Rey Rivera: Going Deeper After Unsolved Mysteries PART 1

i think that living without answers is a really hard thing human beings we like to put things in a box and kind of move on alison rivera has gone without answers about the death of her husband ray for 14 years it's truly unbelievable it was the first time allison spoke so publicly about her loss and frustration of not knowing what led to ray's death somebody has there's an answer out there somebody knows something hello everybody welcome back to my channel and thank you for joining me for another mystery and true crime video today we are in a new recording area i just moved so everything is kind of all over the place and this is where i'll be recording videos for the next couple of weeks until we get my recording area finished so hopefully this sounds okay and the picture's okay but this is just what i have for now but let's just dive right in and talk about today's case today we're talking about the case of ray rivera a 32 year old man whose story was featured on the first season of netflix reboot of unsolved mysteries it's a case that has caused quite a stir in the true crime community and i've been requested to cover it multiple times since the actual episode came out at first i thought i wouldn't cover it because it had just been on unsolved mysteries but i decided to after becoming really intrigued by the case just like everybody else and i figured you know what not everyone has netflix so i could bring rey's story to those people but as i dug further and further in i realized so much was left out of ray's episode and understandably so unsolved mysteries only gets an hour to examine a case and they kind of have to fit whatever they can into that one hour also i think that there's certain things that they can't say or they're legally not allowed to say but here on this channel we aren't constrained by these same limitations so we can really look at and examine this case fully it's been a very long time since i've stumbled onto a case that has bewildered me to such a point i would say eliza lam was the last time and that was almost a year ago that i covered that case that was the last time that i really found myself uh bewildered and stumped and i am really really driven to hopefully have a better understanding of what might have happened to rey rivera i'm also hoping that bringing it to you will provide an interesting conversation in the comments and angles that i hadn't previously thought to look at so i'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts what you have to say about this case in the comment section so like i said i just moved in yesterday well we started moving as you know it's not a process that happens in one day and because i was incredibly busy these past two weeks my husband adam did most of the packing which means i don't know where anything is like anything which is the reason that i'm wearing my gym clothes which is the reason that my hair is in this sort of messy bun i have no hair products i have no actual clothes thankfully i had just gotten my shipment from native containing deodorant and body wash and it happened to be in my car so i'm able to sit before you today at least not smelling like i spent the last 24 hours lugging boxes all over the place and native has kindly agreed to sponsor today's video you guys know i'm willing to try any product that conveniently ships the things i need and want to my house i'm kind of a shut-in and i don't really like to leave home native is probably best known for their natural deodorant but they have other products as well such as body washes and toothpaste which are all made vegan and cruelty free with safe and easy to understand ingredients as i get a little bit older i'm constantly becoming more aware of my health and what i put in and on my body which is my temple or so i've heard it's been almost three years now that i've been researching and trying out more natural products that i feel my body will tolerate better it's been a really long process of 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amber transports me to like cape cod and a beach bonfire and of course eucalyptus meant it's it's my favorite you know i love eucalyptus mint it's got a masculine sort of like clean smell to it which i really enjoy so eucalyptus mint is like my main my main guy but you know i cheat sometimes with you know newer scents and i think the body wash scents that i got they're all a seasonal i got apple and honeysuckle i got sweet peach and nectar and i have cactus flower and poppy and these are really cute too because they're so clean looking they look great in your shower the packaging's really simple but really really nice and classic i love that when you put the deodorants on in the morning you continue to notice how good your own self smells all day long a little goes a long way with these deodorants two swipes is all you need and you're left with silky smooth wonderfully scented armpits with no chalky or crumbly texture that some other brands leave you with no white clumps no oily weird residue it literally feels like you have nothing on and the freshness and clean feeling will last all day long all day through exercise through moving for 12 hours through sitting in this tiny room with lights blaring on me and sweating my butt off it will last all day i still smell like an apple orchard because i cheated on eucalyptus cement today and i put on the uh the apple and honeysuckle one native offers free shipping to a wide variety of countries which i'm displaying on the screen right now three deodorants are normally 36 but if you use my link in the description box and the code stephanie h2 you will get them for 24 that's 33 off plus free shipping right to your doorstep so you don't even have to leave the house which i really like i really like that i don't have to leave the house thank you so much to native for sponsoring this video and let's dive right in rey omar rivera was born on june 10th 1973 on an air force base in madrid spain where his father angel rivera was stationed at the time rey's father angel and maria had come to the united states from puerto rico and their heritage and culture were extremely important to them maria made sure to place an emphasis on where they had come from in rey and his older brother angel and his younger sister elena family and god were extremely important to the rivera family and even though as ray grew older he'd become more spiritual and less religious he never wavered from his belief that family comes first now when angel retired from the air force the family moved to winter park florida a suburb of orlando even as a child ray had a strong and well-defined personality he had an intense passion for learning he was curious about everything when he became interested in something he couldn't rest until he had learned everything that there was to learn about it rey seemed to have an almost photographic memory for things that interested him he was also naturally musical while his younger sister took piano lessons he would listen in and he was able to learn to play songs on the piano by ear while he was visiting family in puerto rico he became interested in the quattro which is an instrument derived from the spanish guitar the puerto rican quattro is shaped more like a viola than a guitar with 10 strings in five courses ray loved the sound of this instrument so much he made it his mission to learn how to play it because when he got something into his head he couldn't rest until he'd conquered it or achieved it rey was also incredibly athletic he was a member of his school's baseball and swimming teams but he loved swimming above all else his junior year in high school he was offered the opportunity to attend an olympic camp in california and it was here that ray started playing water polo for the winter park wildcats from what i can tell this particular camp most likely was on the uc berkeley campus on the website this camp invites participants to come join olympians and ncaa all-americans to reach the next level in their swimming career the camp will help swimmers become more effective and passionate in their craft in his senior year ray was offered a full scholarship to the university of the pacific in stockton california he was on his way to fulfilling a dream that everyone has to make a career out of something you love to do and ray loved swimming and playing competitive water polo more than that he was very good at it he started college in the fall of 1992 and when he wasn't attending practices or competitions he was majoring in english ray was a very creative person and he loved to write he especially enjoyed writing screenplays and hoped one day to break into the entertainment industry as a screenwriter he loved movies watching them talking about them analyzing them and creating his own most importantly rey was an all-around good guy tall handsome charismatic with a kind of huge open smile that could turn anyone's bad day around his sense of humor was well known notorious among those who were close to him they said that he always had a clever joke to drop and he was always laughing and and trying to make other people laugh rey was described as universally well liked sensitive hilarious thoughtful one of his college swim coaches remembered ray coming over to his house one night and ray decided to alphabetize his coach's records just because he thought that the coach would enjoy his collection better that way college was a good time for ray he scored 100 goals for his water polo team he worked on and honed his writing skills and in 1994 he was chosen to compete in the summer olympic festival which was held in st louis michigan that year the festival is an amateur multi-sport event put on by the united states olympic committee in the years between the olympic games and it's supposed to give us athletes a small taste of the real thing that year it took place between july 1st and the 10th and it was a big deal for aspiring olympians the real olympic games in atlanta was only two years away and if an athlete could stand out here they might be invited to join the us olympic team and compete in the real games figure skater nancy kerrigan and gymnast mary lou retton were both success stories that emerged from previous summer festivals and rey hoped to join their ranks when he graduated from college in 1996 he was hired by the royal spanish swimming federation to be a part of their water polo team because he already spoke spanish rey earned drinking money while he was in spain by giving english lessons but also while he was in spain he got the call he'd been waiting for ray had been selected to be a part of the us water polo olympic team so he got on a plane and he immediately flew to los angeles to start training his dreams were coming true it must have felt surreal to him the odds of even becoming a professional athlete are slim but being a part of the olympic team of your country it means you're the best of the best in 2015 almost 400 000 athletes attempted to be chosen but only 49 were unfortunately despite all his hard work and time spent to reach the stream rey was cut from the team two weeks before they left for atlanta it's reported that he had some sort of argument or falling out with his coach and those close to him said it was the biggest regret of his life he stayed in california and he started funneling all of his efforts into writing a screenplay that he could shop to producers but he also had to afford living in california which is hard so he worked multiple jobs to stay afloat he took a job teaching spanish at john burroughs high school in burbank and he also coached the school swimming and water polo teams his students loved him one of them remembered that ray was the only instructor he had ever had whom he felt comfortable calling coach on and off the pool deck he said ray always pushed them to their limits and supported them wholeheartedly saying quote he is the only person who ever understood what drove me to swim and used that knowledge to mold me into a better athlete but more importantly a better individual ray was always there to pick me up when i was down and offer me words of encouragement end quote ray decided to take a third job working in the admissions office at the los angeles film school where he was able to take classes as a perk of his position there these classes helped him find his voice as a writer and he created his first completed screenplay it was a surreal horror story about a puerto rican piano player and he called it virtuoso he began showing it to different studios and producers and he found a production design company who loved it and they wanted to pursue possibly bringing it to the screen even after his setback with the olympic team ray knew he still had a chance at fulfilling his potential and things were starting to get back on track life became even better in the year 2000 when he met a young woman named alison jones through a mutual friend allison was also athletic she'd been on the basketball soccer volleyball and cross country teams at her high school in cherry hills village colorado she had attended college at ucla and graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting and business communications she worked for a while helping different businesses manage their budgets and she was also interested in writing so it's not a surprise that when rey met this vibrant accomplished woman who he had so much in common with the connection would be instantaneous they were living in california together they were working very hard but neither one was making enough money to live comfortably especially in a place like los angeles where the cost of living is incredibly high despite this ray knew he'd found the one and he proposed in 2004 even though neither one of them knew how they were going to be able to afford a wedding or start a family with their current financial circumstances this is when an old friend of reyes from high school entered the picture and presented them with a very appealing opportunity frank porter stansberry had also been on the winter park water polo team with rey his position had been goalie rey and frank had grown up together and many described their friendship as basically stansberry idolizing rey ray was tall strong handsome extremely athletic and pretty much good at everything he tried his hand at and frank or porter as he likes to be called was just sort of average you know there was nothing about him that caused him to stand out in a crowd according to porter his biological father died in vietnam and he was adopted by the man his mother married a man who was named frank porter stansberry after this man adopted porter and his brother he renamed them and he decided to name his new wife's oldest son after himself so he named his new wife's oldest son frank porter stansberry and porter wants to go by porter so that he can kind of distinguish himself from his father but here's a question i had just while i was researching this and making notes i know it's very common that if if somebody marries somebody who already has children that sometimes they'll adopt those kids and then the kids will take their surname or their last name but how common is it to just completely rename a child first middle and last names i mean depending on how old porter was at the time i guess that would make a difference if he was like two it wouldn't really matter but if he was like nine or ten that's kind of weird because he already had an established name that he'd been going by for several years and then his mom marries this guy and this guy's like that's not your name your name's not ryan anymore okay it's frank porter stansberry so remember that you have a different name but rae's friend frank porter stansberry he likes to be called porter so that's what we'll call him here in in these videos because those are his wishes so porter attended the university of florida and graduated with a degree in political science which he later claimed was an incredibly useless degree he didn't come from money he didn't have an influential family with a booming business ready for him to step in and take over after college but porter knew he wanted to be successful and in order to do that he'd have to grab life by the balls pick himself up by the bootstraps and make it happen through sheer will determination and grit as a guest on the self-made man podcast in 2015 porter claims he started his business at the kitchen table of a third floor walk-up in baltimore's most notorious slum using only his smarts and a borrowed laptop see after he'd graduated from college porter had worked for a research company in florida as a junior analyst but in 1996 this company was bought out by one of its clients a mr william bonner and bonner fired everyone except for porter and his friend and co-worker steve porter and steve went to work for bonner's company agora in baltimore maryland to better understand agora we need to examine its founder and ceo a little bit more closely according to the agora financial website william bonner created agora inc in 1978. it started out as a small publishing company based in washington dc and has now grown to become one of the largest and most successful consumer newsletter publishers in the world since founding agora banner has worked steadily to turn it into a mini multinational which just basically means a small or medium-sized company that has locations and activities in more than one country in 1978 bill bonner started his research firm agora inc since then he and his team have exposed and predicted the world's most disruptive events today bill's firm is the largest underground research network on the planet and more people follow agora's work every day then tune in to cnn msnbc and fox news combined he is also the co-founder of bonner and partners publishing his newsletter the bill bonner letter is unlike anything else published in america today in it he shares his best ideas insights and wisdom about business relationships investments trends developments ideas and more bill has started businesses all over the world he has made investments in five continents he owns and runs more than a dozen companies he owns hundreds of acres of land he travels well over one hundred thousand air miles every year bill also co-wrote the new york times best-selling books financial recording day and empire of debt agora currently has publishing offices in eight different countries on six different continents from what i can tell bonner attended georgetown university law school before working at the national taxpayers union which is a conservative advocacy group that works to show american taxpayers how taxes government spending and regulations affect them so we sort of see the foundation to what bill bonner believes his political alliances and the things that may have influenced him to start a company that would go on to send out newsletters on money management stocks and ways to hide your money from the government so you don't get taxed on it i get a heavy libertarian vibes from bonner his company and the people that ended up working for him libertarians aren't necessarily against taxation it's more that they're fundamentally opposed to government forcing the public to pay taxes so basically they believe that if you want to pay taxes you should be able to but if you don't want to pay taxes you shouldn't be forced to i think all of us kind of feel that way sometimes but at the same time we know realistically that would never work bonner started off with one flagship publication in 1979 called international living a newsletter sent out monthly that gave it subscribers details on the best places in the world to live retire travel and invest banner himself was a big advocate of owning properties in different countries he was the proud owner of two chateau in france and a ranch in argentina it seems like bill bonner was really big on making a lot of money and keeping as much of it as he possibly could which i'm not saying is wrong or makes him a bad person absolutely not go secure that bag bill bonner get your coin whatever you know you need to do to feel financially stable you do what you got to do i'm just saying that's the impression i get from him but i do need to be honest with you all about my general sentiment on what agora and its subsidiaries were best at doing and this is just my opinion okay i'm not telling you this is the truth i'm not telling you that i know this to be a fact this is the feeling i get and my personal opinion it all feels very pyramid schemey and scammish to me and i'm going to explain why porter stansberry only worked for agora for two years before he was fired for insubordination apparently he didn't do very well with authority but after leaving the parent company stansberry was offered a job as a junior editor of the oxford club which was under the agora umbrella now let's talk about the oxford club which wasn't always called that it started out as the royal society of leichenstein i know i said that wrong it started off as the royal society of liechtenstein a startup that was created in boca raton florida by a man named joe nadel and another man named mark ford who was a friend of porter stansberries now this startup had actually nothing to do with the principality of leichtenstein it was one of those direct mail schemes in my opinion they used these like secret spy inspector gadget tactics sending mass mailings out to people with this included cassette tape that the recipients would play and on the tape they would hear this man with a british accent who would tell them he was part of a unique and secret society whose purpose was to amass substantial wealth for its members this man would tell the listener that if they were interested in joining the society they needed to send an application and a check for 100 to a zurich address ending the recording with the instruction to please destroy this tape now the man on the tape said that if you were receiving this it was because your name had been chosen from a select group of active investors and financial experts for an invitation to membership into what was fast becoming the world's most exclusive investment organization and just like fight club the one rule about the royal society of liechtenstein was you couldn't talk about it you couldn't tell anyone about this super secret super exclusive group that wanted to make you a millionaire if you defied this one rule you would never hear from them again and you'd live the rest of your peasant life regretting your mistakes i made that last part up but you get the gist i imagine we're not far off this was the 1980s before the rise of the internet and the nigerian prince schemes that would soon replace these direct mail scams the company came under the radar of the better business bureau and the new york times and the boston globe printed many stories on adele and his scams during this time eventually focusing on one large scam in general having to do with a company called goldcore in a newsletter from the royal society of liechtenstein nader praised the company who had claimed to have invented a process in which they could turn a 20-mile strip of black volcanic costa rican beach sand into gold he wrote quote the sands that are removed from the beach are replenished by tidal action only after a few days so basically he was trying to convince people that goldcorp had had discovered the magic that was able to transform water into wine goldcorp even flew potential investors to this beach in private jets so they could watch the process for themselves now it's obviously not possible it was a lie invented to trick people out of their life savings out of their money in august of the same year the president of goldcorp was found in his home with a bullet behind his left ear an estimated 3 000 investors lost at least 50 million dollars after putting their money into the magical sand into gold technology and a federal judge ordered gold corps representative carl martin to refund only 10.8 million to them nadal himself was only ordered to refund 400 000 to these investors for his part in promoting the scam after this scandal the royal society of liechtenstein became the passport club and was purchased by agora the passport club sold investment seminars on how to set up bank accounts in places like switzerland and hong kong basically an instruction manual on how to avoid paying taxes in fact the working name of the passport club had been the tax avoidance digest but i guess that was too obvious in 1991 the name was once again changed to the oxford club a name that according to their website reflected their love of time-tested values long-term wealth fraternity with independent-minded intelligent people a european sensibility for global investing high-end education and experience and old world elegance and charm nadal fell off but mark ford was kept on as an executive consultant and he started going by the name michael masterson mark ford was not only porter's friend and the person who brought him into the oxford club circle he was porter's mentor someone that porter looked up to and wanted to learn from now for obvious legal reasons i want to tell you that i am in no way suggesting the oxford club retained any of the old scam artist techniques from its predecessor the royal society of liechtenstein it's very common for companies to be bought and then changed completely and i'm sure that's what happened here there's no evidence that the oxford club has done anything illegal just saying after a year with the oxford club porter was given permission to strike out on his own and launch his own agora subsidiary which he initially called pirate investor llc it was promoted as a subscription-based publisher of financial information and software serving millions of investors around the world porter prided himself on hiring based on character and gumption he wasn't interested in bringing on employees who had the best education or the most experience he wanted people to work for him who had common sense and were fun to be around even if they had no knowledge of money management whatsoever so he basically just called a bunch of his friends from high school and offered them jobs however in may of 2002 porter sent out a super insider tip to his subscribers using the alias jay mcdaniel it was essentially a teaser telling people that he had inside information that a stock in a specific company was about to skyrocket and if they wanted the name of the company and the details they'd have to pay an additional 1 000 on top of what they were already paying to receive the monthly newsletter and then they would get a separate email with all these details and then they could do without whatever they wanted 800 000 people were sent this email and 1 thousand two hundred and seventeen people paid the one thousand dollars so that they could get the information to purchase the stocks it is reported that pirate investor llc made over 1.2 million dollars from this one email 200 000 of which went into porter stansberry's own pockets in an internal company memo porter told his employees quote if we are able to sell this to 250 people and it works we'll be able to charge almost whatever we want next time end quote the insider tip did not pan out however and investors lost a lot of money bringing their complaints to the sec who filed a lawsuit charging porter and his company with securities fraud in 2003. this was the company that porter stansberry created at his kitchen table using a borrowed laptop the one that made him a self-made man and catapulted him into greatness and unimaginable wealth we're here to talk about a really crass subject that's very impolite and that's money and i don't know about you but when i was growing up we didn't talk about money and we didn't like to be around people who talked about money so for the next you know three days we're gonna be sitting here talking about money and it's uh it's a little unpleasant i think and i think there's something very ironic about it too which is that uh i would be willing to bet that everybody in this room already has enough money you don't really need any more money you don't really need to live that lifestyle you could dial things back and not worry about money ever again but we all do we all want more of it isn't that interesting so before we uh you know get down in a cesspool and i i tell you you know where the risks to your money are and what you should do about it and ways to make money i uh i at least want to start with uh a little bit about um who we are uh where we come from and how all this happened hey how are you i'm bill valentine today is friday march 18th and i want to talk about a guy named porter stansberry in a video he's put out on the internet to scare you and drive you to buy newsletters from him and regular places all over america the lights are going out no i don't need street lights or any other kind of electronic gizmo i'm talking about a different kind of light a vastly more important kind of light i'm talking about the kind of light that comes from within you i'm talking about how all over the country americans are losing hope and our most basic social agreements i've never seen this idea discussed in any other publication or financial research paper but it's this change that worries me the most about our country today i take great exception to the use and the tone of this video and so i want to share a few ideas with you about how you should view this information if you haven't seen it you can find the video easy enough google porter stansberry uh it's out there it's about an hour long and originally i actually i was going to dissect it and do point counterpoint through the whole hour-long video of his but it doesn't even rise to the level of empiricism that that denotes that kind of a response these ideas are all the result of the lights that are going out inside people all around our country and there's a reason it's happening which very few people understand but there's a reason so many americans are losing hope losing their sense of independence and losing their dignity one of the underlying points of the video is that the government has accumulated too much debt and printed too much money for its own good i too believe that uh where we differ is mr stansberry is trying to convince you that this in the next 12 to 18 months leads to nothing short of a complete societal breakdown in the united states where you're going to need six months of food water and rations for yourself martial law will be declared riots government turning its back on its citizens and confiscating all of our property so i think you need to consider the source you need to spend a little time investigating just who porter stansberry is i can tell you within the investment community he's nobody of standing he's a newsletter writer who's run a follow with the law in the past has been fined by the sec for his behaviors and he's been at this business for some time stansberry's point is to sell you newsletters he apparently makes an extraordinary living selling newsletters using the oldest tool known to investment scammers which is fear and uh you know for uh in one case a five thousand dollar annual subscription you two can be party to the investment secrets um which basically are buy precious metals own farmland and oh by the way sell put options that's his great stock strategy don't pay any attention to this video it is not based in in realism and you need to understand what you're looking at when you're when you're looking at this and when porter reached out to ray rivera in 2004 offering him a job as a writer at this financial newsletter offering him this same potential money and success it just so happened that it was perfect timing for this kind of offer ray and allison had just gotten engaged they wanted to buy a home they wanted to start a family they wanted to have a life he wanted to you know give her the wedding of her dreams to do that they needed more money than they had more than they were making at first porter wanted rey's help for a small project that would keep him in baltimore for only 30 days or so and there was no reason to uproot allison from her job for such a small time period so ray went out there alone and he stayed at the peabody hotel which was about a mile north of agora headquarters in the mount vernon area of baltimore the headquarters of agora and its subsidiaries are made up of several old mansions that william bonner had purchased and then refurbished at that time there were four locations the former marburg mansion at 14 west mount vernon place the former christian science building located at 702 cathedral street the former headquarters of the episcopal diocese of maryland located at 105 west monument street and the former grand lodge of the order of the sons of italy located at 808 saint paul street that last address that last building was where the main company agora was housed and the other buildings held many of its 60 subsidiaries ray didn't know anything about money management stocks bonds etc in fact he was notoriously bad with money alison claimed that for most of his life he'd only used cash to purchase what he needed and it's pretty hard when you're using cash only to kind of spend money you don't have right but just recently he'd gotten his first credit card and she thought this made him feel as if he could spend more which he did he ended up taking the job with porter thinking it would be short term and a quick influx of cash to help him pay for a dream wedding where he'd finally get to marry the woman of his dreams but the project turned into more work than he'd originally thought in 30 days turned into 90 days he made an effort to fly back and see allison in la once a month and she would come visit him in baltimore when she could get time away from her own job which had her traveling around the country quite a bit as well but for a newly engaged couple who loved each other as much as alison and ray did being a part was difficult additionally a normally social ray was having a hard time making friends in baltimore he was familiar with most of the people who worked at the oxford club and agora in general since a few of them had actually gone to high school with him and porter but ray didn't feel that he and these people had all that much in common besides a history ray and allison were very family focused and politically left-leaning while his co-workers seemed kind of obsessed with money image you know living the life fast cars private planes cigars although ray was in baltimore for the money he wasn't there to get rich he just wanted to make enough to provide allison with a nice life and a wedding she would never forget ray did meet one friend that he would have while he was in baltimore and he actually met her on a return flight from la to baltimore her name was cynthia she was sitting next to him on the plane and they began talking and they discovered that they kind of lived in the same city they had a lot of things in common they had both lived in the same cities previous they both loved to travel and cynthia became ray's closest friend in this new city and she thought of him as a brother when alison came into town to visit ray brought her to cynthia's house in ellicott city which is just 10 miles outside of baltimore and ironically alison had an aunt who also lived in ellicottville so they were able to stop in and visit her as well while they were there but allison was getting antsy how long was rey going to be in baltimore for she didn't feel he was happy there even though he loved writing he wasn't writing anything that he loved writing about he didn't like writing about money and as someone who loved being in the sunshine and living close to the water baltimore was the last place ellison would expect rey to ever want to settle down after three months of living in the peabody hotel and trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with his fiance ray was offered his own financial newsletter at pirate investment llc porter likes having him around and he done good work on their project so he thought it would help them both out if rey had some more permanent work ray wrote a sample piece for a newsletter that he would call the rebound report a name taken from his love of basketball and the rebound report would be about companies who hadn't been doing so well but were on the rebound the newsletter would suggest to subscribers that they could buy in low while the stocks were still struggling and then make a profit when the stocks rebounded after talking to allison about the opportunity they both agreed that it was financially beneficial but they could no longer live apart they made a pact to both move to baltimore for 24 months work hard make their money and then return to the west coast so they could start their lives together at that time allison was working for a company called sexy hair concepts which provided hair products to salons nationwide and technically in her position she could work from anywhere as long as she was willing to be able to travel when needed allison packed up their things in california and then got on a plane with the belief that this would be a short-term thing that in two years or less she and ray would be getting back on that plane and flying back to california together to finally start their lives within two years they'd be going back to the place they called home together but that was not to be when allison arrived in baltimore ray left the peabody hotel and they both moved in with porter stansberry who was living by the waterfront in canton at that time this only worked for a short time because it wasn't like a huge place it wasn't a big house and obviously these are two people who haven't seen each other and been together regularly for quite some time so they're gonna want their privacy you know they're gonna want a little alone time they stayed with allison's aunt in ellicottville while they looked for their own place which they did find at the end of december 2004. it was a gorgeous tudor style home in original northwood a quiet residential neighborhood about 20 minutes away from the center city at this time ray must have been seeing the fruits of his labor pay off because they purchased the four bedroom townhouse for 280 000 for their first home purchase together it was ambitious it's a big it's a big house it's a lot of money to pay for house but they felt it was their own sanctuary in a city that they didn't really want to be in that they didn't feel like they really belonged and they didn't really want to belong there either ray started writing the rebound report weekly and allison could see his frustration and disenchantment build as time went on this job was a means to an end a way to make some money during normal business hours while still giving ray a chance to pursue his real passion of writing a screenplay but some of us may know very well that carrying on a career in something that not only holds no interest for you but also goes against the grain of your internal values it can be torture ray was well aware that he probably wasn't the best person to be giving financial advice to others he felt guilty that his tips might not pan out and people would lose money because of what he told them to do eventually he began to dread writing the rebound report every week alison watched her normally happy laid-back husband become tense and withdrawn he'd already been there in baltimore alone for three months he had no family ties there and very few close relationships so a feeling of isolation and displacement had most likely already settled in by the time alison joined him ray would come home from work clearly stressed out and he'd have trouble falling asleep so he'd stay up all night playing video games but once alison arrived and they were living together in their beautiful home ray began to loosen up he began to relax a little bit things were made even better when he and allison began attending the church of saint mary assumption on york street just a mile from their home as i stated previously although ray and allison were both raised catholic neither of them considered themselves to be devoutly religious it was more that they appreciated the community aspect of having a congregation here they were welcomed with open arms and they began to develop some connections and relationships rey also became more settled when he began joining informal water polo matches every week at the u.s naval academy in annapolis his skill was recognized and he began talking to the coach of the john hopkins blue jays but this coach invited ray to come on as an assistant coach the team hadn't been doing great and someone with ray's experience might make a difference now ray loved coaching this team his passion and good heart showed to each and every player and they responded to his tactics going on to place first at the end of season national ranking things in baltimore were getting better for rey and having a few outlets allowed his creativity to spark again he started working on a new screenplay about a latino water polo player who makes it into the olympics that he called midnight polo even though there was good things about being in baltimore ray still didn't like his job with agora he and his co-workers had different goals in life after work all they wanted to do was go out for martinis and dinners at fancy restaurants smoke their cigars and pet each other on the backs for all the money that they were making and all ray really wanted to do was go home to his future wife he began planning a way he could start his own company doing freelance video work so that he could quit writing the rebound report on june 11 2005 he traveled to vancouver to attend agora's annual conference those who were with him that weekend said he was in unusually good spirits much more social and talkative now if you were a close friend or family member of rey you would say he's always social and outgoing and in good spirits and talkative but he had become like i said more withdrawn more pulled back less himself and at this point rey had already mentally decided to quit the company so most likely he felt a weight had been lifted off him and he was able to be more himself and he could just be there and enjoy himself instead of thinking about how much he hated working for the company the next month rey told his old friend porter that he was going to be leaving pirate investor inc porter wasn't upset or even surprised it hadn't been a huge secret that ray had felt out of his element writing financial newsletters and porter told him that he would hire his new company to do video freelance work for agora and pirate in the oxford club that same month rae and allison took a fifteen thousand dollar cash advance out on her credit card to buy video equipment so that ray could start his own company that he called saba productions the word seba held meaning for rey since it was also the name of a famous tree that grew on the island of puerto rico a place that held great sentimentality for him the sable was the most sacred tree for the ancient maya and according to maya mythology it was the symbol of the universe the tree signified a route of communication between the three levels of earth its rocks were said to reach down into the underworld its trunk represented the middle world where the humans live and its canopy of branches arched high in the sky symbolizing the upper world and the 13 levels in which the maya's heaven was divided so it's a pretty special tree it has a lot of symbolism for rey and he decides to name his company after this tree through this new company ray began working a freelance for agora and its subsidiaries doing video work like creating promotional videos recording conferences things like that ray and allison began planning their wedding and their escape from baltimore on november 5th 2005 they stood together in front of all their family and friends on a beach in puerto rico and gave their vows to love and cherish till death do they part rey's mother maria was able to convince puerto rico's most popular quattro player pedro guzman to perform a song at the wedding it was a very special very romantic very memorable time it was a wedding that spoke volumes about the relationship between the bride and the groom which was built on values of love trust and loyalty and the only incident that felt out of place was when porter stansberry arrived to the island in a private helicopter climbing off of it with a cigar hanging out of his mouth like he's mark cuban or something this really does illustrate the difference between rey and porter i don't think there's anything wrong with you know making money and doing what you got to do i would never begrudge someone from making their money and doing their thing but there's a time and a place for that right this was an occasion to mark the enduring love between allison and rey as a woman it's a well-known fact that you shouldn't wear white to someone else's wedding because the bride and the groom need to be the main attraction they need to be the main event it's their day the first day of their lives together as husband and wife or wife and wife or husband and husband whatever kind of wedding it is to show up in a helicopter like some oil tycoon is the male equivalent of arriving dressed in a straight up ball gown like a ball wedding gown like vera wang came and dressed you for someone else's wedding porter wanted needed to be noticed and admired for his wealth and his success and he chose rey's wedding to make a grand entrance but that's just my opinion don't come for me i'm sure he's a lovely man it's not like he's a bad person for doing that is just something that i noticed on march 14 2006 ray went to delray beach florida to film the oxford club's eighth annual investment university conference he did not attend it as an agora employee but as a freelancer with his own company it was his job to tape the conference and the speakers to edit the footage and make a bunch of dvds that they could send out to their subscribers who hadn't been able to make it and these subscribers had paid for this dvd it was the last project that ray would work on with agora or the oxford club or porter stansberry four months after the wedding in april of 2006 allison and ray put their house up for sale midnight polo was finally complete and ray was eager to get back to la and start pitching it the newlyweds were excited to start the next chapter of their lives together and they knew it was a seller's market and their lovely historical home with its well-manicured lawn would sell very quickly they might even make a profit they just had to get through the next few months get the house sold and they'd be on their way sadly ray rivera would never leave baltimore maryland within two months he would be found dead on the floor of some empty office space in the belvedere hotel the belvedere was a grand hotel meant for the wealthiest clientele when it first opened on december 14 1903. it once played host to movie stars presidents international royalty and underworld gangsters just like any other historical hotel that's worth its salt everyone from clark gable john p rockefeller andrew carnegie the duke and duchess of windsor bb king kenny rogers and every u.s president from teddy roosevelt to jfk have graced the once lavish lobby f scaffitzgerald and his wife zelda stayed there as well which were my favorite guests of the whole list that i read i was very excited about f scott fitzgerald and zelda in its heyday it had the best martinis in town the best chef in town and it was once the tallest building in town standing at 188 feet but after 100 years and 18 owners it lost its former glory and fell into disrepair visitors to the belvedere now can clearly see the water marks and the faded facade that's riddled with cracks if you walk into the lobby the worn out decor shows that it was once magnificent and grand and beautiful but now it's accompanied by the faint scent of mildew in 1991 the former hotel was transformed into mixed used condominiums the main floors are now apartments but the ballrooms are still rented out for events and weddings there's a bar in the lobby called the owl bar and that still brings in a good number of guests and there's a nightclub on the 13th floor called the 13th floor nightclub in the basement multiple shops and restaurants can be found and there's office space in the back where the hotel pool once was located at the time of rey rivera's death this office space was divided in two and one portion was occupied by a catering service while the other sat empty that is where rey was discovered over a week after he went missing the belvedere hotel is widely considered to be one of the most haunted places in baltimore and is heavily featured on the mount vernon walking ghost tour it was the trump towers of the 1900s and lots and lots of people stayed here and it is reported to be haunted by probably just under a dozen different ghosts in its heyday the belvedere hotel was the premier spot in baltimore and it's widely believed that some of the guests here are no longer among the living this is reportedly very haunted brandon welch is a tour guide with baltimore ghost tours and says the stories here are numerous like a woman who saw a spirit in the owl bar she came in one morning early to the owl bar on the first floor and saw a little old man standing in the corner and he was kind of surprised when she walked into the empty bar and she said then he turned and walked right straight through a door going up the 12th floor has had some activity as has the 13th floor where a man had an unusual experience sitting at the bar he reported that the level of liquor went down like it was being you know sucked up by an invisible straw or something but if you make it all the way to the roof you can see the city spread out before you in all of its glittering majesty every city looks beautiful at night from a bird's eye view and the word belvedere actually means beautiful view was ray rivera looking for a beautiful view the night that he met his fate that's what we'll discuss in part two when we go over the weeks leading up to his disappearance the search for a missing man that had only been married seven months and was looking forward to a fresh start we'll talk about the mysterious events that surrounded his disappearance and eventual death and we'll also talk about the theories that swirl around the life and death of ray rivera and and they're crazy they're crazy these theories not crazy like oh these people don't know what they're talking about they're crazy crazy like wow it makes you think i mean crazy cool the theories are just very interesting very um multi-dimensional i mean depending on who you talk to depending on what corner of the internet you found yourself these theories get pretty uh out there but in a very interesting way because you guys know i'm a classic conspiracy theorist maybe not so much a closet one but i really am into conspiracy theories because i feel like they give me i don't know a way to think outside the box and kind of examine things outside of our normal constrained norms so that's what i really found just very interesting about this case because well we'll talk about that well i'm going to get ahead of myself we'll talk about that next time thank you so so much to native for sponsoring this video thank you to all of you out there who keep coming back and watching the videos hit the like button if you liked it share the video if you think it's worth sharing stay tuned because part two will be coming up soon follow me on instagram and twitter even though i have been avoiding social media i've been moving i've been busy and i just don't have it in me sometimes to deal with with social media but make sure you do leave a comment and let me know what you think about this case if you've heard of it what you think your whole theory is i would like to kind of get an idea of what you guys think so once again thank you so much to everybody who's here and who gives me their feedback i love you guys so much thank you to my patrons who are always there for me actually i have to stop recording and send them a voice message because it's been a couple of days since i've talked to them and i don't usually like to go that long without talking to them so thank you to everybody stay kind stay beautiful and i will see you very very soon all these feelings [Music] how deep it getting you goes so you got to let it go

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 289,601

Rating: 4.9033122 out of 5

Keywords: rey rivera, netflix unsolved mysteries, porter stansberry, agora, mystery, true crime, stephanie harlowe

Id: R5uYwQw6hGA

Length: 54min 45sec (3285 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Exact-Form]

She’s my fave!! Hopefully can listen to this tonight. If not, definitely tomorrow

[u/caitik60]

St Louis Missouri, not Michigan. MI=Michigan MO is Missouri

[u/LawOrderJustice10]

Can't wait to see Part 2! Very well done. So this is the stuff Netflix can't air. Pretty much what I suspected if I wanted to research and investigate further myself. Porter was jealous of Rey and a lifelong criminal. Seems like there is nothing he wouldn't do. And Rey found out who his friend really was. Of course, did he do the dirty work himself or have someone else do it, is the real question.

[u/Trokalinka]

1. The word "suicide" can convey intention, and be unecessarily provacative. An intention to die may not exist in a mentally ill person who engages in behavior that will reasonably result in his death. Police/officialdom use "suicide" rather more simply to mean "killed himself" and differentiate from homicide or accident.

2. As a working class person, I wonder how a failed playwrite could afford such a remarkable lifestyle.

3. Scoundrel or not, I suspect his old friend was just trying to help.

4. If Rey's body didn't make that hole, what did? If it was "mysterious" that no one saw him plummet through the roof, wouldn't it be even more mysterious that no one saw the staging of the crime scene, including the creation of a hole, dragging a body, etc?

5. The most likely person setting off the home alarm may have been Rey himself.

6. The objective content of the call may be entirely nonconsequential. Rey's reaction to the call may have been entirely baseless.

7. If the detective was taken off the case for nefarious reasons, spell them out. Who would have that much power?

[u/CheckemPaul]

He got a running jump from the roof. Its that simple

[u/boop1067]

Where are your facts

[u/Brock_McHugebig]

he was suffering from mental illness and killed himself. hope this helps.