Suicide Or Murder? Evidence Reviewed POSTED: 7:49 pm EDT May 16, 2007 UPDATED: 8:41 am EDT May 17, 2007
BALTIMORE -- The mystery behind a Baltimore businessman who fell to his death from the rooftop of a Mount Vernon landmark one year ago is still being questioned.
WBAL TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller uncovered evidence in the case that makes it one of the most unusual cases the city has ever seen.
Rey Rivera, 32, was an aspiring filmmaker, husband and former editor of a financial newsletter. He was last seen leaving his Northwood home early on the evening of May 16, 2006. His decomposed body was found a week later in a closed meeting room of the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore.
A hole in the meeting room roof and Rivera's injuries indicated he had probably come off the top of the Belvedere -- 14 stories up -- and crashed through the lower roof, officials said.
But many are still asking: how? When? And why?
Baltimore city police said they have no witnesses that saw Rivera on or coming off the roof.
Medical examiners determined he died from multiple and severe injuries consistent with a fall from a height. But they made no ruling as to homicide, suicide or an accident. Instead, they declared it undetermined, because the circumstances surrounding the incident were and still are unclear.
There are other unexplained aspects of the case.
Rivera's cell phone, for example, survived the apparent fall. It was found on top of the lower roof along with Rivera's sandals, police reports showed. The phone was intact and in working order.
Former police Cmdr. Mel Blizzard specialized in behavioral assessment and reviewed evidence in the case for 11 News. Miller asked him if it made sense that the cell phone was intact.
"It's possible. I just find it to be highly unlikely, with that type of kinetic energy hitting that rooftop at the time," he said. "I definitely feel that there are a lot of unanswered questions -- a lot of loops that need to be closed."
One piece of mysterious evidence was a cryptic note found by family members after Rivera had disappeared. It was typed in miniscule print, folded up in plastic and taped to Rivera's home computer screen along with a blank check.
"It just seemed bizarre. Really bizarre," said Baltimore Police Department Cmdr. Fred Bealefeld.
Officials found it so strange that police sent it to the FBI, which examined it and concluded it wasn't a suicide note. Blizzard reviewed it and agreed.
"What it does appear to be is a weird stream of conscious writing," he said. "The other thing I thought of … is if he's writing some type of code to someone about something. That's possible."
The note was addressed to brothers and sisters and referred to a well-played game. It named people who had died, including actor Christopher Reeve and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. It also contained a long list of people Rivera knew and was related to, with a request to make them and himself five years younger.
The note also introduced an element of the case that involved Rivera's apparent interest in the Free Masons. The note began and ended with phrases used in the Masonic order.
Rivera's family and friends said his fascination with the Free Masons centered on their reputation as an organization with secrets.
Miller learned that on the day Rivera disappeared, he'd talked with a member of the Maryland lodge to inquire about joining. On the weekend before his disappearance, he spent time reading the book "The Builders," a study of masonry.
On the day he disappeared, Rivera went to a bookstore and bought the book Free Masons for Dummies.
"It could be totally unrelated. It sounds to me like a person who's inquisitive and wants to know more about an organization. Why? I don't know," Blizzard said.
"Based on what we've seen, his interest in the Masonic order was not to do charitable work," Bealefeld said. "Somehow it was linked to his interest in the movie industry and this theory that somehow there was control being exerted by the Masonic order."
The Maryland lodge member who spoke with Rivera told 11 News there was nothing unusual about the conversation. He described it as typical of someone who wanted to learn about membership.
Rivera's last full-time job was to edit a financial newsletter called the Rebound Report published by a division of Agora Publishing, based in Mount Vernon. Family and friends said Rivera had expressed some unhappiness about his work because some of the stocks he wrote about weren't rebounding.
In the fall of 2005, Rivera left Agora full-time and began producing videos for the company under contract.
Long-time friend Porter Stansberry brought Rivera to Agora. Stansberry runs one of Agora's newsletter divisions and was mentioned several times in Rivera's bizarre note.
Miller called to speak with Stansberry. She heard from Agora's lawyer, who said the company had asked its employees not to speak with 11 News about the subject.
The police investigation into Rivera's death leans to a theory of suicide. But Bealefeld told Miller they hadn't found any history of mental health issues or any indication that Rivera had been depressed or distraught before his death.
"But the circumstances and the hard evidence that we have really point to this being a suicide," he said.
The last-known person to see Rivera alive was a houseguest in his home. The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told Miller he left the house in a hurry, as if he was late for an appointment.
The Belvedere Hotel has an extensive security camera system, but a technical problem prevented police from recovering the data from the cameras on the days in question.
Whatever the cameras saw -- how and when Rivera entered the building and whether or not he was alone -- remain questions without answers.
Missing Baltimore Man Getting National Attention by Richard Sher Baltimore, MD (WJZ)
It's been a week since a Northeast Baltimore man was last seen, and police say there is still no sign of 32-year old Rey Rivera.
The search for Rivera took a turn Monday as the car he was last seen driving was found behind a building in downtown Baltimore.
The Mitsubishi Montero belonging to Rivera's wife Allison, was discovered near a lot on St. Paul Street.
On Monday night police interviewed Rivera's wife Allison for more than four hours.
WJZ's Richard Sher was at Rivera's home Tuesday where reporters from CNN were on hand to cover the story in the national press.
"When I go to bed at night I think he's cold and he's hungry and 'why isn't he here?'" said Allison Rivera.
Rivera's family says the 6 foot 5, 260 pound Rivera was last seen leaving his home on the night of May 16th. They also say Rey is not the type of person to leave friends or family without saying where he was going.
Allison Rivera told Eyewitness News "This is not like Rey. "He is so predictable...something has happened."
Police investigating the case say they are reviewing Rey Rivera's cell phone records.
"There was a call received from the Fells Point area of Baltimore just before Rivera left his home," Colonel Fred Bealefeld tells WJZ Eyewitness News.
Authorities won't comment further on whether that link has yielded any breaks in the investigation.
"I believe someone has seen Rey, someone knows where Rey is," Rey's mother, Maria Rivera, tells Eyewitness News .
The parking attendant where Rivera's car was found tells WJZ Eyewitness News that the vehicle must have been parked there after 6 p.m. on Tuesday of last week. That's because the attendant leaves at that time and the parking lot there is unmanned.
He says he did not see the car in the lot until 7 Wednesday morning.
Police are searching databases such as E-Z Pass for toll records, and they're also checking Rivera's bank records. Cameras from the parking lot on St. Paul Street will also be checked..
May 25, 2006 7:02 am US/Eastern Man Missing Since Last Week Found Dead by Richard Sher BALTIMORE (WJZ)
WJZ.COM has learned that 32-year-old Rey Rivera, the Baltimore man who was reported missing last week, has been found dead.
WJZ's Richard Sher reports that Rivera's body was discovered Wednesday inside The Belvedere Tower, located in the Mt. Vernon section of Baltimore City. Authorities speculate that Rivera committed suicide by jumping off a neighboring building, then landing in the 2nd-floor ballroom of The Belvedere.
The search for Rivera took a turn Monday as the car he was last seen driving was found behind a building in downtown Baltimore.
The Mitsubishi Montero, which belonged to Rivera's wife, Allison, was discovered near a lot on St. Paul Street.
On Monday night, police interviewed Mrs. Rivera for more than four hours.
WJZ's Richard Sher was at Rivera's home Tuesday where reporters from CNN were on hand to cover the story in the national press.
"When I go to bed at night I think he's cold and he's hungry and 'why isn't he here?'" said Allison Rivera.
Rivera's family says the 6 foot 5, 260 pound newlywed was last seen leaving his home on the night of May 16th. They also say Rey is not the type of person to leave friends or family without saying where he was going.
Allison Rivera told Eyewitness News "This is not like Rey. "He is so predictable...something has happened."
Police investigating the case were reviewing Rey Rivera's cell phone records.
"There was a call received from the Fells Point area of Baltimore just before Rivera left his home," Colonel Fred Bealefeld tells WJZ Eyewitness News.
Authorities won't comment further on whether that link has yielded any breaks in the investigation.
The parking attendant where Rivera's car was found tells WJZ Eyewitness News that the vehicle must have been parked there after 6 p.m. on Tuesday of last week. That's because the attendant leaves at that time and the parking lot there is unmanned.
He says he did not see the car in the lot until early Wednesday morning.
Widow Speaks Out About Husband's Mysterious Death by Richard Sher BALTIMORE (WJZ)
Tonight, the widow of Rey Rivera, the Baltimore man who was reported missing last month, then found dead days later in the conference room of a hotel, says she is convinced her husband was murdered and did not take his own life.
"I am convinced that Rey died at someone else's hand. We were so happy--planning on short trips almost every weekend this summer," Allison Rivera tells WJZ's Richard Sher on Wednesday.
Rivera, 32, disappeared from his Northeast Baltimore home on May 16th. His body was discovered at the Belvedere Hotel in Mount Vernon on May 24th. Initially, police deemed Rivera's death an apparent suicide. This week, however, Colonel Fred Bealefeld, Chief of Detectives, tells Sher that the case is still being investigated.
"This is a wide open case, although there are no signs on the body of a struggle, no evidence that there was foul play," Colonel Bealefeld says.
Colonel Bealefeld says detectives will begin questioning Rivera's family and friends, to try to determine a motive for Rivera to have jumped from the 13th floor of The Belvedere.
May 16, 2007 11:05 pm US/Eastern One Year Later, Suspicions Still Cloud Hotel Death by Kathryn Brown BALTIMORE (WJZ)
Police first thought it was suicide, but there are new questions that have surfaced one year after the mysterious death of a man found inside Mt. Vernon's Belvedere Hotel.
Kathryn Brown talked to investigators about last May's mysterious death of Rey Rivera.
One year ago Wednesday, Rey Rivera was last seen alive leaving his home in shorts and flip flops.
Days later his body was found inside the Belvedere Hotel where investigators determined he had fallen from the roof.
Since then, family members and investigators have disagreed on whether his death was a suicide or murder.
Rivera's family has pointed to his successful life, beautiful wife, nice home and travel-packed summers as indications the 32-year-old had all the reasons in the world to want to live.
But police believe Rivera jumped from the roof before his 260 pound frame plummeted 13 stories into a second-floor conference room.
Rivera's brother Angel said he has talked to hotel employees who have showed him it would be impossible to jump from the roof and land where Rivera did.
They told Rivera's brother there was no way he could have landed that far out from the roof and that there was apparently another set of doors.
"I will tell you there's a lot of angry people because we know this is not by Rey's hand," said Rivera's widow Allison.
The medical examiner's office ruled Rey's death undetermined, giving Rivera's loved ones hope that police will re-open the investigation.
"There's not been one scintilla of information developed that would indicate there was anything criminal associated with Mr. Rivera's death," said Deputy Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld.
Other suspicious circumstances have arisen including the fact that images captured on security cameras were mysteriously corrupted and police never found a suicide note.
"We don't have a witness just the same as we don't have a witness saying he was pushed off the roof," said Bealefeld. "We also know there was no sign of a struggle," he added.
The FBI ruled a note submitted to investigators by family members was not classified as a suicide note.
Police said the investigation is open but not active.
In this video, the Baltimore Deputy Police Comissioner, Fred Bealefeld states, "We don't have a witness." Notice the edit and his hand gesture during that phrase.
The Mitsubishi Montero belonging to Rivera's wife Allison....
Rey Rivera Memorial Fund, Inc.
Incorporated by Allison Rivera, Angel Rivera, Elena Diaz, Tom Jones, Rey Rivera Memorial Fund, Inc. is located at 601 Locust St Windsor, CO 80550. Rey Rivera Memorial Fund, Inc. was incorporated on Wednesday, June 07, 2006 in the State of FL and is currently not active. Marco Ferri represents Rey Rivera Memorial Fund, Inc. as their registered agent.
Source: Public Record data - Department of State - Division of Corporations
A tad fishy? Dead body thrown from a chopper when it got too errr hot??
and notice how it is edited when the Police Commissioner says that "We have no witnesses." It cuts to his hands forming a masonic sign.
This case and that video clip in particular shows the level of manipulation that is going on everyday with the public totally unaware.
Profanity.
It's a bit strange, to me, when the Commish uses the word Scintilla, even though a law term, http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1887, to be so definitive in exclusion of some very weird circumstances of the case....
scintilla 1692, from fig. use of L. scintilla "particle of fire, spark, glittering speck, atom," probably from PIE *ski-nto-, from base *skai- "to shine, to gleam" (cf. Goth. skeinan, O.E. scinan "to shine").
LAND OF THE UNSOLVED - The last days of Rey Rivera Monday, 10 August 2009 08:10
By Stephen Janis
It looks like a quick repair job, a six-foot rectangle of metal grafted atop a broken roof.
But the patch over the bituminous paving atop a second-floor office at The Belvedere hides a secret the widow of filmaker Rey Rivera thinks may forever be sealed.
Looking down from the top of a parking garage adjacent to the hotel, Allison Rivera gazes on the spot where police said her husband crashed through the roof to his death more than three years ago.
For a moment she is calm, analytical, pointing out the ceiling of an empty office on the second-floor concourse of the historic Belvedere to several relatives who had accompanied her on a trip back to Baltimore last summer.
“This is where they say he jumped from,” Allison says evenly, pointed to the top of the roof. “And then he is supposed to have landed all the way out there.”
But then, as she retreats into the parking lot, a wave of grief overwhelms her, tears stream from her eyes she covers her face. Standing alone, she turns to face the building, gazing at the historic structure like an impenetrable wall; unyieldingly and silent.
It is an illustrative movement for Allison Rivera, the successful saleswoman who had been married to Rey just six months before he was found lying face-up wedged next to a wall on top of a threadbare red carpet.
Allison, despite an outpouring of grief from friends and family, has shouldered the burden of keeping hope alive that the clues to what happened to Rey on that fateful day will someday be found.
Police believe Rivera killed himself in May of 2006, jumping off the roof of the former hotel to his death. But Alison has been unrelenting in her search for clues to what she believes is ultimately a story of foul play, sticking to the assertion that her husband did not commit suicide. That something, or someone, lead him to his death, forced him off the roof; in short, that he was murdered.
“It's so frustrating because my word means nothing to them,” Allison later said in a phone interview of the attitude of Baltimore police.
“ 'You have to get it through your head that your husband jumped off the roof himself',' ” she recounts of a conversation she had with a homicide detective a year after Rey died.
“That’s what I have to deal with.”
Still, Allison Rivera is not the only one who has questions about how her 32-year-old husband ended up dead on the floor of an empty office.
His family, including brother Angel, isn’t buying the suicide theory either.
“Not my brother, “he asserts. “It’s ironic, because he was terrified of heights.”
A copy of the autopsy report obtained by Investigative Voice also shows that the medical examiner who examined Rivera’s body had doubts.
“Injuries at the time of the autopsy were consistent with the fall from a height,” Medical Examiner Melissa Brassell wrote in her May 2006 report. “Because the circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear, and it is not known how the deceased came to have precipitated from such a height, the manner of the death is best classified as UNDETERMINED.”
Some employees of the condo building have told Rivera the security camera malfunctioned on the night he disappeared, when someone programmed the hard drive that stores the images from the camera in the stairwells where Rey would have had to pass to get to the roof to record over itself.
And there is possibly the last man who spoke to Rivera before he died, who said Rivera was not behaving like a man contemplating suicide.
But most importantly, there is his widow, the woman to whom he pledged his heart at an outdoor wedding in Florida just months before he died.
“This is not a man who was closing down shop,” she argues. “He was on cloud nine, everything he had sacrificed for was coming to fruition,” she said.
“If that's the answer [suicide], I'm okay. But more needs to be done, not every stone has been turned over,” she said pausing.
“And if in the end that’s what they find out I will really be okay with it.”
SOMEONE PEOPLE NOTICED
Anyone who ever laid eyes on Rey Rivera would not easily forget the tall, handsome Florida-born Cuban athlete.
A water polo standout during college in California, Rivera stood over 6'5" and weighed more than 250 pounds. He was, to say the least, hard to miss.
“All the women noticed him,” said a friend, who did not wish to be identified. “He was someone who stood out.”
“That’s why I don’t buy this whole thing," said his brother Angel Rivera, who stands 6”8 himself. “Rey is someone people notice. How could he walk into The Belvedere and no one would notice or remember anything, a big 6-foot-5 guy? It’s not possible,” Angel said in a phone interview from his home in Florida.
Despite his imposing stature, to Allison, Rey was her soulmate – a charming, sensitive writer, and aspiring moviemaker and a romantic who moved to Baltimore so he could buy her ring.
“I truly believe it was a soulmate thing. This is your life; this is the guy who has been in my dreams. I can’t say exactly what it was that connected me to him, but that was how it was.”
They started dating in 2000 after meeting in a Los Angeles bar, then moved in together in 2002 while Rey worked on a burgeoning career as a screenwriter.
But when a high school friend, Porter Stansberry, urged Rivera to join him in Baltimore as a copywriter and editor at Stansberry Associates in 2004 – a firm that publishes financial newsletters – he jumped at the chance.
“He wanted to make enough money so we could get married," Allison said. “He wanted to buy me a ring."
The couple relocated to Baltimore in 2004 and Rey went to work as a writer and editor, overseeing a newsletter called “The Rebound Report,” a stock-picking guide that identified distressed stocks with a significant upside potential.
But Alllison said the job was not a good fit for her husband.
"He didn't like to the 8 to 5 period,” she said. “He wasn’t a desk guy, and he just didn't believe in what he was doing.”
So in early 2006 the Riveras made the decision to move back to Los Angeles, where Rey would begin to pitch his screenplay “Midnight Polo,” the story of young female polo player who makes it to the Olympics. A move that Rey would not live to make.
“That is what is so crazy about this: We’re planning on moving and starting a new life. He had a future; why would he decide just then to kill himself?”
LATE NIGHT BURGLAR ALARMS
In the spring of 2006, the couple visited Los Angeles to plan their move back. But when they returned to Baltimore, Rey began behaving oddly, Alison recalls. He was edgy and nervous, uncharacteristic behavior for her usually self-assured husband.
“It started then,” Allison said. “He started going everywhere with me, he wouldn’t let me do anything alone.”
The couple was close, often spending a great deal of their free time together. But Allison said Rey’s behavior was unusual, insisting that he tag along anywhere she went.
“He was even more protective than usual.”
Allison recalls that about a week before he disappeared in May, she wanted to go running at a nearby track. Rey insisted he accompany her.
“I was like, 'Rey, I’m okay," but he said he would come along.”
As she jogged and Rey sat in bleachers reading a book, a man appeared. Her husband, she recalls, freaked out. Even though the mysterious interloper left without incident, Allison says Rey seemed unnerved.
“It was not like him.”
And then, a few days later, the alarm in the couple’s Northwood home went off, sending her husband bounding out of bed.
When she joined Rey in the basement, she recalled seeing something in her husband’s eye she had never seen before: fear.
“It literally made me sick,” she recalls.
“He had a look in his eyes I had never seen before,” she said.
“Rey was scared, he's a big Latin guy and he's macho; it wasn’t him.”
The next evening the alarm went off again, and again Rey flipped out.
“It really hit me because I just wasn’t use to seeing Rey like that,” she said. “It really hit me then.”
After Rey’s body was found, Rivera said she told police about the attempted break-ins, but said detectives told her it was probably squirrels that had tripped the alarms.
“They came a week later and fingerprinted the bottom sill, but said it was probably a squirrel," an explanation Alllison said she does not completely buy.
“You had to push in the screen back to trip the alarm, I don’t think a squirrel could do that.”
Still, despite his unusual behavior, Rey never shared with his wife what – if anything – was bothering him.
“If he had told me anything, whatever it was, I would have shared it with the world. I have nothing to hide.”
A FATEFUL DAY
The morning of the day Rey disappeared, May 16, was uneventful. Leaving for a business trip to Richmond, Alllison recalls only that her husband was on a deadline to complete a video project for Stansberry, work he had started after leaving his full-time position at the firm.
But sometime that afternoon Rey left the house with his keys, cell phone, $20 and a credit card in his shorts pocket. In a hurry, he left without saying a word to a houseguest, contrary to what was reported.
“She was involved in her own drama – that was one of the things that were reported that wasn’t true.
Alison Rivera would never see her husband alive again. Eight days later, after a frantic search that received much media attention, his car was found in the parking lot of The Belvedere. Several hours later, his former co-workers spotted a hole in the roof of the second-floor concourse, a discovery that led police to the grisly find of Rey's body in an office.
On Tuesday, the last person known to speak to Rey Rivera before he died shares his thoughts on the suicide theory, and Alison Rivera discusses missing evidence and her struggle to keep her husband’s case alive.
LAND OF THE UNSOLVED, Part 2 - More questions than answers in the death of Rey Rivera Wednesday, 12 August 2009 09:15
By Stephen Janis
An employee of The Belvedere Hotel recalls the night Rey Rivera's body was found.
Rey’s former co-workers had spotted a hole in the ceiling of a second-floor conference room from atop an adjacent parking garage the day after Rey’s car was found in the Mount Vernon condo building’s parking lot.
Accompanying homicide detectives to the entrance to the second-floor office, the employee who asked to remain anonymous remembers wondering why detective were dabbing Vaseline under their noses.
Then, as he unlocked the door to the then unoccupied office, he learned why.
“I will never forget it,” he says. “The smell was horrible.”
On that evening as police cadets assembled to escort Rivera’s body from the back office, the shock for his wife Allison was also accompanied by questions.
“I just kept asking, Why,” she recalls three years later.
If filmmaker Rey Rivera was truly contemplating suicide just hours before he disappeared from his Northwood home on May 16, 2006, then why, she wondered, would he be preparing to move back to L.A.? Why would they be making plans to start a family? Why would he be planning several vacations, including a trip out west with his family?
“I knew the man, and I knew him better than anyone, and it did not make sense,”
But Allison was not alone. One of the last people to speak to Rey before he died alive said he didn’t act like a man preparing to die.
In fact, Mark Gold, an employee of Chesapeake Systems who spoke to Rey just hours before he disappeared, raises one question that casts a bit of common sense doubt on the theory that Rivera committed suicide. Why would a man contemplating killing himself try to reserve video editing equipment for the weekend after he allegedly jumped to his death?
“Totally not like someone who would throw themselves off a building," Gold recallled in a phone interview last year of his last conversation with Rivera on the same afternoon he vanished. “It was too banal; he sounded like he was under crunch for a work.”
Gold said Rivera was an occasional customer of the company, renting sophisticated video editing equipment to complete projects for his business customers. During that fateful final day, Rivera phoned Gold late in the afternoon to set up a rental so he could finish editing a video of a business conference sponsored by his former employer, Stanberry Associates.
“It was around 4 p.m, I had gotten a call from him: 'How is it's going, I’m under the gun to get this project out, I was hoping you guys would have an edit system I could use over the weekend,' ”Gold recalled Rivera saying.
“He sounded laid-back -- 'I need to get this accomplished' -- and it sounded like a fairly average editing task.
Several days later, Gold received a call from Allison Rivera.
“She asked me if I had seen him,” he recalls. “She said, "We haven't see him in a day or two, he’s basically missing; you're the last person who had a meaningful interaction with him,” Gold recalled.
A week went by and several friends stopped by and dropped off some flyers. Later he learned Rivera was dead, an alleged suicide.
“It just didn’t strike me as right, at least based on our conversation,” he said. “It’s always haunted me.”
“There is so much weirdness in this case,” he adds. “If someone did kill this guy, I don't know how.”
Even more peculiar for Gold was that a co-worker said he had discussed with Rivera the idea to shoot video of the city from the roof of The Belvedere, but it was a vague recollection, accompanied by few if any details.
“It’s just terribly bizarre," Gold said.
Bizarre is also how Allison Rivera describe the obstacles she encountered trying to help police search for clues. Confident that her husband’s death was foul play, she hired a private detective who accompanied her to The Belvedere to review the video surveillance.
But Allison soon discovered that the surveillance system malfunctioned on the day her husband disappeared.
“Somebody put 'protect' on the day of the 15th that consumed about 85 percent of the hard drive,” she recalled learning.
“Somebody hit 'protect' on the system; there is button on the key board in the concierge areas, and there is a computer in the back.”
The timing of the erasure is troubling, Allison said.
“If it was on May 1, that's an accident but if it's on May 15, that is a totally different story.”
An employee of the former hotel who has knowledge of the camera system but asked to remain anonymous could not confirm Allison's allegations. The employee said that police had confiscated the hard drives.
Still, Allison said she hit other obstacles, including odd rumors that Rey was obsessed with Freemasonry, the secretive fraternal order that often stokes the interest of conspiracy theorists,
“That whole Freemason thing was a very brand new thing for me; the weekend prior he contacted someone on how he could be a Freemason and he got e-mails back,” Allison said.
“I talked to the guy and he was very open,” Allison said. “I said, 'I know you¹re a secret society, that you can’t tell me what’s going on. He said, No, we're not, we’re a fraternity of brothers that do charity work.”
Still, Allison said she did not know why Rey took a sudden interest in the Freemasons.
“Rey had bought Freemasons for Dummies, that's the wild part in this whole thing."
There is also the question of the mysterious phone call Rey allegedly received just before he left the house, another reported fact that Allison said is murky. She found nothing unusual on her phone bill for that day, only four calls from Stanberry’s office, which Allison said was probably related to Rey’s work.
Then there is the odd letter found in Rey’s belongings written just prior to his death, a letter the family did not want to make public that police initially thought was a suicide note, but the FBI later determined was not.
Both Allison and Angel said the letter mentioned family and friends, as well as the Free Masons and Rey’s high school friend Porter Stanberry. Part apology, part muse, Allison did want to share anything specific in the letter, saying only that it was not unusual from him to write extemporaneously on subjects he found interesting.
“Rey was a writer.”
Indeed, beside his former job as a copywriter for Stansberry Associates, he was an avid blogger who posted thoughtful analysis of the immigration protests that stoked controversy over illegal aliens in the Spring of 2006. Then there was the screenplay, Midnight Polo, which Allison said he finally come to fruition. Essentially, he wife said, Rivera was continually writing about one subject or another.
Then there is the spot where Rey was found, 30 to 40 feet from the edge of the building. Rivera said she was told that Rey would have been traveling more than 11 miles per hour – the speed of professional baseball play running to 1st base- to achieve enough forward momentum to reach the spot where he crashed through the roof to his death.
The autopsy too, reveals little. Although Rivera was found lying on his back, he did sustain injuries on both side of his body, including abrasions to the forehead, this sternum and chest, and injuries to his shins and abrasions on the top of his feet. He also had contusion on his forehead, but as the medical examiner noted, none of these injuries were inconsistent with a traumatic fall.
One possible clue that friends or relatives said may have been missed is the record s of Rey’s cell phone. Discovered on the second floor roof of the hotel, it is not known if police tracked Rey’s location by using his cell phone records in the hours prior to his death,
Then there are Rey’s computers, huge hard drives which police had in their possession for months, but still remain unanalyzed.
Thus the lack of hard evidence leaves Allison frustrated.
“It just doesn’t make sense, tell me this makes sense,” she recalls telling a homicide detective.
Still, looking back on the days leading up to Rey’s death, Allison Rivera is sure of one thing: Her husband never talked about killing himself.
In fact, Rey had reached a bit of a milestone. His screenplay Midnight Polo was finished. He had purchased thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment to get his video production company off the ground. He even had a steady client, his former employer Porter Stansberry, who contracted Rey to video tape investment conferences.
Beside Rey’s odd behavior in the weeks leading up to his death, everything seemed normal for the newly married couple, a fact that is the most troubling for Allison for the man she said is still her soul mate.
“I think that I will find the answers, it's going to take awhile,” she says.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Former CIA Director and "boating accident" victim
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 9,399 Location: Wilkes-Barre, Pa. USA
Re: In Regard To Rey Rivera « Reply #13 on Oct 22, 2009, 6:21am »
iameye wrote: It's a bit strange, to me, when the Commish uses the word Scintilla, even though a law term, http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1887, to be so definitive in exclusion of some very weird circumstances of the case....
The use of the phrase: "Not one scintilla of evidence" is not uncommon here in Pennsylvania. It may just be a regional way of speaking. I had no idea it wasn't commonly used across the country.
As for the case itself, it suggests to me that he took out a Mafia loan and couldn't pay it back. He bought 'thousands of dollars' of new equipment, a ring, etc. Where was the money coming from?
iameye wrote: As for the case itself, it suggests to me that he took out a Mafia loan and couldn't pay it back. He bought 'thousands of dollars' of new equipment, a ring, etc. Where was the money coming from?
It's funny to me that you are looking at this case from such a left-brain veiw, B.
I remember a time when you were going on about clones.
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 9,399 Location: Wilkes-Barre, Pa. USA
Re: In Regard To Rey Rivera « Reply #15 on Oct 23, 2009, 3:22am »
Well, I'm not trying to be unsympathetic; obviously the fellow died a horrible death, under conditions that are suspect at best, but still, I see nothing here to indicate that his actions were anything but those that would be taken by a man in trouble with gangsters. His wish to be taken back 5 years in time simply would put him back into the time before he made the bad decision to get a loan he couldn't repay. I'm not saying that there aren't instances of Masons going bad, as is evident here:
however if you are suggesting you think he was killed because he was about to reveal some stunning Masonic secrets about celebrity deaths, or time travel, or cloning, I don't think that's it. He was seeking to protect himself and his wife, but he knew he was in trouble, and I'd say it was with the mob. I'm sorry, but that's my take, and I'm sticking to it, unless you can provide some evidence that there was more to it than that. I mean, that's what seems to fit the events in the case. I don't see any references to long conversations with friends about "far out" concepts such as cloning and time travel. He had an interest in what he felt was Masonic conspiracies, yes, but there's nothing to suggest he was "dangerously close" to revealing undisclosed secrets.
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