You added a new category: " Something else". Would that be like a natural death concealed by another person?
A Casual Rebuttal
He'd driven some miles. He'd had time to think, which statistically makes a person who's having impulsive suicide thoughts slow down and change course.
I use the term impulsive because he apparently didn't take any weapons or rope for a fast death.
I reject drowning as a COD.
Drowning in waist to chest high water when you're a poor swimmer would be stupid and probably impossible, as the human reflexes to struggle, to stay afloat, to breathe would kick in, AND all he or any other nearly non- swimmer had to do was touch the bottom of the riverbed and walk back to the river's edge! This is SO not true for the way people drown. I reject it utterly, and not knowing if you are a good swimmer, believe you will reject it as well if you can and do swim. Even a non-swimmer can float on his or her back all day long and moving the arms towards and away from the body will get the floater to the shore. People figure it out really quickly.
Also, I've said it 101 times, but if someone is depressed and suicidal, they don't GO SHOPPING almost 50 miles from " home'. The depressed person will find their place of solitude and comfort in their own home and get over the blues, or a friend or family member will get them to mental health care, or if ignored, they might progress in the depression to suicidal ideation.
Unless they are Lupe Velez, the depressed and suicidal sad person will take an OD of medication, or string a rope up from the attic rafters, or IDK, stick their head in the gas oven, if gas is present. It will be the easiest and least painful method possible and they will likely not be dressed for a casual outing, but in PJs, a robe, not worried about appearance. This is human nature, and if I didn't know, I wouldn't say how stupid it would be to consider a pleasant drive to a PLACE Ray liked, the SoS, to kill himself nearby. And, " nearby" meaning exactly " where"?
It would be like me taking off for Disney World to walk around in my ears for the day, playing on the rides, dining and refreshing during the day, then killing myself in my parked rental car with a knife, pills, almost anything undetectable from the exterior of the car. Actually, just to SIT in the car for an hour would possibly cause hyperthermia to the point of death, ha ha. I LOVE Disney World but 7th circle of hell heat and humidity. Somewhere along the timeline of that day, I'd have decided I wanted to live to come back to Disney! Also, there's the energy factor again. Suicidal people do not have the energy to go to the corner store, much less out of town.
There's absolutely no evidence pointing to suicide or murder or this case likely would have had a finite ending or at least be a " Whodunnit?" since April 15, 2005.
It's only when " Walkaway" is added that the case begins to make complete sense. If Ray died at his hands or the hands of some hostile faction, then I apologize to those left behind who loved him as their father or grandfather, although never meeting, I guess. I don't have blinders on, but nothing else makes sense with the scant facts available.
What we know is that he was mobile and communicative until he reached Lewisburg, was seen normally mobile in Lewisburg at several places including a restaurant and an open park, not having any visible distress, and he did spend time in the SoS, which may also have been the rendezvous designation for a helper to get out of Lewisburg. Possibly the MW, or possibly she was the decoy. We don't know.
