My theory:
Ray Gricar wanted to retire and travel the world. He had an adopted daughter in Washington State.
He gets the Sandusky case in 1998. He could prosecute, but someone or some group offers to pay him protection money for several years. Gricar puts that money into an offshore account.
Gricar announces he is going to retire and not run for re-election (county DAs are elected in Pennsy). If he just leaves, there is a chance that the bribery could be uncovered and he would lose his state pension, healthcare, etc.
If Gricar is declared dead, his daughter would inherit his pension and life insurance.
Gricar disappears, wipes his hard drive (account numbers for his offshore money) and sails into the sunset to live a nice life.
Now, someone helped Gricar get out of Lewisburg. I suspect one of his relatives from Slovenia (with which he had good relations and traveled there several times) flew into Canada, rented a car and drove down to Lewisburg. They traveled back to Canada (in 2005, you only needed a DL to cross the border).
The fact that Gricar had been searching the internet for ways to wipe a hard drive and the fact the computer was found in the river later with no hard drive lends some substance to your thesis. I don’t think suicide is a viable option given where his car was found in Lewisburg and after that his trail goes stone cold.
Either he has fled or he was offed and the body disposed.
You may well be on to something. I read up a bit on this particular case, and the (declared) dead Mr. Gricar apparently used his home computer to search for things like how to destroy a hard drive, etc. Here’s a link to the original story on that aspect of the affair:
http://www.centredaily.com/2009/04/15/1228995/foul-play-theory-weakened.html
He may very well be alive somewhere. Perhaps Slovenia, or somewhere else in Central Europe.
Though he’s been declared legally dead, it’s possible he may have sailed into the sunset somewhere nice.