Name: Ray Frank Gricar
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: April 15, 2005
Location Last Seen: Bellefonte, Centre, Pennsylvania
Date of Birth: October 9, 1945
Age: 59 years old
Race: White
Gender: Male
Height: 6'
Weight: 170 lbs.
Hair Color: Gray
Eye Color: Green
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown
Dentals: Available
Fingerprints: Available
DNA: Available
Clothing: Blue fleece jacket, blue jeans, and white sneakers.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Wears contact lenses.
For almost twenty years, Ray Frank Gricar has served as the District Attorney for Centre County, Pennsylvania. On the morning of April 15, 2005, he called his girlfriend, Patricia Fornicola, and told her that he was going to go for a drive in his red and white Mini Cooper automobile along state Route 192 in Penns Valley, Pennsylvania. He was reported missing when he did not return.
His car was located in a parking lot of an antiques shop in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, near the Susquehanna River, on April 16, 2005. Gricar's cell phone was found in car, but his county laptop was missing. There were cigarette ashes on the passenger seat and a cigarette smell in the vehicle, but Gricar did not smoke and did not allow others to smoke in his car.
His work laptop was fished out of the Susquehanna River by two fishermen three months later, but its hard drive was missing. The hard drive was located in shallow water approximately two months later. Unfortunately, the hard drive was too rusted and damaged for files to be accessed. A search of Gricar's home computer did yield a history of searches for phrases like "how to wreck a hard drive" in the weeks leading up to his disappearance.
Nine days eariler, Gricar announced the biggest drug bust of his career: charges against nine suspected heroin dealers doing business in Centre County and in North Jersey. However, no recent threats had been made against Gricar. Another tie-in to this mystery is the criminal case against Penn State coach, Jerry Sandusky. According to a Pennsylvania grand jury report, Gricar investigated allegations that Sandusky had inappropriate contact with an 11-year-old boy in a school locker room in 1998. Gricar opted not to prosecute Sandusky in 1998.
Unfortunately, investigators don't know if this is a homicide, suicide, kidnapping, or an intentional disappearance. Gricar's brother, Roy Gricar, committed suicide by drowning himself in the Great Miami River in Dayton, Ohio in May 1996. Investigators speculate that depression runs in families, so it is not outside the realm of possibilities that Gricar took his own life.
Gricar was declared legally dead in July 2011.
Agency Name: Pennsylvania State Police
Agency Contact Person: Trooper David Clemens
Agency Phone Number: (814) 355-7545
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: G07-1346752
NamUs Case Number: 1982
NCIC Case Number: Unknown
NamUs
CNN
FBI Missing Person poster
UPI
New York Times
Philadelphia Daily News (articles posted on 4/18/05, 5/13/05, 8/2/05, 10/27/05, 12/9/05)
Added: 2/15/16; Last Updated: 11-13-2021 - By: Htmlcnvtr
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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