as for shelley, her gravestone is close by for those who loved and admired her to visit and to find the lessons hidden beneath the surface of this 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'll point them out for you. that's what she would do. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i just knew that something happened. i got said it was bad.

>> he said, i am on 192 and won't be able to come home. spin vanished into thin air. >> it was very confusing. das don't go missing. >> this one did and he has not been seen since. >> anyone who looked at the case has their own theory. >> was he murdered? was it suicide? did he just walk away? >> whatever happened here was well planned out. >> by somebody? >> he was the first to investigate coach jerry sandusky? could there be a link between that case and his disappearance? where is this man. >> somebody knows something or a lot of somebodies do. hello, and welcome to dateline.

ray gricar was district attorney in bellefonte, pennsylvania. he was the first to investigate allegations that coach jerry sandusky sexually abused a child. that was long before the scandal made headlines. seven years later, ray mysteriously disappeared. the strange turn of events left people asking, was there a connection? here is lester holt with the case of the missing da. the clues are tantalizing. a sporty red car. a speck of cigarette ash. a battered hard drive. >> it is a mystery. it absolutely is a mystery. >> what a the clues of the sudden disappearance of the district attorney who left them behind? >> it is baffling. it is confusing. it's perplexing.

>> his name is ray gricar and when he vanished in 2005, it was a big story. >> the prosecutor who vanished on friday is still missing. >> now, his story is linked to an an even bigger one. >> stunning allegations of sexually child-abuse. >> one of the most storied names is enveloped in scandal. >> seven years before he went missing, ray gricar decided not to prosecute jerry sandusky for the first known allegation of child sex abuse against him. now, some are asking whether that case had anything to do with the das disappearance. >> for anyone to think there was no relationship is the epitome of naoveti. >> others say no way. >> eliminating wright doesn't eliminate the problem for anybody. >> ever since the sandusky scandal broke, dateline has been on the ground, analyzing the clues and digging into the

case and talking to those who knew the da. there are several scenarios where is ray gricar disappearance. we will look for answers. what really happened to ray gricar? >> ray, i love you very much and i miss you. >> he was the district attorney in pennsylvania centre county working in a postcard pretty town of bell font. penn state is just down the road and its powerful presence in the central pennsylvania neighborhood. back in april 2005, ray gricar served the better part of five terms and racked up a stellar reputation. >> it is the nature the job that you do difficult things. you make difficult choices. >> he was the most serious prosecutor i have ever met. >> bob buehner was his friend in the da in the neighboring county. he met ray gricar in the '90s and over the years, they traded shop talk whenever they could.

did he go with his gut? did he shoot from the hip or daddy punch all the right -- >> he was a guy who had the next question. what about this? did you consider that? he was the most ethical guy. >> methodical. fearless too. >> he didn't care who the person was a prosecutor. he prosecuted some high-profile cases that made national news in centre county in the middle of pennsylvania. it did not bother him who the person was. it was what they did that counted. >> in the spring of 2005, everything seemed to be going ray gricar's way. he was in love after two divorces. he moved in with his longtime girlfriend patty fornicola and seemed happy at last. >> for both of us, we finally found our soulmate. we found the person who was perfect. >> investigators say he had no

health problems, no money worries. he was close to his only child, 27-year-old lara. she lived in washington state at the time. they stayed in touch by phone. >> i spoke to my dad often. i would say three or four times a week, we were in pretty regular contact. >> in that spring, ray was 59, just a few months from retirement. he was starting to cut back on his workload. >> we were going to drive across the country, take our time. visit the national parks and end up on the west coast. >> the trip never happened. april 14, lara had a conversation with her father that she will never forget. >> it was hey, dad i called to say high end i love you. i have this exam. he said i love you too and i'm sure you'll do great on that exam. you always do. your like your mom.

>> the next day, ray woke up and told patty he was going to play hooky. he had done it before. >> i said it's time to get up. he said, i don't think i will go to work today. i think i will take today off. i said good for you. >> patty went to work. she was a clerk in 's office. he called at 11:30 a.m. and said he took his mini for a spin on the country roads near their home. he often did that. he left to go for long drives. she thought nothing of it. >> he said, i'm driving down 192 and i won't be able to get home. i said no problem. he said i love you. i said, i love you too. and we terminated the phone call. >> it was our last conversation. when patty got home from work that night, there was no sign of ray. she went to the gym and when she got back, he still was not home. she called his cell phone the

calls went to voicemail. for three hours she dialed and retell the number. nothing but voicemail. finally, frantic, she called 911. >> to me, it was an emergency. it's not like him. it's unusual behavior. they know who i am and they know who ray is. when i reported he's not home, it's not like it, it's unusual behavior, they quickly responded. >> ray gricar was gone. gone without warning. the bellefonte police department put out a description and his red mini. the hunt for a missing da was underway. >> coming up. a district attorney in danger? >> he had prosecuted homicides for years. >> was someone out of prison and out for revenge? for reveng? eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you?

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patty fornicola woke up on april 16, 2005, and felt like she was trapped in a bad dream. ray gricar, her live-in boyfriend and daf pennsylvania's centre county, had not come home the night before. he was still missing. >> i knew it wasn't good that ray had not been located. we had to make a decision about calling his daughter.

>> as patty told dateline, she decided to make that call to laura, then a college student. >> your gut tells you a lot of things. i knew something happened. i got said it was bad. >> ray's friend bob buehner was bewildered when he heard the news. >> i did not know what to make of it at all. it was very confusing. das don't go missing. >> a former investigator still remembers that morning. >> we handled it as a missing person but a significant missing person. >> darrell has retired from the bellefonte police force, but then he was a lead investigator on the case. i assume alarm bells are ringing when the da is missing. >> you get concerned. you figured there's a better chance there is foul play involved then the guy who doesn't come home because he was at the bars all night. >> it's because you knew his

character? >> we knew what ray had done his life. he prosecuted homicides in rape and then became our decay. >> foul play was only one possibility in those hours after ray went missing. they considered several others. they ordered a go aerial search of the nearby roads to look for the bright red mini thinking he may have had an accident. they ordered other searches. they knew he may have gone solo somewhere. it turns out he had done that before. he wants to go up to the cleveland indians game. >> he didn't go to this one. we had the stadium police looking for him. >> did you lose time because of a default position that he is going to turn up soon? there's a reasonable explanation? >> we worked on it from the minute we decided we would go after it is a missing person. it was constant go go go.

>> they tracked his movements and found the last some pictures of him alive, on his way to the office the evening before he disappeared. it seemed routine enough, and it took them nowhere. >> and one of the most intriguing mysteries. >> in day two, investigators caught a huge break. 's mini was discovered in a parking lot by an antiques mall called the street of shops in the nearby town of lewisburg. ray had visited the stores there in the past. now, his car was sealed up tight and locked. his cell phone was inside. there was no sign of ray. >> i was glad it was found, not for the car but thinking there would be a clue. >> there were clues all right. real puzzles. >> when they open the vehicle, the first thing that struck them was a strong odor of tobacco in the car. ray was not a smoker and he would never let anybody smoke in his car. >> inside the car, a speck of

ash on the passenger side. how to explain that in a car of a passionate non-smoker? >> it indicates somebody had been in the car smoking or at least was leaning into the car, possibly talking to ray, holding a cigarette. >> investigators found cigarette butts on the ground and sent them for dna testing. nothing there. there was no sign of a struggle or foul play. not a bloodstain insight. nothing to indicate that a crime had occurred in or near the car. >> what still baffles me and all of this is the lack of a crime scene. >> yolanda was a crime scene investigator and at the time, nbc news consultant. >> a crime scene helps tell a story. something where you can prove or disprove witness statements, testimonies through the crime scene, through evidence. there isn't a crime scene. >> how many times if we have

seen crimes were, goes willingly away with the person who ultimately kills them. there is no crime scene. >> if you willingly go, there is no crime scene. >> if the car gave investigators little to go on, its location in lewisburg, 60 miles from his home did. that shifted the investigation to lewisburg. >> we knew he was there then. at least the car was there and we went down we started pounding doors and talking to people. we got confirmation from people and some of the businesses who had actually seen ray and they saw him several hours throughout the day. >> they began building a time line of ray's movements in lewisburg. it wasn't easy because there was another mini cooper owner in town that day. shawn weaver was the chief of the bellefonte police department and he joined the force shortly after ray disappeared, and he says he knows he investigation inside out. >> there was a lot of sightings

of another individual we later found out who he was. he was in a restaurant eating it was not ray been another guy that has a mini cooper. >> it was a dead end. tony is ray's nephew. he lived in dayton, ohio. when he heard his uncle was missing, got in his car, collected his brother, and began driving to pennsylvania. >> at the time without we need to get there as quick as we can to see what assistance we can provide. >> when tony and his brother got to lewisburg and saw the scene where ray's car was found, they were stunned. >> here we go again. that was the first thought. >> the investigation into ray gricar's disappearance was about to take a new turn. >> coming up. >> i think my first words is he's probably in the river. ri

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when tony driven to lewisburg, pennsylvania, in april 2005, he did a double take. tony's uncle ray had disappeared and the cops had located his abandoned car in a lewisburg parking lot near a

bridge over a river. the scene took tony back to a bad place in his past. >> to say it was an your repair of the would be an understatement of the century. it was the exact same thing. >> nine years earlier, tony's father had abandoned his car but a park near a bridge over a river.'s body was discovered in the river in dayton, ohio, a few days later. the coroner ruled it a suicide. now, this. >> geographically, it lays out the same with the car, park, bridge. a river. >> tony drew the logical conclusion about his uncle ray. >> you thought he committed suicide? >> i think it's probably in the river. >> when her uncle went missing, the connections with your father started to be made. was your father depressed? >> he fought depression for by what i can gather for 20 plus years. >> depression can run in families.

patty remember that ray seemed preoccupied before he vanished. she put that down to work. she did not recall he had been napping a lot. she even asked about it. >> the weekend before he disappeared, he said i want you to promise me something. i said what? i said if you continue to be tired, will you please call your doctor? he said, you know, i work frequently and it makes me tired. i came back at him with in the three years we have lived together, i have never seen you nap so much at love -- lunchtime and after work. >> when they went through his medical records, they found nothing to indicate he had been treated for depression. nothing at all. in fact, ray gricar seem to fit and healthy. if the body was in the susquehanna river, investigators were determined to find it. they brought in helicopters.

rescue divers. there was even a cadaver sniffing dog on a boat. although the river could run shallow by the bridge, and the spring of 2005, tony said the water level was high. >> the spring rains as well as melt. the water was several feet higher. >> bellefonte police chief at the time shawn weaver said conditions were favorable finding a body. >> at the time, they could see to the bottom of the river. it was like looking through clearwater. it's pretty much the bottom of the river is a flat rock, and you could see it very easily from the sky. >> no body turned up and this was the most confounding question of all. if he had jumped off the bridge, like his brother, then where was he? >> the biggest thing you have any suicide is a body.

the body helps tell you what really happened or, is it feasible this happened? we know sometimes things are staged to look like a suicide when it's a homicide. a body is something that will give you those clues. and the means by which the suicidal occurred. in this case, where is the body? >> the river was not telling them but the lead investigator with the bellefonte police came up with one answer. >> it's possible he body would not be found in the river? >> it is possible. if you get in the susquehanna, it ends up in the chesapeake. but, if ray would've went into the water , there's the possibility that he got down to what they call the fiber dam down the river a little way and the water hits the dam and grinds around. he could've gotten wedged underneath and been june 2 pieces. >> is the river search was underway, the police continue

to cabbage days it was frustrating. lewisburg is a college town, home to no university on the weekend ray vanished, there were parents in town. to tony, every other dad looked like his uncle ray. >> i could not walk through bucknell that weekend without seeing 20 guys that looked like him. upper-middle-class, caucasian male wearing an eddie bauer fleece. >> but the investigator would not let it go. >> i probably put in 16, 17 hour days at times. i went home to sleep for a little while and then came back out and we were going back at it again. >> and getting lucky with a promising new lee. they came up with several credible sightings of ray in lewisburg the day he disappeared. one got their attention.

ray have been seeing with a dark-haired woman in the street of shops. >> we were hoping it was a fling he was on and connected with another woman and decided to spend the weekend at a hotel. >> is a cop, you've seen that before. >> we know what happens. never seen it with ray, but that's what we started to think . maybe he hooked up with this lady and he felt bad and didn't want to call patty. >> a fling. where would that take them? >> coming up. police catch a break when two fishermen catch a clue. it's mesmerizing. cleaning that greasy mess with dawn platinum... and not even scrubbing. —well, fluff my feathers. — [giggle] it cuts through the slimy stuff better than their old dish soap, removing 99% of grease. that's why only dawn is trusted to save wildlife.

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- man, i need some serious help with this health insurance stuff. - check out covered california. it's a free service from the state that helps you get health insurance. millions of people have used it. - wait, for real? - mmm hmm, they even offer financial help to lower the cost. - nooo... how you know about all this? - that's how i got my insurance. i got a great plan for about $10 dollars a month. - okay, i see you. - if you've got questions, covered california can help, every step of the way. enroll by december 31st. covered california. hi, i'm richard lui with a news update. president biden announcing sunday he is pardoning his son hunter. hunter biden was convicted on federal gun charges, pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges. he faced sentencing later this month. the move is a reversal from the president repeatedly maintained

he would not pardon his son. in a statement, biden said politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice. he hopes americans understand his decision. and his decision. not long after pennsylvania da ray gricar went missing, investigators had a new lead. >> investigators say they're looking for a woman. >> ray have been seeing with a dark-haired woman and a shot in lewisburg. at first, investigator darrel zaccagni wondered if he had had a fling. did you check hotel and motel records to find out if a couple had stayed in the lewisburg area around that time? >> we sent 2% and did hotel by hotel search and talk to desk clerks and car registration would check. description of the female he was seen looking to.

we presented his picture. >> they came up empty and when they canvassed a nearby train and bus stations to see if anyone matching the couple's description at the town, they came up empty again. they began asking, how likely was it that ray gricar , standout da, a guy who seemed happy and love at last would run up with another woman? 's nephew tony did not buy it. >> he wasn't married so what would be the point of running up with a mystery woman? >> perhaps, his live-in girlfriend didn't buy it either. >> i know with ray didn't want to be in this relationship with me, he would tell me. i know that. >> is investigators developed elite, they came to believe that ray was not romancing the mystery woman. it didn't jive with what they were hearing and what they were hearing was plenty mysterious. with her multiple witnesses to regarding this woman? >> people who saw ray with this

lady, walking together , talking. they would separate. go to a different shop, come back out, meet up, walk together and sometimes go when a shop together, come back out. he didn't see them anymore. >> investigators had a slew of questions. the woman's identity. what was it that she and ray were talking about, and was she there to lower ray into a trap? or was she helping him start a new life? yolanda, then a consultant for nbc news, said the answers would be pure gold. >> i think she could answer some questions as to was it a meat setup that went wrong for ray, being foul play? or was it someone who had information for him and maybe it still went wrong? >> or someone he met innocently but could give some sense a

state of mind? >> absolutely. they said it didn't seem they were intimate but the way they were talking and strolling, maybe she could shed a little light as to what happened in those last few moments. >> investigators worked hard to track the woman down and they were not successful. some began wondering how credible the sighting was. as weeks stretched into months, the case of the missing da was stalled. then, in the summer of 2005, the river surprised them all. he gave up a huge clue. >> a cold case may have gotten a boost with the discovery by two fishermen. >> they saw something glinting in the shallow water and it turned out it was a laptop. >> i started looking at it, and it looks like a computer, and they pulled it out and got it to us. >> it was ray's work laptop.

the excitement quickly turned to frustration because the hard drive was missing from it. instead of answering the investigators questions, the laptop just gave them more. why did ray have his work laptop with them if he was playing hooky? where was the hard drive? why was it missing? they were mulling that over when the river surprised them again and gave it up? a mother and her child sought lying in the riverbed. when the hard drive was found, was your first thought is it will explain the mystery? >> oh, yes. we thought it would tell us what was going on. >> forensic computer experts told them they could not retrieve any data. the hard drive was too damaged. when you find out that nothing could be recovered, what was your reaction? >> this big carrot hanging there and you reach for it and you just about have it, and it's gone. there's nothing there. >> the hard drive was analyzed

at the same lab that recover data from the hard drive in the space shuttle columbia which disintegrated in 2003. it was another dead end. still, the fact the hard drive had been removed from a laptop only added to the mystery. tony recognize that early on. when you heard about the laptop and the hard drive found separately, did that change your thinking? >> i was called by the investigators and said, we found the laptop. i said great. and they said, but there's no hard drive. that gave me pause. anybody would say, was not an accidental thing. >> the mystery of the missing da was tightly focused on that damaged hard drive. had it been deliberately removed from the laptop and destroyed? was ray's disappearance link to something on it? >> coming up. >> i've always felt when all the facts are coming out that the only conclusion left was foul play.

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one year after ray gricar vanished without a trace, the man who took his place as district attorney of pennsylvania centre county held a news conference. >> while leads grow cold, the interest of law enforcement, my interest, public interest, will

not grow cold. >> his live-in girlfriend patty had a clear she was not giving up either. >> i can't make any sense of any of it either. one day it might be one scenario and one day it might be the other but i've never given up hope. it helps me go on. >> hope and the hard facts didn't seem to go together. investigators had no body and little evidence. their trophy find, the battered hard drive, was not giving anything up. >> it has been a roller coaster. >> tony, ray's nephew, had questions about the hard drive. it was recovered separately from the laptop, about 100 yards away. tony knew it would take some doing to remove it from the laptop. he believes it was no accident. >> i know computers, especially laptops, and there's no way by going in the river that the

hard drive was coming out by its own. it had a slide switch to release it. >> why would ray yank it out? investigators learned before he disappeared, ray was asking around the office about how to erase a hard drive and did internet searches at home, he was asking how to wreck a hard drive. but his friend bob buehner said there could be a simple explanation. bob buehner spoke to dateline shortly before he retired as a da. >> as i am ending my career, frankly, i am thinking about the same thing. i have lots of stuff on the hard drive. i would probably like to get rid of it. i don't have a need for it. >> why would ray drive 60 miles to dump a hard drive in the river when he could dispose of it closer to home? if he didn't remove the hard drive, then someone else apparently did. maybe, investigators speculated, there was something incriminating on it. you'd like to know what's on the hard drive. >> 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. why he would jump in the river or why he would want to leave? >> three theories is what they were left with to explain what happened to ray gricar. ditch her department lien in a particular direction? >> no, we don't. we all have our personal thoughts in the case. everyone who is looked at the case has the run theory. personal theory. >> one theory is that ray disappeared because he wanted to. he simply walked away. if so, that would require serious planning. yolanda, then a consultant for nbc news. money would have to move. arrangements would have to be made. you would have to be a sharp cookie to hide that plotting.

>> whatever happened as well planned out. >> by somebody. >> whether by ray or somebody else. >> the financial investigators 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 successful life. >> here's the biggest thing. what's the motive behind that? why would you walk away from your life? anybody. he was close to a daughter and he had a girlfriend he had no issues with. >> he was planning retirement, planning to travel, after retirement. does that make it even less likely that someone would just disappear? >> i find it less likely. it does not make sense. >> tony agrees. >> there is no path where they can say, this is why he walked away. >> if ray gricar didn't walk away and assume a new identity, did he die by suicide like his brother? it's a man who loved his daughter. loved his girlfriend.

does it make sense he would take his own life and not leaving go message to them? >> i would say no. it makes no sense. >> without a body, there is no way to be sure. that leaves one last theory. murder. investigator darrel zaccagni set as a prosecutor, he had put dangerous people behind bars. >> who knows who got out of jail 20 years ago who still is holding a grudge. >> someone who might have gotten the da out-of-the-way. someone who may have lured ray into a trap. the first thing most of us think of when you think of a prosecutor going missing under strange circumstances, that it could be linked to something he was working on. somebody who wanted payback. >> to me that's the most plausible thing. >> tony had not conclusively settled on the foul play theory but the da bob buehner had. >> i always felt that maybe

not initially, but i always felt several months later when all the facts started coming out that the only conclusion left was foul play. that's an awful thing to imagine. the one thing i did not want to think about. >> if it was foul play, there were no credible suspects and over time, the ray gricar case went cold. in the summer of 2011, gricar's daughter petitioned the courts to have her father declared legally dead. that is where things stood for about six months until the case of the missing da came roaring back to life. >> coming up. could there possibly be a connection between ray gricar's disappears and his investigation of the first known sex abuse allegation against coach jerry sandusky? a some people just know they could save hundreds

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investigators had three theories for ray gricar's disappearance. he ran off, died by suicide, or he was killed. he prosecuted countless criminals who may have held a grudge, but the scandal was about to explode, link to a case ray investigated.

could these new allegations help solve the mystery of what happened to ray? here is lester holt with the conclusion of the case of the missing da. >> at penn state university, an awful story. >> it had grown big in 2011. >> former coach indicted on child sex abuse charges. >> the story of the 40 child abuse charges against jerry sandusky. >> nbc news, former penn state assistant coach jerry sandusky speaks out. >> a grand jury spent within 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 way back in 1998. that was news to many including michael, the man who became centre county da after ray

disappeared. >> i found out about his involvement along with the rest of the world one for the grand jury presentment. >> the question popping up in the media, why didn't ray gricar prosecute jerry sandusky years earlier? to understand, you have to go back to 1998 when a mother contacted the penn state university police to say her 11- year-old son had told her he had been bear hugged by sandusky naked in the shower. it was an explosive allegation. ray gricar, the local da became involved. we don't have's file. we don't know what he did. the former da bob buehner was pretty sure he knew what ray did first. >> when you get a case of child abuse, you just put on the game face. that's the one. that's the one that gets to us. >> ray would've met the victim

to assess his credibility. >> if he met with the victim, and i believe he did, he would've made, headache got credibility decision. >> you have a prominent member of the community and you look at the credibility of your alleged victim, does it become tough? >> absolutely. >> if it got to a courtroom, the case would likely come down to the testimony of one 11-year- old boy against a hometown hero. that is where the sting or something close to it came in. we don't know all the details. the mother confronted sandusky and two occasions in may 1998 while detectives listened in. had you ever known ray to do that kind of a sting around that operation? >> i think that would be typical of what ray would do. he was the kind of guy, when police will come to him, he would always ask, have you tried this?

have you tried that? >> the grand jury report said sandusky told the mother, i was wrong. i wish i could get forgiveness. i wish i were dead. days after the story broke, bob costas asked sandusky about the confrontation. >> in 1998, mother confronted about taking a shower with her son and inappropriately touching him. two detectives eavesdropped on the conversation and you admit that maybe your private parts touched her son. what happened? >> i can't exactly recall what was said. in terms of what i did say was that, if he felt that way, then i was wrong. >> it seem sandusky was confessing to something wrong, but that's a help bob buehner saw it. >> people characterized his statements as being a confession.

we call it an admission but it has to be an admission to a crime. hugging in and of itself, even a child, is not necessarily a crime unless you can show sexually gratification. >> was that statement at least grounds for further investigation? if you try to get into ray gricar's had and understand what his thinking may have been when this allegation was presented? >> it's easy for me to say, if i had that information, i would've said, this needs to be looked into further. but, that must follow with, i don't know what information he had. >> ray gricar decided not to prosecute. we do not know his reasons. it's easy to second-guess gricar's decision, especially since jerry sandusky went on to commit repeated assaults after 1998. in 2012, sandusky is convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse. for those who say that ray

gricar missed the opportunity to put sandusky away, you say what? >> i say they don't know the law and they don't know ray gricar. >> there were online posts and tweets speculating about a link between the two. could there actually be a connection? >> for anybody, anybody, to suggest otherwise, is, i think, incredibly naove. >> dr. wecht is a forensic pathologist in pittsburgh, 100 mile west of penn state. he has not worked on the case but he followed it for years. he made news with his comments after the sandusky story broke. he believes there must've been rumors sandusky was continuing to abuse young boys after 1998. he says ray gricar must've heard them. >> i guarantee, after a district attorney has been an office for some years, there is not any kind of criminal

activity that takes place in the county that he is not aware of. >> dr. wecht speculates that gricar blames himself for those abuses and either walked away or committed suicide. or, dr. wecht says, maybe gricar knew too much. >> somebody said, we've kept it quiet all this time and without you around, we will keep it quiet longer. at the end of mr. gricar. >> but his friends and colleagues rule out any connection between the missing da and the sandusky case. >> i am in no way aware of any reason why there would be a link. as i said before when we talk about the person ray gricar is, i cannot imagine that he would allow something or someone to influence a decision that he thought was the right decision to make. >> bob buehner agreed and added this. >> i see no connection between

ray gricar's disappearance and anything connected with jerry sandusky. >> you can see how people might make that leap? >> it's a mystery and an enigma. why would anyone want to connect it with the sandusky matter? eliminate a district attorney who declined to prosecute a case and will was leaving office? >> declined to prosecute years earlier. >> if you're going to take someone out, you go after the witnesses. you go after the people who can do you in. >> whether or not what happened to ray gricar his anything to do with jerry sandusky, his disappearance remains an open case to this day. pennsylvania state police still follow leads. they occasionally get reports of ray gricar sightings. they supposedly have been spotted in illinois, ohio, michigan, maryland, and texas.

>> we look into them. we have had signs in new york city from a credible person and the visual did look like him but it was not him. >> maybe one day, they can unlock the secrets of the damaged hard drive. do you hold hopes that technology will allow you to recover it? >> i am hoping in a couple of years. >> for now, the mystery of ray gricar's disappearance and doers. so does the wait for answers. do you still hold out hope that you will get a definitive answer? >> always. we will always have that question. this sunday, fbi job. president-elect donald trump says he plans to replace fbi