Pamela June Ray Pt. One - podcast episode cover

Pamela June Ray Pt. One

Nov 16, 202339 min
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Episode description

August 12, 1992. Panama City Beach, Florida. After leaving her home in Georgia on a vacation with her two children, 36-year old Pamela June Ray arrives at a beachfront motel during the early morning hours and parks in front of the office. Pamela’s children are sleeping in the back seat, but when they wake up a few hours later, they learn that their mother has vanished and a patrol officer reports having seen Pamela in the company of an unidentified man shortly before she went missing. Years later, a convicted killer named Mark Riebe confesses to the murders of over a dozen woman, including Pamela, but he later recants all of his confessions. Was Riebe actually responsible for Pamela June Ray’s disappearance? If so, what happened to her remains? This week’s episode of “The Path Went Chilly” explores a disturbing missing persons case which has yet to find a resolution after nearly 30 years.

Patreon.com/julesandashley

Patreon.com/thetrailwentcold

Additional Reading:

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Pamela_June_Rayhttp://charleyproject.org/case/pamela-june-ray

https://lostnfoundblogs.com/f/pamela-june-ray-no-vacancyhttps://lostnfoundblogs.com/f/mark-riebe-sins-of-the-father

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20190706/looking-for-answers-in-pamela-june-rays-1992-disappearance

https://www.ajc.com/news/crime–law/years-ago-this-week-georgia-mother-disappeared-her-children-slept/bHDWApPaVO3tfhZgA3xobO/

https://www.newsherald.com/news/20190317/unsolved-bay-county-disappearance-of-pamela-ray

Transcript

Welcome back to the Pathway, Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley, and this is a special episode, but I'll let Robin tell you why in just a moment. Let's dive right into this week's case. August twelfth, nineteen ninety two, Panama City, Beach, Florida. After leaving her home in Georgia on a vacation with her two children, thirty six year old pan La June Ray arrives at a beachfront motel during the early morning

hours and parks in front of the office. Pamela's children are sleeping in the back seat, but when they wake up a few hours later, they learn that their mother is vanished, and a patrol officer reports having seen Pamela in the company of an unidentified man shortly before she went missing. Years later, a convicted murderer named Mark Reebe confesses to abducting and killing Pamela, but he

later recounts this confession and no trace of her is ever found. After that, the path went chilly, So today we're going to be exploring a frightening cold case involving a missing mother. The nineteen ninety two disappearance of Pamela June

Ray. Now, I covered this one on the Trail and Cold nearly three years ago, and as you might know, I hold an ongoing contest where each month I hold a live drawing in which I pick out the name of a random winner who gets the opportunity to narrate the opening of an episode. Well back in April of twenty twenty one, I wound up drawing the name Ashley Wellman, and she wound up recording the opening narration Pamela June Ray's case.

So to put this into perspective at that time, well, you'd only recently launched the Path Went Chilly, But I had no idea that Ashley had originally entered the Trail Went Cold voiceover contest back in January of twenty eighteen, back when she was just a casual fan of the show and we did not know each other. So it was quite an astonishing coincidence when I picked out her name, and the rest is history. Okay. I wish you guys could see my face right now, because I have a very nerdy like fangirl

smile and giddiness to me. Yes, I beg of that. Still, I remember sitting on the couch and opening up my email and being like, hey, Ash, can you record this? You know you got picked for this contest? Can you record this opening? And being so excited and so honored to be able to do that for your podcast because I was a huge fan before becoming a friend, and yeah, I'm wondering, have I gotten better? I think so, Yes, you've improved. I'll definitely second that.

But what is kind of funny is that when you originally entered it, you had an entirely different email, which I think has since gone defunct. So it was a good thing we'd become friends because otherwise I wouldn't have known how to contact you. It was one of my university emails and then found you tracked me down and found me that's right. Yeah, well it was an honor and I am excited to listen to the case that I got to introduce a couple of years ago. When Jules was reading the intro, did

you recognize this case? No? And then I got this huge grin when you started talking. I went, stop it stop, that's exciting. The only thing that did trigger anything was Panama City because that's so close to where I grew up in Pensacola, Florida. So then I was like, wait a minute, A lot of crimes have happened there. So here we go with Pamela June Ray. I love how when Ashley won the contest, so

many people accused you of fixing it. Exactly like I had a ball with five hundred names of Ashley Willman in there and just happened to it out in front of the camera, just to rig the whole thing. I mean, you got to play favorites when you're one of your fans as your co host, right, exactly right. He did not rig it up, just as giddy, just as giddy, and just as excited and actually a little nervous

to record his intro. So it was quite a pleasure. It was a serendipitous moment, and it's one of those things that brings us back to the fact that before we were friends with Robin, both Ashley and I were fans of the show. Right, so we've become friends over these years, but before then, back in twenty eighteen, we were both just listening to the trail and Cold, never thinking that we would be partnered with Robin on a

podcast. So one of the poor unfortunate souls that's listening right now might be doing a podcast with one of us. So given the circumstances, I thought it would be a good idea for all of us to revisit the Pamela June Ray case. It involves a mother who decided to take her two children on a vacation to Florida, but vanished from a motel parking lot shortly after she

arrived, presumably after being abducted by an unidentified male. The case was once featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and in recent years has received coverage on the British true crime series Serial Killers with Pierce Morgan, which featured an interview with a convicted murderer named Mark Reebe, who once confessed to being responsible

for Pamela's disappearance. Even though Reebe has only officially been linked to one murder, there has been speculation that he is a serial killer who may have been responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen women, including Pamela. This episode will also contain research from the website Lost and Found blogs dot com, which is run by my friend and fellow Unsolved Mysteries van Heather Grautman, who goes under the name Crystal Dawn and has published a pair of extensive articles about

this case. Even though there have been some compelling leads in the investigation, Pamela is still a missing person, which is why we'll be exploring this story together. Okay, so Robin, in this case, she's with her children right when she pulls up to this hotel, and then the children are found in the car later. Yet they literally slept through the whole thing. They just woke up and their mother was missing, and they to this day they have no idea what happened. Okay, I don't care what's going on.

It takes a heck of a lot for a mother to choose to leave her children. I just it is devastating to think that those babies were in the back of that car and she gets out for who knows what, and doesn't return. That is the most heartbreaking part of all of this is those kids had no idea. She likely had no idea she wasn't coming back to jump right back in the car with them. And now we have no answers.

Those kids have no answers as to what happened to their mom. This case is already going to be devastating to rehear and listen to the details of it. Our story begins in nineteen ninety two, and our central figure is thirty six year old Pamela June Ray, who lives in Phila Rica, Georgia, with her husband, been Michael Ray, and their two children, twelve year

old Shane and five year old Brandy. Since school is going to be starting soon, Pamela wants to take her kids on one last vacation to visit Panama City Beach, Florida, but since Michael is busy working, he'll be unable

to come along with them. On August eleven, Pamela loaded her son and daughter into her blue nineteen ninety one Plymouth Sun Dance and went to visit her brother in the town of Luthersville. After visiting his house at around ten thirty pm, Pamela began her two hundred and fifty mile drive to Panama City Beach

and would arrive during the early morning hours of August twelfth. The previous evening, Pamela had phoned the manager of the Wilheight Motel on Front Beach Road to inquire about making a reservation and was told that a room would be available at nine or ten AM. When she arrived, Pamela parked her car in front of the motel's office while Shane and Brandy remained sleeping in the back seat,

but shortly thereafter she would vanish without a trace. At around eight thirty am, one of the motel's employees noticed that the two children were sleeping unattended inside the Plymouth Sun Dance and became concerned enough to contact the Panama City Beach Police Department. When police arrived at the scene, they discovered that the sundance was locked, so they knocked on the window to wake up Shane and Brandy,

who told him that they had no idea where their mother was. It turned out the paneless keys and her purse, which contained two hundred dollars in travelers checks, were still inside the car, and since she was known for being a very devoted mother who was protective of her children, it seemed very unlikely

that she left them alone of her own accord. A missing person's report would be filed for Pamela, and after the rest of her family were informed about what was happening, they traveled down to Panama City Beach to pick up the children and participate in The search for her front beach road contained a number of beachfront motels, including the will Height, but even though every single room was

checked, it failed to turn up any trace of Pamela. This is so bizarre because she is doing exactly what she's told everyone she's going to do. She sees her brother, She gets on this long overnight road trip. I've done it as a mom. The kids are sleeping, it's quiet. Get in the car. I can make it through the night and take a nap

when I get to the hotel, and she does. She gets there about thirty minutes before the hotel employee says that her room's going to be ready, right or yeah, about thirty minutes before nine o'clock, And she's likely waiting for that permission to go check in and get the room key so she can take the kids in, she can rest, clean up, and they can start their little mini vacation. And her car's in the hotel parking lot right. Yes. One thing I wanted to correct is that she didn't arrive at

eight thirty. That's when they noticed that the children were sleeping inside. So she had probably arrived like a couple hours before, like the early morning hours when when most people would have been sleeping, and that's probably the reason why she disappeared, and no one really recorded seeing anything. Okay, Okay,

that makes even more sense. So she knows that she's too early to check in, which means she probably was napping in the car and maybe had to get out and go to the restroom or something that got her out of that vehicle, or maybe someone even came and got her out of that vehicle.

But that makes even more sense, Robin, thank you for clarifying. So she's there early and is waiting for that time where she's been given permission to go in get the room key, and between the times she pulls up to where she was supposed to be and the time that the kids are found at eight thirty, someone or something happened that took her away from those babies.

So wow, And I think it's such an important distinction that eight thirty is when the children were found, not when Pamela got there, because the difference between eight thirty and when she potentially got there at maybe say around five am, you would have the cover of darkness, and a lot of things can happen under the cover of darkness that people would not even attempt to do if it were light outside, because there's going to be all these different eyeballs on

them. But to think that somebody could have attempted something when her vehicle is right there, the motel is right there, and there's so many potential people who could see this person abduct Pamela or do something to Pamela, because we know she would never leave of her own accord, because her babies are sleeping. Like Ashley had said earlier, nothing is going to take her away from

those children. All she wants to do is just hunk her down for a night with those kids and finally catch up on some sleep after this long drive. Like it's just it's so shocking. I can't imagine what these people must have felt when they came upon these like sleeping little babes in the car and just where's their mother? So here a more details about the circumstances of how

Pamela went missing. Investigators would hear from multiple witnesses who were called seeing Pamela sitting inside her plymous sun dance in front of the motel office around five am on the morning of August twelfth. However, the most interesting sighting would be from a patrol officer who was driving through the area at five twenty five and

thought he saw Pamela standing outside her vehicle with an unidentified white male. After being placed under hypnosis, the officer recalled the white male as being around six feet tall and one hundred and fifty pounds, with light hair and light eyes, and wearing a shirt which had alternating dark and light colored horizontal stripes. He saw Pamela lock her car and followed the man towards the parking lot next

to the motel's swimming pool area. A few minutes after the officer drove off, some of the guests at the motel recalled hearing the sounds of a woman screaming out for help, but since the rooms there did not have phones,

they were unable to call anyone for assistance. Unfortunately, the area would also be hit with a heavy rainfall during his time period, which may have washed away potential evidence prior to Pamela's arrival at the Prior to Pamela's arrival at the motel, other witnesses had also recalled seeing a man urinating in public who matched

the description of the unidentified male. Okay, do we know if Pamela smoked or anything like could she have been leaning up against the car when she arrived and having a cigarette and someone walked up to talk to her, or maybe she was trying to snag a cigarette from somebody walking by and that sparks a conversation, or like, what do we know about why she might have been

outside the car. I'm just checking the Charlie Project profile page for it doesn't say anything about cigarettes or her being a smoker, so I'm not entirely sure about that. But one theory which has been pushed forward is that she might have thought that this man was a motel manager or a motel employee who might have been saying, Hey, your room's ready earlier than expected, you can come in now, and was saying, like, accompany me to the office

or something. But of course he was just like a predator who took advantage of the situation and then abducted her from the scene. It's like a bold predator who would do that with two sleeping children in the car exactly. And it's just pretty much like pure chance, because you're not going to be expecting to be hanging outside a motel at five twenty five am and just see a woman arriving without her husband, just being alone with two kids, and know

that, hey, I can abduct her. So it just seems like Pamela was just in the wrong place, the wrong time and just found this very bold predator who just happened to be hanging around the area during the early morning hours. One month after Pamela went missing, police received a promising lead when a twenty nine year old Panama City resident named Andrew Paul Henry was arrested for

kidnapping and rape. On March fourth, a male suspect abducted a woman outside a convenience store in the town of Chipley, located over fifty miles away. He proceeded to hit her on the head with a bottle and choke her into unconsciousness, before taking her into a wooded area and raping her. Even though the perpetrator threatened to kill the woman, she managed to convince him to let

her go, and she subsequently reported the crime to police. When Henry was arrested six months later, the vic and picked him out of a photo lineup, But the problem is that there were some inconsistencies between Henry and the original description that she provided of her attacker. For instance, she mentioned him sporting a tattoo in a spot where Henry did not have one, and described the

attacker as driving a different brand of car than the one Henry drove. As a result of these inconsistencies, the kidnapping and rape charges against Henry were dropped. Henry did seem to match the description of the man seen with Pamela, and there were also reports that he'd been sitting in a folding chair outside the Wilheighte Motel in the hours prior to Pamela's disappearance. This guy in the chair was also described as wearing a striped shirt, the same type of shirt the

patrol officer had seen on the man with Pamela. Police used cadaver dogs to search the wooded area where the first female victim's attack took place, but they never found evidence linking Henry to Pamela's case, and he has since passed away. So they were thinking that this is somebody who has his own mo in safe space where he's going to take his victims, right, So that's why they go back and they're looking at that place where the first female victims attack

took place, but they find nothing. It is very interesting that while he matches the description of the man in Pamela's case, this first victim actually isn't necessarily describing him to a tee. The tattoos particularly concerning, because that's something that you can't eliminate quickly or easily. She describes a tattoo, which is something that was burned into her mind, something she wanted to remember. And

then here is Henry and he doesn't have that tattoo. You could easily explain the car away right, like how he borrowed somebody's car, or he even stole a car when he abducted this other victim. But the tattoos concerning Now, clearly Henry seems to have some problems. To what extent do you believe

he really was someone of interest in this case? Well, I even though he was never charged with his rape, we're going to talk about how he had other troubling stuff in his background at this time, so he definitely did

not seem like a good guy. And even though the attack the victim could not do a positive ID, I think there's a good chance he did actually raper and that maybe the inconsistencies with the tattoo in the car, maybe the result of trauma of her being in like a terrible situation, so she's just not remembering things as clearly as she could have. But I don't know if

there's anything that really ties him to Panama City Beach. Like. That's the thing, is that even though he lived in the area where Pamela went missing, he decided to drive over fifty miles away to abduct this woman in the town of Chipley, which makes you think, well, if he's going to commit crimes, maybe he prefers to commit them away from where he lives so that it's more difficult to link him to them. So I don't know if there's really a lot that links him to Pamela's case, but he definitely was

worth checking out because he does have a history of violence towards women. Yeah, problematic behavior, but not necessarily fitting the description of what's happening here. Can we clarify one thing if you know the answer, Robin, So the guy sitting in the folding chair. Was he seen sitting in the folding chair

at like five am or is this after Pamela went missing? He was in the folding chair just the hours prior to Pamela's disappearance, I mean, I don't know if that means he was there at five am or if he had just been seen like during the early morning hours before Pamela arrived, but he

apparently was not there after Pamela waent missing. Because the guy sitting in a folding chair at eight thirty in the morning doesn't seem so weird, but being out there at five am, just like chilling in a folding chair is a little odd. Yeah, It's like, regardless of whether or not that guy was Henry, I do think that the guy in the chair was probably Pamela's

a doctor. So after Pamela's father, Ralph Bennett, sent in a letter to Unsolved Mysteries asking them to feature her story, they put together a special alert segment about her disappearance, which aired in December of nineteen ninety two. Well, the case would take us a prizing turn in nineteen ninety eight, when a convicted murderer named Mark Reebe confessed to being responsible for the murders of

thirteen women, including Pamela. At the time, Reebe had recently started serving a life sentence for another murder, which had also previously been featured on Unsolved Mysteries. Several years ago, I released a minisode about the unsolved disappearance of Deborah Po, a twenty six year old convenience store clerk who vanished while working the graveyard shift at a Circle K in Orlando on February the fourth, nineteen ninety and if you're one of our patrons, you might recall that we also

covered this one on an exclusive bonus minisode of The Path Went Chile. While Deborah is still a missing person of this day, the Unsaw Mystery segment about her case explored the possibility that her disappearance might have been connected to some other cold cases from Florida involving female convenience store clerks. Six months earlier, on August the sixth, nineteen eighty nine, twenty nine year old Donna Callahan, who happened to be three months pregnant, vanished during in the middle of her

ship at a convenience store in Gulf Breeze. As the years went on, words spread that a convicted inmate named William alex Wells, who was serving a thirty year prison sentence for armed robbery, had confessed during a prison Bible study

session that he was responsible for killing Donna Callahan. After building up a case against Wells, investigators eventually indicted him for Donna's murder, but in July of nineteen ninety six, just as his trial was said to begin, Wells confessed that both he and his half brother Mark Reebe were responsible for the crime. According to Wells, as he was driving away from the convenience store following Donna's abduction, Rhebe strangled her to death in the back seat before her body was

placed inside the trunk. They then proceeded a barrier in a wooded area of Walton County, located just three hundred and fifty yards from their childhood home. Wells passed a polygraph when he shared this story before leading investigators to Donna's remains, and just under one year later, Rhebe would also be charged for his

role in the crime. In order to avoid the death penalty, both men agreed to plead no contest to first scree murder, with Wells receiving two life sentences without the possibility of parole, while Reebe received a sentence of twenty five years to life in prison. Unbelievable. Gold Breeze is where I grew up. I was five years old and I know of that case, So that

is insane. So Reebe is definitely tied to Donna's murder and disappearance, but he's going to go on and claim these thirteen other victims, which is really surprising because you have criminals who are going to come into prison and say they didn't do anything, they're not guilty, and we also have the prisoners who say, if I'm in here, I'm going to start to become as grandiose

as possible. And in my gut, I'm almost wondering, is Reebe going to be one of those latter people who says, if I'm here, then I'm going to be this grand killer and I'm going to go through like cold case playing cards or newspaper articles and find women that I can claim I killed

as well. Yeah, we're going to talk about that in more detail as we go along, but it's still up for debate if Reeby is one of those guys who genuinely committed other crimes, or if he just wants to do this to keep himself the center of attention because now he's locked up for the rest of his life and has nothing else to lose. But one reason that some people are skeptical that he may not want to commit to confessing to these murders is that he may get the death penalty if he's convicted of one of

these other crimes, because Florida has the death penalty. So I think that's what's held him back if he is guilty of offering corroborating evidence or leading the authorities to these missing victims remains because it doesn't seem it doesn't seem like it would be unlikely that he would have committed another murder because of the type of murder that this was. That he strangled a woman. I mean, that is a great predictor, just the strangling alone. When you see in domestic

violence situation that somebody will later murder their partner. But you've got somebody just so easily murders a woman in the back seat in that way. It is so upclose and personal and so intimate. To think that he never did before and he never did again after that just seems unlikely to me. But I think you're probably right, Robin. Why would you want to admit that you did it in Florida and like really confess to it, put your name on

the dotted line when you could be executed because of it. And I mean, I'm sure that there would be district attorneys who would say, okay, well, if you decide to do that, so we close this case. We'll take the death penalty off the table. But if you've got a district attorney who's not willing to do that, then what would be his motivation to

confess and then potentially die. What I think is interesting, though, is you see such a cowardly act in that, Like you have these guys who come for the like, oh, I had stuff to do, I've killed twenty five people, and then when like you're faced with consequences or having to be accountable or help the family get justice, it's like, oh, I I don't I'm not gonna do that. I'm you know, I'm scared at this point. And then you still portray yourself as some big, bad killer.

It's like a serial killer like Dick measuring competition. You get these awful dudes like the Henry Lee Lucases and stifle ouh, yeah, kill little of these people, and it's like, dude, no one's impressed. Yeah, I was just gonna mention Henry le Lucas that he confessed to any murder that he that he could find. But once he actually got sense to death for one of these and there was a chance he would be executed, that's when

he started recanting. And that's kind of the ironic thing with Henry Lee Lucas is that the one crime he was sent to death for was the murder of a woman named Deborah Jackson. But it turned out like he was in Florida, like in an entirely different state. He was murdered in Texas at the time that the crime was committed, and I think he realized, uh, oh, they're actually gonna kill me for confessing to this one. I better

recant and stop doing this. Well, like we just mentioned, shortly after he was sent to prison, Reevey started confessing to a number of other unsolved cold cases from Florida, including the disappearance of Pamela June Ray. In nineteen ninety two, Rhebe was married to his fourth wife and living in the town

of Shallamar. According to Reeb they both decided to go out partying at a club in Panama City Beach, but after running out of money during the early morning hours, they started driving around in the red Pontiac Firebird looking for someone to rob while cruising down Front Beach Road, Rhebe saw Pamela's Plymouth sun Dance parked at the Willheight Motel, and after noticing that it had out of state

tags, he told his wife to pull over. He then proceeded to abduct Pamela at knife point, before placing her inside his firebird and fleeing the scene. Rieby then claimed that he murdered Pamela, but he would provide two different accounts of how he disposed of her body, at first claiming that he buried her body in Walton County, until he revised his story and said he dumped

Pamela in the ocean. Rebe's story seemed to match the account of the patrol officer who saw Pamela following another man, and Reeby also mentioned that she let out a scream for help when he pulled a knife on her, which had

been reported by other guests at the motel. When asked to provide a detail that only the perpetrator would have known, Reeve stated that Pamela had been carrying a single key in her hand, a detail which seemed to be accurate, as Pamela was seen locking her car door and the rest of her keys were found inside the vehicle. However, Reebe would eventually recount his confession, not only denying any involvement in Pamela's disappearance, but also to the other dozen murders

he admitted to. Yeah, this is definitely an attorney got in and said, what are you doing. Shut your mouth, recant everything that you've ever said to anybody, trying to get his client off of these other charges. But what kind of person is this? Is this like a David Parker Ray who the toy box killer, who cruises around with his wife and when they need to or when the opportunity strikes, they abduct and kill women. Like what is his wife doing when this is happening, Like, hey, honey,

pull over, we're gonna jump this woman over here. And she's like cool and pulls over and helps him. Yeah. This is the thing about the case that confuses me is that even though, like my friend Crystal Don, has done extensive research, she's never been able to find any clarification on

how the authorities view Reebe's wife. I mean, I'm sure they've interviewed her, but if they found any evidence that she was involved in any of his crimes, They've never said so, so, I mean it could be true, but since we know so little about Reebe's wife, he could completely be making up this detail and she had no involvement. I'm gonna guess that Reebe was not the best husband, though, because he had four wives exactly. Yes, nobody stayed married to him for very long. Hey, King Henry

had six, so just let it. Let it be, okay. Oh, and he was a great husband, I'm sure so. In spite of Reebe's recantation, in April of two thousand, a search was conducted of the Wood and Walton County where Donna Callahan's remains have been found, and some skeleton remains would be discovered just one hundred yards away from the location where Donna had

been buried. They were sent to Canada for further DNA and forensic testing, and it's unclear what happened next, as I've never been able to find any more details about this. But here's the complication. The remains were discovered by a Doberman pincher named Eagle, who had been trained by his notorious handler, Sandra Anderson. Eagle supposedly had a talent for sniffing out human remains and Unsaw

Mysteries even produced a segment about his unique gift. But the problem is that Anderson was a complete fraud who would steal human bones from a medical examiner's office and plant them for her dog to quote unquote discover during police searches. Anderson

wound up receiving a twenty one month prison sends. And while it's never been officially confirmed that she planted any remains during the search for Pamela, it would not surprise me if this is the reason there has been no follow up news on the remains from Walton County. This makes me so angry and devastated because forensic science and the faults that come with that, both purposeful and then just human error, have been a really big topic of research and you know,

media and things like that in the recent years. But these are pieces of quote science that put people in prison. It took people and put them on death row and had them executed. And to know that there are people like Sandra Anderson who said, my fame, my notoriety, is more important than a victim's family, getting the truth, getting the right person off the street, putting someone in prison and taking their life away from them, or even

physically taking their life away from them with the executions. There are so many people that have done this in our history of forensic science that you go, it makes it hard to trust any of the human based sciences that we have. And it's people like Sandra Anderson to think she got twenty one month and that's it for stealing human remains, planting different things, becoming a fraud, helping police possibly convict the wrong people. It's so much bigger than a year

and a half. Like that blows my mind. Oh yeah, Sandra Anderson, this is not the only case I've covered on the Trail and Cold in which she is screwed up the investigation by planting human remains. And there was another case where she almost got a guilty murderer freed because she actually used her dog and the dog legitimately found human remains of a woman that had been murdered

by her husband and he did do it. But because Sandra Anderson, like had screwed up the investigation so badly, she almost got a new trial just to say, well, if she planted remains in this case, then maybe she planted remains in this case as well. So when people do this then it puts their entire body of work into question and screws up so many investigations. In recent years, there's been a renewed interest in this case thanks to

an unusual story which was shared by Mark Greeby's daughter, Jelena Hayes. Jelena grew up in an abusive household, but she has since developed a close friendship with Pamela's sister Ronda Bishop and wants to help her solve this case. When Jelena was four years old, her father was being investigated for Donna Callahan's disappearance and an excavation was being performed of her family's property to search for Donna's remains.

While this was going on, Jelena claimed that her father made an abrupt decision to pack up all their belongings into a pair of Uhaul trucks in the middle of the night and move the entire family away from their home. They would travel all the way to Warrensburg, Illinois, and during the trip, Jelena noticed that some garbage bins had been loaded into one of the trucks, and her father told her not to go near them. After they arrived at

some property in Warrensburg which belonged to the sister of Reeby's wife. He instructed Jelena and her siblings to dig up some large holes, which he said would be used for a garden. The children did as they were instructed, but afterwards Reebe removed some garbage bags from the aforementioned bins and buried them in the holes. Jelena now fears that the begs may have contained some of the remains

of some of her father's victims, including Pamela. By the time Jelena shared this story, the property had new owners, but they gave the Macon County Sheriff's Office permission to perform a search of the property in July twenty nineteen. However, after spending an entire day performing an excavation, they were unable to

find anything. Yikes. I feel really sad for Jelina. She's clearly someone who grew up in a very volatile home, was very aware of her father's violent temper and possible involvement in criminal behavior, and so that insecurity that instability that she grew up with, she sees a family who's struggling and hurting, and a father who's claimed that he actually had something to do with these other disappearances are murders, and she's saying, how can I help? How can

I right the wrongs of my father? Imagine the weight and the heaviness that would come from being the daughter of a killer and saying, Okay, I'm not him right, having the strength to say that's not me. And if I might know something, I'm gonna help. I'm gonna reach out and not only try to help, but befriend people. And how strong is Pamela's sister to say, heck, yeah, I'd love your help like I would love to have you help me. That takes a lot of grace and understanding on

her part as well. So I'm in my head, I'm racking my brain going, Okay, did they use ground penetrating technology? How did they search? Did they just excavate by, you know, shovels and tractors or what were they? What were they doing? Not that we have all that information, but man, can you imagine what if that really was evidence from her father's crimes. Yeah, were gonna talk more about this in our next episode.

But one of the few bright spots of this story is that it sounds like Mark Reebe's family has developed a very close relationship with Pamela June Ray's family and that they've become very close, and that even Mark Reebey's own family thinks he's a douchebag. They think that if he did kill Kamela, that he should come clean and admit it, because he sounds like someone who has treated

everyone he has known in his life very badly. I mean, we talked about him being a bad husband, and this kind of proves that he was a bad father as well, that he may have taken his children out and helped him bury some bodies. So that is kind of heartwarming that Baby's family has offered Pamela's family they're one hundred percent support to try to get this case

solved. Around the same time period, Jelena would also uncover a photograph of her mother wearing a ring, which Ronda Bishop believes is the same ring Pamela had been wearing at the time she went missing. Ever since Reebe confessed to Pamela's murder, Ronda has written him five letters to ask if he killed her sister, but while Reebe has always responded, he has never actually answered the question. His letters are usually filled with ramblings, and he refused to meet

Ronda in person at the moment. Mark Raeby is still considered to be a suspect in Pamela's disappearance, but no evidence is ever conclusively linked him to the crime, and she continues to remain a missing person. So I guess you could say the path went chilly, man. I know I just said this, But the fact that Ronda and Jelina have that relationship, and that Ronda is saying, I'll continue to fight for answers. I even have someone in

his own family who is beside me helping me try to get information. You see these moments in court where a killer will get sentenced, and very recently, I can't remember whichdays it was, but the daughter of the killer walks out of court crying, and all she did was look at the other family and say, I'm so sorry. And she's crying. She just lost her dad, right because he's going to prison as a murderer. So the man

she up with she's lost. And I remember in this case that I watch the mom turn away from her family, walks over to the daughter and embraces her and says, I'm so sorry. We both lost here, Like I'm so sorry and I love you. I don't blame you, and that grace and support that those two families have from this freak decision somebody else makes Wow. It is probably the only ray of humanity and hope you see when you're looking at cases like this, when you truly see that kind of grace.

It's unbelievable to me. And the fact that Ronda is writing him and he writes back but won't answer her questions is very manipulative and narcissistic of him. He loves the attention, but he's refusing to give Ronda either I didn't do it and I lied, I'm sorry that I misled you, or admit to doing it and get justice for her. He won't do either. So it's to me very disgusting and disgraceful. Yeah, because even if Reeby did do this, he could just like it all by just saying no, I did

not kill your sister. But he just knows well, if I never provide her with a concrete answer, she'll keep writing me and I can still be the center of attention. So regardless of whether he's guilty or innocent, the behavior is despicable. So I think this would be a good time to bring it into Part one, but join us next week as we present part two of our series about the disappearance of Pamela June Ray Robin, do you want

to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon.

If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join

our highest tier tier three, the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio comment Harry track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary

track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know

a little bit about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the

show notes. So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy

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