SeekingJana
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I have recently read as much back story and LE statements in toto as still reside on the Internet. As we ALL know, after a time, these things are, by and large, archived and no longer accessible..
I found a statement from the sheriff or former sheriff who was commenting on the theory of a voluntary disappearance, and he said ( paraphrasing) that if RFG did walk away, he didn't plan it well.
I take exception with this statement. I think it may have been an extremely well planned walk away. ( Kind of obvious at this point, I suppose, but I have always thought he was a meticulous planner type of person).
The ONLY " bobble" I can find on the surface of things is the home computer with the searches on how to destroy a hard drive.. However, if the HOME PC hard drive had been written over or otherwise destroyed along with the work computer HD, that would have been extremely suspicious.
One thing I have never read are the exact dates the searches were performed for destroying a hard drive.
My explanation for him researching this on his home computer ( if he was the one doing the search, which I think is a fairly safe assumption) is that he didn't KNOW if it could be done, and IF the search had to be found on A computer, he chose his home computer because there were 2 users, whereas he was the only user of his work computer.. The " reasonable doubt" thinking of a prosecutor, perhaps.
The other possible " imperfections" are the potential sightings and the specific condition of the car when found. I believe the earliest sightings ( within 2 weeks of his reported disappearance) might well be him. The rest- no.
With his long=standing knowledge of law and criminal prosecution, he had to have known that the sooner he left the area, the sooner he left the country, the more likely he was to get away cleanly and successfully. So why would he hang around, even within a 100-200 mile radius, in a bar, having a drink?
This is probably the largest sticking point for me IF the police officer was accurate in his observation. It would have been easier, of course, if RFG had not been a familiar face in PA.
However, we now know that the alleged sightings did NOT produce any stopping of the man, nor did the sightings provide further info than " Ray was here", perhaps.
All the eye witness accounts really do is bolster the theory of a walk away, at least, at that period of time.
I believe RFG was a meticulous and extremely intelligent person. I believe his thought processes and personal habits were neat and orderly. One reason I have leaned toward the walk away theory is my belief that if anyone could have done it successfully, he could have covered all the bases to get away cleanly.
One thing I have not seen discussed much, maybe it was early on, was what appears to me to be the necessity of an accomplice or companion with a vehicle.. Maybe because it's difficult to discuss options in this complicated case without the appearance of assigning blame..
Of course, I am an Occam's razor type of thinker. The simplest explanation for the walk away, the simplest reason for the computer HD being removed and destroyed, and the simplest reason for there being a willing and able helper is that there was another person RFG CHOSE to be with and they with him. This implies a long and intense connection.. Some have asked why he didn't just leave Patti if there was another woman? The best answer I have for this is that the woman may not have been free to leave until shortly before she DID leave. I believe the two planned every aspect of the disappearance together, perhaps for a long time undetected via Internet exchanges only..
This is an aside, but has anyone seen the photo where both Patti F. and Laura's mother are standing on either side of Laura? Except for the somewhat lighter hair color of the former Mrs. Gricar, the two women could be sisters. Almost twins, in fact. The bone structure is amazingly similar!
When I found the photo last night and considered the apparent considerate planning RFG did with paying off Patti's house and putting HIS car in her name, I started wondering if his relationship with Patti fit into the " temporarily convenient" category. IF he left with someone, perhaps they were not able to leave until such time as they did. Perhaps Patti was conveniently there, and assuming that he did love his first wife at some point, he found her physical build and general appearance to be " familiar" in a general sense. His financial gifts to her would be his repayment to her for her companionship and probably, her love for him..I do believe he would have thought along these lines. It is unemotional and logical.
I started wondering if the baseball game he went to was his way of guaging response to his absence, or if the response to his absence both surprised him and caused him to realize that he had relatively little personal freedom. Also, he probably learned a few things about how to disappear from that first short diversion.
Then I was reading about the argument against him leaving just before his retirement. His retirement pension was HIS. It was not as if he was leaving a wife or young children. He was leaving HIS own pension.. What better way to create doubt than to walk away from something he never could collect once he left anyway? An orderly man doing an unexpected thing. I think it's clever and cunning. I would have done the same thing because people seldom stop to think that IF he needed to leave for reasons we do not know, he definitely could not have collected the pension anonymously post- retirement.
In one presser, LE said that the ONLY things on his work computer were " personal" in nature. I wondered how they could know this.. or why they said it.. It has caused me to wonder if he did use his county- issued laptop to correspond with the mystery person for an extended period of time.I don't know how this could be deduced when the hard drive was fried, but perhaps he guarded the laptop obsessively.. Always kept it locked down, never left it open to answer someone's question in the hallway, was also extremely secretive with it at home? Preferred using it at home to the home PC, but only when alone?
SOME of the secrecy could probably be explained by his work, but most cannot be since not only was he in the presence of co-workers with the same case info as he, but Patti also worked in the DA office and also had professional ethics of silence to maintain. Ray trusted her enough to both live with her and hire her to work in the same building. Maybe, in retrospect, his secretiveness with the laptop was an unusual finding when his behavior was discussed. Especially after the laptop, then the hard drive, were found.
It's fairly obvious to me that he could not be seen in public with the unknown person, whom I lean toward being female, unless he chose an alternative lifestyle.. I do not know the sex of the person, but will assume it was a female. I believe he emailed and used real time chat options for quite some time for reasons we do not know. I suspect the WOMAN was the one with " entanglements" to dissolve. It probably took some time to get a divorce and formulate a false plan to neighbors or co-workers of " moving to Seattle" or something of that nature. A career woman without close relatives could have left without arousing suspicion under the guise of moving to a faraway location for a new start.. IF a divorce had recently occurred, she would have most likely deliberately rented an apartment with a short term lease, or taken up residence in a Residence Inn type place with no furnishings to leave behind. I believe the plans were made via the computer. That's why the computer hard drive being destroyed was so important.
There may be additional reasons the hard drive was fried which are known only to Mr. Gricar, but probably were immediately related to instant messaging and emails, travel planning and things related to the walk away which would have caused him to be found if the hard drive was intact. This is not a condemnation of Mr. Gricar. It is a comment about human nature. " Still waters run deep" kind of thinking.. The rather reserved and quiet man with an extremely high pressure professional life and a secretive second personal life. People do it every day. Most just don't get to the leave- taking stage.
I have wondered if the FBI might have been called in to do any psychological profiling of Mr. Gricar. Did they assess the probability of his leave taking? What were their observations, I wonder?
How many people are as perfect as this man seemed to be? He was a creature of habit, Patti said. He apparently lived his known life by a steady routine. Then, just before he disappeared, he was said to be " tired". He apparently did not visit a doctor, according to Patti. He started " taking a nap" during the day.
What if " taking a nap" was, in fact, a euphemism for Ray needing private computer time to finalize his walk away plans? I think it is very likely. I'm sure there was some apprehension regarding the success, but I imagine that the relief and happiness far outweighed the small doubts. Or, maybe he had no doubts whatsoever.
The car's state when impounded by LE is a slight enigma. It was found where Ray said he would be, not with blood stains in it with it over in a ditch or ravine.. BUT-- who else was in the car, if anyone? Did someone enter the car after Ray had already abandoned it unlocked? Were any fingerprints found on the car door handles? I have read that the interior was wiped clean of fingerprints, which Ray might have done. But the exterior where we all open our car doors? What about there? He would have known better than to wipe off his own fingerprints from the driver's side.. if he had a choice. IF he didn't intend his disappearance to look like foul play.
The options regarding the car seem to me to be: He wiped the car interior while it was in its parking space, and did NOT clean the exterior door handles, but this info has not been released to the public ( that I know of).
He possibly planted cigarette ashes from any smoker's discards to cause confusion regarding a walk away vs. an abduction of a grown and experienced man in broad daylight in a quiet little town. He knew not to leave a cigarette butt, which would have possibly implicated an innocent person in a crime..
Perhaps a random circumstance inserted itself into the best laid plans. Perhaps someone wanted to talk to him briefly. He was known to shop in this group of stores, and he was well known in the general area. Anyone could have wanted to talk to him about a mundane matter or perhaps a legal matter. Even if they were a " distasteful" smoker, would he stand on the sidewalk with the person and discuss a matter of unknown importance, or would he invite them into the Mini for a relatively private conversation? HE had the knowledge that the antique shopping trip was an excuse to disappear forever. The person he MAY have run into co-incidentally didn't have this knowledge. Would he try to protect them from absolutely unnecessary scrutiny later on? I think he would. I definitely think he would.
On the face of it, the lack of fingerprints part is very questionable. However, if your last known acts also included walking into the woods ( away from the townspeople) long enough to ditch a laptop and a hard drive in the river, then maybe a small packet of ashes were deposited in the car as well. All part of the planning. Leave computer and randomly collected cigarette ash. All trash. Take away sunglasses, keys and wallet. All needed ( car keys were needed to ensure that the cell phone was not stolen from the glove box).
We know he locked his cell phone in the glove box. The cell phone and the call record was his short term alibi. It NEEDED to be found intact. He would have known that.
This is my theory of how Ray Gricar walked away from his life and why. Maybe it is way off base, maybe it is severely flawed, but this is what I believe happened, generally. I believe he and his lover took separate flights to a foreign, tropical country where 2 people who have secreted away funds for a period of time can live very comfortably. I hope they are safe and happy. I hope the reality far exceeds the dream which put the planning into motion.
Last point I would like to make-- Some have asked, and rightly so, why would he go to all this trouble since he wasn't married anyway? This is where the waters get muddied for me. I do believe there was something else Ray Gricar was hiding. Something which would have possibly disgraced him forever, or led to a criminal investigation. Again, I believe the proof was on the laptop hard drive. OR his leaving when he did stopped the situation before it reached a critically " bad" stage.
Just my opinion. A man with one life- altering secret is likely to have had other secretive tendencies.
Or, he was murdered and his body has never been found. Which do you think happened?
He has been declared legally dead. What's your theory on what happened to this man based upon the few hard case facts known to us?
Do you applaud him or think he was a coward? Or believe he is dead, his body not discovered? Why?
Maria
I found a statement from the sheriff or former sheriff who was commenting on the theory of a voluntary disappearance, and he said ( paraphrasing) that if RFG did walk away, he didn't plan it well.
I take exception with this statement. I think it may have been an extremely well planned walk away. ( Kind of obvious at this point, I suppose, but I have always thought he was a meticulous planner type of person).
The ONLY " bobble" I can find on the surface of things is the home computer with the searches on how to destroy a hard drive.. However, if the HOME PC hard drive had been written over or otherwise destroyed along with the work computer HD, that would have been extremely suspicious.
One thing I have never read are the exact dates the searches were performed for destroying a hard drive.
My explanation for him researching this on his home computer ( if he was the one doing the search, which I think is a fairly safe assumption) is that he didn't KNOW if it could be done, and IF the search had to be found on A computer, he chose his home computer because there were 2 users, whereas he was the only user of his work computer.. The " reasonable doubt" thinking of a prosecutor, perhaps.
The other possible " imperfections" are the potential sightings and the specific condition of the car when found. I believe the earliest sightings ( within 2 weeks of his reported disappearance) might well be him. The rest- no.
With his long=standing knowledge of law and criminal prosecution, he had to have known that the sooner he left the area, the sooner he left the country, the more likely he was to get away cleanly and successfully. So why would he hang around, even within a 100-200 mile radius, in a bar, having a drink?
This is probably the largest sticking point for me IF the police officer was accurate in his observation. It would have been easier, of course, if RFG had not been a familiar face in PA.
However, we now know that the alleged sightings did NOT produce any stopping of the man, nor did the sightings provide further info than " Ray was here", perhaps.
All the eye witness accounts really do is bolster the theory of a walk away, at least, at that period of time.
I believe RFG was a meticulous and extremely intelligent person. I believe his thought processes and personal habits were neat and orderly. One reason I have leaned toward the walk away theory is my belief that if anyone could have done it successfully, he could have covered all the bases to get away cleanly.
One thing I have not seen discussed much, maybe it was early on, was what appears to me to be the necessity of an accomplice or companion with a vehicle.. Maybe because it's difficult to discuss options in this complicated case without the appearance of assigning blame..
Of course, I am an Occam's razor type of thinker. The simplest explanation for the walk away, the simplest reason for the computer HD being removed and destroyed, and the simplest reason for there being a willing and able helper is that there was another person RFG CHOSE to be with and they with him. This implies a long and intense connection.. Some have asked why he didn't just leave Patti if there was another woman? The best answer I have for this is that the woman may not have been free to leave until shortly before she DID leave. I believe the two planned every aspect of the disappearance together, perhaps for a long time undetected via Internet exchanges only..
This is an aside, but has anyone seen the photo where both Patti F. and Laura's mother are standing on either side of Laura? Except for the somewhat lighter hair color of the former Mrs. Gricar, the two women could be sisters. Almost twins, in fact. The bone structure is amazingly similar!
When I found the photo last night and considered the apparent considerate planning RFG did with paying off Patti's house and putting HIS car in her name, I started wondering if his relationship with Patti fit into the " temporarily convenient" category. IF he left with someone, perhaps they were not able to leave until such time as they did. Perhaps Patti was conveniently there, and assuming that he did love his first wife at some point, he found her physical build and general appearance to be " familiar" in a general sense. His financial gifts to her would be his repayment to her for her companionship and probably, her love for him..I do believe he would have thought along these lines. It is unemotional and logical.
I started wondering if the baseball game he went to was his way of guaging response to his absence, or if the response to his absence both surprised him and caused him to realize that he had relatively little personal freedom. Also, he probably learned a few things about how to disappear from that first short diversion.
Then I was reading about the argument against him leaving just before his retirement. His retirement pension was HIS. It was not as if he was leaving a wife or young children. He was leaving HIS own pension.. What better way to create doubt than to walk away from something he never could collect once he left anyway? An orderly man doing an unexpected thing. I think it's clever and cunning. I would have done the same thing because people seldom stop to think that IF he needed to leave for reasons we do not know, he definitely could not have collected the pension anonymously post- retirement.
In one presser, LE said that the ONLY things on his work computer were " personal" in nature. I wondered how they could know this.. or why they said it.. It has caused me to wonder if he did use his county- issued laptop to correspond with the mystery person for an extended period of time.I don't know how this could be deduced when the hard drive was fried, but perhaps he guarded the laptop obsessively.. Always kept it locked down, never left it open to answer someone's question in the hallway, was also extremely secretive with it at home? Preferred using it at home to the home PC, but only when alone?
SOME of the secrecy could probably be explained by his work, but most cannot be since not only was he in the presence of co-workers with the same case info as he, but Patti also worked in the DA office and also had professional ethics of silence to maintain. Ray trusted her enough to both live with her and hire her to work in the same building. Maybe, in retrospect, his secretiveness with the laptop was an unusual finding when his behavior was discussed. Especially after the laptop, then the hard drive, were found.
It's fairly obvious to me that he could not be seen in public with the unknown person, whom I lean toward being female, unless he chose an alternative lifestyle.. I do not know the sex of the person, but will assume it was a female. I believe he emailed and used real time chat options for quite some time for reasons we do not know. I suspect the WOMAN was the one with " entanglements" to dissolve. It probably took some time to get a divorce and formulate a false plan to neighbors or co-workers of " moving to Seattle" or something of that nature. A career woman without close relatives could have left without arousing suspicion under the guise of moving to a faraway location for a new start.. IF a divorce had recently occurred, she would have most likely deliberately rented an apartment with a short term lease, or taken up residence in a Residence Inn type place with no furnishings to leave behind. I believe the plans were made via the computer. That's why the computer hard drive being destroyed was so important.
There may be additional reasons the hard drive was fried which are known only to Mr. Gricar, but probably were immediately related to instant messaging and emails, travel planning and things related to the walk away which would have caused him to be found if the hard drive was intact. This is not a condemnation of Mr. Gricar. It is a comment about human nature. " Still waters run deep" kind of thinking.. The rather reserved and quiet man with an extremely high pressure professional life and a secretive second personal life. People do it every day. Most just don't get to the leave- taking stage.
I have wondered if the FBI might have been called in to do any psychological profiling of Mr. Gricar. Did they assess the probability of his leave taking? What were their observations, I wonder?
How many people are as perfect as this man seemed to be? He was a creature of habit, Patti said. He apparently lived his known life by a steady routine. Then, just before he disappeared, he was said to be " tired". He apparently did not visit a doctor, according to Patti. He started " taking a nap" during the day.
What if " taking a nap" was, in fact, a euphemism for Ray needing private computer time to finalize his walk away plans? I think it is very likely. I'm sure there was some apprehension regarding the success, but I imagine that the relief and happiness far outweighed the small doubts. Or, maybe he had no doubts whatsoever.
The car's state when impounded by LE is a slight enigma. It was found where Ray said he would be, not with blood stains in it with it over in a ditch or ravine.. BUT-- who else was in the car, if anyone? Did someone enter the car after Ray had already abandoned it unlocked? Were any fingerprints found on the car door handles? I have read that the interior was wiped clean of fingerprints, which Ray might have done. But the exterior where we all open our car doors? What about there? He would have known better than to wipe off his own fingerprints from the driver's side.. if he had a choice. IF he didn't intend his disappearance to look like foul play.
The options regarding the car seem to me to be: He wiped the car interior while it was in its parking space, and did NOT clean the exterior door handles, but this info has not been released to the public ( that I know of).
He possibly planted cigarette ashes from any smoker's discards to cause confusion regarding a walk away vs. an abduction of a grown and experienced man in broad daylight in a quiet little town. He knew not to leave a cigarette butt, which would have possibly implicated an innocent person in a crime..
Perhaps a random circumstance inserted itself into the best laid plans. Perhaps someone wanted to talk to him briefly. He was known to shop in this group of stores, and he was well known in the general area. Anyone could have wanted to talk to him about a mundane matter or perhaps a legal matter. Even if they were a " distasteful" smoker, would he stand on the sidewalk with the person and discuss a matter of unknown importance, or would he invite them into the Mini for a relatively private conversation? HE had the knowledge that the antique shopping trip was an excuse to disappear forever. The person he MAY have run into co-incidentally didn't have this knowledge. Would he try to protect them from absolutely unnecessary scrutiny later on? I think he would. I definitely think he would.
On the face of it, the lack of fingerprints part is very questionable. However, if your last known acts also included walking into the woods ( away from the townspeople) long enough to ditch a laptop and a hard drive in the river, then maybe a small packet of ashes were deposited in the car as well. All part of the planning. Leave computer and randomly collected cigarette ash. All trash. Take away sunglasses, keys and wallet. All needed ( car keys were needed to ensure that the cell phone was not stolen from the glove box).
We know he locked his cell phone in the glove box. The cell phone and the call record was his short term alibi. It NEEDED to be found intact. He would have known that.
This is my theory of how Ray Gricar walked away from his life and why. Maybe it is way off base, maybe it is severely flawed, but this is what I believe happened, generally. I believe he and his lover took separate flights to a foreign, tropical country where 2 people who have secreted away funds for a period of time can live very comfortably. I hope they are safe and happy. I hope the reality far exceeds the dream which put the planning into motion.
Last point I would like to make-- Some have asked, and rightly so, why would he go to all this trouble since he wasn't married anyway? This is where the waters get muddied for me. I do believe there was something else Ray Gricar was hiding. Something which would have possibly disgraced him forever, or led to a criminal investigation. Again, I believe the proof was on the laptop hard drive. OR his leaving when he did stopped the situation before it reached a critically " bad" stage.
Just my opinion. A man with one life- altering secret is likely to have had other secretive tendencies.
Or, he was murdered and his body has never been found. Which do you think happened?
He has been declared legally dead. What's your theory on what happened to this man based upon the few hard case facts known to us?
Do you applaud him or think he was a coward? Or believe he is dead, his body not discovered? Why?
Maria
They have better things to do initially. In this case the searches were not discovered by the police until late 2006 at the earliest. They were not released until 2009.
