P.C, FL: Tragic, (still) Unsolved local case..... needs solving!
Slimpickins
Sunday, August 10, 1997
Thin air: After 5 years, Pamela Ray's
disappearance remains a mystery
TROY ESPE
The News Herald
Sandwiched between
Holiday Inn SunSpree
and twin 12-story
condominiums, no-name
motels line wall-to-wall
along Long Beach.
Families on limited
budgets search for cheap
rooms. Teenyboppers
pump bass out of
hatchbacks while
cruising Front Beach
Road nightly.
Empty bottles of Bud
Light and Zima show
remnants from the night
before. Young adults
clad in bikinis and tie-
dye meander Front
Beach Road. In the
ocean, children play in white sand and dip in
crashing waves.
It was here five years ago Tuesday that a Georgia
woman disappeared on a rainy predawn night.
Pamela June Ray, mother of two, was last seen at
5:30 a.m. Aug. 12, 1992, at Wilhite Apartments,
10719 Front Beach Road.
The missing person case attracted heavy media
coverage. Psychics, dogs, horses, hypnotists and
national TV entered the fracas. Efforts proved
fruitless. Ray is still missing five years later.
"We had some good leads that never turned out,"
says J.B. Holloway, interim chief of the Panama
City Beach Police Department. "That was the most
frustrating aspect."
With her two children, Ray drove from Atlanta to
Panama City Beach on Aug. 12. Unable to find a
motel room, she parked at Wilhite Apartments,
probably no earlier than 3:30 a.m. Seven witnesses
- including two police officers - saw her.
Ray, then 36, walked from the motel lobby
toward the swimming pool. A white man who was
seen publicly urinating earlier followed Ray. At
5:30 a.m., witnesses heard a woman scream, "Help
me, help me."
Ray's two children, Brandi and Michael Shayne,
slept in the back seat. Ray also left her purse and
keys in the locked car. Police suspected foul play
from the beginning.
"The fact that she left those kids in the car," says
Holloway, who was acting police chief at the time
while Lee Sullivan ran for sheriff. "It made me feel
it was a valid missing person with foul play
suspected."
THE HUNT
Panama City Beach Police Department, Bay
County Sheriff's Office and Florida Department of
Law Enforcement combed the beach by air, foot
and horseback. Helicopters and cadaver dogs found
nothing. Rain had washed away evidence.
The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation got
involved. Ray's relatives came down and handed
out fliers. Family members searched abandoned
areas, conducted interviews and chased suspicious
cars.
A California psychic contacted police, claiming
she saw a vision of Ray in the woods. Officers
searched a wooded area in West Bay but didn't find
her. Ray's family also hired psychics who saw
significance in a strange word and in the smell of
candied apples.
Police took all clues seriously. Dispatchers
received about 20 calls daily in the weeks following
the disappearance. Time was running out.
"If you don't get her in the first 72 hours, you're
really hurting in a case like this," Holloway says.
Three months later, NBC's Unsolved
Mysteries agreed to do a show after Ray's
father sent a letter. When the episode aired in
December 1992, the Panama City Beach Police
Department switchboard lit up with 40 to 50 calls
from throughout the Southeast. None led to Ray.
In the months and years to follow, police
continued to investigate tips. In 1993, police sent
dental records to South Florida where a young
woman's body was found. The records didn't match
Ray. That same year, police found 15 photographs
of women inside a Virginia man's house. Ray wasn't
pictured. In 1994, two Washington County boys
found a pile of human bones of a white female near
Vernon. The bones didn't belong to Ray.
Ray's brother reported that he saw her inside a
Lincoln Town Car on the interstate near
Birmingham. Other people have reported seeing her
waiting tables or washing clothes in a laundromat.
"I still hold that hope that whoever took her will
expose her someday," Holloway says.
THE SUSPECT
A police officer who saw Ray shortly before she
vanished was hypnotized. The officer remembered
a man who followed Ray toward the beach. The
man was white, about 6-feet tall and weighed
around 150 pounds. He had fair hair and eyes. He
wore a horizontally striped shirt, with colors
alternating between dark and light.
A day after Ray disappeared, investigators
interrogated a 29-year-old Panama City Beach man
and searched his car. Police ended up arresting the
man for a similar case. The man was charged with
kidnapping and raping a Chipley woman in March
1992.
The man allegedly abducted the Chipley woman
from a convenience store, hit her on the head with a
bottle and choked her into unconsciousness. He
allegedly took the woman to the woods and raped
her.
The man allegedly told the woman twice that he
was going to kill her. She talked him into letting her
go. The woman spent the next week in the hospital.
Although the rape victim picked the man out of a
photo lineup, the suspect was released five days
after his arrest because of discrepancies in the
victim's description of the man. Charges were
dropped.
Police never could tie the man to Ray's
disappearance. Cadaver dogs searched woods where
the Chipley woman was raped but didn't find Ray.
Police said the two cases shared similarities.
"I believe the suspect was close to it if not part of
it," Holloway says. "We just could never get
enough evidence."
FINANCIAL TROUBLE
At the time Ray disappeared, she and family
members were indicted for stealing almost a
half-million dollars. The family allegedly used
some of the money to buy a condominium in
Pamela Ray's name at Gulf Highlands Beach Resort
on Middle Beach Road.
According to the Douglas County (Ga.) District
Attorney's Office, a bank clerk accidentally wired
about $400,000 into the account of Ray's father
Ralph Bennett in 1989. Bennett, Ray, and four other
family members allegedly spent a large portion of
the money.
In 1991, Bennett pleaded guilty to theft of mislaid
property. He paid back most of it but still owed
more than $100,000. Bennett received 10 years
probation on the condition he repay the money.
Bennett fell behind with payments. Growing
frustrated, the district attorney filed charges against
the whole family - including Ray, her husband, her
mother, her brother and her sister. All were indicted
and out on bond when Ray disappeared. The case is
still on appeal.
The district attorney's office and Panama City
Beach Police Department have maintained that the
case probably had nothing to do with Ray's
disappearance. Police also have said there were no
signs of domestic trouble in the Ray household.
Ray is - or would be - 41 years old now. The
motel where Pamela Ray disappeared on Aug. 12,
1992, is now called Parsons Place. The manager, a
scruffy man in an undershirt, says he heard about
the disappearance but doesn't remember anything
about it.
The case remains open. The police department
still receives calls periodically, especially when
Unsolved Mysteries reruns the episode.
Ray's family checks progress on the case and still
offers a $10,000 reward. Anyone with information
can call the Panama City Beach Police Department
at 233-5000.
"The case is still open in our minds," Holloway
says. "We wish we could find her for the family's
sake - to bring some closure."
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1997 The News Herald
http://www.newsherald.com/LOCAL/RAY810.HTM