DA Who Never Charged Sandusky Has Been Missing Since 2005
""People ask why Ray did not prosecute, and I have no problem saying, because he clearly felt he didn't have a case for a 'successful' prosecution," Tony Gricar, Ray Gricar’s nephew , told The Patriot-News.
"... One thing I can say is that Ray was beholden to no one, was not a politician."
This district attorney who had “a bitter taste in his mouth for the [Penn State] program, and its coach,” according to his nephew, and yet never prosecuted Sandusky, disappeared on April 15, 2005 after telling his girlfriend that he was going on a drive.
Ray Gricar’s car was found the next day in a Lewisburg parking lot and his laptop, sans hard drive, was found in the Susquehanna River, according to the Patriot-News.
Ray Gricar’s friend, Montour County District Attorney Robert Buehner Jr., told the New York Times that if the ardent district attorney had committed suicide, he would have wanted his body found. But in the case of possible foul play, no suspects have emerged from investigations.
When it comes to the Sandusky case, friends and former co-workers are all of the opinion that Ray Gricar would never back down from a righteous prosecution.
“No one got a bye with Ray,” Anthony De Boef, who was an assistant district attorney under Gricar for five years told the NY Times. “He didn’t care who you were; he had a job to do.”
And, despite the fact that Ray Gricar had the mother of one of the alleged victims confront Sandusky while police listened, the 1998 report on Sandusky was labeled “unfounded” by the District Attorney’s Office, reports the Patriot-News.
“I would say this about Ray: He would be extremely cautious in proceeding because he wanted to make sure that there would be a reasonable likelihood of conviction,” Buehner told the Patriot News. “You don’t want to go after someone high profile unless you have a compelling case.”
As for the 2002 incident, in which a graduate assistant told Penn State coach Joe Paterno that he witness Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the PSU locker rooms, there is no indication that Ray Gricar was notified, reports the Patriot-Times.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/DA-Who-Never-Charged-Sandusky-Has-Been-Missing-Since-2005-133615093.html
????What names, dates and places were on that hard drive????
Witness protection program???
(no link)
Months later, D.A.’s fate remains a riddle - There is a rising belief that Ray Gricar of Centre County is dead. Sightings of him in other states have not checked out. D.A.’s whereabouts remain a riddle
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Author: Larry Eichel INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
It’s been almost five months now since the Friday morning in April when Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar left his home in this mountainside county seat and drove east on Route 192.
And then disappeared.
His car was found the next night in Lewisburg, 60 miles from home, in a dirt parking lot near the Susquehanna River.
To this day, investigators have no idea what happened to him or how they might find out.
There is the possibility that Gricar , 59, who called his live-in girlfriend from the road to say only he wouldn’t be home to take out the dog at noon, ended his own life.
Or that he decided to walk away from it all. Or was murdered, perhaps by someone he had prosecuted or was about to.
Some folks in town think he is in the witness protection program, though they can’t tell you why he would be.
But the passage of time and the discovery of a key piece of evidence five weeks ago - Gricar ‘s laptop computer, fished out of the Susquehanna River in Lewisburg - have caused those closest to the case to believe that he’s dead.
“I think it’s a homicide,” said Bellefonte Police Officer Darrel Zaccagni, the frustrated lead investigator in the case, who has sought the help of the state police, the FBI, the Attorney General’s Office, and a psychic from California.
(snip)