and again Allison is leaving to go out of town for a work related trip
00:29:57
she is going to Richmond Virginia later that day Ry talks to a Maryland Freemason member at the local Mason
00:30:06
Lodge talks to him about joining later WB TV1 news questioned the member and he stated there was nothing unusual about
00:30:18
this conversation that it was a typical conversation of someone inquiring about a membership now note sometime leading
00:30:27
up to this Ry purchased a book called Freemasons for dummies at a local bookstore Freemasons for dummies is your
00:30:38
key to the history beliefs and rituals of Freemasonry here is the book description
00:30:45
it says fascinated by Freemasons Freemasons for dummies is the international bestselling introduction
00:30:52
to the Masons the oldest and largest secret society in the world world this balanced eye-opening guide demystifies
00:31:01
Freemasonry explaining everything from its elaborate rituals and cryptic rights to its curious symbols and their
00:31:09
meanings find out what goes on in a masonic meeting you'll understand the true purpose of masonic secrecy and
00:31:19
philosophy meet famous Masons throughout history and discover related organizations like the Knights Templar
00:31:26
the Scottish w Order of the Eastern Star and the Shriners explore the controversies and
00:31:33
conspiracy theories that swirl around this organization at the center of Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol and
00:31:41
discover the changes coming to the craft all right but it's confusing to me that
00:31:48
somebody that's planning to head back to California is going to try to enter this
00:31:55
group and Baltimore yes that's a good point but it would be like cuz they have chapters right yes so essentially you
00:32:06
could join in Baltimore and then relocate to California that shouldn't be much of an issue it's also we don't have
00:32:15
anybody to explain to us why he is carrying out these actions yeah or if this was talked about months in advance
00:32:25
or if this was just oh my wife's gone I got some time to kill let me go ask about the Freemasons well we have
00:32:32
Allison who tells us that he was reading the book The Builders so that's tied to the
00:32:39
Freemasons we know that he purchased this Freemasons for dummy's book at a local bookstore I don't have a date on
00:32:46
that I've seen that it was the day that he went missing I've also seen that it was the weekend before or a week before
00:32:53
right and one thing I want to point out here too I think with lot of this information or lack there of specific
00:33:01
detailed information is that the number one source for this case seems to be the
00:33:08
episode of Unsolved Mysteries not just for me and you here in the garage today it seems like to everyone out in the
00:33:14
whole big world and because they're giving you a a report of this they're not super detailed about days and times
00:33:24
and things like that as they don't want you to get kind of Lost in the minutia of it when they have this bigger story
00:33:31
to tell and also what is their purpose their purpose is not to inform every detail their purpose is to get some
00:33:41
Spotlight onto this case but also Entertain You So most people aren't entertained by every little detail
00:33:50
correct so I also want to point out here like people have really pointed to this
00:33:56
all this act it that he seems to be doing with the the Masons as again something suspicious or something to be
00:34:03
worried about he's a wannabe screenwriter is this he is a screenwriter he just is not profiting
00:34:13
off of it correct yeah is is this research for you know you write you write a lot of songs I'm sure you do
00:34:19
some research for the lyrics that you put into those songs yeah I meet with different groups like the Freemasons and
00:34:26
figure out how to write songs about him right but I mean you're you're making light of what I'm saying but it's it's
00:34:32
not far-fetched to say okay um Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol The Da Vinci Code were huge books at the time
00:34:42
and oddly enough if you want to try to tie in the Freemasons to Ray Rivera's death it's weird that the it's a little
00:34:51
weird that the movie The Da Vinci Code came out the same week that he went missing no I think your point is very
00:34:57
valid and I'd almost argue that it's it's more valid that he was doing research than actually wanting to join
00:35:04
another interesting thing that happens that day we have Ry who calls Chesapeake systems and he speaks with a man named
00:35:11
Adam Gold this is an employee at Chesapeake systems he calls late in the afternoon and this is for the purpose of
00:35:19
booking a video editing suite for the weekend so he could edit a video for a Stanbery Associates conference Ry was an
00:35:30
occasional customer of Chesapeake systems So Adam Gold was somewhat familiar and he knew Reay and gold says
00:35:40
that the call was business as usual Ray sounded normal but maybe a little pressed for
00:35:48
time sometime between 6 and 6:30 p.m. Allison checks into her hotel now this is when she called calls Ry and she gets
00:35:58
no answer Allison calls the house guest that is staying at their house okay so we have to explain this bit a little bit
00:36:08
and I think it's a little weird that they don't explain it in Unsolved Mysteries this is this in itself is a
00:36:15
mystery there is a woman named Claudia and the best description we get on the show is that it's a work colleague of
00:36:22
Allison's MH that is staying at their house and is staying on the day that Ry happens to go
00:36:30
missing there's not a whole lot anywhere else that I could find that explains any
00:36:36
more about this house guest are you sure that she works with Al Allison and didn't work with
00:36:44
Ray what I recall hearing and reading is that she is referred to as a colleague of Allison's I could be I could be wrong
00:36:52
on that so Claudia says when Allison calls and speaks with her Claudia says that Ry got a phone call around
00:37:03
6:30 he had a brief conversation with someone and at the end of the call Ray says oh [ __ ] and then he runs out of the
00:37:12
house in a hurry she says that Ry returns a few minutes later for just a very brief moment and then leaves again
00:37:20
yeah and I believe they were both upstairs and I believe the rooms were connected like being there's a wall just
00:37:28
separating them and so she could really kind of not only just hear what he was saying to the the person on the other
00:37:36
line but she also talks about how he kind of thrust his chair out mhm you know like you were saying you know
00:37:46
leaving in a hurry yeah so the way that it's described is that Claudia would have been staying in what I'm a what I'm
00:37:53
guessing is the guest room and that they had an up upstairs office that Ry was you know he's working out of home at
00:38:01
this point for the most part and I don't know if he shared if he and Allison shared this space as an office space but
00:38:08
on that day that's where he's working and as you said it's like next door to Claudia where she is staying so he
00:38:16
leaves in a hurry returns very briefly for just a few minutes and then leaves again there's no description given by
00:38:24
Claudia or to the public anyway of what or why Ry returned to the house it could
00:38:30
have been something as simple as he left it was a surprise to him that he was leaving and he you know oh I forgot my
00:38:37
keys phone forgot my wallet forgot my wallet forgot my my phone the the interesting thing about the wallet
00:38:44
though is um one thing they state is that he left with like $20 in his pocket and assuming that he left with
00:38:54
his money clip as well so I don't know that he actually had a wallet but yes he had um money clip same purpose as a
00:39:03
wallet his phone could have been the keys that he returned for I don't want to throw a wrench into things I don't
00:39:08
believe she actually saw Ray when he returned no I'm guessing that she hears the commotion of all of this she hears
00:39:18
oh [ __ ] Here's the the the uh chair move and then he runs down the steps she probably hears the door open and closed
00:39:26
open and close again yeah I've seen on a couple online forums where they question
00:39:32
if it if it's Ray I would assume like you said because it was such a quick come back to the house that it was
00:39:41
something as simple as forgot his phone or his wallet or whatever and it said that Ry left a soda
00:39:50
some chips and his Invisalign retainer on the kitchen counter MH now I'm not certain if that means that he he placed
00:40:00
these items down there before leaving or if they were just already there and he left
00:40:06
abruptly Allison continues to try to reach Rey a couple more times that evening to no avail she does find ry's
00:40:15
unavailability strange but she says that she knew that Ry was very busy with his video projects
00:40:23
and it sounds like he had a a deadline coming up at some point I do want to reference another source
00:40:29
here and this is a good source for people to check out in regards to this case there's a book out there titled an
00:40:38
unexplained death the true story of a body at the badier and this is by Makita brotman in her book she writes that Rey
00:40:48
had left a website up you know when he leaves in this hurry he's busy working at his computer and whatever it's
00:40:56
believed he was looking at was still up uh and running at a later point was it porno yes it was porno I mean I'm just
00:41:05
saying it could be very embarrassing well so the website that he left up was a website that gave the time of that
00:41:13
day's sunrise and sunset that's weird well I can't say that he was looking up Baltimore
00:41:22
specifically I I don't know if if he you know was looking in his City or another
00:41:27
city you can look up cities all around the world on that day just for for reference on that day in Baltimore the
00:41:36
sunrise is listed at 5:52 a.m. and the sunset was set for 8:14 p.m. right I do know that people uh you
00:41:47
know directors people that make movies like the film things I don't know what it's called there's a word for it but
00:41:53
there's like that magical hour of of the day when you want to film things because
00:41:59
the way that it will look especially the sky that actually a very good point I didn't think about that so knowing that
00:42:06
that is his business at the time MH it might be something that is important to him especially if he was planning a
00:42:13
future um project or not even that though but it doesn't have to be that time period it could simply be I'm going
00:42:22
to meet these people at whatever time I want to see what the Daylight's going to
00:42:27
look like because that's going to determine do I need to bring this camera or that camera or do I need to bring
00:42:33
some lights with me so that's definitely a a tool that photographers and obviously filmmakers use another thing
00:42:43
that's interesting and this is just it's one of those little tidbits where I found a statement but I can't find
00:42:50
anything to formally back it up was that Rey at some point within a short period
00:42:57
of time before his disappearance had inquired or spoke to somebody about filming something from the badier hotel
00:43:05
from the top of the badier hotel there's no more detail that I could find on that
00:43:11
but then you go okay well this is a major city does he want to get some footage from a top of a big building at
00:43:19
night you know get the skyline get the city all lit up you know very cinematic type type stuff so any anybody guest
00:43:26
there you should be a director I'm going to throw a little wrench into that idea
00:43:32
uh about him contacting the hotel because we have no way of knowing how he did that whether it was by phone or in
00:43:43
person I think the speculation was it's just by phone and all I'm going to put out there is somebody can call and
00:43:50
easily say that they're Rey and not be Ray right but again I I don't know who the person was that he is supposed to
00:43:57
have this conversation with so I don't want to take it a step further and say that someone called the hotel or that
00:44:03
this is a hotel employee that information is not there this could have simply been a friend
00:44:10
that he mentioned this to right so that evening on the 16th Rey was on the receiving end of a phone call that
00:44:22
Claudia has to believe led him to running out of the house in a hurry and the short of it is that Ry
00:44:29
never returns police state that the last phone call received by Ry originated from Fels
00:44:37
Point Unsolved Mysteries says it came from a switchboard at Stanberry and Associates from my general understanding
00:44:45
of this Captain it's possible that this could be from both meaning someone could
00:44:49
have called into stanbury and Associates and get redirected or type in some type of extension and then gets
00:44:59
sent along to Ray's phone right later Allison reviewed the phone bill from that day and is on record saying that
00:45:09
there were only four calls that day and all of them were from Ray's work and that's about as far along
00:45:18
as we get of a description of who could have been calling Ry especially that last call before he runs out the door
00:45:25
May 17th at 5: a.m. Allison wakes up she calls Claudia again and unfortunately Allison learns that Ry still has not
00:45:36
returned he's not come home and it's now been overnight yeah Claudia doesn't say
00:45:42
you know oh I heard him come in and then he left again no he he never came back according to the house guest Allison
00:45:49
then decides this might be some type of an emergency something really weird is going on so she decides to leave her
00:45:57
work trip early and head home a frantic Allison returned home and by this point the house guest Claudia has left she
00:46:05
left sometime that morning Allison is quoted as saying that Claudia quote had her own drama end
00:46:15
quote again another thing that doesn't make a lot of sense yeah it could be something more details here please it
00:46:22
could be something as simple as she just happened to be staying there that night
00:46:28
and she doesn't want her you know her her information out there she doesn't want you know she doesn't want
00:46:37
to be involved well I don't know that she doesn't want to be involved but but she probably has some kind of private
00:46:42
life that she may not want every detail that was going on in her life at that time out there right when somebody says
00:46:50
to when somebody says she had her own drama yeah and doesn't my imagination doesn't have to run too wild to go well
00:46:58
maybe she and a significant other or somebody she's living with or for whatever reason she needed a place to
00:47:05
stay that night and I don't think that it was just because she happened to be working in town that night usually they
00:47:12
don't refer to work as drama and Allison's going out of town so well when people are showing up dead from your
00:47:19
work that I would consider that drama Ray's brother Angel he gets on a plane that same day and then the search for
00:47:28
Ray commenced in the next couple of days several other family members arrived in
00:47:34
Baltimore to assist in the search on Saturday May 20th this was the video editing session that Ry booked so
00:47:45
he's now been gone for a couple of days and this appointment that he arranged on
00:47:50
his own has come and pass and we still don't have any ray river two days later on May 22nd Ray's
00:47:59
car is found midafternoon in a paid parking lot behind a building which is near the badier hotel it's also near
00:48:09
stanburry and Associates so it's not really it's not really out of the realm of possibility that you would find his
00:48:18
vehicle there it doesn't seem like an entirely strange place to find the vehicle right it's in an area where I'm
00:48:28
also curious like would this be an area where he's parked before for work in the
00:48:32
past they don't really go into detail about that but what we do have is a parking ticket you know you have to pay
00:48:40
to park there so they have a parking ticket that confirmed that the car had been there for 6 days he's missing for 6
00:48:48
days the vehicle's been there for 6 days this car somehow got to this paid parking spot the same day that Ray went
00:48:57
missing according to the parking attendant this man left work at 6:00 p.m. that day the day that Ray went
00:49:05
missing right he says that the vehicle that's later identified as Ray Rivera was not there when he left that day at
00:49:12
6:00 p.m. he said that he returned to work to monitor the lot the next day May 17th at 7: a.m. he says when he arrives
00:49:23
at 7:00 a.m. on the 17th r car Ray's vehicle was there at that time but the four calls that he's getting they might
00:49:32
not be significant at all he might have stopped writing for them but he was still doing projects uh for that company
00:49:41
correct and there's any number of reasons why those calls could have come in and had nothing to do with him going
00:49:47
missing or later his death 2 days later on May 24th some Oxford Club employee es
00:49:56
some Reports say two employees some say three regardless these would have been like one-time co-workers of Ray Rivera
00:50:05
we said Oxford Club employees the company's a little confusing on the surface okay he worked
00:50:15
he being Ry worked for stanbury and Associates worked for Porter Stanberry Stanberry and Associates is
00:50:22
under the parent company of Agora same with this Oxford club they're under the parent company of Agora and
00:50:33
where it gets more confusing about the calls coming into Ray's phone that day they necessarily do not have to be from
00:50:42
stanbury and Associates it could have been any of the companies that fall under Agora and a lot of these share office
00:50:51
space or have buildings uh together or their businesses are located on different floors of the same building
00:50:58
all in this same area of Baltimore the same little intersection really so these three employees one-time co-workers of
00:51:06
Ray Rivera on May 24th they're out and about and they're looking for Rey or at least looking for clues about Ray's
00:51:16
whereabouts in the area of the badier hotel keep in mind this is not like they went way out of their way to do this
00:51:23
this is right by their work the three employees go to search a parking garage that's located right by the badier hotel
00:51:32
while on the top level of the parking garage one of them looks over at the roof below them and sees a hole in the
00:51:40
roof they also spot what they believe to be flip-flops a phone and Eyeglasses they immediately call law enforcement
00:51:48
and detectives go to the badier Ray's body is found lying face up wedged against a wall in an unused portion of
00:51:57
the badier yeah isn't it just used for maybe special events or something it could be it's a little unclear to me
00:52:04
because I've seen it referred to as a conference room as a banquet hall I've also at one point the guy on Unsolved
00:52:13
Mysteries who eventually becomes the property manager over the badier right refers to it as the uh what does he call
00:52:20
it like the old the old racket ball court or the old tennis he calls it something that seems seems strange but
00:52:27
it may have been that at one time and then repurposed for something else later regardless this is not an area that
00:52:34
people frequently go into it's a locked door a locked space that you have to believe has been unused from the time
00:52:41
that Ray went missing until they find his body his lifeless body there lying face up against the wall and it appears
00:52:48
he came through the roof that hole that we just talked about which created a 40in diameter hole in the roof yeah and
00:52:58
it seems like a lot of layers that you need to go through to go through a roof yeah he's not a small man no He's listed
00:53:08
at what 6'4 6'5 and about 250 lbs yeah and if he jumped from the hotel one would assume that he could go through
00:53:20
the roof yeah depending on what height he fell from or jumped from or was push from I mean that's where you start
00:53:27
getting into well why did this happen and how did it happen yeah crazy now all three of those
00:53:35
employees that we mentioned that were involved in actually helping to find Rey they were sent off to the police station
00:53:45
and of course they were they gave statements at that time according to Allison and a retired detective a now
00:53:52
retired Detective still active at the time and some others they all say that shortly after Ray's body is found that
00:54:01
Porter stanburry Ray's longtime friend he becomes uncooperative where before when Ry was
00:54:10
simply missing that he was cooperating and he was involved in the search for Ray right he even offered up $1,000
00:54:19
reward for information leading to his missing friend but they say you as soon as the body was found magically
00:54:27
now this guy doesn't seem to want to be involved in any of the discussions into what could have happened to Ray yeah
00:54:35
which is very suspicious that you'd be I'm offering money if you can find them it's almost like in the way in which he
00:54:44
finds him that that lets Porter know something you see what I'm saying oh he this is a a murder or possible murder or
00:54:57
a murder where somebody's trying to make it look like suicide I know who did this I know who's
00:55:03
capable of this I know what Circle that these individuals are running around in because this is my
00:55:12
business and so these guys that did this to Reay are capable of doing this to me
00:55:19
so I need to not be involved and I need to keep my mouth shut or I could be next
00:55:25
that's interesting that you say that and I like that you say that because I've always found look many people are
00:55:32
suspicious of of Porter and his behavior and what his is his involvement in this
00:55:39
whole mess there's no question about that but what I find to be weird is I get why people question his actions and
00:55:49
are suspicious of him but I also would like for everybody to keep in mind that if Porter knew in advance what happened
00:55:56
to Ry and why or if Porter was involved mhm in what happened to Ry and why he knows that the body is very close
00:56:09
to him in proximity right so it seems strange to flip this behavior from cooperating when he's not found to not
00:56:18
cooperating when found so to give a little background here to those that don't know the area from the place that
00:56:25
Ray parked his car well we don't know that he parked it but from where his vehicle was found right in that paid
00:56:32
parking lot it is going to bring up my notes Here do they not have any cameras in this parking lot nobody has
00:56:40
referenced cameras in this parking lot at any time Tres me that so if you were to walk from his from that parking spot
00:56:47
where the vehicle was found that parking lot it's a one minute walk to the badier
00:56:51
hotel if you were to walk from that parking lot lot to his old place of work Stanberry research it's a two-minute
00:57:00
walk mhm so all of this stuff is really within the same intersection of Baltimore hold on a second this is a
00:57:08
whole Porter Stanberry sounds like a douchy rich character from a John Hughes movie or something from the 80s
00:57:17
according to Allison and the now retired detective and some of the others that say that they Porter to be uncooperative
00:57:27
immediately after the body is found they say that Porter is not returning the detective's phone calls and when the
00:57:34
detective tries to contact employees at the office he is told by company lawyers
00:57:40
that employees are not allowed to speak with him right he claims that this is some type of gag order Allison said that
00:57:48
Porter spoke directly to her and that he told her that he doesn't want to speak to the police
00:57:55
and fears that they will be against him due to his prior SEC investigation this is all this is
00:58:04
all a bit messy right here in this because it is true that Porter and the company were under investigation at the
00:58:13
time by the SEC right to be 100% clear though we should point out that this investigation was an ongoing one that
00:58:22
started before Ray even moved to Baltimore before he started working at stanbury and Associates right it's just
00:58:31
a [ __ ] excuse and it was still going on after Rey's death it's might be a [ __ ] excuse but we're we're not
00:58:38
hearing this directly from Porter we're hear we're hearing it secondhand as to why he says he doesn't want to speak
00:58:47
with police that they might oh they might be suspicious of him because there's already a government agency
00:58:53
looking at him and his company for Mis dealings previous to this right right this is so strange because when you when
00:59:02
I finished the episode of watching UNS solve Mysteries you you go this this character this Porter character is is
00:59:09
extremely interesting and extremely suspicious but like I said it's like well did he have something to do with
00:59:19
this and if he did why would he be so involved initially in the Church unless that was a cover up and then once they
00:59:29
found Ray that he decided that he needed to be less involved or more fingers would point to him I I believe that
00:59:38
there is a reason that Porter brought his friend out there from Baltimore not just to help him hey come out here
00:59:47
there's great opportunities for you but I think there was some opportunities that got them in trouble
00:59:55
got them into situations that they couldn't handle and I think that's why Rey was so concerned you know about
01:00:06
people that he worked with dying well that one person right to save people makes it sound like they're dropping
01:00:13
like flies over at Stanberry and Associates Old Stanberry and Associates they're dropping like that's their motto
01:00:19
and again we dropping like flies we have zero information on that car accident other than this man died in in Africa
01:00:27
that's a whole that's a whole freaking continent like we don't we don't even have a statement that narrows it down to
01:00:33
a specific country right so it seems a very but it also seems like in a sense that this is stage to make it seem like
01:00:43
he committed suicide that he jumped off the the building or maybe he was thrown off the building who knows but if
01:00:55
it was a possible suicide then why would Porter just you know pack it in and cut off all
01:01:03
communication with law enforcement again it's the description of a select few people that are saying
01:01:12
that that's what went down and how it went down yeah as you've pointed out in plenty of our other cases there's two
01:01:19
sides to every story three well you we we can argue that we we have in the past but sometimes there's just two there's
01:01:29
his and hers and the truth and sometimes one of those people are telling the truth that leaves two other cases you do
01:01:35
have two stories and then the truth is somewhere else out there right that could be the situation here I don't know
01:01:41
but I have worked for companies in the past where there is something some news tidbit that hits the
01:01:49
papers and I have been told this by several different companies that if so and so contacts you that you
01:01:58
are to refer them to such and such and so non-descriptive but well get your point right like I mean you and yada
01:02:09
yada yada no I've been cold called by people in the media at different jobs that I've had and they're like we want
01:02:15
to hey uh just soand so here from Channel 4 so and so here from The Columbus Dispatch just want to ask you
01:02:22
about blah blah blah MH and you're not supposed to speak to that because they've hired and paid someone to give
01:02:28
the official statement of the company and people can look into that and look at it
01:02:36
with a with a a cros eye or whatever and and say that this is suspicious Behavior
01:02:41
but it happens everywhere all the time which doesn't necessarily mean that it is suspicious I think we should also
01:02:49
direct something too or dive into something too in regards to the badier hotel because because people that do not
01:02:55
know this case might be a little confused by the term Hotel the badier at one point was a hotel in Maryland and it
01:03:06
was built in 1902 and 1903 it's a you probably a Historic Landmark in Baltimore by this time but
01:03:16
in 1991 it was converted into Condominiums so some of the some of the building remains open to the public from
01:03:23
my standing but the majority of the building is now privately owned by these homeowners yeah last week's case was
01:03:33
strange and this one is already very strange and we have so much more to go well and this starts off as a missing
01:03:42
person's case and eventually his body is found but again it is the how and why he
01:03:49
got there yeah like he was just shot out of the sky through that roof into that [Music]
01:04:04
room such a crazy case and I want to hear from you so go to our website truecrime
01:04:12
garage.com and go to our blog and let us know what you think of this case and join us back here in the garage tomorrow
01:04:20
for more garage action until then be good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause] litter
01:05:02
Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I thought it was an Eco move for your
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worse less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be a tech thing but those aren't
01:05:16
quite right it's because now you can compare upfront prices book a service instantly and even get your project
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