MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Rey Rivera

And I'm Britt.

And the story I have for you today is truly a head scratcher. A happily married man with a great career and a loving family went missing from his home, only to turn up over a week later in a way that no one ever dared to imagine, leaving behind deep, dark questions that linger to this very day. This is the story of Ray Rivera.

Following the release of this episode, representatives of Porter Stansbury contacted Crime junkie to inform us of information regarding Ray Rivera's case that had not yet been made public. And we want to alert our listeners to that information for the sake of being exhaustive. Not only did Porter Stansbury offer a reward to find Ray, he also hired a private detective to lead the search for Ray. Although previously reported accounts suggested that Porter did not cooperate with police, this appears not to have been correct. Porter did urge all of his employees and even all of his company's clients to contact the police with any information about Ray's whereabouts after Ray's body was found. Porter never issued a gag order telling employees not to help the police. Porter, in fact, fully cooperated with the police after Ray's body was found, including being interviewed by the lead detective in the case on June 23, 2006.

In May of 2006, Ray Rivera and his wife, Allison, have been living in Baltimore, Maryland, for almost two years. Allison is in sales, and Ray is a writer who just finished working for this finance company called Stansbury and Associates. Basically, he wrote their, like, financial newsletter for investors, all about stocks and where they should put their money next, stuff like that. Now he's also doing some freelance video work for another finance firm called the Oxford Club, under the same parent company as Stansbury and Associates. But this is all just temporary. The writing, the freelance work, even living in Baltimore. Ray and Allison had just put their house on the market and had plans to move to Los Angeles so Ray could pursue a career in filmmaking. But in the meantime, this was a good gig. The freelancing paid him well. They had a nice life, and money wasn't a problem for them. On the morning of May 16, 2006, which is a Tuesday, Allison gets up early to drive to Richmond, Virginia, for business. Now Ray's staying back in Baltimore with a colleague of hers named Claudia, who's actually staying at their house for a few days. And everything's totally normal. On this morning, Allison lets Ray carry her little suitcase to the car. They load it up in the trunk. Then she kisses him goodbye, tells him she loves him, and drives off. Allison gets to her hotel in Virginia around 630 that evening. And she decides to give Ray a call, but he doesn't answer. And it's a little bit weird. I mean, they talk so much, but a missed phone call isn't anything to freak out about. And she figures he's going to call back any minute. Except Ray never calls back. So at around 09:30 p.m. When she still hasn't heard from Ray, Allison decides to call Claudia, that woman that's staying with them, and see if maybe she knows what's going on. Well, Claudia tells know Ray isn't here. She says, I haven't seen him in a few hours, not since he got a phone call and just left. Now, Allison obviously pries a little bit. And, you know, I heard Ray's phone ring. He's in the other room. I hear him pick up. And then a couple of seconds later, Ray says, oh, and then he ran out of the house in a hurry.

So does she know who had called or overhear anything?

No, but she might not have been, like, actively listening. I mean, again, this is not super out of the ordinary to get the call. And sometimes you overhear things without meaning to, like that kind of thing. All she heard was that last part, what he said and then him leaving.

So what time was that?

So I found a couple of different things. So there's an episode of the new unsolved mysteries on this case, which, by the way, you guys, the new season comes out on July 1 and starts with this case. So you have to go watch it on Netflix.

Yeah, seriously.

In that episode, Allison said that Ray got this call around 06:30 p.m. But according to Makita, Brotman's book called an unexplained death, the true story of a body at the Belvedere. She says he gets this call around 530. So the timelines differ a little bit from source to source in this case, but the progression of events is always the same. So this call comes in sometime, let's say between 530 and 630. Claudia heard what she heard. She hears that last part of the conversation. She hears him rushing out of the house. And then she said that he came back in a couple of minutes later, almost like he forgot something. And then he left again, this time driving away in Allison's black suv. And now, several hours later, she says he still hasn't come back. Allison starts thinking to know, maybe this isn't so weird. Ray was on a hard deadline at work with a video that was due that day. So maybe he finished it up. Maybe he went out for a drink or something. Came up when he finished. But then she keeps coming back to the idea that it is odd that he's not picking up his cell phone or taking her calls, even if he was busy, even if he had gone out for that drink. Weird. Yeah, right? It's weird that he's not taking her calls. I mean, they've only been married for six months, and they usually talk on the phone several times a day when one of them goes out of town.

And it's not like when she went out of town. Things were bad. It was a really normal day.

Oh, yeah, things were great again. They were a couple of months into their marriage. They're still in that newlywed phase, so it's not like they were fighting and he'd have a reason not to talk to her. But ultimately, she's again in Richmond. And if he's not picking up her calls, there's really nothing she can do about it tonight. So she heads to bed, hopeful, but a bit anxious. As soon as she wakes up the next morning, Allison sees that Ray hasn't returned her calls the entire night. So she connects with Claudia again to see if Ray is home yet. And Claudia's answer makes Allison's stomach drop. Ray never came home last night. At this point, Allison knows in her gut something is wrong, and she has to find her husband. She cancels the rest of her business trip and heads back to Baltimore to start searching for Ray. The whole way there, she's calling all around to everyone she can think of. His family, friends, coworkers, asking any of them if they've spoken to him recently. And person after person, call after call, they all say, no. No one has talked to Ray for the last two days at all. When Allison gets back home, it's like the whole house is frozen in time. All the lights are on. Upstairs in the kitchen, there's an open, like, soda can, a bag of chips, and Ray's clear retainers are sitting right there on the table. Almost like he popped them out for a minute to have a snack and then just disappeared. There was nothing in the house to indicate that he wasn't coming back or that he even thought he wasn't coming back. I mean, he even left his computer powered on up in the office.

Okay, am I the only one who thinks it might be a little bit weird that Claudia is just staying? Like, I feel like I have a really good relationship with my husband. And if you were to stay here and I wasn't there, it would be fine. But I don't know. I just get a weird feeling about it.

If you look at this case, she comes up a lot, but as far as I can tell, there's nothing going on there. I mean, I understand that's really easy to instantly think, like, okay, maybe there was something between them, but it really does not seem like that. And honestly, she kind of fades out of the whole story once Allison gets back. So anyways, that same day, we're still talking May 16, the whole extended family. And again, this is like Ray's parents, siblings, Allison's parents, too. They all start gathering in Baltimore. Basically, they all drop their lives in Florida, Colorado, Puerto Rico, wherever they're living at the time to come together and help Allison look for Ray.

Wait, has anybody called the police to report Ray missing?

So not yet. And I think Allison is maybe sort of running on autopilot at this point. Like hoping this is all just some misunderstanding.

Right? Maybe like even in denial a little bit.

Right? So, according to an unexplained death, Allison and the family spend that whole Tuesday canvassing around Baltimore. So it's not like they're just sitting at home. I mean, they're calling hospitals, they're calling to see if there's any John Doe's matching Grey's description that have turned up, all while trying to manage their growing sense of panic. But by Wednesday, the reality does start to set in, and Allison calls Baltimore police to officially report her husband missing. Police ask her and Ray's family all the usual questions, like, was Ray depressed or having trouble in his personal life? But they all say no. They all describe him as this really happy, family oriented guy with big goals for his future, who they say wasn't giving off any kind of warning signs. I mean, they reiterate, not depressed, not distraught, nothing. I mean, on the unsolved mystery show, we even hear from Ray's brother, Angel, who says that this was super out of character for Ray. Like, he would never just go Mia on his family without saying a word.