Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cold Case: Mom Pamela Ray vanishes during beach road trip with kids

Episode Date: November 20, 2018

A Georgia mom took her kids on a beach road trip, but the family slept in their car the first night because none of the motels in Panama City, Florida, had a room available. That mom -- Pamela Ray -- disappeared during the early morning hours of that day in 1992. Nancy Grace talks to Ray's sister, Rhonda Bishop, in an effort to revive the cold case mystery. They are joined by Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, Atlanta lawyer Penny Douglas Furr, and reporter Alan Duke. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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out at the mall or the store or the grocery, in the parking lot, at home. Find out about protection regarding babysitters and daycare, even online. I'd rather have that any day of the week than a plastic toy or, God forbid, a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to crimestopshere.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What happened to Pamela Ray? How much do you look forward to vacations? Because sometimes when I am overwhelmed with work and taking care of everybody else and I never get a moment to spend with the children, just being with them, I actually envision vacation when we're away from everything and we're just together and those are some of my very best memories ever what went wrong a mom takes her children on

vacation to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world the sand looks like sugar and she's never seen again I'm Nancy Grace this is crime stories thank you for being with us. What happened to Pamela Ray? Straight out to Ellen Duke joining us. You know, Pamela Ray went on a drive that my parents took me on a million times. We'd go down old 41, old Highway 41 that goes from Florida all the way to New York, and we'd go, go, go drive through the night after they got off of work. My mom would make fried chicken because there was nowhere to stop, Alan, the whole way down. And we would get there in the early morning hours to where we would go is Fort

Walton Beach. But that's about 20 miles or so from this location where Pamela Ray went missing, PCB, Panama City Beach. And that is where I first saw the ocean. Since you didn't ask, Alan, we had gotten there really late in the night. There were so many people staying at my aunt's place on the beach that I had to sleep in a chair, which was fine. And I woke up in the morning and looked through the screen porch and saw the ocean for the first time and went, and I'm just wondering if that was the plan for Pamela Ray's children. Tell me what happened.

Oh, yes, that's exactly a memory that I have too. Pamela, June Ray, and her two children, five and 12, taking this family road trip from the Atlanta area, Georgia, home to the beautiful beaches of Panama City, Florida. But when they pulled into Panama City, it was a rainy early morning, hours of August 12th, 1992. Pamela couldn't find a hotel vacancy, which has happened to me before when I've made the same trip. Busy time of the summer in the beach town. When she walked up to the counter to check at the Wilhite Motel at 3.30 in the morning,

the desk clerk told her that he didn't have any space left, no rooms at the end. So she did what I did in the same situation once when I was on a college road trip. She parked in the motel's parking lot and sat and slept. At least seven witnesses, including two police officers, remembered seeing the car and the rays inside. At 530 in the morning, Pamela, for some reason, locked the car doors, left her two children sleeping in the back seat, walked into the she was seen walking into the motel lobby toward the swimming pool. The mom never returned to her car.

Wait a minute, Alan, that that's so much information at once. So Pam takes her children to Panama City. They get all the way down there. They go to a motel, the White, is that what you said? The White Motel on Front Beach Road. Yes. It doesn't exist anymore, but it used to be. The Wilhite Motel on Front Beach Road. They got there just before the sun rose around 5 30 a.m august 12th uh she couldn't get in apparently decided to wait in the car and go back after people began checking out and leaving to see if they could get a spot right she locked the children in the car as they were asleep and started back toward the motel joining me right now in addition to Alan Duke, is Rhonda Bishop.

This is Pamela's sister who has led the fight to find out what happened to her sister. Also with me, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum, renowned attorney Penny Douglas-Furr out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, and well-known forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Bober. Now Dr. Daniel Bober let me just clear one thing up at that time at 530 in the morning and this is a while back it was perfectly okay at that time to leave your children in the car and walk the 20 feet to check in. They were asleep. They were locked in the car. I don't want to hear any attack on her, on Pamela,

because at that time, Panama City was still very pristine, right? It's not unreasonable, Nancy, for someone to walk 20 feet from their car, especially in that neighborhood at that time. And remember, this is 1992, so there's not video cameras there everywhere as there are now. But, you know, when you look at this case and you see that she left her purse and her keys in the car, I think it's exactly what you said. I think she walked out of the car to try to find a hotel room, which is why foul play is so likely in this case. Joining me now is Rhonda Bishop. This is Pam's sister.

Rhonda, when did you first find out Pam was gone? I got a call. It was around noon or a little after. I was the only one in the house, and we worked out of my parents' house. I got a call, and they said, they asked who I was. It was the Panama City Beach Police, and they said, Rhonda, we believe that your sister is missing. We have the children here, and someone needs to get here as quickly as possible. At that point, I had to contact my parents, get everyone located, her husband.

We were on a flight by three to get to her. Well, I think the flight was actually one. I have a lapse in memory about all that. And I think the flight could have been at one and we made it there by three. And the in-between part is this vague and just disbelief of getting that call in the first place. I just wanted to get to the kids. I'm hearing what you're saying. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, and Penny as well, we've all dealt with so many traumatic incidents where victims can't I mean I still to this day cannot remember big chunks of time around my fiance's murder and I will say to people well what happened at this point and they go don't you remember XYZ I'm like no I don't remember I don't remember any of that

and that's one thing. Penny Douglas-Furr, as you will recall in court, that was the one talent I had, and that was remembering facts, all sorts of details. But around that block of time, I just don't have any memory, Penny. Focused on exactly what is happening and the trauma is entering your mind and you're trying to focus and get to what you've got to get to. I'm sure Rhonda was thinking about the children. Nothing else was on her mind. She was traumatized because her sister's missing, but she's thinking of these children that are down there alone.

You know, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, we're trying to put the disappearance of this gorgeous young mom at rest to try to get some kind of answers. But I mean, going to a motel, you just leave your children in the car momentarily locked in asleep. The sun is just rising. You know, the thought that violent crime would enter their lives at five, six o'clock in the morning, right there in public? No mom would have even considered that. Of course not. And Nancy, this is another example of a crime that every one of us have done the exact same thing

leading up to when something terrible happens to her. We have all said, okay, we'll be right back, lock the doors, right, and we're going to go get the key, and then I'll come back, tap on the glass, wake them up, and we'll all go in the motel room and start our day, start our vacation. So, you know, this is one of those things where people saw her. Nobody thought anything sinister about it. It's not uncommon for people to sleep a few hours before checking into a motel. You know, she left the keys in the car, so that told me she's coming back. She locked the children in the car with the keys in there. She's coming back to wake them up.

You know, I just feel sick, Cheryl McCollum. I'm just thinking about it because, you know, all the working moms across the country, I think I speak for a lot of them. You always want to try to make everything as nice as possible for your children, whatever you can do. And of course, you know, I'm afraid I'm spoiling mine rotten, but I would want mine to sleep in the car and not have to get up and go to the front desk. You know, be exhausted it could ruin their whole day I'm sure that was what was going through her mind and to think of those little children waking up and no mommy nobody there and they sit there

and they sit there and they sit there and they wait and still know mommy around 830 the following morning the office motel calls in reference to the two children being in the car crying. The daughter was very very young and cheerful and that's why I knew she didn't understand what had just taken place with her mom and her son you know of course he started crying you know please, please come home, Mama. Bring my mom home. What happened to Pamela Ray? Straight out to Pamela's sister with us trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

Rhonda Bishop is here. Rhonda, again, thank you for being with us. So let me understand. The motel manager goes out. He has no idea anybody's missing. And he just sees the children in the car crying or asleep or what happened? He's seen the kids crying in the car. I don't really know what happened but I think he called the police because the kids were in the car and then family

and children's service came and they got the kids and the next thing that I was aware of was I was getting a call in Lithia Springs, Georgia, saying that my sister was missing. So at that point, I had to figure out, first, I had to break the fuse to my parents, and then I had to figure out what step two was, the best way to get to them to see what we could do. Because I knew she wouldn't just take off. She loved these children. Tell me about the children. How old were they? What were their names when you got there? What were their responses?

What were they doing? What were they saying? We got there. Brandy is five. Shane was 12. And they were crying. They had no idea. They had no idea what had happened to their mom. They were crying. It was just, it's very vague. All we could do was, and then we had to figure out what we were going to do with them so we could search. The whole part of that first week was all of us just walking and searching and it was raining and we were just searching everywhere. We had nothing to go on, basically nothing. So the kids, they were just

distraught. They had no idea idea with me is Rhonda Bishop this is Pamela's sister Cheryl McCollum director of the cold case Research Institute attorney Penny Douglas fir out of the Atlanta jurisdiction and dr. Daniel Boba forensic psychiatrist along with Alan Duke joining me from LA you know it just sounds like penny a nightmare you're walking and just walking up and down the streets and the dunes and the in the the trees and the woods looking for your sister all the time i guess you've got the children stashed in some motel because nobody all the adults can't leave and go back home they're needed to be searching and it's pouring rain to top it all

off, Penny. That's a nightmare, Nancy. I can just imagine that they didn't want to leave the children alone, but they had to go and search for their mother. And so they're trying to take care of the children and search for the mother, and they don't have any idea where to look, and neither did the police. that was the worst to cheryl mccollum director of the cold case research institute cheryl the rain now as miserable as that's going to be added to their pain they're out searching in the rain but what does that do forensically trying to find what happened to this missing mom. Literally washes evidence away. If there had been any drops of blood, for example,

we call it short-lived evidence once the rain starts, it would wash away. It would be gone. Again, what I keep coming back to is the scenario. So she's there. She locks the children in the car. So that shows she's protecting them, whether it's because she's going to go off for a minute and come back, or did somebody tap on the glass and get her out? Either way, those children were her thought to protect. You know, trying to

walk this area in the rain. It was raining when she showed up. Rhonda, do you know if the car was cranked? The car was running. Yep, that tells me again, she was protecting those children from the heat. She knew she was going to be gone long enough for that car to get too hot when the wind is rolled up in the rain. So they were her main focus.

There's no question. Now, that says a lot to me that the car was still running. Straight out to you, to Dr. Daniel Bober, that tells me she only meant to be in there to check on if a room had opened up or not and come right back and left the car running for the children. Yes, Nancy, I agree with you. I mean, the fact that she left the car running tells me she only had planned to be away just maybe a minute or two. So clearly, whatever happened was a complete surprise to her as well. You know, we are talking about the disappearance of a gorgeous young mom, a mother

of one child, five, the little girl, the boy, 12. To the sister, joining me, Rhonda Bishop, trying to get answers in the disappearance of her sister, Pamela, what were the children saying about what happened? What did they recall, Rhonda? They were asleep. That still haunts them to this day. They were asleep and they knew or saw nothing. So what do you mean that haunts them to this day that they can't help with the investigation or they didn't get to say goodbye to their mom or what? They didn't get to say goodbye to their mom and they couldn't help with the investigation. They asked, but they were sound asleep and they said they knew nothing.

And now, I mean, you know, Brandy was five. She doesn't even remember her mom. Oh man. Oh man. Oh, that's a heartbreak. That is a heartbreak. To Rhonda, this is Pam's sister. Rhonda, tell me about how you end up tromping through the rain looking for your sister. I mean, did you even know where to look? What were you guys doing? We were going on what we would hear from people, and we would actually go in the bottoms of the hotels and look and we would walk in those swamps and look and anything that we could do if we seen a van that may have been sitting or we would go up to it i mean we're rednecks from you know georgia and we're going to do what we have to do. It didn't do us a whole lot of good. But we searched and we searched.

And, I mean, my dad, we couldn't keep him in Georgia for wanting to search for his daughter. I'm just trying to imagine Penny and Cheryl Allen. You guys know my dad before he passed away. There is no way my dad would have left. He would still be searching right now. I mean, a demon from hell could not have kept him from searching for me or my children or my mom, my brother and sister. I'm just trying to imagine this whole family torn apart. Like, what do you do with the children?

How do you go searching? Because at that time, it wasn't like, Cheryl, it wasn't like now, oh, let's do a grid search. Let's bring in EquiSearch. Let's do, you know, bring in the dogs. It wasn't like that at all, Cheryl. And Nancy, where do you even start? I mean, you started the motel, but then when you start fanning out, you know, do you search woods? Do you search swamps? Do you search the beach? Do you search bars? Are there, you know, empty buildings? I mean, you talk about any time you drive down any road in any town, even your own town, look at the number of places you could search for somebody. I mean, when you look back on that Rhonda Bishop, what is your most vivid memory? It's going through just the days of the rain hitting you and you're crying and you're looking, you're just looking, Pam, where are you? Pam, where are you?

Please let something happen. Please come back. And you're just walking around to every hotel. Did you see her? Is there any way you could help us with any kind of information? We would go. We were on the TV, and we were just praying, and we were hoping that someone had seen just anything.

Anything would have helped us at that point, and we had nothing, and we still have nothing. Take a listen to Rhonda speaking to our friend Piers Morgan about her sister. Pamela was your oldest sister. She was my oldest sister. Five years older than you. Five years older. She loved me.

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Ray? Now we are learning that around 5 a.m., sometime between 5 and 6 a.m., one person hears a scream. To Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, what do you know about that? Several earwitnesses said they heard a woman screaming for help. This, to me, is the most unbelievable because she's not just screaming. She's screaming for help. Now, the hotel, we've been told at the time, did not have phones in individual rooms, so they did not call the police. And I guess several people were afraid to leave their room and go check to see what was up. But several people reported hearing her scream for help. It was the end of a 300 mile road trip

to vacation with her two children. How many times have I gotten the children in the car and off we go to go hiking, to go see this or that, never thinking that somehow I would be separated from them, and they would end up for hours in the car crying and never see their mother again. That is exactly what happened to Pamela Ray. Her 5-year-old and 12-year-old child left in the car while she tried to check into this motel, never seen again. But this is what we know. The scream for help rings out that Cheryl McCollum was just telling you about.

What did that mean? It had to be her. Who else could it have been? Then several people emerge claiming they had seen her briefly speaking to a man, I guess in the parking lot of the motel, on her way into the office. I mean, think about it. Let me go out to Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, even knowing what I know about crime, Dr. Bober. When someone speaks to me, I turn and look at them.

I mean, it's just natural instinct. And I guarantee you that's what happened that early morning. I mean, for Pete's sake, it's 6 o'clock in the morning. Who thinks you're about to be attacked? Exactly, Nancy. You know, this is just human nature. When you're walking down a hallway or you're walking to an office and someone speaks to you, as you said, you talk to them. I mean, that's not outside the norm of behavior at all.

I think that's exactly what happened. And to you, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, how many rapes and murders happen just like that? Somebody says, hey, Cheryl, and you turn around, it's over. Sure. And you know, this person, probably this was not the first person they attacked. So they have it down pat. And people always say, well, you know, whoever's going to attack you is going to look like a monster. That's not true. They're typically very friendly, very easy to talk to. They're used to engaging people. That's how they get you, you know, with your senses down. You know, so that, to me, they've already got her in such a vulnerable position because she's there alone.

She's there with two small children. She's exhausted, probably. And my feeling is she probably got out of the car to go use the restroom. She has probably had coffee all night trying to stay up for the drive. She's been in the car for several hours. The children are still sleeping. I think she probably got out just to, you know, use the restroom and come right back. This is a case that has stumped police for years. Pamela Ray leaves her children in the car on an early, early morning, August 12, to check into the motel family vacation.

Nobody thinks she's going to disappear without a trace, leaving her two children in the backseat asleep and also leaving hundreds of questions unanswered. Even now, police in Panama City still looking for answers. Now, let me ask you this. Joining me is her sister, Rhonda Bishop. What did you learn about a scream about 5 to 6 a.m. that morning, a woman screaming for help? Who heard that? What became of the tip? The only thing that became of that tip was there was a guy walking down the street. His name was Andrew Paul Henry.

He had a ferret. He had harassed women earlier in the night. That is what they were going on. Wait, he's the guy that claims he heard a scream? That's who heard the scream? I don't know who heard that scream. So is that the jumping off point to you, Cheryl McCollum, the time of the scream? Like you hear the dog howling and barking in the OJ Simpson case that kind of starts the timeline? That absolutely starts the timeline,

Nancy. There's no question about it because you also had more than one person saying they heard it around the same time. So then when you go to the car and it's cranked and the children are there and then you have a police officer saying, hey, I saw the person from this car hours earlier talking to a man over by the fence, your timeline is there. She's here at this point. She leaves her car running, cranked and locked at this point. She's gone at this point after the scream. That's a beautiful timeline.

With that, the family out searching through the rain, searching all on their own, going up to motel rooms, beating on vans, windows and doors, tromping through swamp area, trying to find the missing mom, their sister, their daughter. To the sister joining me right now, what was it like going up and bamming on vans and tromping through swamps trying to find her. It was a horrible experience. Nothing you would nothing ever imaginable. I mean no one ever would imagine getting a call saying your sister is missing or any family member and it's it's very traumatic to this day. It's traumatic because we still have all the unknowns. Where is she? And parents dying and siblings dying, and it's still all unknown. It's horrific, and I just can't explain all the trauma that our family has been through.

I don't even understand how you could do something like that to another person. Your father sadly died a few months later, as it turned out. He fell out of his bed, had a heart attack, and he was dead just like that. Do you think that the strain of what happened to Pamela contributed to his death? Absolutely.

Absolutely did. You think he may have died contributed to his death? Absolutely. I absolutely did. You think he may have died of a broken heart? Yeah, I know he did. You are hearing our friend Piers Morgan talking about a horrible phone call Pam's father gets from someone claiming that they killed his daughter. We are talking about the mysterious disappearance of a young mom of two, a little girl five, little boy 12, left in the car with the car running while mom checks into the motel. Finally at family vacation, she never comes back. And to this day, we are looking for answers. Joining me right now, Pam's sister. Pam's sister, Rhonda Bishop, is with us. I understand that during the search, your dad had been having coffee at one of the local homes, a lady named Patsy. And he's there, not suspecting anything.

And out of the blue, Patsy gets her grown son, Mark Reby, on the phone. And then what happens? My dad gets on the phone with him and he tells him that he killed his daughter okay to penny douglas fur the constitution protects you from a lot of stuff okay it protects you specifically from the powers of the state in other words a police officer can't beat you until you give a confession. But when you blurt something out on the phone to the dead woman's dad, the police have nothing to do with that.

That is a confession, Penny. Absolutely. None of these people are law enforcement. It's his mother and it's the woman's father. So there's no law enforcement involved at all. Now, somehow, our friend Piers Morgan gets a hold of this freak, Mark Reby, and questions him. Listen. You also spoke on the telephone to Pamela Ray's father. Do you remember that conversation? Mr. I remember talking to that man.

What do you remember telling him? I don't remember exactly what I told him. I told him I was responsible. And that was it. You told him you killed his daughter? I think I did. And what really bothered me was I never got the chance to tell that man that I wasn't the one responsible. He died soon after.

Yes, he did. Okay, I don't understand it. So he knows the father and the whole family including our guest ronda bishop is out tromping through the rain trying to find pamela her children are in tears to ask to wait some motel wanting their mom and then this freak gets on the phone and tells the dad i did it listen now pamela ray was 36 years old and she i know the story she was brutal do you know what happened Listen. information along with the confession? Yeah, I told him. I think I stabbed him. That's what I told him. I think I stabbed him. I think I said that. I'm not sure if that's what I told him. I'm not sure. Okay, that is a lie. Why would you call the father and confess to that and then say,

I never got to tell him the truth? Cheryl McCollum, this is a lie. Everything this guy is saying is a lie. It's a lie, but Nancy, we're missing a bigger piece of this puzzle. His mama knew he did it. So you just think about that a second. If you got a call that said, oh, somebody burned the school down with a cigarette, John David would never cross your mind, ever. You've got a mama that put that boy on the phone and said, you tell that man what you did. That to me right there is all I got to hear. You know what? She's absolutely right, Dr. Bober, because the last one standing will be the defendant's mother. And if she said, you tell him what you did, that tells me he did it, Bober. I agree, Nancy. How many times have

we seen court dramas play out where the mother would say, no, no, not my son. He would never do that. So I think in this situation, if even the mother's not on board anymore, you could be sure that he did it. Isn't that true, Penny Douglas? I mean, how many cases have you defended? Have you watched?

I mean, that's how you and I know each other. We had cases against each other in court. The mom always stands by the son. Oh, absolutely. But what I can't understand is why didn't he say, I took her here, I put her body there. He just says, I stabbed, I killed your daughter, and then he gives no more information. Penny, are you trying to say this is a false confession? Is that what you're actually trying to say to me? No, I'm not saying it's a false confession. What I'm saying is why doesn't he give the additional information? Listen to this. Your father died believing that Mark Raby had killed your sister. He told me that Mark had confessed to him. And at that time,

you know, I thought very well, sure, he could have done it. But if it's the case that he lied to your father about killing your sister, what kind of person would do that? The worst of the worst. So to confuse matters even more, the theory of false confession has reared its ugly head. Joining me right now is Pam's sister, Rhonda Bishop. Rhonda, who is this guy, Mark Reby? What do we know about him?

I know that he has children. I know that they believe that he murdered my sister. They believe he dumped remains out on the way to Illinois. No one has followed that, to my knowledge. I also know that I sent him a letter after the Piers Morgan requesting, because he gave them one piece of evidence, one piece, and that was that she had a single key in her hand. Me, being her sister, knows that to be a true statement because I would have done the same thing. I'm not going to lock my kids in the car and not have a key to get back in that car. And he said she has a single key in her hand. My question is is i want to know how he knew she had that key in her hand now he has

written me a letter i have that letter that question is not answered of course but it's just it's just a letter stating that he knows that me and my niece and nephew are not on speaking terms because he wrote my niece. And it says that he did not murder my sister. He don't know what happened, and he will not answer any of my letters anymore. It's fine by me. I just have one question. Why did he tell them she had one key in her hand? So that one tidbit, that one fact would indicate he is the killer. And plus the psychology, the psychopathy behind tracking down the family and calling them, getting on the

phone with the father and confessing to murdering his daughter. To forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, I'm not buying it. I've had a very hard time with believing false confessions, that they're actually false. I know that they do exist, but I think they are very few and far between. And I mean, when you look at what we know about this guy, Mark Reby, we know that just a few months before Pamela goes missing, he was already wanted for kidnapping and sex assaulting a woman in Chipley, Florida. That was just before she goes missing. Now, the charges against him were dropped because of conflicting descriptions given

by the victim, but I know that he was arrested in that case and that he was the chief suspect. Now I've got him calling a dad confessing to murder. I find it very difficult to believe this was a false confession, Bober. I agree, Nancy. You know, the absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence. And when you consider the fact, when you look at this guy's history and all the pieces, it all fits together. And, you know, he might be backpedaling or might have buyer's remorse about making this statement but i think at the end of the day he's the killer so what do we do now cheryl mccollum what can we

do now i think there's several things that could be done now nancy i think that the letter that ronda received needs to be looked at by statement analysts because she says he didn't answer the question he very well may have it's called leakage and it could be in that letter that he wrote back to her and the letter that the niece has. There could be more information that he's giving. When people do a false confession, it's usually either they're seeking fame, which is not the case here, or they were berated to the point they just confessed to make the questioning stop. That's not the case here. This is very similar to like Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, where he said he did it. And then he said, no, no, I didn't. He's almost playing with people, this psychological cat and mouse issue, if you will. That's what he's doing. And it's very indicative of a serial killer. So to this very day, no arrest, no formal charges in the disappearance and I believe murder of this young mom, Pamela Ray.

Rhonda Bishop, what has that done to you and your family and Pamela's children? It's torn our family completely apart before we had a loving, loving, very, very close family. And it's torn it apart. And I have one sibling left. Everybody's deceased. It's me and another brother that's left. And that's it. What about our children? They have not spoke to me since my mother passed away. It's just torn us apart. It's torn us completely apart where we were very close, where it destroyed our lives.

If you have any information on the disappearance and we believe murder of Pamela Ray, please call 850-233-5000. Repeat, 850-233-5000. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.