S3 Ep275: Rey Rivera: The Game (Part 4)

Baltimore, 2006. A city buzzing with life suddenly became the backdrop to one of the most perplexing mysteries in recent history. Rey Rivera was a young, charismatic writer with big dreams and a loving wife by his side. He seemed to have it all. But on May 16th, he vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a hurried phone call and a series of unanswered questions. Eight days later, his body was discovered in the most chilling and bizarre circumstances you could imagine- inside an unused conference room in the historic Belvedere Hotel. He appeared to have fallen from a significant height, crashing through the roof of the conference room. As the investigation into Rey’s death began, theories swirled; was it suicide, an accident or something far more sinister? Nothing was adding up, and the deeper investigators dug, the more tangled the mystery became. Rey had left his home abruptly that night, for seemingly no reason- why? What had led him to the Belvedere Hotel? And what secrets were hidden in a cryptic note found taped to his computer screen- a note filled with references to movies, codes and seemingly nonsensical musings? This is not just a story about a man’s life tragically ending, it is a journey into the unknown- a labyrinth of secrets, shadows and haunting questions that still linger almost two decades later. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets!https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. www. SKIMS.com/Crimeweekly - Check out the Fits Everybody Collection and let them know we sent you!#skimspartner2. www. RocketMoney.com/CrimeWeekly - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money! 3. www. TryFUM.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get a FREE gift with your Journey Pack! Kick your bad habit today! 4. www. SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Claim 50% off a new system with a Professional Monitoring Plan and your first month FREE!5. www. FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50Off - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus FREE shipping!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:16Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  So today, we are diving in to the fourth and final part of the Rey Rivera series. And I think we should just dive right in. What do you think?

• 0:27Derrick Levasseur?

  We should. I just want to say thank you. I think we're right around the point now. We just hit 300,000 subscribers. We gotta do something. We'll get to something, but I just said it on Crime Weekly News. If we're not there yet, then just wait till we hit it. But thank you to everybody who watches the show on YouTube. We really appreciate it. Stephanie, obviously, has an even bigger channel, but we both understand it's not easy to gain subscribers. You have many options out there. You do not have to subscribe to us. You do not have to turn on notifications. Yet you do. And we're continuing to grow after over four years. And we really do appreciate it because it sounds cliche to say it, but we wouldn't be here without you. So thank you so much.

• 1:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, it's cliche, but it's true.

• 1:05Derrick Levasseur?

  It's the truth. I mean, you don't subscribe, you don't listen, you don't watch, there's no Crime Weekly. It's that simple.

• 1:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  There's just Derek and Stephanie talking to themselves.

• 1:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. Who wants that?

• 1:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Nobody. All right. So let's start today's episode by kind of more deeply examining the cryptic letter that Rey Rivera left taped to his home desktop computer before his death. So we're going to start with his assumption that the quote unquote council has invited all the players who gave their lives to this pursuit, AKA the game that he keeps referencing, that they're going to invite them back so that they might rejoin Ray and the others. And one of the people listed was Tom Hickling, who we talked briefly about in part three. Now, Tom Hickling had died six months prior to Rey's death in a car accident while visiting his daughter Holly in Zambia.

• 1:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Holly, who was in Africa working as a relief worker, was in the car with him when they were struck by an oncoming car. She suffered from a broken leg and Holly remembered as she was being taken away by the EMTs. Her father, Tom, was lucid. And was able to talk to her and tell her that he was going to be all right. But sadly, he died later at the hospital. An article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette tells us a little bit about Tom Hickling stating, quote, "with his ponytail and gift for spoofing goofy elements of evangelical culture in the 1980s and 1990s through his family's radio station, a singing ministry, a newspaper, and two television shows," end quote. So Tom Hickling had been working for Agora Inc. at the time of his death, writing for

• 2:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  one of their newsletters called The Daily Reckoning. And on December 28th, 2005, Bill Bonner posted an article on The Daily Reckoning, written by someone named Addison Wigan, who was a higher up at Agora. And she wrote, quote, "We have lost one of our Daily Reckoning founding fathers, a dear reader, and a dear friend. We have always had a fondness for minstrels, misfits, and lost causes. At one time, Tom was probably all of these things," end quote. So The Daily Reckoning was an internet newsletter, sent out to subscribers twice a day, forecasting booms, busts, and bad endings. And it is unclear how Tom Hickling, an evangelical musician, ended up writing for a financial newsletter.

• 3:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  But Ray's close friends and family reported that Ray had always felt there was something off about Tom's death. Ray had told his mother that out of all the people he worked with from Agora, he liked Tom Hickling the most because he seemed like a real person. Along with Tom Hickling, every other person Ray listed was also deceased. Ann Rayburn had been the sister of one of Ray's coworkers, George Rayburn, who later became the executive vice president at the Oxford Club. And Ann passed away on December 2nd, 2005. Joan Tullini, she was the wife of Piero Tullini, who was an Italian screenwriter. Also, she passed away on November 1st, 2001.

• 4:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Stanley Kubrick was an influential American filmmaker, known for his meticulous craftsmanship, innovative cinematography, and thought-provoking storytelling. And his films, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket. and Eyes Wide Shut have left a lasting impact on cinema and popular culture. Now Kubrick was known for his obsessive attention to detail and his ability to craft complex narratives that often explore themes of power, control, human nature, and hidden truths. And as we briefly talked about last episode, Kubrick died of a reported heart attack in his sleep on March 7, 1999, just days after delivering the final cut of Eyes

• 4:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Wide Shut to Warner Brothers. His death has fueled conspiracy theories, particularly because of the themes present in Eyes Wide Shut, which details secret societies, elite gatherings, and potential occult influences. Many believe that Kubrick had inside knowledge of the elite and their clandestine activities, which he subtly included in his films. Eyes Wide Shut is often cited as an expose of powerful secret societies and their depraved rituals, which might have put the filmmaker in danger. Since Kubrick died just four days after screening Eyes Wide Shut to Warner Brothers executives, some believe that the final cut of his film contained sensitive or revealing information about real world

• 5:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  secret societies. And for those of you who don't know, Stanley Kubrick was known for being very controlling with his films. He needed to have his hands on everything. He wasn't somebody who would hand his film over to the studio and be like, oh yeah, make whatever final cuts you want, and then, and then just play it in movie theaters. He needed to know if something was being edited out, if something was being changed. And there are claims that significant edits were made to the film after Kubrick's death, possibly to remove controversial or incriminating content. And after Kubrick's death, it was widely reported that Eyes Wide Shut was altered before its theatrical release. So some conspiracy theorists

• 6:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  speculate that his death was a convenient way to ensure changes could be made without his approval. Stanley Kubrick's also linked to the longstanding claim that he helped fake the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, and some suggest that he may have been killed.

• 6:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  To keep him from revealing the truth that his death was staged as part of a deeper cover up. This comes from, you know, the whole moon landing thing. There's actually, it's very interesting. We can't dive into that, but the whole, you know, was the moon landing a faked thing is, is one thing. It's Stanley Kubrick's potential involvement. It's actually very interesting. We can't go there right now, obviously. But the whole thing is he died of a heart attack in his sleep. He didn't have any prior health issues. He wasn't really even of an advanced age. And so it seems suspicious and Ray may have been, I guess, privy maybe to these conspiracy theories. Not saying he was privy to knowledge or insider or behind the scenes knowledge about what happened to Stanley Kubrick.

• 7:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  But if he's interested in Freemasonry and secret societies, he may have been online in forums, things like that. And then the Stanley Kubrick conspiracy theory may have crossed his path based on where he was spending his time on the internet. Now, I wish that a forensic examination had been done of his computer to see if Ray was really spending a lot of time in these sort of areas on the internet, but that was never done.

• 7:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Question for you. Have you seen Fly Me to the Moon with Channing Tatum?

• 7:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  No. Actually, I'm surprised.

• 7:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Got to watch it. It's all about the, how they faked the moon landing.

• 7:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Derrick Levasseur?

  It's not, it's not based on like, they don't say based on a true story, but they just, this is like, if it was fake, this is how they did it.

• 8:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  If you look at these conspiracy theories and they explain to you how they did it.

• 8:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's not hard to believe, especially considering the government's like, I know we did go to the moon in the sixties, but we lost that technology and we can't go back to the moon now, which doesn't make any sense. Let's be honest.

• 8:16Derrick Levasseur?

  So you're saying we didn't land on the moon?

• 8:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know if we did or not. But all I'm saying is, how do you lose technology? How can you go in 1969?

• 8:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Is that their excuse that they lost the technology to go?

• 8:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  They said they don't have the technology anymore to go.

• 8:29Derrick Levasseur?

  How is that possible when they fly up out of space like a million times?

• 8:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know, I know.

• 8:34Derrick Levasseur?

  I feel like you're wrong on that.

• 8:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yo, even Buzz Aldrin has made like comments where he was like, we didn't go to the moon. What are you talking about? And they were like, have you ever seen this interview? They were like, was it scary up there? He was like, it probably would have been if we'd been up there.

• 8:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I think he's busting, I think he's messing with the trolls.

• 8:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  He might be, which would be awesome. So those kinds of like, oh, let's bring back these people to rejoin the game. What he's saying is bring back these deceased people because everybody he lists are deceased. And have them rejoin the game, which makes you kind of think like, does Ray think that this might actually be some sort of simulation or some sort of game that you can kind of die in and then come back?

• 9:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and when you were reading that last week, that's where I felt like there might have been some contradiction with one theory that this involved the Freemasons because I don't know a ton about the Freemasons, but I don't think it's believed that they can bring people back from the dead. It is like an actual society, like the Freemasons is a real thing, right? And so it kind of, it gets a little blurry for me here because in one, in one episode, we're talking about this maybe potentially being something regarding the Freemasons. We know that he was looking into that before his death. He was trying to be a member. And then he's writing this letter as if the group that he's speaking to has the ability to resurrect people. And that doesn't appear just on the surface with my limited knowledge of the Freemasons.

• 9:55Derrick Levasseur?

  That doesn't appear to be a practice that they suggest they can perform.

• 10:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  If it was a practice that they would suggest they could perform, I'm sure they wouldn't publicly announce it.

• 10:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, so you'd have, yes, you have to believe that within the Freemasons, there is even something deeper that they believe that they don't publicly disclose. But just to, just to play, you know, devil's advocate to, to show the other side, which I was saying, I mentioned CTE, we talked about that briefly.

• 10:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, we're gonna, I actually looked into that, so.

• 10:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, we could talk about that. Just also talk about the idea of just a psychotic breakdown, which with all the stress that people are experiencing in life, sometimes even the most composed people who appear to have everything going right on the surface, internally are just not doing well. And at some point they come to a breaking point and they snap and they, they can go off the deep end. So it's not out of the possibility that Ray was just really dealing with a lot. And unfortunately, it got to a point where. He started to believe the things he became paranoid about to the point where he was writing about it. Again, I know that half the audience is going to agree with me, half the audience will not, but that's the whole reason we're covering Rey Rivera is because of people having

• 11:09Derrick Levasseur?

  these beliefs and then being so polar, they're being polar opposite and yet both people believe they could be right.

• 11:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  If this was, and I think if this was a very cut and dry sort of, oh, he jumped off a building.

• 11:21Derrick Levasseur?

  We wouldn't cover it.

• 11:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Then, and then there wouldn't be, but because of like, based on, you know, how hard it would have been for him to get to that location.

• 11:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 11:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, things like that, like the condition of his body, his injuries. Obviously, this casts reasonable doubt on the fact that, that he, that he did this to himself, or he did it in the way that, that it appears he did it, right? So I think that's where this comes in.

• 11:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, to recap, I find it very hard to believe, based on outside circumstances, that he intentionally killed himself, AKA committed a suicide. I, so that's part of the reason we're covering this because as of right now, his death is ruled undetermined. But law enforcement believes it was a suicide, correct?

• 12:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  So his death was ruled undetermined by the ME and then the police, as they do,

• 12:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  said in their opinion, after their investigation, that it was a suicide.

• 12:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and I, I'm not seeing that. I'm not seeing that, but I'm just another opinion, right? But I'm not seeing that based on outside circumstances, what was planned for the future, the fact that there was no suicide note left behind, the fact that there was no preparations made for his wife to make sure that she would be set up after he was gone. He doesn't appear to be the type of guy that would just leave all these things open-ended, especially as a writer, to not leave her a note directly explaining his reasons why he was doing this. Very uncommon. And also, to be crass, way more easier ways to kill yourself than this.

• 12:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So you mean not a straightforward suicide, whereas he did these things, knowing that his death would come at the end of it, that maybe he was going through something mentally, where there was some sort of delusional aspect to it, where he didn't know exactly what he was doing and that ended in his death.

• 12:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and even that, I have some concerns about and I'm not completely convinced of. And the main reason being, the phone call.

• 13:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:04Derrick Levasseur?

  It wasn't as if Ray just left his house on his own and just for no reason whatsoever. There was someone else there who overheard that phone call that maybe the person on the other end of that phone didn't know was going to be there. And without that, we wouldn't know about this. And yet, when law enforcement looks into it, it comes back to the switchboard for Agora. Obviously, all the subsidiaries are going into it. And yet, no one, after all these years, has come forward and claimed to be the person on the other end of that phone and saying, hey, listen, I just need an Excel sheet, or there was a financial thing that I had talked to him about. That person's never spoke up. So as far as we know, the person that he was on the phone with is also the person he went to meet.

• 13:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, that seems to be a reasonable conclusion, right?

• 13:47Derrick Levasseur?

  That's the problem here.

• 13:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I was even thinking like, oh, maybe it was like an automated message that went out to all employees, but at that point, Ray was not an active employee. He was a contractor running his own business, doing a project for Agora. And on top of that, you'd think that somebody would have said, oh yeah, a call went out at that time to all employees.

• 14:06Derrick Levasseur?

  A hundred percent.

• 14:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. The fact that that hasn't been disclosed where they said, yeah, no, we can explain that phone call. That's a problem.

• 14:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 14:14Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a problem, which definitely doesn't align with a suicide, which doesn't align with him being out there by himself. And the phone actually rang, according to this witness.

• 14:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 14:23Derrick Levasseur?

  The phone actually rang. So it's not like he just picked up the phone and was like, hello?

• 14:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 14:26Derrick Levasseur?

  There's nobody on the other end. From what we know.

• 14:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  The police found the call. That's how they tracked it to the Agora switchboard.

• 14:32Derrick Levasseur?

  So it happened. So if he's making it all up in his head.

• 14:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Then who the f- was on the other end of that phone?

• 14:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 14:39Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a problem.

• 14:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's kind of like the JonBenet Ramsey case, where it's like, if that ransom letter wasn't there, I might be able to buy the narrative that everybody's spinning, that it was some outside intruder. But this ransom letter makes that, everything else seem less logical and less consistent. And that's what this phone call does in this case. He didn't just rush out to go jump off a building.

• 15:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  There was a reason he left the house in a hurry that way, wearing flip flops, by the way.

• 15:11Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and not to get off your path here with your script, but there's also the physics of it, right? We discussed that a little bit and maybe this is a good time to just mention it. One of you guys actually reached out to us and said in a DM, you're like, hey, uh, I know you guys said you're not an expert in the physics of jumping off a building like this. I happen to be an aerospace engineer and I've created a calculator and basically a diagram to show what the physics of that fall would look like. And it's based on initial speed. It's based on the distance from the building that he would have allegedly fell off of or jumped off of to where he would have landed and also how much horizontal distance he would gain because of that equation. And this individual wanted to remain anonymous, but thank you, you know who you are.

• 15:56Derrick Levasseur?

  The, the description, we'll put the little PDF right here, you can see it. But overall, I just asked him point blank because even looking at the PDF a couple of times, it makes sense, but again, we're not geniuses like this person is. There's a lot of calculations here, but overall he said that the speed that Ray would have to be traveling would be 9.44 miles per hour and it is possible. It is possible under certain circumstances. And then he started talking about drag, wind resistance, all these other things. I was like, you lost me. I'll throw up the diagram, we could put it up here, but you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the diagram now. Again, thank you to that person who provided that document.

• 16:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  So it's possible, but he'd have to be running almost 10 miles an hour.

• 16:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Almost 10 miles per hour and it would be a lot easier as we mentioned that if you were struck by a vehicle and then kind of thrown after being struck, it would explain some of the other injuries. It would explain the, the, the flip flops. It would explain a lot of things that are unexplainable at this point. So I throw this out there to say, hey, these are the physics that would be required, whether he was running himself or struck and traveling 10 miles per hour through the air after being struck by a vehicle. These are the things that would have to take place if he jumped from that location. So fascinating stuff. We'll throw it up there right now. He also provided a calculator for us and I was like, yeah, no, that ain't gonna, we're not gonna be able to.

• 17:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. He's like, in case you want to run your own scenarios and we're like, uh, where would we start?

• 17:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Can you teach us?

• 17:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  But yes, possible, but not probable, right?

• 17:28Derrick Levasseur?

  It's possible. 10 miles per hour is not super, super fast.

• 17:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  But you'd have to, I feel like you'd also have to have the, I guess, surface area to get up to that speed.

• 17:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, I mean, he's in a parking lot.

• 17:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, that's assuming he jumped off the top. They don't know where he jumped from. Remember, they don't know if he jumped from the roof of the Belvedere, if he jumped from the ledge of the Belvedere, if he jumped from the top of the parking garage.

• 17:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, that's the bigger issue.

• 17:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  They don't know, yes.

• 17:51Derrick Levasseur?

  We don't even know. But if, depending on where he jumped from, would it be possible? The answer is yes. But there's so many things we don't know. And it would be a lot easier if he had been struck by something to gain that velocity needed to make that distance. But we're just throwing out all scenarios because I'm sure there are people who believe, yeah, he was having some psychotic breakdown. He was running from himself and he jumped off the building thinking somebody was chasing him. If he was in a location where he could do it, yes, we concede it's possible. But it just doesn't seem the most probable. That's where I'm at.

• 18:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I know that, you know, I talk about the flip flops and it's like, how would you get that fast wearing flip flops? And, you know, people are like, well, you could have them in your hand if you were running. Yeah, you could. But then like, how did they get broken? And how did they end up where they ended up on the roof if he had them in his hand? Did he drop them or let go of them on the way down? There's a lot of questions here and sort of everything has to line up and work for this to be possible.

• 18:46Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I agree with you, which is why I kind of mentioned the vehicle theory because it just seems like if he was going to kill himself, there would be other ways to do it. So where I'm at right now, as we sit almost at the, you know, the middle of this episode or wherever we are in it, I just don't see him going up there and deliberately jumping off, knowing, hey, I'm just going to kill myself. Life is horrible. I don't want to be here.

• 19:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 19:07Derrick Levasseur?

  There's something else at play here.

• 19:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Something else.

• 19:08Derrick Levasseur?

  And when you think about the letter that you've been explaining so much, you know, we're trying to rationalize something that may not be rational. He might not have been in the right mindset if you're on that belief where he did things in those last moments that don't make sense to a lot of people, the sandals, all these things. But the unexplained injuries are my problem.

• 19:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I would agree with you on a lot of portions of the letter. But there are some things in the letter that do seem very lucid and do have connections to real life. And we're going to talk about more, a little bit more about that when we get back from our first break.

• 19:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so in this letter Ray left behind, he lists some technology and medical advances. And most of these don't seem to have any connection or make any sense, at least to me, right? Which leads me to wonder if they are in some kind of code. But one of these innovations actually does stand out. Now, Stansberry Research, Porter Stansberry Company, they did have some investments in medical patents. And the company wrote about one of these in an article saying, quote, "For example, we picked Intuitive Surgical in March 2004, when it was $18 a stock, and we booked a 124% return a little over a year later in April of 2005. Today, their shares trade for nearly $530," end quote.

• 20:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Intuitive Surgical is a modern technology company, best known for developing the DaVinci Surgical robot, a robotic assisted platform designed to enhance precision in minimally invasive surgeries. We know that Rey Rivera listed the DaVinci Surgical robot in those innovations. And as we also know, Rey Rivera moved to Baltimore to work for Porter Stansberry in early 2004. And Porter's company began investing in Intuitive Surgical in March of 2004, right around that same time. So Ray may have had some knowledge about this patent, about their investment, and maybe, you know, knew some inside information about that. Ray also talked about owning all of these properties all over the world.

• 21:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  And some of these places do correspond with locations where William Bonner, the main guy of Agora Inc. actually did own property, like Argentina and France. And Ray also mentioned Madrid and Thailand. Both are places where Agora Inc. had offices. So sometimes you'll see this if somebody's writing a coded letter, they'll put a bunch of extraneous information, and then they'll put... Things in there that actually do connect and actually do have meaning and make sense. And all the other extraneous information is there to distract or sort of divert anybody else reading the letter who doesn't have the kind of inside knowledge that Ray and maybe whoever he intended this letter for would have to be able to pick out the important

• 21:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  pieces from a sea of kind of nonsense.

• 21:57Derrick Levasseur?

  This is what I'm gonna say about the letter, because I was reading the comments and stuff and people, some agree with me, some agree with you. Here's what I'll say. I'm not perfect and I have some blind spots and I think that's why it's also very important to get outside opinions from everyone. I don't think my brain has the ability to see that. I think when I deduce things, I try to come to the most logical conclusion, but to concede to you, that's not always the right answer. Sometimes because of people like me who are looking for the logical explanation, I miss the real reason. So it's just something that I can't see. I just like to believe that what you're seeing is more than likely what it looks like, and that's why I keep coming back to some type of psychotic breakdown.

• 22:40Derrick Levasseur?

  But I will, like I said in this moment, concede that if there's something deeper that's coded, I'm just not seeing the pattern, but it doesn't mean that I'm right.

• 22:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, I think also both things can be true. Like, there could have been a psychotic break, but some of these things that he's saying do have roots in the real world.

• 22:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Also possible. Also possible.

• 22:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, like just the Da Vinci surgical robot connection to Porter Stansberry, the locations he mentioned having links to William Bonner. These could have been things that he just knew and then in a delusional state sort of threw in there. You know, it can both be true at the same time.

• 23:15Derrick Levasseur?

  I think it was also the format of it. Like, I've seen letters like this written by people who are having issues where they're, you know, they write it in weird fonts or they write it on pieces of paper and they rip it up and then they tape it back together. I've seen this. I've seen this as an investigator. So I think it's bringing back those memories for me where it wasn't only what he said, but where it was left. Like, it wasn't a location that wouldn't be easily found, but would be found. Like, it wasn't in a safe. It was in, it was taped to the back of a desktop. I don't know the rationale behind that, but it's not meant for me, and that's why I'm saying what I'm saying.

• 23:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  So either way, I think it's important to analyze the letter because it will speak to Ray's state of mind.

• 23:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course.

• 23:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  At the time, right?

• 23:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Couldn't agree more. I just wish there would have been a second letter to his wife. That would have made more sense to me if he was leaving something for them, but also leaving something for the most important person to him.

• 24:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, well, I don't think, like you said, I don't think he left that house planning to die.

• 24:07Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't either. We both agree. Hundred percent.

• 24:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, I, I have ADHD, so my brain, I have ADHD. Yeah, my brain is a pattern recognition machine, which people in my relationships don't like, because I will sometimes assume that things are happening, because I'll be like, oh, every day you act like this, and now you're acting like this, you must be mad at me. I mean, in the beginning, you dealt with this all the time. I would text you and call you and be like, hey, you usually text me a lot, and you're not texting me today. Like, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?

• 24:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's true. That is true.

• 24:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  But now, once we find our groove, and once I get to know.

• 24:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Little did you know.

• 24:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I, I add in, no, because then I add that into my pattern recognition machine. And I'm like, oh, sometimes if he's busy, or in a bad mood, or not feeling good, or whatever, then his behavior will change. So I just add it in, and it computes. When, when it comes to velocity and drag and stuff like that, my brain is not a computer. But when it comes to human behavior, and recognizing patterns, and picking up on things like that, it absolutely is a computer. So I enjoy sort of looking at the things, especially the lists of innovations, the movies, things like that, and trying to find common themes. So let's go over some of the films Ray mentioned in his letter, to find out what they might have meant to him, or more importantly, what do they have in common?

• 25:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  The Matrix films, starring Keanu Reeves, all deal with the concept of simulation versus reality. What is real? How do we define what is real? They also discuss themes of free will versus control. You know, can humans actually make decisions, or is everything already laid out and predetermined? National Treasure, which stars Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, a man who comes from a long line of treasure hunters who have spent generations searching for a legendary hidden treasure, rumored to have been amassed by the founding fathers and the Freemasons. Now, according to Gates's family lore, the treasure was secretly protected throughout history, with clues hidden in historical artifacts. And Gates actually uncovers a

• 26:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  plot to steal the Declaration of Independence, but when he tries to report his findings to the government, he's written off as a conspiracy theorist. So he makes a plan. To steal the Declaration of Independence before the bad guys can. Now, let's move on to The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks. That deals with themes of religious conspiracies, secret societies, hidden messages and symbolism. We also have Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. This implies that an elite class is engaging in secretive and possibly sinister activities operating outside the bounds of the law. In this film, those who attempt to reveal the secrets of this group get killed off. And then their deaths are covered up and reported as suicides. Me, Joe Black starring Brad Pitt also plays with themes of fate versus free will,

• 26:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  like The Matrix and focuses on depth and what it means. And we got Star Wars. That's also going to deal with the idea of humans and robots living side by side in a galaxy far, far away where everything is held together by the Force. And if you can harness the Force, you can develop special abilities like telepathy and telekinesis. There were more films listed like Seven, The Bourne Identity Trilogy, being John Malkovich. But the question here would be, what do all of these films have in common? And as it turns out, they all share several common themes. One being the hero's journey where what I like to call Harry Potter syndrome, by the way. The hero's journey to me has always been Harry Potter syndrome. It's like this regular kid. He just comes from like this horrible background, this horrible childhood.

• 27:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's shoved in a closet under the stairs and then it turns out he's like this powerful wizard who's the only one that can save all of wizarding kind. And it's kind of, it's kind of that, like the hero's journey. This regular person who's handed a, a very important task where a protagonist is thrust into a mysterious or dangerous new reality and undergoes a transformation. For instance, Neo in The Matrix, he awakens to the reality of The Matrix. He fulfills his destiny. Frodo from Lord of the Rings, which was also mentioned in Raise List. He leaves the Shire to destroy the One Ring. Luke Skywalker embarks on a journey to become a Jedi. Another theme obviously is pertaining to secret societies, conspiracy theories and hidden truths that the protagonist must uncover.

• 28:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Another theme is that reality is not what it seems with several of these. Films blurring the line between reality and illusion, challenging the protagonists and the audience's perception of the world. In The Matrix, the world is a simulation controlled by machines. In Being John Malkovich, people can enter other people's consciousnesses. In Minority Report, future crimes are predicted, which questions free will and authority. The theme of fate versus free will is very prevalent in this selection of films that Ray decided to list. And then we have the theme of a protagonist with a lost or hidden identity, along with the theme of psychological and existential dilemmas. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind asks if we should be able to erase painful memories.

• 29:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Is that taking away who we really are or a part of who we are if we erase those memories? Being John Malkovich asks, what does it mean to inhabit another person's mind? The Game, which we're going to talk about a little bit more in a second. The Game asks, how much of life is real and how much is manipulation? We also have the theme of a mystery or a puzzle to solve. Now, I do want to single out one of these films before we move on. The Game, starring Michael Douglas. Have you ever seen this movie?

• 29:29Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I don't think I have, actually.

• 29:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, it's actually a very good movie, but we're talking about it because not only is it one of the movies that Ray listed, but the plot of the movie is also eerily similar to the events of Ray's life after he arrived in Baltimore to work for Porter Stansberry. The main character in this film finds himself involved with a company called Consumer Recreation Services when a friend hands him a voucher for a game. But he has to jump through all of these hoops and undergo psychological and physical tests in order to apply, and he begins to feel like this game is putting him in danger. He finds out that innocent people he encounters are undercover CRS employees, Consumer Recreation Services employees. He finds out he's being watched and that the company has drained his bank accounts.

• 30:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  He ends up being drugged, knocked out, and he wakes up buried alive in Mexico, where he has to sell the watch he's wearing to get home, only to discover that his mansion's been foreclosed on, many of his personal possessions have been taken, and he's pretty much ruined. He finally loses it, and he gets a gun, but when he meets with his contact and she sees that he has a weapon, she tells him it's all part of the game. And everything is normal and all he has to do is open the door and his friends and family will be there ready to celebrate with him but he doesn't believe her so he shoots the first person on the other side of the door who ends up being his friend with a bottle of champagne ready to celebrate devastated over this Michael Douglas's character throws himself off a building but he survives when he lands on an inflatable cushion only to

• 30:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  find out that his friend that he thought he had killed was alive and all the other people from the game are also alive and then they go on to help him become a better person and be appreciative for everything that he has and everyone lives happily ever after.

• 31:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Are you suggesting and maybe I'm missing the mark here are you suggesting that maybe this wasn't a suicide but based on the premise the plot of this game there could be a world where Ray thought he was also in some type of simulation and by jumping off this building

• 31:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like a hero's journey.

• 31:29Derrick Levasseur?

  He wasn't gonna die he was actually he was actually gonna be alive for the first time he was actually gonna be back into his real life by jumping off this building.

• 31:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm not suggesting it I'm saying it's it's

• 31:39Derrick Levasseur?

  A possibility.

• 31:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's possible right because if you look at it he keeps mentioning the game the game you it's been a well played game and I hope you now invite all those who have given their lives in the pursuit of this game back.

• 31:49Derrick Levasseur?

  To join to join the game.

• 31:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  To join to rejoin us right and celebrate with us and that's very similar eerily similar to the ending of this movie.

• 31:58Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a fascinating hypothesis because I keep saying oh this couldn't be a suicide I don't think Ray would have intentionally jumped off this building but I should correct that and say I don't think he jumped off this building to end his life if he's going through something whether real or not real maybe it's just real in his own mind he could have intentionally jumped off this building thinking this is what he needed to do this was the next step in the process.

• 32:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Derrick Levasseur?

  So it is kind of a hybrid of what we were talking about here where I'm saying there may have been some type of psychotic breakdown where he's imagining things that aren't happening or for the people out there who believe it is it is happening and in order to get back to the game or to get out of the game he has to accomplish this next next mission which is jumping off this building into some type of portal or whatever that's gonna bring him back but now I ask you That's not what happened, as far as we know.

• 32:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Derrick Levasseur?

  So I guess the simulation theory is out the window then, right? Because he's dead.

• 32:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  I would never say that Ray was genuinely living in a simulation, but he could have definitely thought he was.

• 33:03Derrick Levasseur?

  That is an interesting angle to take because like I said, we can rule out the possibility that he was doing this with the intention of killing himself because he just didn't want to live anymore. As he's trying to get into these societies, as he's trying to decipher this game that he believes he's playing, it could have got to a point where he's like, okay, this hotel is where I gotta go. This is where the portal is. I've put it all together. I found it. If I jump off this building from this height, it's going to bring me into where I want to be.

• 33:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or was someone messing with him or kind of like playing into his paranoia and being like, okay, Ray, the game is at hand now. Meet me on the, you know, the parking garage roof next to the Belvedere Hotel and await your final instructions kind of thing. Like, he did get that call, right?

• 33:49Derrick Levasseur?

  The call's a problem. Yeah, the call bothers me. The call bothers me. There could be a reasonable explanation for it, but I haven't seen it.

• 33:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, no, there is none. Yeah, because if there was, the police would know. And obviously Ray's, you know, wife Allison would know because they would have told her. But there's nothing. And of course, the internet did take Ray's letter and they tried to decipher it. And they've come up with their own theories. For instance, Reddit user QuartzLizard points out that the formation of the the letter of the text slash the shape of the letter spells help. And I'm going to have Shannon put this up on screen because this Reddit user circled it so you could see, but it has the H on the left, the E and the L in the middle, separated by a chunk of text, and then the P on the right. And so if you if you do look at it that way, it does look like the word help.

• 34:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, some other people believe the note might be a coded message or even a tone map for a screenplay that Ray was working on. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But I actually ran the letter through AI, which is something that wasn't available to me when I first covered this case in 2020. And I basically Basically, it was like, hey, AI, analyze this letter. Do you think it's written in code? And obviously, it's not that easy. You've got to give it a lot of other prompts. You've got to kind of like guide it along the way. Basically, I asked AI to analyze it using cryptographic techniques to determine if there were any patterns, hidden meanings, or encoded messages. And the analysis is as follows. They said that there was a high frequency of common letters,

• 35:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  and the most frequently used letters align with normal English text such as E, T, A, O, I, N. And this suggests that the code was not using a simple letter substitution cipher like the Caesar cipher. The Caesar cipher is very well-known in the code-breaking sort of community. It's one of the oldest and simplest encryption techniques. It was attributed to Julius Caesar, who reportedly used it to secure military messages. Very interesting. Now, it is a type of substitution cipher where each letter in the plain text is shifted forward and backward in the alphabet by a fixed number of positions. So basically, AI is saying, we don't believe that there was a letter substitution cipher like the Caesar cipher used here.

• 36:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, the unusual phrases such as "the game is finished," along with a list of movies and books, does seem symbolic or coded, according to AI. Also, the list of inventions and technologies like Wi-Fi, RFID, appear out of place and could be part of a pattern or an encoded message. AI then used something they called a Wigner cipher, which uses a keyword-based shifting system, and they used this on Ray's letter. And they said the text did not produce clear, readable English when tested against common words from Ray's letter as decryption keys. And this suggests that either a different encryption method was used, or if the letter is structured differently. Because remember, we don't have the full letter. It's not completely released.

• 36:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  If the Wigner cipher was used, it may require a different keyword, something longer, more obscure, or even more personal to Ray. Next, AI checked for acrostics, which is the first letters of the sentences, and word frequencies in Ray's letter. Extracting the first letter of each sentence did not spell out a clear phrase or code, but certain letters appear more frequently, which may indicate a pattern. ...message. Repeated words like counsel, game, players, and Porter Stansberry might hint at coded meanings or structured references. And the mention of specific movies, technologies, and locations could serve as a clue to an external cipher or reference. So they're saying, hey, this letter could be coded, and the actual text of the letter could be what's coded.

• 37:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then the list of movies and films and technologies he gave are supposed to be hinting at where the cipher can be found. So next, AI checked for anagrams in key sentences, and it found that the generated anagrams did not immediately reveal clear messages, but certain words could be rearranged to form alternative meanings, possibly as part of a larger code. So they said if an anagram was intended, it may not be a single word, but across multiple phrases. And some words in the letter do match Masonic or secret society language, suggesting, once again, an external reference might be needed, an external cipher that might be needed in order to break this code. AI then attempted something called a book cipher test, because the letter mentioned multiple

• 38:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  books and movies, so the message might be referencing specific words from these sources. Now, this resulted in no immediate recognizable messages. I then had AI analyze the frequency of repeated words to identify hidden patterns, and once again, it came back that the list of movies, tech, and locations may be more than just references, they could correspond to a coded pattern. And the phrase "the game is finished" appears in multiple theories about secret societies, which may indicate something deeper. I also had AI cross-check the frequently used words in the letter against known Masonic and historical cipher terms, and it told me that the following words from Ray's letter align with known Masonic or esoteric terminology. Counsel often refers to a ruling body in secret societies or organizations.

• 38:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Virtue is central to Masonic philosophy, and game could symbolize an initiation or test in secret organizations. Also, the word "truth" is often linked to enlightenment and hidden knowledge in esoteric teachings. Freemasons, Knights Templar, and other fraternal organizations use coded language to conceal knowledge from outsiders, and the phrase "the game is finished." Could reference an initiation or completion of a Masonic ritual. If the letter is written in coded Masonic or historical terms, it might be a symbolic initiation or farewell message, a warning or hidden communication, or a way to disguise sensitive information. That's what AI said. So AI was basically not dismissing the fact that this could be written in code,

• 39:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  but they're saying as far as any ciphers, which is how you would decipher the code. As far as any ciphers that we're aware of, it doesn't appear that any are used here. There could be an external cipher needed, such as maybe a Masonic text, or something that Ray referenced in that list of movies, books, innovations, medical and technological.

• 40:00Derrick Levasseur?

  I just don't understand, like, that's obviously fascinating, especially with AI. But the place, the place where he left it, it just, it seems like it'd be left somewhere else. It could be found by anyone. It could be found by his wife. It could be found by law enforcement. It could be found by the cleaner. It could be found by anyone. It just seems like if it was meant for a specific person who would have access to this Masonic text, it would be left in a location where that individual would find it. They would have to break into his house to find that letter.

• 40:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or they, or they're a friend and they come over.

• 40:28Derrick Levasseur?

  I guess, yeah, they, they would have to know that, one, he left the letter and where he left it. So maybe there's another letter that we're unaware of that he gave to that specific person.

• 40:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or a prior conversation, like if anything ever happens to me.

• 40:39Derrick Levasseur?

  There's just a lot of steps that would have to, you follow what I'm saying? Just a lot of steps, not impossible, but just a lot of things that you have to believe in order to get there.

• 40:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  We've talked about true crime cases where, you know, women have talked to people and been like, hey, if anything happens to me, you know, open this letter. I forget which case it was, but a woman was being, was it the Connie Debate case? I can't remember. But she basically left a letter with her neighbor, remember? And she was like, if anything happens to me, open this letter. So that's not crazy. And, and Ray may have been like, if anything happens to me, you're going to find a very tiny, tiny typed message taped to the side of my computer. And if this is a friend of, of Ray's and they're coming over to console Allison or visit her or bring her like, what do they bring when, like a lasagna or like a casserole?

• 41:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Flowers, chocolate.

• 41:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, something, you know, come over like, oh, here, I brought you a casserole, like. Can I come in and you know, I don't know.

• 41:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Go, go get your letter that's taped to the back of the desktop.

• 41:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right. So as we talked briefly about last episode, the FBI did analyze this letter as well. So we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back and kind of get an idea of what the FBI thinks happened here.

• 41:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, we're back. So as I mentioned before, the Baltimore police, they didn't know what to make of this letter. And so they sent it to Quantico for the FBI to analyze. And the FBI report states that according to police interviews with family members, Ray had no known physical or mental illness. And he had made a comment in the presence of others that he believed the Church of Scientology, hate to talk about them, but we have to, the Church of Scientology ran the West Coast film industry. And the Freemasons ran the East Coast film industry. So Baltimore Police Department reported that Ray's autopsy did not detect the presence of drugs in his system, but his body was too decomposed to determine if he had recently ingested alcohol.

• 42:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which that's weird that you can, you do toxicology to detect, because there was a lot of blood, right? There was a lot of blood on the wall, as we heard. They couldn't have swabbed that and like tested it for alcohol? Does that sound a little hard to believe that you can test the blood for drugs, but not alcohol?

• 42:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Test if it was ethanol. Well, I mean, I could be wrong about this and any of the doctors in the comments let us know, but I would think the ethanol would evaporate.

• 43:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Maybe, yeah.

• 43:03Derrick Levasseur?

  That's my, that's my hunch.

• 43:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Upon hitting the air.

• 43:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. That over time by sitting there, it would evaporate into the air.

• 43:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that makes sense. But there was no blood left in his body, I guess. I don't know.

• 43:13Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, listen, I've unfortunately experienced a couple suicides like this and car accidents similar to this where, without getting into all the details, it's, it's interesting what the body does under this type of trauma. I'll, I'll leave it at that.

• 43:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, the FBI report states, quote, "In the treatment of clinical disorders, psychiatrists begin by looking for the root cause behind the behavior. Mainly, there are three causes of delusional thoughts. First is a physical defect. For instance, an individual may be suffering from head trauma or a brain tumor. Second, delusional thoughts may be caused by drug or alcohol abuse. Third, the individual suffers from a true psychotic disorder. BPD's investigation to date has not confirmed Rivera suffered from a recent head injury, drug or alcohol abuse, or a psychotic disorder." End quote. The report goes on to say that the overall themes and language in Ray's letter,

• 44:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  however, are consistent with someone who does suffer from a mental illness, like delusional or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. And the report says that persons with a delusional disorder can be highly functional in many areas of their life. And in this particular case, the mental illness suffered by the author of the letter may go virtually undetected by family, friends, and coworkers. And the FBI report states that there are subtypes of delusional disorder, and they believe that Ray may have suffered from persecutory delusional disorder, which involves believing that they are being malivently treated in some fashion. The FBI then goes on to state that delusional disorder, though, is pretty rare.

• 44:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  It affects only about 20 people out of 10,000. And the age of onset for this disorder is relatively late, with the average first age of admission into a psych facility being between the ages of 40 and 49. So basically, they're saying, like, if Ray suffered from delusional disorder, we believe it was this type. However, this is very, very rare. And usually, we don't see the first signs of this until, you know, their 40s, which Ray was younger than that. The report then also states, quote, "The writing in this letter is also consistent with someone who suffers from bipolar disorder. This assumption is based on the flight of ideas that could have been written by someone experiencing an untreated manic episode," end quote.

• 45:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  However, once again, this statement is qualified with the facts that people who suffer from bipolar disorder also often have serious medical problems, elevated mood, they take part in risky behavior, including reckless sex, and they often suffer from depression. Quote, "Bipolar disorders typically, but not always, develop in the early to late teens and often go undetected for several years. Suicide accounts for up to 20% of deaths in severe bipolar illness. Approximately 90% of suicide victims have a psychiatric disturbance," end quote. So, once again, they're saying, hey, yes, if somebody was bipolar and was experiencing a manic episode, this letter does seem consistent with what that person would be thinking and

• 46:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  writing. However, once again, you would see other signs of this. Risky behavior, elevated moods, then depression, things like that. I guess you could say that Ray was having depression symptoms and then elevated moods, so times of, you know, quietness, times of introvertedness, and then times of being kind of very excited, excitable. But there's no, there's no evidence that, that he did have bipolar disorder.

• 46:54Derrick Levasseur?

  I wouldn't say bipolar, but I'd say there was some level of paranoia. I remember you describing an example of the track, right? And the way you gave the description of it, the way, it's probably the way it went down, but as you described it, there was a guy following Allison, his wife, on the track, and then he jumped out of the car, and then the guy turned around. Now, there's a real world where that guy turned around because Ray jumped out like a, like a crazy person, and basically the guy was like, "I'm not going near that dude. He looks like he's about to punch me," and that's why he turned around and walked away. But in Ray's mind, he thought that person was gonna hurt Allison. So, there were some, some subtleties where it could suggest there was something going on where he would have a... Lack of emotional control because of the potential delusions he was experiencing.

• 47:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, and then we also kind of heard them talk about in the beginning like, hey, there's several reasons why somebody may act like this and one might be physical, like a head trauma or a brain tumor. And the Baltimore Police Department did look into this and they found no evidence that Ray had suffered from a recent head trauma.

• 47:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Didn't have any issues like that. You know, obviously by the time they did his autopsy, there was other things happening, so it would be difficult to determine if any of that head trauma had happened prior to his fall or jump or what have you.

• 48:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  But the Baltimore Police Department did like question people, questioned his family, most likely even talked to his water polo people. And as far as anybody could tell, there was no head trauma or head wound, which kind of answers your question that we had talked about last episode.

• 48:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and Kimberly, Kimberly who has a YouTube channel, True Crime, we love her, we see her at CrimeCon, she's super invested in this series. She's been DMing me all of her thoughts, she's been reposting, so and she's been commenting on these videos, so I know she's listening right now, shout out to you, Kimberly. And she also said that she played water polo and most of her injuries were to her like thighs and groin area and not to the head, at least, you know, above surface. Sometimes she's like, whatever happened under the water, happened under the water. But I'll say this, CTE was one example of what it could be, it could be from a previous head trauma. But there are also many people who experience these altering mental health issues that have no previous injuries, that it comes on, maybe it's genetic,

• 49:09Derrick Levasseur?

  maybe it's hereditary, there's a million explanations for it. So even absence of the CTE theory, as you've been laying out for the last 10, 15 minutes, it's still possible that he experienced some type of psychological breakdown, leading to this behavior.

• 49:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, so then the FBI report then again switches gears saying, quote, "The thinking in this letter is disorganized and to a lesser extent, it is consistent with someone who suffers from schizophrenia. Features of schizophrenia include delusions as well as hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, neglected self-care, and persistence for at least six months. Between 10 to 15% of individuals with schizophrenia die from suicide," end quote. So what they're basically saying is like, hey, could be this delusional disorder, but that's pretty rare and the age of onset doesn't match up with how old Ray was. They also say, hey, could be bipolar disorder. But, you know, once again, people who suffer from bipolar disorder are going to have other things that people

• 50:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  around them are going to notice in the months leading up to, you know, whatever.

• 50:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Especially like, yeah, especially Allison, you know?

• 50:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then they're saying, hey, schizophrenia, but they say to a lesser extent. So they're not saying, oh, he definitely suffered from schizophrenia. They're saying, hey, this might be consistent with how someone with schizophrenia would behave. And they kind of draw all of these theories back to this is how common taking your own life while you have these, these mental health illnesses is. And they're saying, which is, is crazy, that 20% of deaths, suicide accounts for 20% of deaths in severe bipolar illness. That makes me very, very sad for these people because it's bad enough to not have control over your own thoughts, to not be able to stop the racing thoughts, to not be able

• 50:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  to control when you're switching from highs to lows, to the point where these people feel this is the only way I can have peace. This is the only way I can escape from myself. It's very sad to me.

• 51:09Derrick Levasseur?

  It is. It's extremely sad. And we've talked about it in other cases and it's something that unfortunately, we're probably never going to get away from, but. I just don't think that's what happened here. I don't think he was experiencing schizophrenia, decided to take his own life because of that.

• 51:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 51:24Derrick Levasseur?

  I think that his mind, if at, if at all, was playing tricks on him to the point where he felt like this was the only option he had left.

• 51:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 51:32Derrick Levasseur?

  But I always am gonna keep going back to the one problem with this. With these mental health disorders, most, as you mentioned, a lot of people can see it around them and they're like, hey, Joe or Kate, what you're describing, it's not happening. And yet, we have a phone call that happened right before it. He didn't make that up with his brain unless his brain is way more developed than we even know where he manifested this phone ringing. Someone called this dude. We don't know who that is as we sit here. So we can put everything on this, you know, this mental disorder that was conjuring up these thoughts that didn't actually, you know, exist. And yet, he's still getting phone calls right before he leaves the house and he's dead hours later. Okay, could be a coincidence, but that's tough to believe.

• 52:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, I almost wonder, and this is completely just speculation, but knowing how, sorry, no, I don't mean to generalize, but knowing how men are sometimes, especially when they're all together, especially when they're like these finance bro types. I almost wonder if Ray was kind of talking to like the people he had worked with at Porter's company and, and kind of talking about these theories and like these conspiracy things. And from the retreat, they called him to like mess with him, you know, like, haha, like it's a prank. They're all drinking. They're all, you know, having a good time. They're like, frickin' Ray is like losing it, man. Not thinking it's that serious. And so they called him and they were like, the game is starting, Ray. Meet me here.

• 53:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Just to trigger him?

• 53:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Not know, like not knowing that he was actually suffering from something mental.

• 53:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that he was just, you know, a crazy conspiracy theorist, that he was just kind of going down a path. He's a creative type, you know, they can't believe that he believes this shit kind of thing. And they're like, let's mess with him. They're drunk. They're all together. They're, they're like finance frat bros. They think it's gonna be funny. They're guffawing over there. And now that's why nobody wants to sort of come forward and be like, yeah, it was actually us. We were messing with him. But it wasn't supposed to go this far, you know?

• 53:29Derrick Levasseur?

  I, yeah, I guess. It seems like a really cruel, stupid thing to do.

• 53:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  But men do this to each other. They, they with each other. They, you know, we talked about it in the Karen Reed case about how. The Alberts like texted John O'Keefe and they were like, haha, we're in your yard. You know, and it's like just this jabbing thing that they kind of do. It's like men do this to each other. So I almost wondered if it was maybe something like that because I think if Ray was struggling with something, he was very emotionally intuitive. He was very emotionally communicative. He had, he had Allison, who's his wife, his best friend. He has a very close relationship with his brother, his sister, his parents. And he has a handful of very close friends that he does consult with, that he confides in. So if he was struggling with something mentally and emotionally that he was aware of, such as bipolar,

• 54:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  where there would be times where he'd come back out of it, I think he would have communicated to that, that to the people around him to get help. He's not, he didn't seem like the, the sort of person who'd be like, oh, I'm a man and I can't reveal these horrible things that are happening to me. I have to appear strong. I can't show weakness. He, he didn't seem to be like that. He would have at least told Allison like, hey, I'm really struggling here. Like something's going on. And she would have encouraged him to go to a doctor, to get checked out, to get help. Because she cared about him. She loved him.

• 54:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Do we know if Allison ever saw any type of shift in his personality at any point where things?

• 54:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, just that paranoia, like in that, that where he would follow her everywhere he wanted to go. He felt like she wasn't safe. And then how scared he got when the alarms went off, things like that. But no, like nothing where she was like, I'm really concerned. Like this doesn't seem to be normal or good. It's suggesting something's, something deeper is happening. She said he was just a little bit more on edge. All right. So at the end of the day, there is no definitive proof that Rey Rivera authored the note as it was typed, rather than handwritten, which makes handwriting comparison impossible. Some believe it may have been written by someone else who wanted it to appear as if Ray had written it. One notable thing that is pointed out is the use of the word

• 55:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  recompensate, which it's not a real word. Like we can say it and we can understand what it means. But it's not a real word. It's not a word in the English language, which is something that Ray, an avid writer, would likely have known.

• 55:53Derrick Levasseur?

  I do wonder some points if he had copied and pasted this from somewhere that we just had like different chunks from different places and kind of made like this hodgepodge and just put it all together. I don't know. There's so many variables here.

• 56:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, the note also includes a list of Ray's family members, and this seemingly reinforces the idea that the request for them to be made five years younger came from him. However, once again, there is no way to verify this. Despite its cryptic nature, one thing is certain, the note is unsettling and at first glance appears random. Now Ray's wife Allison mentioned that he would frequently jot down thoughts and screenplay ideas, like a stream of consciousness kind of writing. But she described that when he did this, his writings were more structured and made more sense than this note. Additionally, she said he had never before shrunk his writings down and taped them to his computer or anywhere

• 56:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  else, which could suggest an attempt to hide it. Many speculate that the note contains a coded message, though decoding it would be a complex task. As I mentioned before, both the Baltimore police and the FBI examined the note. They determined it was not a suicide note. The FBI report suggests that its themes and specific languages were consistent with someone experiencing delusional disorder or bipolar disorder. And they do say that the letters consistent, but they also mentioned that everything else going on in Ray's life were not consistent with that. They had outlined the criteria that Ray would have needed to have met a diagnosis for delusional disorder, including experiencing non-bizarre delusions

• 57:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  lasting a month or more, brief mood episodes that coincided with delusional periods, and the ability to function well in most areas of life despite the disorder. This is interesting because of all the things that you would think that was the one that fit because most of Ray's family, friends, coworkers, any signs that he was having a mental break or he was having delusions or hallucinations, they went undetected. But then the FBI report also states, hey, this is super, super rare, and the age of onset is usually between 40 and 49, which obviously Ray was younger than that. So it makes it less likely that he had that. Now that we've kind of covered all of that, we need to go into the possible theories. But before we do, we're going to take a quick break.

• 58:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  We're back. So, theory one: was Rey Rivera suffering from delusions or a mental health disorder that led to his death? One theory surrounding the mysterious death of Rey Rivera is that he was experiencing delusions or an undiagnosed mental health condition such as bipolar disorder, which may have contributed to his apparent suicide. This perspective suggests that he jumped from an unknown location and then crashed through the Belvedere Hotel's roof. Several factors in Ray's behavior before his death suggest he may have been struggling with paranoia and disorganized thinking. His final note, for example, alternates between referencing "real people he knew" and "famous individuals that he did not personally know."

• 58:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  He wrote about people being made younger by five years and others being brought back to life to rejoin the group. Additionally, he frequently mentioned "the game," though he never explained what that game was. He also seemed to believe he owned lavish properties around the world and he was about to receive a great sum of money from his various inventions, a belief that, at least to us, does not seem to align with reality. These statements could suggest a break from reality potentially linked to delusional thinking or mania. Ray's wife Allison also noted a significant shift in his personality after she arrived in Baltimore. He was no longer the happy, easygoing man she'd always known. Instead, he appeared withdrawn, distracted, anxious, on edge.

• 59:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  She initially attributed these changes to his dissatisfaction with his job, but what if the personality shift was actually due to an emerging mental illness, which would actually be supported by the fact that after he left Stansberry Research and started his own company, he was still experiencing some of these mood shifts, although a lot of people that he had previously worked with, when he would do, like, outside jobs for them, said, "Oh, Ray seems like a different person. He's no longer withdrawn. He no longer seems unhappy. He seems way happier now." Additionally, Ray displayed increasing paranoia in the weeks leading up to his death. He insisted on accompanying Allison during her runs, became visibly distressed when he saw an unfamiliar man approach her while she jogged. But while these behaviors could point to mental health struggles...

• 1:00:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  They could also indicate that Ray at least believed he had a real reason

• 1:00:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct.

• 1:00:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  to fear for his life or the life of the people around him. If he had inadvertently uncovered something dangerous or was in trouble with powerful individuals, his paranoia could have been entirely justified. It's also important to note that his home security system was triggered on two consecutive nights and the window in their master bedroom was damaged. Physical evidence that suggests external threats rather than a purely internal struggle. Now, I was thinking about this too, and I remember a movie and I cannot remember. Well, maybe it was Fight Club. And you've obviously seen Fight Club, right?

• 1:01:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course.

• 1:01:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Where Edward Norton is sort of like, has, has two, has split personalities, kind of? And he's doing things while in one-

• 1:01:12Derrick Levasseur?

  He's, he's the only character in the movie.

• 1:01:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes. Well, he's doing things while in one personality that when he shifts back to his other, he does not remember doing. Is it possible that Ray was that bad where he was setting off the alarms? Where he was tampering with the bedroom window? Not to prove that he had something to worry about or not to like prove to other people that he had something to worry about, but that he was doing these things almost to like support his own delusions and his own paranoia to give his brain a like valid reason for being afraid.

• 1:01:41Derrick Levasseur?

  You could have, you can even point that towards the call. Scheduling something to go off to make an automated call to him where he's like, right, I'm on it. And he has to leave the house because he's trying to set up an alibi to leave and go. That's the problem with this case, right? We're trying to solve a puzzle with like 30% of the pieces. If we were there, if we were flying on the wall and we got the opportunity to witness Ray's behavior when nobody was watching, maybe we would be able to come to a more accurate conclusion. But there's just so many hypotheticals because we don't have everything we need. And unfortunately, as you continue through these theories. We know that law enforcement doesn't have everything they need either, which is why they're sitting here with their hands on under their ass, you know?

• 1:02:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't think that he could have made that call from the switchboard. I really, I don't. Cause how do you schedule it? He wasn't an employee there anymore.

• 1:02:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Coming from an outside law, I don't know. I don't know. Again, I'm not suggesting it. I'm saying if it was possible, that could explain the phone call and why it's wrapping up my head so much. Because listen, if you're to believe this theory, then you have to also believe that that phone call was in fact just a nothing burger. It was just something that was coincidental. The person on the other end could have said, hey, uh, just don't forget to do that, uh, you know, that paperwork and, and maybe they didn't come forward for some of the reasons you suggested. They just don't want to be implicated in anything. It could have been completely innocent and yet Ray interpreted as the code word. That's my signal. Now it's time to act. They're calling a secret meeting. This wasn't a call about my due date for my right, my, my article. This

• 1:03:14Derrick Levasseur?

  was about the, the society. This is my initiation. I have to go to this location at this time. Again, it sounds crazy even when I say it out loud.

• 1:03:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  This is when it all culminates. Everything I've been dealing with this past year or six months. This is when it all culminates and comes to a head.

• 1:03:29Derrick Levasseur?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I won't have to deal with any of the stuff anymore. And it's going to be beautiful roses and my family and all the people that have died. Like Tom Hickling will be there to greet me with champagne. Yeah.

• 1:03:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. Ray, just need that. Don't forget your deadline. I'm on it. Click. He interprets it completely different. And, and you know, why didn't this person come forward?

• 1:03:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:47Derrick Levasseur?

  They should have. They still should if they, if they're listening or watching this episode, but human nature. Oh, they're already accusing Porter of doing something. I, or maybe it was Porter that called. He's like, I'm not going to put any more fuel on the fire.

• 1:03:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, I'm going to admit that it was me that called for something totally innocent when they think I killed this guy?

• 1:04:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I can understand it.

• 1:04:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm. No, I, I can too, obviously.

• 1:04:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  And, and since the police have already said, there's no way to determine where this call came from.

• 1:04:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Whoever made it is like, well, I'm in the clear. Why would I come forward?

• 1:04:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 1:04:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right? So another critical detail is that Ray had made future plans. The same day he disappeared, he'd booked a recording suite for later that week. If he was planning to end his life, why would he have made that kind of commitment? Furthermore, Allison and Ray had listed their house for sale. They were preparing to move back to California so he could focus on selling Midnight Polo, which is the screenplay he'd written. He just finished it. He was very proud of it. They also had an upcoming trip to New Mexico planned just weeks later. If the official explanation is to be believed, Ray went from a hopeful man with a vision for his future to someone who'd suddenly decided to take his own life, all in a matter of hours. One of the biggest holes in the official story is that no one has really been able to determine where Ray could have jumped from in order to land where his body was found.

• 1:05:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  The only feasible location was the 11th floor ledge of the Belvedere Hotel. That would have made it the easiest for him to get where he was. However, unsolved mysteries and independent investigators have noted that this ledge is thin, highly decorative, very difficult to navigate. We talked about that. How the hell did he even get out there? Because those windows don't open fully. While some argue that Ray could have maneuvered onto it, the bigger question would remain, why? Even if he was experiencing a mental break, why would he choose this method? If he were truly suicidal, like he wanted to end his life, wouldn't he have selected a more accessible and less complicated way to end his life? And as I've talked about, some have drawn parallels between Rey's death and the 1997

• 1:05:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  film, The Game, in which the protagonist experiences an elaborate psychological ordeal that blurs the line between reality and fiction. Given Ray's obsession with the game, could he have internalized a similar narrative? If he was having a manic or delusional episode, did he believe his life had become part of some grand game? Now, despite the suicide theory and the initial and kind of official ruling of the Baltimore Police that this was suicide, Ray's family staunchly rejects the idea that he took his own life. His mother, Maria Rivera, has stated, quote, "I knew because of my own observations of his behavior and because of the things that came out of his mouth. When anyone we knew was depressed, Ray was the one who would help them, talk to them, and give them reasons to live." And not only was

• 1:06:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Ray afraid of heights, but he'd never gotten over his fear of death. We had many conversations about it. End quote. Friends have also echoed this sentiment. A church friend described Ray as always happy, always full of life. Another friend Cynthia, whom he met on a flight, felt that Rey's death never made sense. Even Porter Stansberry, as we know, his close friend and employer, described Ray as a happy, positive person, not someone who seemed like he wanted to die.

• 1:06:54Derrick Levasseur?

  You know, this is something where I think me being more of a pragmatic person, this is what I lean towards. And you know, I say suicide in the sense it wasn't a suicide, but by definition, it would be a suicide if he killed himself, right? With no external forces. I'm more talking about the intent of the jump. I don't think that if he jumped, he was, he was doing it to end his life because he just didn't want to live anymore. He had some things going wrong. We all do. He had some pressures on him, but it appeared that he was setting himself up for future occasions with Allison and had plans going on and had some positive things that appeared to be trending in the right direction. And to me, I think as we kind of summarize that theory, if something was going on, it was out of Ray's control. The mind is a powerful thing. It controls everything else.

• 1:07:38Derrick Levasseur?

  And it's scary to think that that can, that can basically mislead you and that it can play tricks on you. And it happens to everybody at different levels as well. And we've seen how bad it can affect someone's life. Perfectly sound people who have everything going and then all of a sudden, within a year or two, they're living on the streets because they just can't, they can't get out of them. They're, they're trapped in their own body. And it's extremely unfortunate to, to, to witness because as you mentioned, those people can almost feel that they're basically a prisoner in their own mind. And that's why they choose to take their life because they would rather be dead than deal with that every day. And that's what's so sad. So I think Ray. Probably got to a point where he wasn't considering taking his own life.

• 1:08:23Derrick Levasseur?

  He actually thought he was accomplishing something. He thought that he was actually getting to a place that he ultimately wanted to be. And in reality, it was just something that was being made up in his brain. And the note and all these other things, when you try to put a rational explanation as to why they occurred. If an irrational person was creating them, it makes it that much more difficult.

• 1:08:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and I tend to lean, well, my theory, we're going to discuss last.

• 1:08:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, right.

• 1:08:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  But, but if it wasn't that, it was this. That's where I'm at.

• 1:08:53Derrick Levasseur?

  This is theory number two, right?

• 1:08:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, so no, my theory is not theory number two.

• 1:08:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, so this is a second theory. This is not the one that you're leaning towards.

• 1:09:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, correct.

• 1:09:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:09:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, theory number two asks the question, was Rey Rivera murdered? And was Porter Stansberry or Agora involved? One of the most widely discussed theories in Rey Rivera's case is that he was murdered and that his longtime friend and employer Porter Stansberry or someone else from Agora was involved. This theory is compelling for several reasons, particularly the strange behavior of Agora employees, the mysterious phone call that led to Ray's disappearance, and the suspicious handling of the case by law enforcement. The last known communication Ray received before vanishing was a phone call from the Agora switchboard. Whoever called him that evening remains unknown. The content of the call is still a mystery. However, what happened next only fueled suspicion.

• 1:09:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  After Ray's body was found, Agora employees were instructed not to speak to police about the case. When unsolved mysteries began covering the story, Stansberry and his associates sent a cease and desist letter to the show's producers. When that failed, they went a step further and hired a crisis management team, an unusual move for someone who claimed to be Ray's best friend. Well, I, I think there's reasonable explanations for this, but we're gonna, we're gonna talk more about this theory. Let's take our last break. We'll be right back.

• 1:10:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. So at first, remember, when Ray went missing, Porter Stansberry seemed genuinely concerned. He put up money for a reward. He was talking to the press. But after Rey's death, Porter's behavior changed drastically. And allegedly, he became uncooperative and secretive. Why would someone who supposedly cared so much about Ray suddenly go silent? Adding to the suspicion, Porter's name appears multiple times in the cryptic note found taped to Ray's computer. The contents of this note remain enigmatic, but if Ray was writing about real events or people, it could imply something deeper than just a delusional episode. Now, as far as Porter Stansberry's involvement, there is no proof or evidence of it. And you

• 1:10:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  could absolutely say, because somebody like Porter Stansberry is going to be very concerned about public image and public perception, right? He's going to know, hey, I'm out here giving people financial advice. My job, my career, everything, my livelihood depends on people's, like, understanding that I'm trustworthy and reliable, and I'm not like a bad or nefarious person. So that may kind of explain why, especially if he was innocent, he sent a cease and desist letter to Unsolved Mysteries, because he just didn't even want them to explore the theory that he was involved. Because, as you know, it doesn't really matter

• 1:11:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  what you can prove. It just kind of matters what people think based on the theories. And a lot of people did run with the Porter Stansberry theory, which would then, you know, make it understandable why, why Stansberry Associates and Research Associates, his company, would hire a crisis management team. Because they're like, shit, somehow we got wrapped up in this. We've, we've stayed silent. We told employees not to talk to the press, not to talk to anybody, because we just didn't want this to spiral and have somebody say something that could be taken the wrong way, or picked apart, or misinterpreted. We tried to stay really quiet here. And now it just feels like we've lost control of this and this is our reputation, the company's reputation, Porter's reputation.

• 1:12:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, a lot of money on the line.

• 1:12:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  A lot of money online.

• 1:12:22Derrick Levasseur?

  A lot of people's jobs on the line.

• 1:12:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I, we had talked before we recorded, we had a, uh, someone reach out who actually runs the Crime Weekly Discussion Fan Page on Facebook, Meredith, um, and she mentioned that, and you had, you had known this as well, you, you kind of concluded in your research that the prosecutors had covered this case in 2020, I think you covered around that same time as well.

• 1:12:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:12:43Derrick Levasseur?

  And they had mentioned in their episode that Stansberry Research, which is what it was called at the time, had actually reached out to them. It wasn't technically a cease and desist, but to your point, they had alluded to the whole Netflix thing and the unsolved mysteries thing and said, listen, there's a lot of things that have been included in these docu-series that aren't true. And we advise you guys to refer to the FBI reports and all this stuff. And you might say, oh, he's trying to cover his tracks. He's trying to, uh, you know, cover up the truth. No, it could be exactly what you're saying. If he didn't have anything to do with it, and people are putting out these false allegations, it could affect him, his family, and the people that work for him exponentially. So it's only human nature to try to get in front of that. And on a much lower level, we even experience it sometimes, right? Things can be taken out of context and they can start

• 1:13:27Derrick Levasseur?

  to grow a life of their own.

• 1:13:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:29Derrick Levasseur?

  And all of a sudden, people are canceling you for something that you didn't even say.

• 1:13:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Isn't even true.

• 1:13:34Derrick Levasseur?

  But based on the telephone game, now it's, it's came, it's took on its own life. So I, I understand it. And I, and I do think that sometimes as a society, we tend to look at someone defending themselves as a form of guilt. And it's not. In some cases, it's just because they want the truth out there and they're trying to prevent people from spreading false allegations. So could go one way or the other, but yeah, I'm with you on this one.

• 1:13:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, we've seen this. It's, it's just, once again, especially with the era of social media.

• 1:14:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Jesus, yeah.

• 1:14:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  A rumor or an allegation turns into the truth and facts.

• 1:14:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 1:14:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Before, like overnight, and, and you're over here, you know, being the person that's being discussed and you're like, I absolutely know that's not the truth. But at that point, there's not, there's not even a purpose or a productive reason to get involved and defend yourself because now whatever you say, the people who've already developed this idea about you. They're not gonna change it.

• 1:14:29Derrick Levasseur?

  They're not gonna change.

• 1:14:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  They're not gonna change it.

• 1:14:31Derrick Levasseur?

  The problem is the people listening to them as if it's fact. I mean, even with traitors. Like, people are dissecting things that we're not saying, like, oh, Derek didn't say this for this reason. It's because of this. And I'm, I'm, I look at the tweet and I'm like, no. But then all of a sudden, it's got 2,000, 3,000 likes and people are like, yes, yes, you're right. And I'm like, uh, I was just worrying about what we were gonna eat for lunch that day. That's what I was, I was just hungry.

• 1:14:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and that's absolutely fine if you're a logical human being who looks at what's going on on like Twitter or Reddit or the internet and you're like, oh, these are just bored people.

• 1:15:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Who have too much time on their hands. Like, if you looked at it logically like that, but there's other people who sort of like jump on that bandwagon. And then before you know it, it's like this whole narrative exists.

• 1:15:12Derrick Levasseur?

  It's got a life of its own.

• 1:15:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's not rooted in the truth. And you're like, uh, I mean, I could set this straight, but at this point.

• 1:15:18Derrick Levasseur?

  No, it's the, yeah. Yeah, it's already off the, the wheels are already off the, off the vehicle at that point.

• 1:15:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, we get it there. We're not saying Porter Stansberry did anything. Now, did Ray think he was doing something?

• 1:15:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course.

• 1:15:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Did Ray think he was malicious?

• 1:15:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:15:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes. That doesn't mean that he was. Just means that maybe Ray had that perception for whatever reason, whether it was a mental illness, etc.

• 1:15:41Derrick Levasseur?

  So, so what you're telling me right now is that you don't believe Ray was thrown from Porter's helicopter?

• 1:15:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I don't.

• 1:15:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay. Progress.

• 1:15:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I looked more into that.

• 1:15:53Derrick Levasseur?

  You almost like disappointed.

• 1:15:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I'm not disappointed, but it's a cool theory. It's just doesn't, it doesn't have legs once you kind of, yeah.

• 1:16:02Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, if you're talking about separating yourself from a crime that you don't want to be connected to, strongly recommend you don't use your own helicopter or a helicopter in general, considering you're known.

• 1:16:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, a low-flying helicopter like that might, you know, raise some eyebrows.

• 1:16:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, it just wouldn't make a lot of sense. There's other ways you would do it in order to disconnect yourself from the actual crime.

• 1:16:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the biggest inconsistencies in this case, though, is the lack of eyewitnesses who saw Ray inside the Belvedere Hotel on the night he supposedly jumped or fell. No one recalled seeing Ray enter the hotel. No surveillance footage exists, either because it was corrupted, missing, or erased. If he'd gone out onto the 11th floor ledge, even then, someone should have seen him, given the busy nature of the hotel, the area around it, its many visitors. The Baltimore Police report suggested that Ray was familiar with the Belvedere, but his wife Allison disputed this, saying that while they had visited the Owl Bar a couple of times, they had never been to the 13th floor nightclub or other areas of the hotel.

• 1:17:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Could Ray have gone there with coworkers from Agora? Possibly. Their headquarters is right on the corner. But if Ray was such a frequent visitor, wouldn't at least one employee have recognized him walking around on the night of his death? The medical examiner's findings further complicated the case. Dr. Melissa Brazel, who conducted the autopsy, did not provide a definitive cause of death. Instead, she stated, quote, "Injuries at the time of the autopsy were consistent with the fall from a height. Because the circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear, it is not known how the deceased came to have precipitated from a height. The manner of death has been classified as undetermined." End quote. Notably, Dr.

• 1:17:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Brazel privately told Allison that she, quote, "knew what they were doing," a cryptic statement that some interpret as her way of implying that the police were trying to rush the case and rule it a suicide. The doctor also noted that the way Ray's legs were broken was not entirely consistent with a typical fall from a great height. Now, if we look at the state of the Baltimore Police Department and the Emmys Office at this time, we might get some answers as to why law enforcement may have been rushing the case and ruling it a suicide without a thorough investigation. In a post by blogger Caleb Keltenbach, we get some interesting statistics.

• 1:18:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  He writes that when Ray died in 2006, that year, 276 of the 4,323 bodies autopsied by the Baltimore Medical Examiner's Office Were labeled homicides, but that same year, the Baltimore homicide rate was very high. Forty three point three percent compared to the national average homicide rate of five point eight percent. Caleb writes, quote, "It is logical to assume that in two thousand and six, the number of homicides could have overwhelmed the Baltimore ME's office. For instance, when someone dies, the medical examiner will label the death as one of four causes, natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or obviously the fifth cause would be undetermined.

• 1:19:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  In two thousand and four, about 10% of Baltimore deaths were labeled undetermined by the ME's office. In two thousand and six, Baltimore's undetermined deaths grew to 20%. Most major cities have a few undetermined cases, but 10% undetermined is high, according to forensic pathology experts like Cyril Wecht, end quote, which would make 20% very high, right? 20% undetermined. And just like the ME's office may have been overwhelmed with the number of homicides, the police department was probably in the same boat. There is also the little issue of the police file on the case being so hard to get. There have been many FOIA requests done, but no one ever gets the file or the whole file.

• 1:19:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  And if they do receive something, it's just heavily redacted loose papers.

• 1:19:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, you know why that is, right? I mean, we can just nip that one in the bud right now. Like it's, it's because it's an open investigation now. Is it actively being worked?

• 1:20:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 1:20:01Derrick Levasseur?

  No, but because it's still open, that's what they can always fall back on, even with a FOIA.

• 1:20:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, yes, and somebody who's looked a lot into this case, Stephen Janis, he tried to get ahold of the file, only to find through a police contact that it wasn't where it should have been. And the only copy was locked in Detective Marvin Sidner's desk. Marvin Sidner was the detective who took over for Michael Behr after he was reassigned. Stephen Janis has deeply investigated Ray's case, and he found that there were no photographs of the scene where Ray's body was found. There was no diagram made of the room where he was found. There were no subpoenas for cell records or Ray's cell phone records. And he spoke to a homicide investigator who said that there were no statements taken from anyone, even the three people who found the hole. And the roof. Now, that's insane, right?

• 1:20:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Insane, insane. And, and I will say, as far as these files, when you're talking about them being in a desk somewhere for one detective, I've mentioned it a million times. Police reports are digitized, for the most part, where they're typing their reports inside a portal. Ours was called IMC. Where you're typing the report, everyone's report goes into that same portal. You log in with your own username. So you can technically go on there and print out the quote unquote "report", which will obtain all the statements from everybody who's entered them into IMC. But if there's like handwritten witness statements, or diagrams, or photos that were taken and printed out, and they haven't been uploaded to IMC, which by the way, that happens a lot. Half the report doesn't get uploaded.

• 1:21:31Derrick Levasseur?

  So then it really, there really is only one copy. There's only one person who has access to that complete folder. They're supposed to be uploaded, everything, to the IMC portal, but it doesn't always happen. And that creates bigger problems, because how many times, maybe not even on Crime Weekly, have you said, "Oh, the evidence or the reports were in an evidence cabinet that got flooded, or a fire happened"?

• 1:21:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, guess what? If it had been uploaded to the portal, it's cloud-based.

• 1:21:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it's digitized, right?

• 1:22:01Derrick Levasseur?

  But they don't do it. So the report dies with that fire or flood. That's the, that's the problem. So that could be the case here, where they haven't uploaded it, and basically this one guy has the completed file.

• 1:22:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, he has got the actual original file.

• 1:22:15Derrick Levasseur?

  So if there was a witness statement taken by one of these individuals that you mentioned, nobody who has access to the portal would know that, because this detective has the actual written statement in his, in his, locked in his desk.

• 1:22:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  But why would he lock it in his desk and not digitize it?

• 1:22:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Do you want the honest answer?

• 1:22:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, there's gotta be more than one honest answer. It's gotta go beyond, "Oh, just I'm too lazy to do it."

• 1:22:36Derrick Levasseur?

  True, true, there's, there's more than one, but in my experience, laziness. I can't tell you how many times I've yelled at my guys for not doing it. Hey, listen, where's that narcotics report? We have a trial coming up in two weeks. The defense attorney just requested the entire report. I went to print it out, and it's missing half the things that we did. Where is it? Oh, sorry, sorry, Sarge. It's in my desk. I'll, I'll get it uploaded today. That's the innocent example.

• 1:23:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think this is a different scenario though, because this case was, you know, got national recognition.

• 1:23:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  It was a big mystery. People are writing books about it. You'd think you want to upload all of that just to kind of take away any suggestion that you're trying to

• 1:23:12Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it.

• 1:23:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  secret something away or hide something.

• 1:23:14Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it.

• 1:23:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  You think that'd be a top priority, actually, so that this dude's not the only one with the full file locked in his desk, like he's trying to hide something.

• 1:23:21Derrick Levasseur?

  You, you would think so. We have a case, Michelle Norris. I covered it on Breaking Homicide. That was a case that, over the years, we brought back out and had multiple people look at. And that had gotten national attention. And yet, it wasn't until probably my ninth or 10th year on the job, when we decided to pull everything from her case out of storage, that we realized 70% of the report hadn't been uploaded. So the first thing we did as this new group was spend weeks organizing everything and digitizing it all, because nobody over the past 25 years had done that. And there was a public outcry in that case. So you're right. I have no argument, but it does still happen. It's not right.

• 1:24:04Derrick Levasseur?

  And it may not even be the reason or the motive behind this, as you're alluding to. And because they haven't uploaded it, it creates that speculation about the deeper meaning of potential conspiracies.

• 1:24:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:16Derrick Levasseur?

  So I'm totally on board with you. I have no dispute with it.

• 1:24:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, look at the Black Dahlia, like, the LAPD has that, that file, like, under lock and key.

• 1:24:25Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it.

• 1:24:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Nobody can see it. And it just adds to this conspiracy and the speculation that's gone on for decades. It's like, what are you hiding?

• 1:24:31Derrick Levasseur?

  So another counterpoint that you just brought up, which is worth noting, here's the downside to the portal, okay? You can put measures on there where only certain people can open that portal, but you could have someone access the portal for a high-profile case that gets paid off by the media or an outlet, a news outlet, and they print out that report, even though they're not working on that case, because they got paid 10 grand to do so. So that is the argument that some will make, that when it's in the portal, everyone has access to it, but it's not a good enough reason. You have to upload it.

• 1:25:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  reason because at the end of the day like yo this happened in two thousand and six

• 1:25:11Derrick Levasseur?

  yeah

• 1:25:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  it is twenty twenty five

• 1:25:14Derrick Levasseur?

  yeah

• 1:25:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  so what if somebody gets it y'all know you're not acting actively working on it

• 1:25:18Derrick Levasseur?

  that's

• 1:25:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  y'all know you're not doing shit with it so what if somebody gets it that you said it was a suicide why would you care if somebody got

• 1:25:23Derrick Levasseur?

  correct yeah I'm with you

• 1:25:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  yeah so and also reportedly there was a person in the parking garage just adjacent to the hotel who'd been in touch with the police saying he thought he had a video of the parking garage on the night that Ray disappeared but the police allegedly never followed up with this person so it's kind of like they thought suicide this is what it is we got like our freaking homicide rate is spiked up to forty percent right now it's crazy we have a lot going on we don't have time to pursue this in the way we would if we thought there was foul play so we're just gonna say there's no foul play

• 1:25:55Derrick Levasseur?

  yeah yeah I'm not good

• 1:25:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  now as I mentioned last episode my personal theory is that Ray was somehow allured to the top of the parking garage next to the Belvedere Hotel if Ray jumped or fell why were his injuries more consistent with being hit by a car one of the biggest contradictions in the case is the nature of Rey Rivera's injuries medical experts suggest that his wounds do not align with those typically seen in a high altitude fall instead they bear more resemblance to the injuries sustained from being hit by a vehicle or a lower impact collision when someone falls from a great height such as from the Belvedere rooftop or the parking garage the majority of severe trauma is usually to the spine pelvis and legs because the body naturally rotates midair in contrast

• 1:26:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Ray's injuries were more evenly distributed which is uncommon for falls from high places a fall from the Belvedere's height about fourteen stories would usually cause extensive skull fractures given the force of impact and while Ray did have head trauma the pattern of fractures did not match the severity expected from a fall of that height he had torso and rib fractures but once again they were more consistent with blunt force trauma like a vehicular accident or a lower fall rather than a direct impact with the ground from a great height in case of high falls legs and feet are typically shattered Due to the natural instinct to land feet first. However, Ray did not have the expected pattern of leg injuries, which raises doubts about this fall theory.

• 1:27:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  In a fall, you would expect to see more bilateral lower limb injuries, so similar injuries on both sides, but that is not noted in Ray's autopsy report. He has some of these on his right side, but basically nothing on his left side. His body also exhibited soft tissue trauma and bruising that is often seen in vehicular accidents or physical assaults, rather than just a free fall impact. Additionally, if Ray was conscious when he was falling, you would expect to see injuries to his arms, indicating he tried to break or block his fall. Like, he's falling, he's going through the roof, he's not gonna like go through like a bullet, you know, he's gonna try to grab the roof or do something to stop himself from falling. You would expect

• 1:28:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  that there would be something like that if he was conscious.

• 1:28:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  It makes sense that somebody brought him up there, and as he's standing there waiting for this person, they shoot across, you know, shoot across the parking garage area, which is at the top, it's at the roof, boom, hit him, he goes flying, reaching that kind of almost 10 miles per hour sort of trajectory that our friend sent us, and then he falls through.

• 1:28:38Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't want to interrupt. Is that your overall?

• 1:28:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, that is, that is my theory. That is my theory. His, his injuries, and a lot of doctors and medical experts have come out and said, listen, we get it, but you're not seeing the injuries you would see if he fell from such a height that's police are suggesting. This looks more like he got hit by a car.

• 1:28:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. And I don't, I don't have any pushback. I think that you make very, very fair points, and I think that it's very possible. I think the two of us, one of us is probably right here. Both scenarios have elements of it that suggest that's the way it went down. I think it could be, like I said, or as you said, in theory, number one, some type of delusional disorder that resulted in Ray thinking things were going on that were and he went up there and to kind of enter the game or leave that quote unquote game, he jumped off the roof or as I think I even mentioned it last episode, I think it brought up the whole vehicle idea. There is a lot of

• 1:29:40Derrick Levasseur?

  viability to it that he could have been struck by a vehicle, which would explain the injuries, which would also explain the sandals being at a different location outside of the hole. I'm really having deja vu when I'm saying this right now, but anyways.

• 1:29:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I think you mentioned, because I heard people in the comments saying like, I heard, I heard, like, I heard in my brain, because I read out loud in my brain, but I saw them saying in the comments, like, oh, I agree with Derek, like, if he was gonna run, he would have had his sandals in his hand, not wearing them.

• 1:30:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, so, so I'm with you. I think, I don't think Porter Sandberg was involved. I think it could be something else that he was in, that Ray might have been involved in if this scenario is what actually happened. But if you made me choose based on the note, based on the evidence that we do have, based on the fact that Allison did describe some change in behavior prior to this incident, I think unfortunately Ray was having some type of psychological breakdown, some type of disorder that at that point was undiagnosed and ultimately it led to him believing things were going on that weren't. I can't explain everything. I can't tell you about the phone call. I can't tell you about the injuries that were sustained that didn't coincide with the actual fall itself. But if he had jumped off the building,

• 1:30:52Derrick Levasseur?

  maybe he hit something on the way. I don't know. But that's what I would lean towards.

• 1:30:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, overall, we'll never know.

• 1:31:00Derrick Levasseur?

  We may never know. I hope we're wrong, but we may never know. And we're thinking about Allison and Ray's family. Obviously, a lot of people have covered this. You've covered this. Other podcasts have covered this. Netflix, Unsolved Mysteries.

• 1:31:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's an enduring mystery, yes.

• 1:31:14Derrick Levasseur?

  And nobody knows. So.

• 1:31:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Nobody knows, but it's not, it's not straightforward that we can definitely say it's not straightforward. And we want to hear what your theories are. Which of these theories that we talked about, do you believe or do you have a separate theory of your own? Let us know in the comments.

• 1:31:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. Let us know in the comments. And if by chance, law enforcement officers involved in this case are watching or listening. Digitize the report, upload it, put it out there, get another fresh set of eyes on this case because no disrespect, it's been a long time, you haven't solved it yet, you're probably not going to solve it. If it, if not for any other reason other, other than to dispel the rumors that are out there. Upload this for Allison and Ray's family so that they can look at the information themselves and maybe they'll feel more comfortable with some of the conclusions that federal agents have come to.

• 1:32:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:04Derrick Levasseur?

  That's where I'm at on it. Anything else?

• 1:32:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  The taxpayers are the ones that, that, you know, pay your bills.

• 1:32:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Pay your salaries.

• 1:32:11Derrick Levasseur?

  We're at a point.

• 1:32:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hiding things from them decades later seems dumb and suspicious. So stop being dumb and suspicious. Yeah.

• 1:32:18Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree. 20, 30 years later, it's about time. Uh, I think that's gonna do it for us. We appreciate you guys tuning in for the Rey Rivera series. We'll be back next week with a new case. We're not gonna tell you, we're gonna make you come back to find out. But until then, everyone stay safe out there and we'll see you soon.

• 1:32:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.