Ray Gricar Case Study

The Mystery of the Missing District Attorney

Ray Griar was the “top dog” of Centre County, as a prosecutor for nearly 20 years. Griar was a divorcee and was, at the time of his disappearance, living with a fellow co-worker named Patty Fornicola (Lohr). He was a father of a successful daughter and seemed for have a wonderful relationship with her (Ganim “What Happened to Ray Gricar?”). Gricar went on a drive on Route 192 on April 15th, 2005 in his 2004 red mini cooper and never returned. He did inform Fornicola, prior to his departure, he was headed out for a morning drive. This was not unexpected due to Gricar enjoyed driving his sporty car (Lohr). However, Gricar did call Fornicola on his way back home and reported his location (Ganim). So what happened after the telephone call? In the case of Ray Gricar, what are some of the possibilities to explain why he went missing?

One of the possibilities that was mentioned during the early stages of the investigation was suicide. This was a higher focus due to Gricar’s brother’s, Roy Gricar, death being ruled a suicide by drowning in 1996 (Reed Ward). The investigators were tipped off when picking up the similarities of the river Gricar’s car was found parked by the day after being reported
Gricar was well-known during his late career for letting Jerry Sandusky off due to “…lack of evidence….” in 1998. Sandusky was, initially, accused of abusing boys he was coaching at Penn State (Ganim). Later, Sandusky was indicted for sexual crimes in 2011. Gricar was blamed, by many, for letting Sandusky off in 1998. Also, in 2009, the police was able to collect Internet Google search of how to destroy hard drives from the hard drive. The key wording that were utilized were “how to wreck a hard drive”, “how to fry a hard drive”, and “water damage to a hard drive.” (Ganim) However, when looking into this possibility, there was no evidence to support the theory