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1:00

Two sisters. One,

1:03

a respected TV producer, Jill Blackstone,

1:06

and the other, Wendy. She was

1:08

disabled, nearly blind and deaf, and

1:10

Jill had devoted herself to taking care

1:12

of Wendy. Jill was her best friend,

1:14

her sister, her everything. But

1:16

the sister bond was shattered when Wendy

1:19

and some of the sister's rescue dogs

1:21

were found dead in a garage next

1:24

to a Topolova barbecue grill. Jill

1:26

says accidental carbon monoxide poisoning

1:28

killed everyone. Police do not believe

1:30

her.

1:30

Police arrested Jill Blackstone

1:33

for the murder of her sister. Investigators think

1:35

it was staged to look like an accident.

1:37

Who will you believe, especially now

1:39

that a secret source has come forward with

1:42

evidence never made public before? Jill

1:44

was a good producer.

1:44

There's no doubt about that.

1:46

But would she produce murder is

1:49

the question. Season two of Bad, Bad

1:51

Thing, the Blackstone Sisters, available

1:53

now wherever you get your podcasts. I

1:56

always say show me a perfect family. I'll show

1:58

you a family with secrets.

2:36

Oh, everyone. And welcome to episode 335 of the true

2:38

crime all the time, unsolved podcast.

2:41

I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is

2:43

my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson.

2:46

Give me, how are you? I'm doing okay, man. How about you? I'm

2:48

doing very well. Good. We just got

2:50

done finishing up recording

2:53

our second last

2:55

part on the Laurie Ballo Daybell

2:58

story. We did. It was real good. T-cat.

3:00

Yeah, it's just one of those

3:02

stories that's hard to imagine

3:05

is true, but we know it is. Yeah,

3:08

it's almost like, I think it might be like

3:10

a science fiction kind of a thing. Yeah, or like a fictional

3:12

novel. Yeah. But no, it's

3:15

real life. Let's go ahead and give our

3:17

Patreon shout outs. We had Jean

3:20

Francois Gratton. Hey, you

3:22

got Melissa Duren. What's going on,

3:24

Duren? Gia. What's happening,

3:26

Gia? Michelle. Hey, Michelle. Eleanor.

3:29

What good old Eleanor? Danielle Pruitt.

3:32

Hey, Danielle. Jedi Master Kara.

3:35

Oh, hey, Kara. Katie Parson. Well, thank

3:37

you, Katie. Stephanie Raines. There's

3:39

the rain. Kim Lakata. Hey, Kim.

3:41

Kim Panetti. Another Kim. Two

3:44

Kims. Talissa Ermsher.

3:46

Well, thank you, Emsher. Keira

3:49

Radford jumped out to the highest level. And

3:51

Radford in the house. Thank you so much. We had Hell's

3:53

Bells. You're going to have those bells. ACDC,

3:55

right? Yeah. Sam Mick. Hey, Sam.

3:58

Hailey Yeager. What's up, Yeager? Shelby

4:00

Trott hey Trott and last but not

4:02

least Elaine McKeon thank

4:04

you McKeon and then if we go back into the vault

4:08

This week we selected Megan

4:10

Maddox. Well, thank you Maddox Yeah, we appreciate

4:12

the new patreon support the continued

4:15

support We also had a couple of great

4:17

PayPal donations from Evan site.

4:19

Well, thank you Evan and and kel and

4:21

you're awesome So thank you to everyone.

4:24

All right, buddy That was quick, but are you ready to

4:26

get into this episode

4:29

of true crime all the time on salt? I

4:31

am ready. We are talking about

4:33

the mysterious death of Ray Rivera

4:36

in May 2006 Ray Rivera

4:39

went missing after rushing out

4:42

of his Baltimore home one evening eight

4:44

days later His body was found

4:46

in a conference room at the Belvedere

4:49

Hotel Ray had fallen through

4:51

the roof after falling from a great

4:53

height The Baltimore police believed

4:55

that Ray died of suicide But

4:58

his wife family and one detective

5:00

suspect foul play in his death

5:03

So that's why I called it, you know mysterious

5:05

death. I think to police

5:08

they don't believe it's a mystery They believe

5:10

it it was a suicide But there

5:13

are a lot of other people who

5:15

don't believe it and so we're calling

5:17

it a mystery I like a good mystery. I

5:19

think a lot of people do Ray Omar

5:22

Rivera was born on June 10th 1973 at

5:26

the Air Force Base Hospital in

5:28

Madrid, Spain Ray's father

5:30

was an Air Force officer

5:33

and this is so strange you

5:35

know, we did the the Lori ballo

5:38

de Bell case, yeah

5:40

her birthday and

5:42

Ray's birth date are very

5:44

close, but they also both happen

5:46

to be very close to mine and

5:48

it's

5:49

Scary freaks

5:50

you out, huh? Yeah same year

5:52

everything. I think you're gonna be okay though

5:55

Yeah, I think so Ray's brother

5:57

angel told unsolved mysteries that

6:00

They moved often as a military

6:02

family. So all the siblings had a

6:04

close bond after Ray's dad

6:06

retired. The family settled in

6:09

winter park four. And how many

6:11

people from the air force do you know? I

6:14

mean, we grew up with so many, um,

6:17

kids that went to the parents

6:19

worked at the air force base. I mean, I

6:22

say we grew up, we grew up with them for the few years that they

6:24

were here and then they were gone. And they were gone.

6:26

Yeah. And yeah, you and I live close to a

6:28

pretty big air force base, but

6:30

also, and I think I've told this story before.

6:33

My stepmother's dad

6:36

was in the air force. So they moved

6:38

around a lot, Hawaii, the middle

6:40

east, and ultimately settled

6:43

here, you

6:44

know, and, and stayed here,

6:47

but

6:47

it's gotta be tough, especially

6:50

on the kids, because, you

6:52

know, if you're at a school for a year

6:54

or two, you're making friends

6:56

and then next thing you know, poof, you're,

6:59

you're gone and you have to do it all over

7:01

again. I think that's why the siblings

7:03

probably were pretty close, right? Cause

7:05

it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. That's, that's their, their

7:08

friends. Ray always seemed happy

7:10

throughout his childhood and teenagers.

7:13

People tended to gravitate towards

7:15

him because of his sense of humor. He

7:18

participated in basketball and swimming,

7:20

but he also had a creative side. Ray

7:23

loved movies and his dream

7:25

was to be a writer and director.

7:27

Okay. That's a good thing to aspire to be

7:29

either one of those. I wrote

7:31

and directed a few flicks.

7:34

Yeah, we know. I saw Rex West

7:36

in the credits. Ray started

7:39

playing water polo during his junior

7:41

year of high school. He was offered an athletic

7:44

scholarship at the university of the Pacific

7:47

in Stockton, California, and moved there

7:49

in 1992. One of Ray's

7:51

biggest aspirations was to be part

7:53

of the U S water polo

7:56

Olympic team. Man, there's a sport. You gotta be

7:58

in good shape. Oh my God. I've

8:00

never done it but to

8:03

just be able to tread water for Minutes

8:06

at a time. Yeah, let alone an entire

8:10

athletic event Yeah,

8:12

you got to be in in some kind of shape.

8:14

Yeah, I was on that one Undisclosed

8:16

team that we had to tread water for a long time

8:19

to

8:19

be on the team. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's

8:22

not easy I

8:23

mean, I did have those floaty arms on. Mm-hmm. That

8:25

was kind of cool. Did it rhyme with Ravey Beals?

8:28

Something close to that but the ones

8:31

where you can wear the floaties. Yes It's

8:33

like a junior. Yeah Junior

8:36

version

8:37

he graduated in 1996 and

8:39

was hired by the Royal

8:41

Spanish Swimming Federation in Barcelona

8:44

But Ray left Spain when he was

8:46

told that he was selected as a contender

8:48

for the 1996 US

8:51

water polo Olympic team one

8:53

of Ray's friends told author Makita Brahman

8:56

that he had a falling out with his coach Two

8:58

weeks before the team left for the Olympics and

9:01

he was cut well, it's had to be

9:03

devastating Yeah had to be devastating

9:05

because we said right this is one of his

9:08

big dreams Was to make

9:10

the the US water

9:12

polo Olympic team and he

9:14

was so close Yeah To

9:16

doing it but you know, the other

9:18

thing that strikes me is in

9:21

a lot of the unsolved cases recently

9:23

I feel like we've been talking about some people

9:25

who had really accomplished

9:28

or were on the verge of Accomplishing

9:32

some really great things in life.

9:34

Yeah, we have in

9:35

2000 Ray decided to

9:37

switch careers. He got a job as a high

9:39

school Spanish teacher in water

9:42

polo swimming coach in

9:44

his free time He focused on developing

9:46

his screenwriting skills Ray

9:49

had three part-time jobs One

9:51

of which was in the admissions department

9:54

of the Los Angeles Film School He

9:56

was able to take screenwriting classes.

9:59

He wrote his

9:59

script, a horror story starring

10:02

a piano player.

10:04

Okay. I don't know how good that was

10:07

or would have been, but to say

10:09

that you have three part-time

10:12

jobs, on top of

10:14

being a high school Spanish

10:17

teacher and, you know, water

10:19

polo swimming coach. You're

10:21

a busy guy. Streaming busy.

10:23

I don't even think you're this busy though. Me?

10:26

Yes. Not that busy. It

10:28

is unbelievably no time

10:31

for anything else busy. I mean, my weekend

10:34

tours are going to start up soon at the nursing

10:36

homes, but. Yeah, that's going to add

10:38

some. Yeah. That year,

10:40

Ray met a woman named Allison Jones,

10:43

who was a few years older than him. In

10:45

her 2018 book, Makita

10:48

Bronman said that Allison

10:50

was a sales executive and

10:52

volleyball player. Allison

10:54

and Ray fell in love and moved in together

10:57

in 2002. They lived in

10:59

Los Angeles, so Ray could pursue

11:01

his career as a writer. Ray

11:04

proposed to Allison in 2004. The

11:06

couple was experiencing some financial

11:09

hardships because Ray wasn't

11:11

making money while trying to

11:13

pursue his screenwriting career.

11:16

That's a tough gig to break into. Well, you

11:18

know, think of a lot

11:20

of people who live in

11:22

Los Angeles, moved to LA,

11:25

Hollywood to try to break

11:28

into entertainment. Whether it's

11:30

writing, directing, being

11:33

an actor, those are tough

11:35

gigs to crack. They are. You

11:38

know, my son lives in LA. Yes. When I

11:40

talk to him, he goes out to these different

11:42

groups of friends, and there's one group they had

11:46

breakfast every Saturday, and there's like 40 of

11:48

them. And I always say, so what

11:50

do these people do? And he names off, well, you know, they're

11:53

actors and writers. And

11:56

I say, is that what they really do? And he says,

11:58

no. That's what they want

12:01

aspired to be. But a few

12:03

of them are, but most of them are just aspired

12:06

to be. And most of those people have

12:08

to be waiters or work

12:11

some other job to support

12:14

themselves because let's be honest,

12:17

it's pretty expensive to live

12:19

out there. Yeah. Yeah. I

12:21

mean, my son lives in a studio

12:23

apartment and, uh, I

12:26

don't want to say how much costs, but it's like ridiculous

12:28

what that rent is. You could buy a mansion

12:30

probably here where we live. Yeah, exactly. Ray

12:33

reached out to his close friend, Porter

12:35

Stansberry, who lived in Baltimore. Ray

12:38

and Porter had been friends since high school.

12:41

Porter owned a company called Stansberry

12:44

and Associates Investment Research. Now

12:46

renamed Stansberry Research,

12:49

which published a financial newsletter

12:51

called the rebound report. The

12:53

newsletter gave subscribers

12:56

tips on stocks that would

12:58

potentially rebound. According to unsolved

13:00

mysteries, subscribers paid

13:02

up to $1,000 for each newsletter. And

13:05

it better be a really good newsletter. Yeah. I'm

13:07

thinking for that amount of money, it, it

13:10

must have been extremely detailed,

13:12

extremely researched because that is

13:15

a lot of money

13:16

to pay

13:17

for information. Stansberry and Associates

13:19

was a division of a larger company,

13:22

Agora Publishing, located in

13:24

the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore.

13:27

Porter wanted Ray to write his newsletters.

13:30

Ray accepted the job and he and Allison

13:32

moved across the country in December 2004. So

13:36

he got notice for his writing, just not

13:38

the type of writing he really wanted to do it. No,

13:41

but he, he needed to make some money

13:43

to make ends meet. Before

13:45

Ray joined the company, the SEC

13:48

had charged Stansberry and Associates

13:50

with fraud. According to the Baltimore

13:52

Sun in April, 2003, the

13:55

SEC filed a complaint claiming

13:57

that Agora defrauded readers by.

14:00

charging $1,000 for

14:02

false information about a Maryland based

14:04

company that supplied nuclear

14:07

power plants with enriched uranium.

14:09

The company was later fined $1.5 million. And

14:13

there you go. Maybe a reason not

14:16

to trust a newsletter. All

14:18

I know is if you're paying $1,000, you expect that information

14:20

number one

14:25

to be correct, you know,

14:27

or not false. Let's say not made up.

14:29

Right. But number two, very well researched

14:32

and it better make you some money or

14:34

else yeah, that's going to be the last newsletter

14:36

you paid for. Yeah. If I'm going to spend $1,000 a

14:39

month on a newsletter every month, I

14:41

expect to make a bunch of money off of that. And

14:43

it's hard to make a bunch of money off something

14:45

that is completely made up. Alison

14:48

told Unsolved Mysteries that part of Ray's

14:50

job was to clean up

14:53

the company's reputation. In addition

14:55

to writing the newsletter, Ray was

14:57

also an assistant water polo coach

15:00

at Johns Hopkins university. Alison

15:03

told the show that she and Ray planned to

15:05

live in Baltimore for two years. They

15:07

settled into their house, got

15:09

involved in a local church and we're building

15:12

a happy life together. They

15:14

got married in November, 2005. So

15:17

it sounds like things are going good. This seems

15:19

like everything's going, you know, very well.

15:21

Yeah. But Ray left Stansberry

15:23

and Associates in the fall of 2005. According

15:26

to a 2007 article from

15:29

WBAL TV, he seemed unhappy

15:31

about work because some of

15:33

the stocks he wrote about weren't

15:36

performing as expected. Again,

15:38

going back to if you're

15:40

paying a bunch of money for information,

15:43

that information better be good and

15:45

it better turn, it better pan out.

15:48

Apparently he still did some videography

15:50

work for Gora as an independent

15:53

contractor. Ray and Alison

15:55

had only been married for about six months

15:58

at the time of his death. They were making

16:00

plans to move back to California and

16:03

Allison said that Ray wanted to have

16:06

children. Okay, so get back to California

16:08

where maybe they felt more comfortable being,

16:11

but start that family and maybe

16:13

where he can get back to, you know,

16:16

his dream of being

16:18

a screenwriter. But, you know, the one thing

16:21

that jumps out at me here, everything

16:23

that we've been talking about, nothing

16:26

is really pointing to the fact that

16:29

this guy is unhappy that

16:32

he's planning to end his life. No,

16:34

talking about having kids, talking about moving

16:36

back, less. Allison

16:39

noticed that Ray seemed worried about

16:41

something two weeks before

16:43

he died. She didn't think much of it until

16:46

strange things started happening around

16:48

their house. Their security alarm went

16:50

off at 1am on May 15, 2006. Apparently,

16:55

it had never gone off before. Allison

16:57

went downstairs and saw Ray

17:00

with a bat in his hands. He seemed very

17:02

fearful, which was unlike

17:04

him. And so this made her

17:06

afraid too. I mean, alarms

17:09

go off sometimes. Maybe he was

17:11

just bracing for a fight

17:14

or... Yeah, but I think in the

17:16

context of what's about to happen,

17:19

maybe it looks a little different

17:21

to people. Yeah, I think you can go back

17:24

and recount it a little bit different. Yeah,

17:26

analyze it. The police responded

17:28

to the house but told the couple that a squirrel

17:31

had most likely triggered the alarm. The

17:33

alarm went off again around 1am on the 16th. The

17:37

alarm was activated because someone

17:40

had tried to tamper with one of the windows

17:42

on the lower floor. Okay, now

17:44

we're getting into the area of

17:47

concern. Concern, a little bit.

17:50

It's also strange that the alarm went

17:52

off two days in a row at the exact

17:55

same time of 1am. I

17:57

don't think that was a squirrel the night before. I

18:00

don't think so either. And then you find

18:02

out that somebody had tried to tamper with

18:05

a window. What does that mean? Break

18:07

in? Primarchs? Right.

18:10

Tamper is kind of a strange word. We don't know. May

18:13

16th was the day that Ray

18:15

went missing. Allison was leaving

18:17

for a business trip that morning. Ray

18:20

woke up with her and made her breakfast.

18:22

She told Ray she loved him and he said, thank

18:24

you for loving me so much. He

18:27

walked her to her car and she left.

18:30

And you and I often talk about the

18:32

last conversations that people have.

18:35

Right. Sometimes it's hurtful

18:37

words that you wish you

18:39

hadn't said and at a certain

18:42

point you realize you can never take

18:44

them back. Right. Too late. But

18:47

this sounds like a very happy, loving

18:50

exchange. Thank you for loving me so much.

18:53

According to WBAL-TV, on

18:55

May 16th, Ray spoke with a member

18:57

of the Maryland Freemason Lodge to

19:00

ask about joining and purchase

19:02

the book, Freemasons for

19:04

Dummies. I got a few of those for

19:06

Dummy Book. I was going to say, you have

19:09

a lot of those. A lot. I

19:11

mean, podcasting for dummies, 28

19:14

books, is that a lot? For Dummy

19:16

Series? Yeah. Or just in

19:19

general? Banking for dummies. Pretty much anything

19:21

you do and then add four dummies

19:23

on it. Yeah. I always liked those

19:25

shortcut books. You know those books you could read

19:27

back? Cliff Notes. I love them. I

19:30

know you, yeah. I was a big Cliff Note fan myself.

19:33

If there wasn't a movie made of the

19:35

book, then I'm going Cliff Notes. That's

19:37

right. The weekend before he had read

19:40

The Builders, a book

19:42

about masonry, the Lodge member

19:44

later spoke with WBAL-TV

19:47

and said the conversation was typical

19:50

of someone who wanted to learn about membership.

19:53

Allison finished her work and got to her

19:55

hotel in the evening. She called Ray,

19:57

but he didn't answer. thought

20:00

was unusual. At the time, Allison

20:02

and Ray were hosting one of her colleagues, a

20:05

woman named Claudia. Claudia had

20:07

been in the house with Ray in

20:09

the late afternoon, early evening.

20:12

So Allison called Claudia later that

20:14

evening and asked where Ray was. Claudia

20:17

said that around 6.30 pm, Ray

20:19

went into the kitchen to get a snack, then

20:22

returned to his office. She was staying

20:24

in the adjacent guest bedroom and

20:27

could hear what he was doing. Ray

20:29

received a call. He had a brief

20:31

conversation. Then she heard him

20:34

say, oh shit, before

20:36

he ran out of the house. This is according

20:38

to author Makita Brockman.

20:41

Well,

20:41

it could be, oh shit, I did forget to

20:43

do that. I better run up, or

20:46

run over there, or run up to this or that to

20:48

take care of it. That's normally what oh shit

20:50

means when I say it. I forgot something.

20:52

But again, you know, I talk about context

20:55

a lot. Yeah. In the context

20:57

of him dying

21:00

later,

21:01

well, that conversation takes

21:03

on a much different time. Right?

21:06

When you first hear it, you think,

21:08

ah, it could be any number

21:11

of different things. Right. But nothing that I

21:13

need to worry about. He's a grown

21:16

man. He's going to take care of whatever he

21:18

needs to take care of. But when the

21:20

person later finds out that that person's

21:22

dead, well, then that conversation

21:24

might mean something

21:26

a little different.

21:28

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visit Angie.com that's A-N-G-I

22:31

dot com. Claudia

22:33

said he ran out like he was late for an appointment,

22:35

leaving his computer and the office

22:37

lights on. Ray came back inside

22:40

a couple minutes later, but only for

22:42

a second as if he forgot something. He

22:45

then drove off in Allison's truck

22:47

and Claudia said she hadn't seen him since.

22:50

Claudia called Allison the next morning

22:52

around 530 a.m. and told

22:54

her that Ray never came back. Allison

22:57

knew something wasn't right, so she

22:59

came home and reported Ray missing.

23:02

And this is something that you and I talk about quite a bit.

23:05

We think about spouses.

23:08

They talk a lot. They talk

23:10

on a pretty frequent schedule.

23:12

Yeah. You know, I think about my

23:14

wife and I. She always calls

23:16

me at the same time every day when

23:18

she's on her driving on her way home

23:21

from work. If she doesn't,

23:23

I start to get a little worried. Now,

23:26

it could be that she decided to call one of our

23:28

girls or whatever. I

23:30

don't get that worried, but it does cross my

23:32

mind that she hasn't called me yet. But

23:34

normally, you know, she gets home and everything's

23:37

fine. This is much different

23:40

from, you know, your spouse

23:42

leaving sometime

23:44

in the evening and then

23:47

finding out that they never returned. Big

23:50

difference. I mean, I know that you would be

23:52

on the horn pretty quick if she didn't

23:54

show up here by a certain time

23:57

and panic. Oh, you mean from

23:59

work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but

24:01

no doubt Allison thought it was something

24:05

right to the point where she raised home She

24:07

immediately reported him missing when

24:10

Allison entered the home She found an open

24:12

soda can in the kitchen a bag

24:14

of chips and raised Invisalign,

24:18

you know what Invisalign are a nice

24:20

little clear brace Racism.

24:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've never I've never tried

24:25

them But apparently they worked pretty good.

24:27

Their bedroom and office lights were still

24:29

on this supported Claudia's statement

24:32

The Ray had rushed out of the house Suddenly

24:35

Allison started calling Ray's family

24:37

and friends No one had seen or

24:39

heard from him family and friends soon

24:42

gathered in her home to help her make phone

24:44

calls and flyers And

24:46

to go out to distribute those flyers

24:49

and that's what family and friends do When

24:52

they find out that someone's missing

24:54

or in trouble or something's going

24:57

on they jump right in It's

24:59

all hands. It's all hands on deck.

25:01

Everybody helps out Ray's friend

25:03

Porter Stansberry offered a $1,000 reward

25:06

for information and helped get the

25:09

media involved in the case at

25:11

the time of Ray's disappearance Porter

25:14

Stansberry gave a statement to the Baltimore

25:16

Sun. He said about his friend. He's a

25:18

happy guy He and his wife had

25:20

just booked a trip to go to New Mexico

25:22

in a few weeks This is not a man

25:24

that wanted to leave. I've got to find

25:27

my friend. I can't imagine my life

25:29

without him He's my best friend.

25:32

So this guy's got a pretty good company

25:34

going it seems like and this is his

25:36

best friend I just kind of think

25:39

Thousand bucks is a little short. Yeah,

25:42

I get that it jumped out at me

25:45

a little bit, too You know,

25:47

I don't want to disparage

25:49

Porter Stansberry, but We're

25:52

gonna talk about it later.

25:54

There are a

25:55

lot of people who have

25:58

insinuated that

26:00

he's involved in this case. Now

26:03

you could make the argument

26:05

that

26:06

if you were involved in the case and

26:09

you knew what happened to somebody, you

26:11

could offer all the money in the world

26:13

because you would know that it

26:15

would never be paid out. Well that's true too. It's

26:18

a good counter

26:20

claim

26:21

but also think, why not offer $10,000?

26:23

It's not going to be paid out until someone

26:25

comes forward. Yeah, we have no

26:27

idea how much money this guy had but

26:30

I do think he had a lot more than $1,000. I get

26:34

your point on that. Days passed

26:36

with no lease. By this point, Ray's

26:38

cell phone was dead and there

26:40

had been no credit card activity or

26:43

cash withdrawals from the couple's bank

26:45

account. All of those to me are

26:47

bad signs. On May 22nd,

26:50

Allison's parents were driving around the city

26:53

looking for her truck which Ray

26:55

was driving that day. They found

26:57

it in a parking lot behind a building

27:00

on St. Paul Street near the Belvedere

27:02

Hotel which had been converted into

27:05

a condo complex. The Belvedere

27:07

is located near the Stansberry office

27:10

meaning Ray was likely familiar

27:12

with this area. There was a ticket on the

27:14

truck. The parking attendant told

27:16

the police that the truck was likely

27:19

parked there the night Ray disappeared

27:21

because he found it when he got

27:23

to work the next morning. Well this is great

27:26

information for the police because now they know where they need

27:28

to search. Yeah, it makes sense,

27:30

right? This is a good place to start the search

27:32

because they know the truck

27:35

has been there since the night he

27:37

disappeared. Ray's phone was

27:39

missing. According to a news interview with

27:42

Frederick Bielfield, the former

27:44

Baltimore police commissioner, there

27:46

was nothing of evidentiary value in

27:49

the truck. Police and volunteers

27:51

conducted more searches in the area

27:53

around the truck on May 24th.

27:55

Three of Ray's co-workers decided to

27:57

go to the top level of the parking garage next

28:00

to the Belvedere Hotel. They

28:03

looked over the edge and saw

28:05

a pair of flip-flops and a hole in the

28:07

lower roof of the Belvedere. This

28:09

roof was part of a section that juts

28:12

out from the main building. The only way

28:14

to see the hole was if you were on top

28:16

of the parking garage or on

28:18

top of the hotel. And I imagine

28:21

that had to have been quite a sight.

28:23

Pretty alarming. So these three

28:26

men called the police who entered

28:28

the building and spoke with concierge

28:31

Gary Shivers who let them

28:33

into an unused conference

28:35

room on the second floor. Ray's

28:37

body was found in this room.

28:40

According to the Baltimore Sun, Ray fell

28:42

from a great height and crashed through the

28:44

roof of the section of the building that juts

28:47

out from the main building. He fell

28:49

through the third floor and landed

28:52

in the second floor conference

28:54

room. Gary Shivers told Unsolved

28:56

Mysteries, you could see the wall where

28:59

the blood head came down and his legs

29:01

were towards the door. I looked

29:03

up and I saw outside. That roof

29:06

there was metal so he came right through

29:08

the metal and right through the

29:10

ceiling. Yeah some pretty intense

29:13

velocity. And I think that's where

29:16

the theory comes that he

29:18

had to have jumped

29:20

or

29:20

come from a great height. A

29:23

much higher elevation.

29:26

Ray's family was called to the Baltimore

29:28

police headquarters and informed that the

29:30

body found in the building was Ray.

29:33

Detective Michael Bear responded

29:35

to the call about the body. He described

29:37

the hole in the roof as clean. The

29:40

hole was about 40 inches in

29:42

diameter. Detective Bear

29:44

could fit his body through the hole but

29:46

with little clearance. And

29:49

we haven't talked about it yet but Ray was a

29:51

pretty big guy. Like 6'5", 260 pound. Bear told Unsolved

29:57

Mysteries, he came vertical through

29:59

that. thing like a projectile.

30:02

So I think all of this information, right,

30:05

it paints quite a picture

30:08

or like a video in your mind

30:10

of how this happened, like

30:13

falling straight down

30:16

almost like a diver, whether

30:18

head first or feet first,

30:21

but obviously the size of this hole

30:23

told investigators that

30:25

he didn't come down sideways. No, yeah,

30:28

obviously he didn't tumble down.

30:30

Like he came down like a little,

30:33

yeah, like straight down. Ray's autopsy

30:35

found that he had multiple rib fractures,

30:38

punctured lungs, lacerations,

30:41

skull damage, and two breaks in

30:43

his right leg. It is important to note

30:45

that he tested negative for any

30:47

drug. The next task that

30:50

investigators had was figuring out

30:52

from which point Ray fell. It

30:55

was initially thought that Ray either

30:57

fell, jumped, or was pushed

30:59

from the top roof of the hotel. However,

31:02

the distance between the hole in the top

31:05

roof was about 45 feet.

31:08

It was thought that it would have been difficult,

31:10

perhaps impossible for Ray

31:13

to make this jump. Alison noted

31:15

that Ray was afraid of heights, so

31:17

she didn't think he would willingly go

31:20

all the way to the top roof. When

31:22

you be kind of afraid to jump to if you

31:25

had a fear of heights, I

31:27

don't have that fear. I mean, I don't enjoy

31:30

being up high on a narrow ledge,

31:33

but I don't have that fear of heights where I

31:35

can't look down. Oh, I

31:37

do. Yeah, you know I do. I have a serious

31:40

fear of heights. And so

31:42

my first thought, you know,

31:45

as we go through this, is

31:47

that if someone was

31:49

planning to end their life and they were

31:51

known to have a

31:54

fear of heights with sadly

31:57

all the different ways that we know people

31:59

can end their lives, why would they pick

32:01

that one? Yeah. Why that avenue?

32:04

That seems like it would be at the bottom

32:06

of the list of

32:08

what they would pick.

32:10

Now, the second theory was that he fell from

32:12

the parking garage, which has five

32:14

floors, but again, the hole

32:16

was too far away. The garage

32:19

was only 20 feet tall. So

32:21

it was possible that Ray could have survived

32:23

the fall. If the fall was fatal,

32:26

it likely wouldn't have caused the extensive

32:29

injuries that he

32:30

suffered.

32:31

And I think, you know, when you're

32:33

talking about that distance,

32:36

is he going to crash

32:39

through this metal roof like a missile

32:41

from that height? And I don't

32:44

know. I think you have to take that into account.

32:46

Yeah. I don't know if that theory works for me with

32:49

my quantum physics background.

32:52

It doesn't add up. You've already done the

32:54

trajectory in your head. You

32:56

know, I'm just thinking that the

32:59

height doesn't seem right. Also

33:02

with the hole being described

33:04

as far away from the garage as it was,

33:07

let's say someone was able to run and jump.

33:10

Right. It seems unlikely that they're

33:12

going to come down straight

33:15

as apparently he did. Yeah. And

33:18

I don't think they would have the speed necessary

33:21

to rip through this metal roof. So I'm

33:23

with you. This theory does not seem

33:25

very likely. Another theory

33:27

was that Ray jumped from the 11th

33:29

floor ledge, which wraps around the

33:32

Belvedere. In order to get to the ledge,

33:34

Ray would have had to go through someone's

33:37

condo or an office, the

33:39

windows along the ledge are half windows

33:41

that don't open very far and

33:44

the ledge is narrow. It would have been hard

33:46

for Ray to get up there because of his size.

33:48

So again, I'm going to discount

33:51

this theory for a number of reasons.

33:54

You know, 65, 260, and

33:56

you're trying to get out of a half window. I'm

33:58

not saying it's impossible. But

34:00

you're trying to get out of a half window onto

34:03

a very narrow ledge and you're afraid

34:05

of heights. It just doesn't seem reasonable.

34:08

But

34:09

could there ever be a reason that

34:12

you would do this if you felt

34:14

your life was in danger? And the only

34:16

way to escape that danger is

34:18

to squeeze your ass through that tiny window. Yep. And

34:22

not realizing but knowing

34:24

that your only option is to stand on a very

34:26

narrow ledge. And we've

34:29

seen it in movies where they do this, right? Yeah. So

34:32

I mean that's possible but not probable. Yeah,

34:34

I get where you're going. I guess

34:37

when I was talking about it, I was

34:40

thinking willingly doing

34:42

this. But if you were trying

34:45

to get away from somebody, you

34:47

might do something that you

34:50

normally wouldn't be willing to do. Yeah.

34:53

Because you're trying to save your life. According

34:55

to Detective Bear, the exact

34:57

location where Ray fell is

34:59

still a mystery. So that's pretty interesting

35:02

in that they haven't been able to figure

35:04

that out. You would think with all the technology

35:07

and that they would somehow be

35:09

able to even using

35:12

computers, build some

35:14

type of trajectory model. Yeah.

35:18

That would show them where he would have had to

35:20

have jumped from. I'm thinking

35:22

just taking some crash car dummies up

35:24

there and tossing them off different locations.

35:27

I mean, I know it disrupts the hotel

35:29

business but... Yeah. But it's not

35:31

unheard of. Right. We know police

35:33

have done that in the past. Ray's cell

35:35

phone was found on the rooftop

35:38

near the hole. The phone was still

35:40

functional when it was found and

35:42

it had no cracks. Ray's glasses

35:45

were also found on the rooftop and

35:47

they weren't even scratched. So,

35:50

you know, as we mentioned earlier, a pair of flip-flops

35:53

was found on the roof. The strap-on

35:55

one flip-flop was broken and another

35:58

flip-flop had dropped.

35:59

So,

36:00

you know, we got more information

36:02

here and you kind of have to break each

36:05

one of these down.

36:07

What are the chances that a

36:09

phone is not only

36:11

functional, but not a single crack

36:14

or, you know, anything like that,

36:17

if it were to fall from the height

36:21

that we think it would have taken

36:23

for this guy to plunge through this metal roof. But

36:26

if it was on his person, it could have been

36:28

cushion, it could have been, and it could have just slid

36:31

out at the end and that's where it laid. It could have been. So

36:35

then you have to think about the glasses as

36:37

well. I mean, I can understand the

36:39

phone. I just can't get my head around the glasses. Yeah.

36:41

Well, a phone maybe you

36:44

have in your pocket, a shirt pocket or something

36:46

like that. But even with

36:48

glasses in a shirt pocket, it

36:51

just seems so fragile to not,

36:53

you know, even have a scratch on

36:56

them. That seems strange. And

36:58

then the flip flops. I don't know

37:00

what you make of that. The thing that really jumps

37:03

out at me is the drag

37:05

marks. What does that mean? Does

37:07

it mean that he was trying

37:10

to stop someone from pushing him?

37:13

And that's what caused those marks. I don't

37:15

really know what it meant by

37:18

drag marks. Now, could you make the

37:20

case that he never fell through the roof? Oh, yeah.

37:24

And I'm sure, you know, we may talk

37:26

about other theories later,

37:29

but if I believe

37:32

I know where you're going, it's

37:34

that the hole was made. And

37:36

then he somehow ended

37:39

up in that conference room. But

37:41

then you have to explain, okay, how did

37:43

he get the extensive

37:45

injuries that he did? Right. But that

37:47

would explain how maybe the cell phone,

37:50

the glasses and all of that were

37:52

still pretty much intact. And I think

37:54

Detective Bayer kind

37:57

of backed up what you're alluding to because.

38:00

He said he immediately suspected that

38:02

the evidence was staged. Although

38:05

Ray's belongings were found on the rooftop, investigators

38:08

did not find the engraved money

38:10

clip he always carried with him. And

38:12

this money clip has never been found. I

38:16

don't know if he's saying that he

38:18

didn't go through that hole. Right.

38:20

He could be saying that somebody came back

38:23

down later and staged the cell phone and

38:25

the glasses and the flip flops and all

38:27

that. Strong possibility. Steven

38:30

Janis, an investigative reporter walked

38:33

through the hotel to try to find witnesses,

38:36

no one reported seeing Ray or hearing

38:38

anything unusual on May 16th. Now

38:42

I find that really bizarre. If

38:44

you got 260 pounds crushing through a metal roof,

38:50

I think you're going to hear something and landing,

38:52

you know, very, very

38:55

hard. You would think

38:57

it would be a loud crash that would

38:59

be heard by someone. Now this

39:02

is a conference room. We don't know how far

39:04

away it is from the main

39:06

hotel traffic. Ray's brother,

39:09

Angel told unsolved mysteries that

39:11

it would have been difficult for Ray to walk

39:13

into the building and get all the way

39:16

to the roof without anyone

39:18

stopping him. Ray would have had

39:20

to walk back up stairwells,

39:23

some of which are locked and would

39:25

have had to use a door that was normally

39:27

locked to get to the roof. So a lot of challenges

39:30

according to Ray's brother. But I

39:32

think even more important than

39:34

that was the detective

39:37

bear checked the security cameras and

39:40

found no footage of Ray at the hotel.

39:42

Unfortunately, the rooftop camera was

39:45

disconnected. Why are the

39:47

cameras that always need to be connected,

39:50

disconnected? It seems a little convenient.

39:52

It does. Doesn't it? Investigators

39:55

also focused on Ray's last phone

39:57

call. The call came from the switchboard.

40:00

of Agora Publishing. Because of

40:02

this, the police couldn't figure out

40:04

who exactly made the call, according

40:07

to Detective Barry. Stansberry

40:09

put a gag order on their employees within

40:12

hours of Ray being found. He also

40:14

claimed that Porter Stansberry

40:16

would not return their calls, which

40:18

he found suspicious. Well

40:21

I find it suspicious too. This is

40:23

his one of his best friends? No,

40:26

his best friend. His best

40:28

friend. He said that. Why wouldn't he

40:30

want to cooperate? Why wouldn't he want to say, hey

40:32

people,

40:33

talk about what you know. Tell the police

40:35

anything and everything. Don't leave anything

40:38

out. And hey,

40:40

Detective, let's go to my office. Let's talk about this and

40:42

see how I can help you. Now I get it. There

40:44

are people who want to protect their companies

40:46

from all kinds of things. Maybe

40:49

it's a liability issue, but

40:52

I don't understand why he wouldn't want

40:54

to talk to detectives. And

40:57

I think this is part of the reason why

40:59

a lot of people have been

41:01

suspicious of him. If you look online,

41:04

you'll see it. Tell the detective it's

41:06

suspicious of him. On

41:08

May 25th, the Baltimore Sun reported

41:11

that the police were treating Ray's

41:13

death as a suicide. Allison

41:16

didn't believe Ray wanted to end his life. His

41:19

family had said that he wasn't depressed

41:21

or experiencing any mental health issues.

41:24

He was happy and there were no

41:26

signs he was planning to end his life.

41:29

The family didn't think he wanted to end his life. All

41:31

we know is he got that mysterious phone call,

41:33

right, where he said, oh shit, the

41:36

thing is we don't know what that phone call

41:38

was about. Yeah, so could that

41:40

have been the impetus for something?

41:43

We don't know. Allison met with the

41:45

medical examiner who she claimed told

41:48

her, I know what they're trying to do

41:50

and we are not closing this case.

41:53

The medical examiner's office told her

41:55

that the way Ray's shins were

41:57

broken was inconsistent with the fall.

42:00

But wouldn't give further details so

42:03

that that's pretty interesting if it

42:06

really happened i mean this is coming from alison

42:09

that's the only side of the story that we have,

42:11

but the i know what they're trying to

42:13

do suggest that

42:16

the trying to close this cage and

42:19

not look into it any further so

42:22

if the way that is shins were

42:24

broken, were not consistent

42:26

with a fall then

42:29

what were they consistent with we

42:31

don't know because there were

42:33

no further details the medical

42:35

examiner declared raise manner of death

42:38

undetermined, despite the baltimore

42:40

police's belief that he died of suicide

42:43

while ray was missing alison search

42:45

the entire house for clues she

42:48

found a note tape behind the office

42:50

computer, no was folded up

42:52

and wrapped in plastic it was typed

42:55

in a small phone so would fit on

42:57

a smaller section of paper, alison

42:59

new ray type the note the day he disappeared

43:02

because she found scraps of paper in

43:04

the trash can, end the contents

43:06

of the notre strange it begins

43:09

and ends with phrases used by

43:11

free masons the following

43:13

quotes come from news the

43:15

note begins with. Brothers

43:17

and sisters right now around the world

43:20

volcanoes are erupting what

43:22

an awesome site, whom virtue

43:25

unites death will not separate

43:28

that was a well played game congratulations

43:31

to all who participated i hope

43:33

you enjoyed it but it was time to wake

43:35

up, so here i am i'd like

43:37

to welcome those who accepted out invitations

43:40

for membership during the game we

43:42

couldn't have done it without you, i took

43:45

on the endeavor to find the truth but not

43:47

for its own sake in accepting

43:49

this quest for the truth i hope to

43:51

make myself with the help of others into

43:54

a man worthy and ready to receive.

43:57

Members of the council please know that

43:59

i will. careful concentration

44:01

to the traditional responsibilities. In

44:04

light of those proceedings, I will

44:06

satisfy the standard request of this

44:08

council within the appropriate

44:10

time. Okay, I'm just gonna say it but

44:12

I didn't understand any of that. No,

44:15

I really didn't either. Is this

44:17

something that would be a speech

44:19

given at a Freemason?

44:22

Maybe, and maybe that's why it

44:24

sounds,

44:25

you know,

44:26

a little odd to us because we're

44:28

not familiar with that stuff

44:30

but yeah, I don't know.

44:34

The note includes a list of people

44:36

Ray knew with a request to

44:38

make them and himself five

44:41

years younger. Stansberry was

44:43

mentioned several times in the note according

44:46

to WBAL TV. Allison

44:49

found it odd that Ray left out the names

44:51

of some significant people in his

44:53

life. So Stansberry's mentioned

44:56

a number of times but Ray

44:58

wants himself and

45:00

other people to be made five

45:03

years younger? I'd like that too

45:05

but,

45:06

you know, writing it on a note and taping

45:08

it to the back of my computer, I'm

45:11

pretty sure is not going to make it happen. Maybe

45:13

there's a special portal that

45:15

works that way.

45:16

Write this phrase down, put on the back of your computer

45:19

before you know it. You shall be five years

45:21

younger. I take stuff behind your monitor

45:23

all the time. Does it come true? I'm

45:26

still waiting. But in all seriousness

45:28

you would have to say that some

45:31

of this behavior seems odd.

45:34

It does seem odd, right? The words seem odd.

45:36

The, you know, I want to be five

45:39

years younger. Make us five years

45:41

younger. I know they said that,

45:43

you know, he wasn't experiencing any

45:45

type of mental health issues.

45:48

Some of these things might make

45:50

you question that. Yeah. But I

45:52

know he also wanted to join the Freemasons. He

45:55

did. So maybe this is part of his, you

45:57

know, initiation and his pledge

45:59

to them. I mean, I know they have a, they

46:02

used to have like a kind of a secret thing

46:04

to get into the Freemasons. And maybe this

46:06

is, and he was a writer. So maybe he chose

46:09

to write out this bizarre

46:11

pledge. The note also

46:14

listed movies, books, and music

46:17

that inspired Ray, such as Meet Joe

46:19

Black, Minority Report, The

46:21

Born Identity, and Lord of the Ring. All good movies. The

46:25

note also mentioned directors such as

46:27

M. Night Shyamalan and actor

46:29

Christopher Reeves. Towards

46:32

the end of the note, Ray wrote, I stand

46:34

before you a man who understands the

46:36

purpose and value of our secrets.

46:39

That's why I cherish them as secrets.

46:43

Life is a test to see if you can control

46:45

your spirit. Take care and enjoy

46:47

the festivity. So Allison

46:50

Googled the first sentence of the note and

46:52

the first search result was a website

46:55

about the Freemasons. She told Unsolved

46:57

Mysteries that Ray was curious

47:00

about secret societies and might

47:02

have been researching for a screenplay

47:05

about the Masons.

47:06

Maybe.

47:07

Yeah. I think it goes back to, you know,

47:09

something that you were just talking about. You

47:11

could look at it as very, very

47:14

strange,

47:15

or

47:16

you could look at it as a screenwriter

47:20

who's jotting down a

47:22

bunch of different things that he's researching. And

47:24

so for that reason, it doesn't really

47:27

make sense to us. Maybe in

47:29

his research, he stumbled across something he shouldn't

47:31

have. Well, there were some people

47:34

who thought the letter could be a coded

47:36

message. Ray was known for

47:38

writing down anything that came to

47:40

mind, whether that be phone numbers,

47:43

poetic lines, or philosophical

47:45

ideas. Because of this, no

47:48

one is really sure what the note means. And

47:50

I don't know how anyone would be

47:53

able to figure it out

47:56

absolutely, because I don't

47:58

want to call it gibberish. But it

48:01

seems like a collection of thoughts

48:05

that maybe don't all go together. The

48:08

Baltimore police sent the note to the

48:10

FBI lab. The FBI thought

48:12

the note was strange, but they didn't

48:14

think it was a suicide

48:16

note. And I don't know why you would. There was nothing in

48:19

there really that hinted

48:21

at anything like that. No, it was

48:24

just bizarre. Three weeks into the investigation,

48:27

Detective Michael Baer was reassigned

48:29

to an FBI task force. He

48:31

was one of the only detectives who did not

48:33

believe that Ray died of suicide.

48:36

After Baer left, Allison called

48:39

the station to follow up. She was allegedly

48:41

told, you need to get through your

48:43

head. Your husband committed suicide.

48:46

Pretty rough to hear. I think it's very

48:48

rough to hear. And I think you

48:51

could also make a conspiracy

48:53

theory out of this Michael Baer being reassigned.

48:56

Now, maybe it has nothing

48:58

to do with the fact that he didn't

49:01

believe Ray died of suicide,

49:03

or maybe it did. I don't know. But

49:06

when you have the medical examiner

49:08

saying, at least according to

49:10

Allison, something's not

49:12

adding up here. I know what

49:14

they're trying to do. And then she calls

49:17

them up and they say, you just got to get

49:19

it through your head. And the medical examiner

49:21

said it's undetermined, the death. Yes.

49:25

And that part we know is

49:27

true. It does seem odd

49:30

to say the least. Baltimore police

49:32

commander Fred Bealefield told

49:34

WBAL-TV in 2007, based on what we've

49:38

seen, his interest in the

49:40

Masonic Order was not to

49:42

do charitable work. Somehow it

49:45

was linked to his interest in the movie industry,

49:47

in this theory that somehow there was

49:50

control being exerted by

49:52

the Masonic Order.

49:55

So this is really where we start to get into

49:57

possible theories.

50:00

This guy's saying Somehow

50:02

there the Masonic orders involved

50:05

possibly Allison believes

50:07

Ray had information Perhaps

50:09

that he found accidentally and

50:12

someone murdered him however She

50:14

doesn't know what information could be so bad

50:16

that someone wanted to kill him

50:19

and you kind of Mention

50:21

that that he stumbled across something. Yeah

50:23

while he was doing some research Did

50:26

it have something to do with the Freemasons or

50:28

did it have something to do with the

50:30

company or an individual or

50:33

another? individual Ray's

50:35

brother Angel believes that the motive

50:37

was money He suggested the possibility

50:40

that the newsletter caused someone

50:42

to lose money and they wanted revenge

50:45

It had to be a lot of money that they lost but sure

50:48

well and and to want revenge

50:51

on

50:52

Ray

50:52

I get it. He was writing the

50:55

newsletter but was his

50:57

name on it was Ray the one

50:59

giving the The stock

51:01

advice the financial advice that

51:04

wasn't his arena So I

51:06

can't imagine that he was doing anything

51:10

other than taking information

51:12

from various financial

51:14

experts and Crafting

51:16

it into a newsletter, but

51:18

if his name is on there as editor, maybe they get

51:21

else that could be that could be that

51:23

It was his fault in an interview with

51:25

the Washington Examiner Angel

51:28

said that some of the Belvedere employees

51:30

told him Confidentially that Ray

51:32

would had had to have been pushed

51:35

from the side of the building to land

51:37

where he did He said apparently

51:40

there is another set of doors to the

51:42

roof and their impression was That

51:45

was more logical that he

51:47

would have been pushed from there But

51:49

wouldn't you think the

51:51

police would have investigated that? Yeah,

51:54

and we talked about that a little bit earlier, but

51:57

I'm not sure how much investigation

52:00

they did on that subject,

52:03

I think,

52:03

you know,

52:04

if you make that determination

52:07

early on that Ray

52:09

Rivera died from suicide,

52:12

then are

52:13

you

52:14

really going the extra

52:16

mile to, you know, look

52:18

at the trajectory and do

52:21

a lot of testing because you've

52:23

already come to your conclusion. Yeah. So

52:26

why are you going to waste resources on

52:29

trying to figure all that out if you've

52:32

already made your determination? The examiner

52:34

obtained an engineering study that concluded

52:37

that Ray landed roughly 43 feet

52:40

from the wall and would have had

52:42

to have been running 11 miles per

52:45

hour to jump off the roof and land

52:47

where he did. Well, 11 miles an hour

52:49

sounds kind of fast, but I think somebody

52:52

can do that. Yeah, I don't know

52:54

that it is all that fast. I remember

52:57

an episode of The Office where they had

52:59

one of those police radar

53:02

things out front and Michael Scott,

53:04

I thought was running like 12 or 13 miles an hour. Yeah.

53:08

So I'm just trying to think of a 6'4", 6'5", 260 pound

53:10

guy with flip flops on, you know, sprinting

53:15

down. I mean, it sounds like

53:17

it can be done. I think it could be done.

53:20

I think the question is, is

53:22

that what really happened? Right.

53:26

In 2020, Unsolved Mysteries creator

53:28

Terry Dunn Muir appeared

53:30

on a podcast and revealed that an

53:32

unidentified person tried to pick Ray's

53:35

computers up after the police took

53:37

them. According to Marie Claire, she

53:39

said, when Allison

53:41

went to the police station to pick up Ray's

53:43

computer, the detective mentioned

53:46

someone who called a couple of times and

53:48

asked to pick up the computers and

53:50

was very interested in the status

53:53

of the computers. Allison was very

53:55

troubled. Well, rightfully so.

53:57

It's very strange.

53:59

Right.

53:59

Because who would want to get their

54:02

hands on those computers? And

54:04

why? What was inside those

54:06

computers? Right. And I think those

54:09

two questions, the answers to those

54:11

two questions go hand in hand. The

54:13

release of the Unsolved Mysteries reboot

54:15

led to massive online

54:17

conversations about the case. One

54:20

Reddit user pointed out that one of the movies

54:22

listed in Ray's Note was The Game,

54:24

which ends with the main character jumping

54:27

off the roof of a luxurious hotel.

54:30

They suggested that Ray might have tried to

54:32

imitate the movie. However,

54:34

Terry Dunmuir debunked the theory in

54:36

an interview with Entertainment Weekly and

54:38

said that Allison and the FBI

54:40

reviewed the note thoroughly and didn't

54:43

place any particular significance

54:45

on the game because Ray liked

54:48

many movies. I do remember that movie though

54:50

where Michael Douglas jumps

54:52

off of a building and comes

54:55

crashing through another rooftop,

54:57

glass rooftop, right where his

54:59

party is. It was a good movie. Yeah,

55:01

yeah, it was pretty good. But here we see, like

55:04

we do in a lot of cases where the

55:06

circumstances are very mysterious.

55:09

You're going to have a lot of people online, you

55:11

know, putting forth their theories. It

55:14

could have been this, it could have been that, or debunking

55:17

other people's theories. In 2020,

55:20

Porter Stansberry made his first public

55:22

statement in 14 years to the

55:24

Baltimore Sun. He said he was shocked

55:27

and hurt by the insinuations

55:29

made in the Unsolved

55:32

Mysteries episode and said, the reason

55:34

I've never commented about Ray's

55:36

death publicly, first and foremost,

55:38

is because I never thought there was any

55:41

mystery about why or how he died.

55:45

Stansberry said he has received death threats and his family has

55:47

been harassed online. He also

55:49

said that the claims that he didn't

55:51

cooperate with investigators were

55:53

untrue, telling the Sun, I did

55:55

everything I could to help. He claimed

55:58

he hired a PI to look in. into

56:00

Ray's disappearance and even

56:02

helped with the search. He added

56:04

that after Ray's body was found, we

56:06

were all sad and shocked by the fact

56:08

that Ray killed himself. But once we

56:11

saw all the facts and his financial

56:14

pressures, it wasn't much of

56:16

a mystery. Stansberry said the statement

56:19

that he put a gag order on his employees

56:21

was a lie. Employees were told

56:23

to refer inquiries to a spokesperson.

56:26

And he noted that he spoke with a detective

56:29

on June 23rd, 2006 after

56:32

detective Michael Baer was reassigned

56:34

to a different case. So it sounds

56:36

like he was forthcoming

56:39

after all. If

56:41

what he's saying is correct, right? We've

56:43

got some discrepancies. We don't

56:45

know exactly who is telling

56:47

the truth. The one thing that

56:50

I want to pick out of what he said

56:52

and examine is he

56:55

said, once we saw all the facts

56:57

and his financial pressures, he

57:00

doesn't go into detail, right? Now,

57:02

his family said he was happy and all

57:05

that. Financial pressure

57:08

is something that can really take a toll

57:10

on a person. It can. Now I

57:12

would think his wife, Allison, would

57:14

know exactly what the finances

57:17

were. If she didn't

57:19

at the time, she would have known after

57:22

he died. Yes. It would only

57:24

be logical. Unless he was on the hook with a

57:26

bookie that nobody knew. Nobody else knew.

57:28

Right. Stansberry explained that Ray

57:30

resigned from his company six months

57:33

before he disappeared and there was no

57:35

ill will between them. Ray didn't

57:37

want to write newsletters anymore. He said

57:39

there was no connection between the fraud case

57:42

and Ray's death. He also spoke about

57:44

the fact that Ray's final phone

57:46

conversation was traced to the switchboard

57:48

of Agora Publishing. He explained

57:51

that all of their calls were routed through

57:53

a main switchboard. So, I

57:55

mean, he's trying to answer all

57:58

of these questions.

57:59

Is he being? truthful.

58:00

That's the main thing

58:03

to me. I don't know. But I don't

58:05

know that he's not. He said, Ray's call

58:07

might have come from someone at a Gore,

58:09

but Ray was doing freelance work

58:11

for another subsidiary. Stansberry

58:14

said the call could not have come from someone

58:17

with his specific company.

58:19

He told the Sun, every person in our

58:21

company who had worked with Ray was

58:23

on the Eastern Shore at the time that call

58:25

was made, having a corporate retreat

58:28

in St. Michael's. No one in my company

58:30

was in town when Ray disappeared. The

58:32

idea we were calling him from our switchboard

58:35

is ridiculous. Interestingly, Stansberry

58:37

revealed that Ray once asked him if he was

58:40

in a leadership position with the Freemasons,

58:43

which he thought was a joke. He claimed

58:45

that the weekend before Ray went

58:47

missing, Allison told him Ray

58:49

was morose and would not get

58:52

out of bed. She was worried about his

58:54

mental health. So

58:55

that's a new

58:56

piece of information. It is. It is.

59:00

And Allison responded. She said

59:03

that Ray was happy in general,

59:05

but he was anxious about work at

59:07

the time of his disappearance. In her

59:09

interview with the Sun, she said

59:12

she couldn't recall having that conversation

59:14

with Stansberry. She said she

59:16

didn't say she didn't have it. She just

59:18

said she couldn't recall it. Ray's close

59:21

friend, Brad Hoppmann, told the Sun

59:23

that Ray asked him repeatedly

59:26

about being a member of the Freemasons

59:28

the week before Ray died. He asked

59:30

Hoppmann to visit his apartment in Jersey

59:33

City alone. Ray had a key to

59:35

his place, but returned it. Hoppmann

59:38

said he was acting really, really

59:40

weird. And finally, Makita

59:42

Brotman, the author of the 2018 book An Unexplained

59:44

Death, The

59:47

True Story of a Body at the Belvedere,

59:50

told the Baltimore Sun that Unsolved Mysteries

59:53

interviewed her for their episode. She

59:55

told them the hotel roof was easily

59:58

accessible. Unsolved Mysteries mysteries

1:00:00

portrayed it as difficult to

1:00:02

get to. So again, maybe

1:00:05

some misinformation. Yeah,

1:00:07

I mean Unsolved Mysteries is a TV show.

1:00:10

My assumption is they try to be as accurate

1:00:13

as possible, but it is entertainment.

1:00:16

Right.

1:00:17

So

1:00:18

do they take liberties? I don't

1:00:20

know. So he could have got to the rooftop easily,

1:00:23

according to her. Yes. If

1:00:25

you believe her. Again, in

1:00:27

so many of these cases, right? Doesn't

1:00:31

a lot of it come down to these contradictions

1:00:36

and who's telling the truth? Who's remembering

1:00:39

correctly?

1:00:40

Let's not forget some of these statements

1:00:42

are made many, many years

1:00:45

after his death. So

1:00:47

who's remembering exactly what happened,

1:00:50

what conversations were had? Ben's

1:00:53

book concludes that Ray most

1:00:55

likely had a mental break and jumped

1:00:58

off the roof. So I'm

1:01:00

assuming that she did a lot

1:01:02

of research for this book. Again,

1:01:04

the accuracy of

1:01:07

everything you can question, whether

1:01:10

it's a book, whether it's unexplained mysteries,

1:01:13

where'd they get their information from? How

1:01:15

accurate is it? Now, this is just

1:01:17

her theory because I don't think anyone

1:01:20

knows for sure, could

1:01:22

know for sure exactly what happened.

1:01:24

Yeah.

1:01:25

There's a lot of theories. It's

1:01:27

been 17 years since Ray Rivera died.

1:01:31

And this is another case that leaves many

1:01:33

people with more questions than

1:01:35

answers. Like I said, no one knows

1:01:38

how or why Ray ended up

1:01:40

at the Belvedere, how exactly

1:01:43

he fell through the lower roof, whether

1:01:45

it was an accident, suicide

1:01:47

or murder. And let's

1:01:50

go back to this note. The true

1:01:52

meaning of the note remains

1:01:54

a mystery as well. So we don't know

1:01:56

what happened. There are a couple

1:01:58

of things that... I would point

1:02:01

to one is that it

1:02:03

seems to me

1:02:04

that

1:02:05

he almost had to have come

1:02:08

from the roof. You can argue

1:02:10

that he run and

1:02:12

leave off the jump off

1:02:15

was he pushed right then

1:02:17

that separates the

1:02:20

suicide accident murder.

1:02:24

Right I do go back to this engineering

1:02:26

report that talked about

1:02:28

the fact that he would have had to been running

1:02:31

around eleven miles an hour to get

1:02:34

to the spot where he landed. If

1:02:36

that is true does it seem

1:02:39

more likely than not that he got a running

1:02:41

head start and jumped off this roof it's

1:02:44

probable it is. I don't

1:02:46

think you can push someone eleven

1:02:49

miles an hour now you could shove

1:02:52

them at the end of it which

1:02:54

would increase the trajectory.

1:02:58

Yeah but could you

1:03:00

do it hard enough that you

1:03:02

know they get as far as where

1:03:04

he ultimately landed that

1:03:06

part I don't know. And to say that

1:03:08

someone did then we have to figure

1:03:11

out why someone would have wanted

1:03:14

him. That yeah and

1:03:16

and from the information there really was nothing

1:03:19

other than you know a few theories about

1:03:22

well maybe someone was mad they lost money

1:03:25

based on newsletters or

1:03:27

this or that. But then how

1:03:29

do they get him to the Belvedere right

1:03:32

when I've been in easier way. Yeah

1:03:35

so a reader just calls his house

1:03:37

and says I need you to meet me at the Belvedere

1:03:39

and he says oh shit runs out the door. That

1:03:42

doesn't make me on the rooftop like

1:03:45

you said in the beginning this is a mystery

1:03:47

it is why and you

1:03:50

know it's these types of. Cases

1:03:53

that people study they go

1:03:55

back and forth on it fill

1:03:57

up forms you know dice. acting

1:04:00

it and giving their, their thoughts

1:04:02

and theories and all of that. But

1:04:05

at the end of the day, you know, man

1:04:07

lost his life. We just don't

1:04:09

know how it happened. Yeah. So

1:04:12

that's it for our episode on

1:04:14

the mysterious death of Ray Rivera.

1:04:17

We got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yeah,

1:04:19

serum.

1:04:20

I'm Mike and Gibby. This is Matt from

1:04:22

Up in Canada. I was just listening to

1:04:24

the max, uh,

1:04:28

kid that was on the jet ski that went missing.

1:04:31

And from the way that you guys are explaining

1:04:33

it, it kind of sounds like the authorities

1:04:36

were involved with a

1:04:38

child abduction ring. That's

1:04:41

why the adopted kid was

1:04:43

with him. Just a different philosophy. Okay.

1:04:46

Have a good day. Keep your own time

1:04:48

ticking. Bye bye.

1:04:49

All right. Thanks for the voicemail. I don't think you

1:04:51

can rule anything out in that case. There's

1:04:54

a lot of mysteries to that one as well.

1:04:57

I don't think we touched on that angle be

1:04:59

just because there was no evidence

1:05:02

or no, nothing

1:05:04

to really back that up, but it's

1:05:07

kind of hard to throw anything off

1:05:09

the table at this point. It's definitely mysterious.

1:05:12

Hi guys, this is Tracy and I'm calling from

1:05:14

Fort St. John BC in Northern Canada.

1:05:17

I was just listening to your, uh,

1:05:19

podcast. Um, Oh,

1:05:21

which one was it? Jane, Beverly,

1:05:24

Jane Potter and your one

1:05:26

voicemail person, lots of voicemails saying

1:05:28

she's from Fort St. John. I wanted to reach out to

1:05:30

her and say, howdy. Um,

1:05:32

anyways, I have a case, a couple of cases

1:05:34

up here that would be, I think, interesting

1:05:37

for you guys to cover. The one is

1:05:39

the biggest one I can think of is justice

1:05:42

for Jonathan. Um, a young boy

1:05:44

that was killed and, um, there's

1:05:46

been no arrests and, uh, police

1:05:49

say they don't have enough evidence

1:05:51

to convict, but everybody,

1:05:54

pretty much everybody in town knows about it and

1:05:56

knows who did it. Um, so yeah,

1:05:58

so I just. want to call in

1:06:01

and say hi and love you

1:06:03

guys. Um, don't really have a favorite

1:06:05

out of the two of you, but you are my favorite to

1:06:07

listen to, um, keep your own time

1:06:10

ticking and take care.

1:06:11

I think she said she didn't really have a favorite yet.

1:06:14

So are you going to lobby? Cause that's what you normally

1:06:16

do. I don't lobby, pander,

1:06:20

lobby, whatever you want to call it. I cry

1:06:23

until you get your way. No, we

1:06:25

appreciate the voicemail very

1:06:27

much. All right, buddy. That's it. For

1:06:30

another episode of true crime, all the time

1:06:32

unsolved. So for Mike and Gibby, stay

1:06:34

safe and keep your own time ticking.

1:06:40

Yeah.

1:07:12

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