as for shelley, her gravestone disclosed by for those who loved and admired her to visit and to find the lessons hidden behind the surface of the senseless tragedy. >> if i was to ask shelley, what do i do about this, given the situation? she would say, focus on the here and now. find the good in everybody that you see around you. see life's blessings. if you need help, i will point them out for you. that's what she would do. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. watchin >> im craig melvin and this is dateline. >> i just knew that something happened. my gut said that it was bad. >> he said i am on 192 and i won't be able to come home.

it's true, it's like he vanished into thin air. >> is very confusing. the a's don't go missing. >> this one did and hasn't been seen since. was he murdered? was it suicide? did he just walk away? >> whatever happened here is well planned out. >> he was the first to investigate coast jerry sandusky. could there be a link between that case and his disappearance? >> somebody knows something or a lot of somebodies do. somebo >> hello and welcome to dateline. ray gricar was the first to invest in applications coast

jerry sandusky sexually abused the child long before the scandal made headlines. seven years later he mysteriously disappeared. the strange turn of events left people asking was there a connection? here is lester holt with the case of the missing d.a.. >> the clues are tantalizing. a sporty red car. a speck of cigarette ash. battered hard drive. >> it absolutely is a mystery. >> what do those clues say about the sudden disappearance of the district attorney who left them behind? his name is ray gricar. when he vanished in 2005 it was a big story. >> the prosecutor who vanished on friday is still missing. >> and now his story linked to

an even bigger one. seven years before he went missing ray gricar decided not to prosecute jerry sandusky for the first known allegation of child sex abuse since him -- against him. now some are asking if the case had anything to do with the d.a.s disappearance. >> for anyone to think there is no relationship is the epitome of naoveti. >> eliminating ray does not eliminate the problem. >> ever since the scandal broke dateline has been on the ground analyzing the clues and talking to those who knew the d.a. from centre county. there are several scenarios. we look for answers. what really happened to ray

gricar? >> i love you very much and i miss you . >> he was the district attorney in centre county working in the postcard pretty town of bell f.a.r. penn state is just down the road. back in april 2005 ray gricar has served the better part of five terms and wrapped up a stellar reputation. >> it is the nature of the job that you do difficult things and make difficult choices. >> he was the most serious prosecutor i've ever met. >> he was the d.a. in neighboring counties. he met ray gricar in the 90s. over the years the two traded shop talk whenever they could. did he go from his gut? >> he was the guy that always have the next question. he was the most ethical guy.

>> methodical, meticulous, fearless too. >> he prosecuted some very high- profile cases that made national news in centre county. it didn't bother him who the person was, it was what they did that counted. >> in the spring 2005 seem to be going his way. he was in love. after two divorces he had moved in with a long-term girlfriend and he seemed happy alas. >> for both of us we finally found our soulmate. >> investigators that he had no health problems, no money worries. he was close to his only child, 27-year-old laura who lives in washington state at the time.

>> i spoke to my dad 3-4 times per week. >> in the spring of 2005 rae -- ray was ready for retirement, already starting to cut back on his workflow. >> we were going to drive across the country and take our time, visit the national parks and end up on the west coast to see his daughter. if the trip never started. on april 14 laura had a conversation with her father that she will never forget. >> just called to say hello and i love you. he said i'm sure you're going to do great. you always do. you are just like your mom. >> the next day rae woke up and told patty he was going to play hooky. she wasn't surprised. >> i said it's time to get up. he said i don't think i'm going to go to work today. i say good for you.

>> patty want to work. she was a clerk in his office. ray called around 11:30 that morning. he told her he had taken his fun little mini on a spin, he often did that. she thought nothing of it. >> he said i am driving down 192. i said fine. no problem. he said i love you. i said i love you also. we terminated the phone call. >> it was their last conversation. when patty got home from work that night there was no sign of ray. she went to the gym. when she got back he still wasn't home. she called his cell phone, the calls went straight to voicemail. for 3 hours she dialed in readout the number, nothing to voicemail. finally frantic she called 911. >> to me this was an emergency.

they know who i am. they know who ray is. when i called to report he is at home and this is not like him they quickly responded. >> ray gricar was gone without warning. the bell farm police department put out an description and his rant many. the hunt for a missing d.a. was underway. >> coming up, a district attorney in danger. >> we knew what rae had done all his life. >> was someone out of prison and out for revenge when dateline continues? tier fo hours

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>> patty woke up on saturday, april 16, 2005 and felt like she was trapped in a bad dream. ray gricar her live-in boyfriend and the district attorney of centre county had not come home the night before. he was still missing. >> i knew it wasn't good that ray still hadn't been located. we have to make a decision about calling his daughter. >> has patty told dateline in 2006 she decided to make the call to lara, then a college student in washington state. >> my gut said it was bad.

>> ray's friend was bewildered when he heard the news. >> i didn't know what to make of it. it was very confusing. >> a former investigator still remembers the morning. >> we handled it as a missing person, highly significant. >> he is now retired, but back then he was the lead investigator on the case. >> i assume alarm bells are ringing loudly when the d.a. is missing? >> you get a little concerned. you figure there is much better chance of foul play then i got doesn't come home because he's been at the bar all night. >> that was because he knew his character? >> we know what ray had done all of his life. he prosecuted rights and homicides all of his life. >> foul play was only one

possibility. in the first hours they ordered an aerial search of a nearby road to look for the bright red minicar taking that ray may have had a accident. they order other searches too. they knew ray may have gone solo somewhere. turns out he had done that before. >> he didn't do that this time. >> that you potentially lose time because of a default position that he is going to turn up so and there's a reasonable explanation? >> no. we worked on it. it was constant go. >> investigators tracked his movements and found the last known pictures of him alive on his way to the office the evening before he disappeared. it seemed routine enough and took them nowhere.

on day two investigators caught a huge break. ray many was discovered in a parking lot by an antique mall. ray had visited the stores there in the past. now his car was locked. his cell phone was inside. there was no sign of ray. >> i was glad it was found, thinking maybe there would be a clue. >> there were clues all right, real puzzlers. >> the first initial thing that struck them was a strong odor of tobacco in the car. ray was not a smoker and definitely would not let anybody smoke in his car. >> inside the car a speck of ash on the passenger side. how to explain that in the car is a passionate non-smoker. >> it would indicate that

someone had been in the car smoking or at least was leaning into the car possibly talking to ray . >> investigators found cigarette butts on the ground and sent them off for dna testing. there was no sign of a struggle or foul play and not a bloodstain in sight. nothing to indicate that a crime had occurred in or near the car. >> was still baffled me is basically the lack of a crime scene. >> yolanda mcclary was a crime scene investigator and at the time an nbc news consultant. >> a crime scene helps to tell a story. something where you can prove or disprove witness statements and testimonies through your crime scene, through the evidence. >> how many times have we seen a crime or someone willing goes away with the person who ultimately kills them and there is no crime scene? >> correct. if you willingly go it's just the last place you were saying.

>> if the car itself gave investigators little to go on its location 60 miles from gricar is home did -- gricar's home did. >> we immediately went out and started talking to people. we got confirmation from people in some of the businesses in that area who saw him there for several hours throughout the day. >> they began building a timeline of movement in lewisburg. it wasn't easy. there was another mini cooper owner in town that day. sean weaver was the chief of belfonte police department. he says he knows the investigation inside out. >> there were a lot of signings of another individual that we later found out he was in an

restaurant eating. it wasn't ray. it was another guy with a mini cooper. >> it was a dead end. tony gricar was ray's nephew. he lives in dayton, ohio. estimate to learn his uncle was missing he began driving to pennsylvania. >> at the time without we need to get there as quickly as we can to see what kind of assistance we can provide. >> when tony and his brother saw the scene where the car was found they were signed. >> here we go again. that was the exact first thought. >> the investigation was about to take a whole new turn. coming up ... >> i think my first words were he's probably in the river. th

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>> one tony gricar drove into lewisburg, pennsylvania, back in april 2005 he did a double take. his uncle had disappeared and the cops had just located his abandoned car near a bridge over a river, the scene took tony straight back to a bad place in his past. >> to say that it was an eerie parallel would be the understatement of the century. it was the exact same thing. >> nine years earlier tony's

father, ray brother had abandoned his car. his body was discovered in the river in dayton, ohio, a few days later. the coroner ruled it a suicide. >> geographically everything plays out the exact same. the car, the park, the bridge, and river. >> tony drew the logical conclusion. i think my first words were he's probably in the river. >> when your uncle went missing of course the connection with your father started to be made. was your father depressed? >> he bought depression by what i can gather 20+ years. >> and depression can run into families. patty remembered that ray did seem preoccupied. she put that down to work.

she didn't recall that he been napping a lot. >> the weekend before he disappeared i said i want you to promise me something. he said sure, what? i said if you continue to be tired will you please call your doctor? he said you know, work frequently makes me tired. i came back with the three years we've lived together i've never seen you nap so much at lunchtime and then after work. >> when investigators went through his medical records they found nothing to indicate he had been treated for depression, nothing at all. in fact ray gricar seem fit and healthy. if the body was in the river investigators were determined to find it. they brought in helicopters, even a cadaver sniffing dog. although the river could run shallow by that bridge in the

spring of 2005 tony says the water level was high. >> there is ring reigns as well is melting. the water was several feet higher. >> the belfonte police chief at the time said conditions were favorable for finding a body. >> at the time they get the right to the bottom of the river. it was like looking through clearwater. pretty much the bottom of the river is a flat rock that you could see very easily from the sky. >> no body turned up and this was the most compelling question. if he had jumped off the bridge like his brother then where was he? he make the biggest thing you have in a suicide was the body. the body helps to tell you what happened or is it even feasible. we also know sometimes things are staged when in reality it's a homicide.

a body is something that will give you the clues and the means by which the suicide occurred. in this case where is the body? >> the river wasn't telling them. the lead investigator with the bell farm police came up with one answer. it is possible the body would be found? >> basically what happens when you get into the river and ultimately ends up in the chesapeake. if ray would've went into the water there is the possibility he got out to what they call the fiber gam and -- dam and he could've got wedged out underneath and just been shown to pieces. >> even as the search was underway the police continue to canvas the area nearby. it was frustrating. lewisburg is a college town and the weekend ray vanished there were parents in town.

to tony every other dat looks like his uncle ray. >> honestly i could not walk through that weekend without seeing 20 guys that look like him. upper-middle-class caucasian male wearing a blue eddie bauer fleece. >> investigators wouldn't let it go. >> are probably put in 16-17 hour days and just went home to sleep and came back out and we were going at it again. >> going at it and getting lucky with a promising lee. investigators came up with several credible sightings of ray in lewisburg. one got their attention. he had been seen with a dark- haired woman. >> we were hoping that maybe this was a fling and connected them with another woman. he decided to spend the weekend last dose might echo the hotel with another woman. we know what happens.

never seen it with ray, but that is what we started to think. he maybe hooked up with this lady and he just felt bad and didn't want to call patty. >> a fling, where would that take them? coming up, police catch and break when two fishermen catch and clue. >> they start looking and thought that looks like a computer. thought that looks li computer. ♪♪ [cat meow] —is she? letting her imagination run wild even though she has allergies. yeah. everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. before apoquel chewable for allergic itch. giving dogs pills was a battle of wits. oh, maria, i'm wise to your foolish game.

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up to 1-5 women. doctors have praised its effectiveness. for now back to dateline. . >> not long after pennsylvania d.a. ray gricar went missing investigators had a new lead. >> investigators now say they are looking for a woman. >> ray have been saying with a dark-haired woman at a shop in lewisburg. at 1st and better guessers -- first investigators wondered if ray was involved in an affair. >> we sent troopers out. we talked to desk clerks. descriptions of the female that he was seen talking to were presented. ray's pictures were presented. if they came up empty. when they canvassed nearby

trying and bus stations to see if anyone matching the description had left town they came up empty again. they began asking how likely was it that ray gricar, a standout d.a., a guy who seemed happy and in love at last would run off with another woman. his nephew didn't buy it. >> he wasn't married. what would the point be running off with a mystery woman? >> his live-in girlfriend didn't buy it either. >> i know that if ray did not want to be in this relationship he would tell me and i know that. >> as investigators developed a lead they too came to believe ray is romancing a different woman. it didn't jive with what they were hearing. >> were there multiple witnesses? >> there were people who saw

ray with this lady walking together and talking. they would separate and go into different shops, come back out, meet up, walked together. ultimately he didn't see them anymore. it's a very big place. >> investigators had a slew of questions. what was it that she and ray were talking about? was she there to lure him into a trap or was she helping him start a new life? yolanda mcclary a consultant for nbc news said the answers will be pure gold. >> i think she could answer some questions here as to what is -- was it a meat set up that went wrong? was this someone who had information for him? >> or just someone he met casually who could at least give us a sense of his state of mind. >> they said it didn't seem

like they were intimate, but at least knew eachother. i am just thinking she could shed a little bit of light as to what happened those last few months. >> investigators worked hard to track the woman down. some began wondering how credible the siding was. as weeks stretched into months the case of the missing d.a. was stalled. in the summer of 2005 the river surprised the mall. it gave up a huge clue. >> a cold case may have just gotten a boost with a discovery 42 fishermen. >> they saw something in the shallow water. turns out it was a laptop. >> they pulled it out and got it to us. >> it was ray's work laptop. investigators excitement quickly turned to frustration is the hard drive was missing.

instead of answering investigators questions the laptop just gave the more. why did ray have his work laptop if he was playing hooky? where was the hard drive and why was it missing? they were still mulling that over when the river surprised them again and gave it up. a mother and her child side lying in the riverbed. >> when the hard drive was found was your first thought this is going to explain the mystery? >> we thought this is going to do it. >> it wasn't to be. forensic computer experts told them they could not retrieve any data. the hard drive was just too damaged. >> very upsetting. if this great big carrot hanging and you reach and you just about have it and then it's gone. there is nothing there. >> later the hard drive was analyzed at the same lab that recover data from the hard drive of the space shuttle columbia, disco integrated --

disintegrated in 2003. still, the fact that the hard drive have been removed only added to the mystery. tony recognized that early on. >> when you heard about the laptop and the hard drive found separately did that change your thinking? >> i was called by investigators is that we found a laptop. they said there's no hard drive. that gave me pause. anyone's going to say wait a minute, this wasn't an accidental thing. >> the mystery was not tightly focused on the damaged hard drive. had it been deliberately removed and destroyed? was ray's disappearance link to something on it ? coming up ... >> i've always felt when all the facts are coming out the only conclusion left was foul play. >> when dateline continues. dat

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>> one year after ray gricar vanished without a trace the man who took his place as district attorney of centre county held a news conference. >> my interest just as public interest will not grow cold. >> ray's live-in girlfriend made sure she was not giving up either. >> i cannot make any sense of any of it.

one day it might be one scenario, one day it might be the other. i have never given up hope. it helps me go on. >> hope and the hardbacks didn't seem to go together. investigators had no body and precious little evidence. their trophy find the battered hard drive wasn't giving anything up. tony gricar, ray's nephew had questions about the hard drive. it was recover separately about 100 yards away. he knew that it would take some doing. he believes it was no accident. >> i know computers, especially laptops. there is no way just by going in the river that hard drive is coming out on its own. >> but why would ray yank it out? investigators learn for he disappeared he was asking around the office about how to

erase a hard drive. on internet searches at home he was asking how to record a hard drive. but a friend said there could be a simple explanation. he spoke to dateline shortly before retiring as a d.a. . >> as i am ending my career i'm thinking about the same thing. i've got lots of stuff on that hard drive. i would probably like to get rid of it. >> after all why would ray drive 60 miles to dump a hard drive in a river when he could dispose of it closer to home? but if ray didn't remove the hard drive someone else apparently did. maybe investigators speculated there was something incriminating on it. >> we think that hard drive had information that would maybe lead us to one of the theories. the reason why somebody would want him dead or why he would jump in the river or why he wanted to leave.

>> three theories is what investigators were left with to explain what happened to ray gricar. does your department lean in any particular direction? >> no. it's hard. we all have our personal thoughts. everyone who has ever looked at the case has their own theory, no matter how crazy it might be. >> one theory is that ray simply walked away. if so that would require serious planning. yolanda mcclary then a consultant for nbc news ... >> money would have to move, arrangements would have to be made. he would have to be a pretty sharp cookie to hide that kind of plotting. >> whatever happened here was well planned out by somebody. >> financial investigators from

the fbi could find no evidence that ray was planning to move money. there was nothing to indicate that he was planning to walk out of his very successful life. >> what is the motive? why would you walk away from your life? anybody, his daughter, his girlfriend, what with this based off of? >> he was planning retirement and planning travel. does that make it even less likely that someone would say this into motion and disappear? >> it doesn't make sense. >> tony gricar agrees. >> there is no path where investigators can say this is why he walked away. >> if ray gricar did not walk away did he die by suicide like his brother? this is a man who loved his daughter, he loved his girlfriend. does it make sense that he would take his own life and not leave some sort of explanation? >> i would say no. >> without a body there is no

way to be sure. that leaves one last theory, murder. investigators say as a prosecutor gricar have with some dangerous people behind bars. >> who knows who got out of jail 20 years ago and is still holding a grudge? >> someone who wanted to get the straight arrow d.a. out of the way. someone who may have lured ray into a trap. >> when you hereby prosecutor going missing this could be linked to something he was working on or somebody who wanted payback. >> to me that would be the most plausible. >> tony had it conclusively settled on the foul play theory but the d.a. had. >> i've always felt, maybe not initially, but several months later when all of the facts started coming out i always felt the only conclusion left was foul play. that is an awful thing to

imagine. it's the one thing i didn't want to think of. >> if it were foul play there were no credible suspects. over time the ray gricar case went cold. in the summer of 2011 his daughter petition the court to have her father declared legally dead. that is where things stood for about six months until the case of the missing d.a. came roaring back to life. coming up, could there possibly be a connection between the disappearance of ray gricar and his investigation years earlier of the first known sexual abuse allegations against coach jerry sandusky. >> for those who say ray gricar miss the opportunity you say what ? >> when dateline continues. dat

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>> welcome back. investigators had three theories for the disappearance. he ran off, died by suicide or was killed. a scandal was about to explode link to a case ray investigated years earlier. could these new allegations help solve the mystery of what happened to ray? here is lester holt with the conclusion in the case of the

missing d.a. . >> it will be in november 2011. the story of the initial 40 child abuse charges against jerry sandusky . a grand jury spent more than two years investigating the accusations of eight alleged victims. there it was in the official summary of the grand jury's findings, the name ray gricar. it turns out ray was the first prosecutor to investigate an allegation of child sex abuse against jerry sandusky back in 1998. that was news to many including michael madera, the man who became the d.a. of centre county after ray disappeared. >> i found out about gricar's

involvement along with the rest of the world. >> the question popping up, why didn't ray gricar prosecute jerry sandusky years earlier? to understand that you would have to go back to 1998. that is when and mother contact the police to say her 11-year- old son had told her he had been bear hugged by sandusky makin in the shower. it was an explosive allegation. ray gricar became involved. we do not know exactly what he did, former d.a. bob buener was pretty sure he knew what he did first. >> when you get a case of child abuse you put on the game face. that is the one that gets to us. >> ray will have almost certainly met the alleged victim. >> if he met with that victim he is the one who would've made a good credibility decision. >> when you have a well-known member of the community and you

look at the credibility of your alleged victim, does that become tough? >> absolutely. >> if it ever got to a courtroom the case will likely come down to the testimony of one 11-year-old boy against a hometown hero. that is where this thing or something close to it came in. we do not know all of the details. only the mother confronted sandusky on two occasions in may 1998 while detective listened in. have you ever known ray to run that kind of operation? >> as i said, when police will come to him he would always ask what have you tried this? have you tried that? >> report said sandusky told the mother i was wrong. i wish i could give forgiveness. i wish i were dead. days after the question sandusky was asked about the

conversation. >> in 1998 and mother approaches are about inappropriately touching her son. two detectives eavesdrop and you admit maybe your private parts touched her son. what happened there? >> i cannot exactly recall what was said. in terms of what i did say was that if he felt that way then i was wrong. >> it seems sandusky was confessing to something wrong, but that is not how bob saw it. the mac people have characterized the statements as being a confession. we call it an admission. hugging in and of itself, even a child under the age of 12 is not necessarily a crime unless you can show sexual

gratification. that is the key. >> have you tried to get into the head of ray gricar to understand what his thinking may have been when this allegation was presented? >> is easy with 2020 hindsight is a if i have that information i would've said this needed to be looked into. you must always follow with i don't know what information he had. >> ray gricar decided to not prosecute. we don't know his reasons. it is easy now to second-guess gricar's decision , especially since jerry sandusky went on to repeat assault after 1998. in 2012 sandusky was convicted of 45 count of child sex abuse. for those who say ray gricar miss the opportunity to put sandusky away you say what? >> i say they do not know the law. they do not know ray gricar.

>> there were on my post and tweet speculating about a link, but could there actually be a connection? >> for anybody to suggest otherwise is, i think, incredibly naove. >> this well know forensic pathologist has not worked on the gricar case, but have followed it for years. he made news with comments after the sandusky story broke. he believes there must've been rumors sandusky was continuing to abuse young boys after 1998 and he says that gricar must've hurt them. >> i guarantee you after a district attorney has been in office for some years there is not any criminal activity that takes place in that county that he is not aware of. >> he speculates that gricar blames himself for the alleged abuses and either walked away

or committed suicide. or, maybe gricar knew too much. >> someone says mr. gricar, we kept quiet all this time. without you around we will keep it quiet longer. that's the end of mr. gricar. >> friends and colleagues rule out any connection between the missing d.a. and the sandusky case. >> i am in no way aware of any reason why there would be a link. as i said before, i cannot imagine based upon what i know about him that he would allow something or someone to influence a decision that he thought was the right decision to make. >> agreed and additives. >> i see absolutely no connection between ray gricar's disappearance in 2005 and anything connected with jerry sandusky. >> but you can see how people

could make that leap? this is a true mystery. >> and an enigma. why would someone connected with the sandusky matter want to take out a district attorney who declined to prosecute a case and leaving office in eight months. it would seem to me if you are going to take somebody out in a criminal case you go after the witnesses. you go after the people who could get on the witness stand and again. >> rather not what happened to ray gricar has anything to do with jerry sandusky, his disappearance remains an open case. pennsylvania state police still follow leads. they occasionally get reports or sidings. he supposedly has been spotted in illinois, ohio, michigan, maryland, and texas. >> we have had some pretty crazy sidings. we look into them. we have had sidings in new york city where the individual it

looked like mr. gricar. it wasn't him. >> maybe one day they will be able to unlock the secrets of that damage hard drive. for now the mystery of ray gricar's disappearance enters and so does the wait for answers. do you still hold out hope? >> always. we are going to always have a question. that is never going away. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. for wat watching. good morning and welcome to this sunday edition of morning joe weekend. it was another fast-moving news week. here are some of the conversations you might have missed. the biden-harris 2024 campaign is out with a brand new ad