Police mum over missing Woodstock mother
Published on: 11/26/05
Since Sueann Ray vanished Aug. 26, the mystery surrounding the Woodstock mother's fate has only deepened.
No arrests have been made, despite a more than $100,000 reward to entice tipsters. And the police have stopped talking.
A month ago, Woodstock police stopped commenting on the case except to say that any information or evidence they receive goes straight to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Any tips from the public should be phoned to the GBI tip line, said Woodstock detective Sgt. Dan King, who had been leading the investigation.
GBI spokesman John Bankhead said his agency is investigating the case, which spans several jurisdictions, but he offered few specifics. GBI Agent John Cagle, who Bankhead said is leading the investigation, refused to discuss the case.
"There's been too much talk about this case already, so I'm not going to comment at all," Cagle said during a brief telephone interview.
Back when King was talking, he said one thing publicly about Ray's estranged husband, and another thing to a fellow officer. Neither Woodstock Assistant Police Chief Jim Free nor King would discuss why King told another officer that Ray's estranged husband is a suspect "in her suspicious death."
Despite King's remarks, police still haven't publicly named any suspects nor is there any evidence that Sueann Ray is dead.
About the time that Woodstock police distanced themselves from the investigation, Ray's family hired its own private investigator, citing frustration with the lack of police progress. Former Cherokee County Sheriff John Seay, hired Oct. 24, said he is making progress three months after Sueann Ray disappeared.
Ray was last seen by her estranged husband when he said she stopped by his Pickens County home on Aug. 26. Quinton Ray said his wife left from there to pick up their daughter from his parents' home in nearby Ball Ground. He said his wife, from whom he had been separated for seven months, was then bound for Augusta to visit with her father for the weekend.
Sueann Ray's minivan was found three days later in a Canton Wal-Mart parking lot.
After an initial flurry of public searches the case went dormant until early October, when it drew national publicity after Sueann Ray's family and friends announced a $105,000 reward in the case. A flurry of tips at the time has again trailed off.
Sueann's father, Danny Jenkins, said he hopes Seay, who was sheriff from 1989 to 1993 after 16 years as a Cobb County police officer, can jump-start the investigation.
"We've done everything we can think of, and we'll do whatever we can to find Sueann," Jenkins said. Since he started looking for his elder daughter, Jenkins said sleep won't come. Jenkins, who wears his daughter's picture pinned to his lapel, carries an 8-by-10-inch framed photo of Sueann to meetings with officials and media interviews.
Jenkins said he has asked Seay to look at every possible suspect.
Some evidence in the case may not be available to Seay. That includes evidence seized during a police search of Quinton Ray's home and auto repair shop. The results of that search were sealed by a judge.
For his part, Quinton Ray said he wants Sueann to be found alive. Quinton Ray's attorney, David Cannon, said Ray is fully cooperating with police.
When Sueann did not arrive as expected in Augusta that weekend, Jenkins said he began calling her cell phone, but he only got voice mail.
Jenkins heart nearly stopped on Monday, Aug. 29, when another daughter called to say Sueann's boss had told her Sueann hadn't come to work.
"It is the sinkingist feeling I've ever had," Jenkins recalls. "She was super responsible and never missed work."
About 11 p.m. that Monday, Sueann Ray's maroon 1998 Ford Windstar was found backed into a space on the far side of the Wal-Mart parking lot on Riverstone Parkway in Canton. There was no sign of a struggle inside the vehicle, King said.
The video from the lot's surveillance camera was taken by police, but they will not say what it showed. A couple of things were odd things about the vehicle, however, Ray's sister said.
"Well, for one thing it was clean, not trashy inside, and that was unlike my sister," Sandy Chasm said. The other sign of foul play, she said, is that Ray never backed into a parking space. "She couldn't even back up a bicycle," Chasm said.
Four weeks later, Quinton Ray was identified as a suspect in a police report about a related incident obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On Sept. 25, Emerson police Lt. Kevin McBurnett diffused a situation between Ray and another man at an area bar. McBurnett wrote in his report of the incident that while speaking with King that evening, the Woodstock detective said Ray had been arrested for threatening the other man, who King said had been having an affair with Sueann Ray.
That's when, according to McBurnett, King called Quinton Ray "a suspect in his wife's suspicious death."
Earlier this month Jenkins confronted Quinton Ray during a bankruptcy hearing for Ray. Jenkins approached his son-in-law and asked him to take a polygraph test. Ray did not respond at the time, but Jenkins said Ray, through a representative, since has said he will take a GBI-administered polygraph test.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/che...metmissing.html
