Rey Rivera
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. A man comes crashing through the roof of the Belvedere Hotel, the fanciest hotel in Baltimore. The poor soul breaks every bone in his body. But somehow, his glasses don't have a scratch, his cell phone is in mint condition, and no one sees anything?

No video? Nothing? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 95. The story of Ray Rivera. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

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In May 2006, 32-year-old Ray Rivera was living in Baltimore with his wife, Allison Rivera. The couple had moved to Baltimore from Southern California after Ray received a job offer to work for his close friend, Porter Stansberry's company, Stansberry & Associates, a large investment company.

The plan was for the newlyweds to live in Baltimore for 24 months and then move back to Southern California so that Ray could continue to pursue his dreams of working as a screenwriter. Although the move to Baltimore was temporary, Ray and Allison seemed to settle right in. They purchased a brand new home in a nice neighborhood. They found a likable church where they met new friends. And even Allison landed a great job in sales.

Everything in their lives seemed to be headed in the right direction until the morning of May 16, 2006. On May 16, 2006, Allison woke up early to leave for a business trip three hours away in Richmond, Virginia. It seemed like any other morning, Ray helped her carry her suitcase out to the car. She kissed him goodbye and that was it.

She finished up at the conference for the day around 6 o'clock p.m. that evening. As soon as she got back to her hotel room, she picked up the phone and called Ray. She was calling in just to check on him and talk about her day. But when she called him, he didn't answer. So she called again. Still no answer. Ray and Allison had a house guest staying at their house that weekend.

Claudia was a colleague of Allison who was temporarily staying in one of the spare bedrooms. So Allison decides to call Claudia to see if maybe she knows where Ray could be. But when she gets on the phone with her friend Claudia, she says that she heard Ray get a phone call around 4 o'clock or maybe 5 p.m. that afternoon.

She said Ray answered the phone call, was silent for a few seconds, and then yelled out, oh shit, and then quickly ran out of the house like he was late for an appointment or something. Allison hangs up the phone with her friend Claudia and decides to wait to try and call Ray again in a couple of hours. She knew that Ray had a deadline coming up at work, so she just figured that he might be caught up in that.

Allison grows more concerned when she calls Ray again around 10 p.m. that night, and he still doesn't answer. So she calls Claudia again, but she tells her that Ray still isn't home for the night. At this point, she chalks up her husband's absence to maybe being out drinking or having dinner with some of his friends.

So she goes to bed for the night and isn't worried about Ray again until the following morning. The following morning, Allison tries calling Ray on his cell phone again, and he still doesn't answer. So now she's starting to get really worried about her husband. It's not like him not to return her phone calls, and it's definitely not like him to stay out all night and not tell her what was going on.

So she decides to call Claudia once again to see if maybe Ray came home but just isn't answering his cell phone. Maybe something's wrong with the phone. Maybe he overslept. But according to Claudia, Ray's still not home. Allison decides to leave the work conference early and make that three-hour drive back home to see if she can figure out what's going on with her husband.

As she's driving back home to Baltimore, she's calling Ray over and over again, but still not getting through to him. So finally, she decides to call his mom, Maria Rivera, to see if maybe she knows where her son is. But she has no idea. She said she hasn't talked to her son in a couple of days.

So next, she decides to call Ray's older brother, Angel, who also hasn't heard from him. Everyone says the same thing. They don't know where he is. Once Allison finally gets home, she immediately notices that Ray's car is not in the driveway. And when she gets inside, there are signs all over the house that Ray left in a hurry.

She sees a half-drunk soda can sitting right there on the kitchen counter. There's an open bag of potato chips, and even Ray's Invisaligns are sitting right there on the kitchen counter. And as she makes her way upstairs, she notices that Ray's office light was left on as well as his computer. So these were all signs that someone left in a hurry and that someone, being Ray, was expecting to return home.

Over the next couple of hours, Allison and Ray's families arrive at the home to help look for him. Her parents come into town. His parents were there. Ray's older brother Angel flies into town. And they all start doing things like calling local hospitals to see if maybe he's been in some sort of accident. They begin putting flyers up in areas where they knew Ray to go. They canvas the neighborhood. But they don't seem to find anything.

So by the following day, this is now May 17th, 2006, Ray Rivera was reported missing to the Baltimore Police Department. Ray Rivera was born on June 10th, 1973 to Puerto Rican parents Angel and Maria Rivera. His dad was in the Air Force, so Ray and his two siblings constantly moved and switched schools.

All of this moving meant that Ray and his siblings were extremely close, and sometimes they were each other's only friends. People who grew up with Ray said that he was the type of person that people naturally gravitated to. He was funny and charismatic. He was the kind of person who would instantly become your friend.

In high school, Ray was athletic and was a star athlete on the school's water polo team. And he definitely had the body for it. At 6'5 and 260 pounds, he was a force to be reckoned with. The water polo team is where he met his best friend, Porter Stansbury. After high school and college, Ray met his future wife, Allison, while living in Los Angeles.

The couple got married in Puerto Rico and Ray started working as a film writer. It had always been his dream to work in the movie and film industry as a writer, but he was not making very much money in film. So he reached out to his best friend, Porter Stansberry, about getting a job working in the financial industry. Even though he had zero experience working in finance, he was an incredible writer and

So in 2004, Porter Stansberry gave him a job writing for his company where he was hired to write financial newsletters. His job was basically to tell other investors which stocks they should invest in or sell based on current market trends. And besides his writing job at Stansberry & Associates, Ray also worked as an assistant coach at John Hopkins University on their water polo team.

Family and friends continued to search for Ray over the next six days. His friend and boss, Porter Stansberry, even offered up a $1,000 reward and also helped get the local media involved in the case. He would also eventually bump up this reward to $5,000 of his own money. But as the hours and days ticked by, it seemed more and more likely that something terrible had happened to Ray.

His cell phone was dead, there had been no credit card use, and zero money had been withdrawn from any of his bank accounts in over six days. Finally, on May 22nd, they got somewhere in the investigation. Allison's parents, who helped join the search, found Ray's parked car behind a building on St. Paul Street.

The car had a parking ticket on the front windshield and was dated the same day that Ray went missing back on May 16th. This parking ticket meant that the car had been parked in this parking lot the entire time that Ray's been missing. Now, the area in which Allison's parents found Ray's parked car in a parking lot was right across the street from the Belvedere Hotel.

Now, it wasn't unusual for his car to be parked there because his company, Stansberry & Associates, was right down the street. What was unusual was that his car had been parked there for six days, but according to Ray's employer, he hadn't been at work since his disappearance.

Ray's family and friends now directed searches in this area right around the parking lot where they found his car. At this point, the police and Ray's family are operating under the assumption that foul play is involved here. He abandoned his car six days ago, and there's been zero activity on credit cards and bank accounts. But then they find another big clue.

On May 24th, three of Ray's co-workers decided to go to the top of the parking garage next to the Belvedere Hotel. The plan was to get up somewhere high and see if they could see anything that could provide any information about where Ray could be. This parking garage also looked over the entire parking lot where Ray's car was parked.

So it basically provided a bird's eye view of this entire location. And it also looked over part of the roof of the Belvedere Hotel. Now, the Belvedere Hotel was built back in 1902 and is considered a Baltimore landmark.

In its early years, the Belvedere was the place to stay at while in Baltimore. American presidents Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and even Woodrow Wilson all stayed there. Celebrities like Wallis Simpson, a.k.a. the Duchess of Windsor, and Clark Gable made appearances there. But that's just the beginning. By the early 1990s, the hotel filed for bankruptcy and the building was converted into private condos.

Although most of the building's rooms are now private residences, parts of the Belvedere are still open to the public today. This includes the hotel's main entrance. A few of the restaurants and lounges are still open and running. But as for the Belvedere's rooms themselves, they're no longer hotel rooms. Instead, they're privately owned condos.

So when Ray's co-workers got to the top of the parking structure, again, this is right next door to the Belvedere, they look in the direction of the hotel. And as they're looking at the hotel, they spotted a pair of flip-flops near a hole in the roof of the Belvedere.

Now, this is quite a remarkable find because the only way you could see this hole in the lower roof is if you're standing either on top of the parking garage next door or if you're standing on the actual roof of the Belvedere Hotel. It's not something that you'd see from the ground or really anywhere around the hotel. So the hole was on a secondary lower roof of the Belvedere.

So you've got the actual roof on the building's 12th floor. Then there's a lower roof in the center of the building that has AC units about 10 to 11 stories below. And that's where Ray's co-workers found the flip-flops and the hole. The co-workers immediately decided to call the Baltimore police who spotted this hole.

And once they arrive, they contact one of the property managers who let them inside the part of the Belvedere where this hole is located. It's basically an old, empty conference room that's no longer in use. And this particular location, this particular conference room has been locked for years. When the hotel was still operational, this was the location of the hotel's pool. But again, for years, this part of the building was empty.

Once they opened that locked door, they immediately smelled decomposition. Right there on the floor, beneath the hole, was the body of missing Ray Rivera.

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When the police found Ray in this empty conference room of the Belvedere, his body was prone and he was in advanced stages of decomposition. Now, we know from many cases we've covered on the show that decomposition can make it very difficult for investigators to determine a manner of death because decay destroys a lot of valuable forensic and physical evidence on the body.

The injuries to Ray's body were extensive. He had multiple broken bones and lacerations across his body, damage to his head and skull. He broke his right leg in two different spots with one bone sticking out through the skin. His body was in horrific condition. Based on the positioning of his body as well as the injuries, the forensic pathologist determined that Ray's body fell vertically through the roof.

But they don't know whether he fell head first or feet first. And where did he come from? How did he fall? Was he pushed? Did he jump? The Belvedere did have a lengthy history of suicides on its grounds over the decades, so maybe Ray was just another one to add to that list.

The first theory was that he jumped or was pushed off the Belvedere's top floor and fell 10 to 11 stories below. The part of the lower roof where he was found was about 40 feet across and about 45 feet away from the edge of the top roof. So let's visualize that for a moment. You've got the top roof of the Belvedere, then you've got the lower roof 10 to 11 stories below.

It's a small, small lower roof, only 40 feet across with just a couple of AC units on it. That's it. So for Ray to have jumped or been pushed off the top roof, his body would have had to travel 45 feet from the edge of the top roof to where the hole was.

So I want you to imagine someone running, sprinting across the roof and leaping forward 45 feet in the air. That's what would have had to happen for Ray to jump or be pushed off the top of the roof and end up where he did 10 to 11 stories below and get through that lower roof.

They say he would have had to, in order to make that 45 feet leap forward, that he would have had to been running about 11 miles per hour. Now, Ray was a big guy. Remember, he's over six feet tall. He weighs over 250 pounds. He's a former competitive water polo player. So if anyone could have that athletic ability to make a leap like that, it could be someone like Ray.

But now let's say that he was pushed off the roof. Again, he's a big guy, and this would have meant that someone, or likely more than one person, would have had to been able to push him off the roof and send his body flying 45 feet across.

Now, the second theory was that he either jumped or was pushed off the parking garage next to the Belvedere, that same parking garage where his three co-workers discovered the hole. This spot is a little bit closer. It's about 20 feet away from the garage's edge to where the hole was. So Ray would have had to jump or been pushed from roughly half the distance where he had fallen from the top roof if he did fall from there.

Now, this second theory seemed a little more plausible. 20 feet isn't as far of a jump forward, but there's a problem with this theory, and the problem is Ray's injuries. The forensic pathologist in the case didn't believe Ray jumped or was pushed from the parking garage.

That's because his injuries just weren't consistent with this type of fall. The pathologist believed that Ray's injuries were much more consistent with a higher fall. Sure, the damages to Ray's body would be significant from any fall through a roof, but his injuries were so bad that at least according to this forensic pathologist, it seemed much more likely that he fell from the top of the Belvedere.

Then there was a third theory. This third theory is that he jumped from the 11th floor ledge of the Belvedere. Now, the Belvedere Hotel had a ledge that wrapped around the entire outside of the building on the building's 11th floor.

Imagine like in an action movie, right, where someone is trying to get away from the bad guy. They open up the window to a skyscraper and they attempt to get away by walking across the building's ledge. That's basically what this theory suggests, that Ray somehow got himself out onto the 11th floor ledge, then jumped off and went through the lower roof.

But this theory also poses some problems. Problem number one is how Ray could have gotten out onto the ledge. In order for him to do that, he would have had to go through someone's condo or someone's office because none of the hallways at the Belvedere led directly out to the ledge. The only way he could have gotten there is through someone's condo. But that brings us to problem number two.

For a second, let's speculate that he was somehow able to get into someone's condo or through someone's office in order to get out onto the ledge. The windows don't open. You can't get out there. It's impossible because all the windows throughout the Belvedere are locked for this exact reason. They don't want people opening up the windows and climbing out onto the ledge.

Then there's problem three with this theory. Problem number three is that this ledge we're talking about is tiny. It's maybe a foot or two across at the most. So if you think this is how Ray ended up falling through the roof, then you would have to believe that he was somehow able to stand while out on this ledge long enough to make a jump several feet forward.

There's another problem with this theory. According to the police, nobody inside or around the Belvedere heard or saw anything when Ray fell. So he would have had to get out there on the ledge without anyone seeing or hearing him. None of these theories seem to make much sense from where they found the hole and where Ray's body was.

So to try and figure out where Ray fell from, the police turned to the Velveteer security cameras. The police went through every minute of the hotel security cameras inside of the hotel, but they couldn't find a single frame of Ray entering the hotel. In fact, they couldn't find any footage that showed him anywhere throughout the hotel that day. It was like he was never there.

And then when they went to go look at the camera on the hotel's roof, the police learned that that particular camera wasn't working that day. So in the end, there wasn't any footage of Ray being able to get out there on the roof. There wasn't any footage of him anywhere inside the Belvedere. Now, without question, the security cameras would have been important in this case because

Not only would it have shown Ray entering the Belvedere, but it could also help tell the police if he was seen walking inside with anyone else or if he was alone, if he was by himself. The cameras could also explain exactly how he could have made it on top of the roof. Now, I haven't mentioned this yet, but to get to the Belvedere's roof is a mission.

There are many doors you have to get through, many of which are locked doors. You've got staircases to climb. So you would have to know specifically how to get to the roof and then probably get lucky that all of the doors and all of the staircases were left unlocked that day.

But without any footage from inside the hotel, we still have no idea how he could have gotten up to the roof that day. Now, there are reports out there that suggest Ray had been to the Belvedere many times before and that this wasn't the first time he showed up there.

So the idea is that if Ray had previously gone to the Belvedere, he spent some time there, it's entirely possible that he may have known a lot more about the building's ins and outs than some might think. If this case isn't strange enough, here's where things get even stranger.

Next to the hole in the roof, the police found Ray's cell phone. And when they found his cell phone, it was in perfect working condition. The cell phone's screen wasn't cracked or broken. All of the buttons on the phone worked. The phone was still functional, except the fact that the battery was dead because it had been almost a week. So the question becomes, if Ray jumped from the top roof

falling 11 stories, crashing through a lower roof. How in the world did his cell phone not break? Ray's body is broken into 100 pieces and his cell phone doesn't even have a scratch on it.

Now, to be fair, we're talking about 2006. Cell phones weren't as sleek and fashionable as they are today in 2021. Back in 2006, they were much bulkier and much heavier. It's not like this was a brand new iPhone 13 that fell multiple stories.

But the police didn't only find his cell phone. There was also a pair of flip-flops, the ones that Ray was wearing and that his co-workers found on the roof next to the hole.

One of the flip-flops was broken, and the strap had been ripped off from the side of the sandal. Imagine it's one of those rainbow thong sandals. So on one of them, the strap where it connects to the bottom was completely ripped. But on the other hand, the second flip-flop was completely fine. Let's stop and talk about that for a second. Now, based on the forensic pathologist's report, Ray went vertically through the roof, right?

He would have had jumped from somewhere, either the top roof or the parking structure, the parking garage next door, and went feet first through the roof and hit the ground in the empty conference room. So if he went in vertically, how did his sandals end up on the roof next to the hole and not with him on the floor?

Now, the location of the flip-flops meant that they were removed from his feet before he went through the roof. Of course, you can argue that during the fall, his flip-flops simply fell off his feet. He was wearing, again, those thong-type sandals that could easily fall off.

So it is possible that after he made this jump, his sandals fell off his feet and then landed on the roof next to the hole. But why was only one pair of flip-flops broken? Well, this is a question that no one seems to know the answer to.

But a possible theory is that one of the sandals got caught on something when he jumped. Maybe it got caught on the edge of the roof where he would have had to have leaped or been pushed forward from. That would explain why only one sandal was broken and that the other one was fine. But not everyone seems to believe this theory. If you ask Ray's family and wife Allison, the sandals and cell phone looked like they were staged.

But if you believe this theory, which I'm not saying I do or don't, then you would have to believe that someone pushed Ray off the roof, then went down to the lower roof to stage his flip-flops and cell phone.

You would think that if someone threw him off the roof, that person would want to get out of dodge as quickly as possible. They would want to go as far away from the Belvedere as possible so that they wouldn't get caught.

So at least to me, it seems a little far-fetched. It's a far-fetched idea that someone managed to push Ray off the side of the building and then go downstairs, go out on this lower roof and stage his sandals. Far-fetched, but not impossible, right? The police found one more piece of evidence next to Ray's body, and that was his eyeglasses.

Just like the cell phone, the eyeglasses were in perfect condition. They weren't broken and they didn't have a single scratch on them, which is odd. With the force needed for Ray's body to go through the roof and for his eyeglasses and cell phone to be in perfect condition, it doesn't make much sense.

However, I can also create an argument about the eyeglasses. Like the flip-flops, maybe his eyeglasses fell off during the fall and maybe they were shielded by Ray's body on the way down. Like maybe as he's falling, his eyeglasses also fall off his face and when he crashes through the roof, his

Somewhere along the line, the glasses bounce off his body, essentially breaking the fall. And maybe that's how they ended up on the roof next to the hole in perfect condition. Same thing with the cell phone. Something that Ray's wife, Allison, told the police was that his money clip that he wore every single day was missing.

According to Allison, she gave him this engraved and personalized money clip as a wedding anniversary gift. It was something that he carried with him every single day. He used it to hold his money, his ID, his credit cards. And it was also a sentimental piece that he liked to carry around with him because it was a gift from Allison.

But when his body was turned over to the medical examiner and the family, the money clip was missing.

And the money clip has never been found. It wasn't in the parked car. The police didn't find it in the conference room next to Ray's body. It is gone. And again, this money clip that meant so much to Ray that not only that, but also would have had his ID, money and credit cards has never been found.

Now, I've read reports online that maybe Ray sold or maybe pawned this money clip sometime before his death. Not sure if the couple was having financial problems or not, but there's information out there that Ray may have sold or otherwise gotten rid of this money clip.

But no one has come forward claiming to have this money clip. And this has simply been a rumor swirling around the Internet. And to be honest, one of many rumors about this case. The Baltimore Police Department's position on this investigation was that Ray's death was probably a suicide. Even though the forensic pathologist ruled his manner of death as undetermined,

there wasn't any evidence that a homicide occurred or that someone intentionally pushed him off the roof. And the autopsy didn't seem to answer any of these questions. It wasn't like someone shot Ray, there weren't any gunshot wounds or stab wounds to his body. All of his injuries were consistent with a multiple story fall. In other words, there wasn't anything found on Ray's body to suggest that he was murdered.

Although the circumstances surrounding his death were unusual, according to the police, all signs seemed to point in the direction of suicide. The only reason why the forensic pathologist ruled Ray's manner of death as undetermined is because of the injuries to Ray's leg.

According to the pathologist, the injuries to Ray's legs, particularly his shins, are not consistent with a suicide type jump. But the police didn't convince Ray's family and didn't convince Ray's wife that he simply drove to the Belvedere that day and decided to commit suicide.

For starters, there was Ray's history. He didn't have a history of depression or suicidal ideations. He wasn't on any type of prescription medication, and he had never expressed feelings of suicide or depression to anyone in his life. His wife, Allison Rivera, was quoted in a news article as saying, quote, that is what is so crazy about this.

We're planning on moving and starting a new life. He had a future. Why would he decide to just then kill himself? End quote.

She's, of course, referring to the couple's plans about wanting to move back to Los Angeles so that he could continue his dreams of becoming a screenwriter. She even said that they were talking about having kids soon. And they were also recently married. I think they had only been married for a year or two before Ray's death. So according to Allison, Ray just wasn't someone who was planning on killing himself.

Then you have to consider that Ray and Allison, again, were newlyweds. By all accounts, they had a great marriage and that they were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. But there was also another side to Ray's life, maybe the side of his life that wasn't going so well. Remember how I mentioned that Allison and Ray moved to Baltimore from Los Angeles because he wasn't making any money screenwriting?

So he had to take the job at Stansberry to make ends meet. Well, reports indicate that while living out in Los Angeles, Ray and Allison accumulated quite a bit of debt while Ray worked in film. In fact, there are reports that the couple was in almost $90,000 in debt at the time they left L.A. and moved to Baltimore.

Then there was the company Ray worked for, Stansberry & Associates. Around Ray's death, Stansberry & Associates was being investigated by the SEC for some articles that the company posted about stocks and bonds. The SEC believed that the company committed fraud when they published articles that led several big investors to purchase bad stocks from the company's advice.

So at the time, Stansbury & Associates was looking at a $1 million fine from the SEC. Was it possible that Ray knew something he shouldn't? Another thing that the family points to is the phone call that Ray received on the day he disappeared.

According to the house guest, Claudia, Ray got a call on his cell phone around 4 p.m. that afternoon and after getting the phone call, immediately rushed out of the house, leaving behind a half-drink soda can, an open bottle of chips on the counter. Again, there was his Invisaligns. It was all like he was late to a meeting or something.

So the Rivera family argues that this type of behavior, how Ray left the house that afternoon, just isn't consistent with someone about to kill themselves. According to the family, his disappearance must be linked to whoever called him that afternoon. But when the police traced the number who called Ray that afternoon, they linked it to his employer, Stansbury & Associates.

But the number was from the company's switchboard. So there was no way to find out who or which exact extension called Ray that afternoon. All they knew was that the phone call had come from somebody at work. But to this day, no one has come forward to say that they were the person who called him that afternoon.

As soon as the executives at Stanbury and Associates found out that someone in the building called Ray that afternoon, the company's lawyers allegedly put a gag order on all of the company's employees, meaning no one who worked for Stansbury was allowed to talk to the police about Ray's case.

Now, I say allegedly because this claim that Stansberry put this gag order on their employees has been well refuted by Stansberry and associates who claim that they never made such a gag order. And since then, no official report about the gag order has ever been recovered. I also want to clarify that no one at Stansberry has ever been implicated in Ray's death.

However, I believe the Riveras do have a very valid argument by saying that figuring out who

called Ray that afternoon could be an essential clue in discovering what happened to him, whether he did commit suicide or whether there really is foul play involved. In my opinion, as well as the opinion of the Rivera's, finding out who called him, what made him say, oh shit, and leave the house in a hurry. I think that's a big, big piece to this puzzle.

If you didn't believe the circumstances surrounding Ray's death couldn't get stranger, they do. Following Ray's death, his wife Allison found a note behind his computer. The letter was typed in small font and was folded up in a plastic bag taped behind the monitor. Next to the note was a blank check. The note was addressed to brothers and sisters and read in part, quote,

Right now, around the world, volcanoes are erupting. What an awesome sight. Whom virtue unites death will not separate. End quote. The note randomly lists famous people who had died, like Christopher Reeve and Stanley Kubrick. Among the lists were also names of people who Ray knew, some of his family, some of his friends. It seemed to be a random list of random names.

The note went on to say, quote, I stand before you as a man who understands the purpose and value of our secrets. That's why I cherish them as secrets, end quote. The letter was sent to the FBI forensic lab to be analyzed. And although the note was strange, the FBI concluded that they didn't believe the note was a suicide letter. They thought the note had nothing to do with Ray's death.

However, the FBI did point out one part of the letter that may reveal something about Ray's life. The phrase, whom virtue unites death will not separate, this particular term is a term used by the Freemasons.

According to Allison, in the weeks leading up to Ray's death, he became increasingly interested in secret societies, possibly as a movie or screenplay idea that he was planning to write. To further this theory, a representative at a local Maryland lounge confirmed to the police that Ray inquired about a membership the same day he went missing.

Also in his possession, the police found several books related to masonry, including the book The Builders. If you ask Allison and Ray's family, these discoveries simply mean that he was probably interested in writing a screenplay about these secret societies.

The mysterious note found behind his computer wasn't a suicide note. It might be strange, yes, but according to Allison, Ray wrote down many odd things. He was a brilliant writer and he was always writing down anything and everything that popped into his head. So for her to find a note like this, at least according to her, wasn't out of the ordinary.

Now, the note is another part of the story that can take you down a rabbit hole on the internet. There are a dozen posts and blogs out there online today that dissect Ray's entire note.

Each post online comes to a different conclusion about what each part of the note could mean. For me, the note doesn't seem to mean much. I think we know that Ray was a writer. We know that he wrote down a lot of stuff. And in my opinion, I just don't think that the note really had anything to do with his death. Yes, it's strange. And when I've read parts of the notes, I'm like, what is he talking about?

But I don't think the note really has anything to do with what happened to him. Allison told the police that Ray was extremely anxious in the weeks leading up to his disappearance. Something seemed to be bothering him, but she couldn't figure out what it was. She thought maybe something at work was worrying him. She also said that the day before Ray disappeared, their house alarm went off in the middle of the night around 1 a.m.,

This particular alarm on the house had never gone off before. And according to Allison, when the alarm went off, Ray was terrified. He grabbed a bat and she said that she had never seen the look of terror like that on his face before. After the incident, they called the police, who after looking around the house, said that it was probably just a squirrel who set the alarm off.

But then the next day, the day that Ray disappeared, the house alarm went off again. When Allison and Ray checked the house, they noticed that one of the screen windows on the ground floor was tampered with. So was someone trying to break into the house? And did Ray know someone was after him? And that's why he was so anxious and terrified the week he disappeared?

Or were these simple signs of psychological stress that led him to commit suicide? The Baltimore police seemed unmoved by these details and still believe that Ray's death was probably a suicide. To this day, the forensic pathologist hasn't changed his death certificate and Ray's manner of death is considered undetermined. Even the forensic experts are stumped about his death.

The Rivera family remains committed to seeking answers about his death. How can such a public death to a likable man have no answer? The answers exist. Someone out there knows the truth. If you or someone you know has any information on Ray's death, please contact the Rivera family, Baltimore police, or Forensic Tales.

To share your thoughts on the mysterious death of Ray Rivera, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Do you agree with the police that his death is probably a suicide? Or do you think something else happened to Ray? To find out what I think happened to Ray, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales.

After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. To check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. You'll also want to check out photos because I'll be posting photos of the roof and the Belvedere Hotel. So you can decide for yourself what you think really happened.

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Remember, not all stories have happy endings.

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