Psychic's Leads Investigated

Police investigating the disappearance of Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar are scouting nearby Milton for possible locations that could match recent descriptions given by psychic detective Carla Baron. Bellefonte police officer Darrel Zaccagni said Baron's description of a tan or brown vehicle following a Mini Cooper like the one Gricar drove along Route 192 on April 15 - the day he vanished - meshes with earlier, unreleased witness reports to state police in Milton.

Bellefonte, (PRWEB) June 5, 2005 -- Police investigating the disappearance of Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar are scouting nearby Milton for possible locations that could match recent descriptions given by psychic detective Carla Baron.

Bellefonte police officer Darrel Zaccagni said Baron's description of a tan or brown vehicle following a Mini Cooper like the one Gricar drove along Route 192 on April 15 - the day he vanished - meshes with earlier, unreleased witness reports to state police in Milton.

Baron also has told investigators that at some point during Gricar's drive, the opportunity presented itself and a move was made to get Gricar into the tailing tan car. Baron believes someone leaned into the passenger side window of the Mini Cooper while smoking a cigarette to coerce Gricar from his car.

State police reports of witness accounts also note a similar scene, Zaccagni said. They describe someone leaning in to talk to the driver before the car pulls away abruptly.

"The little things have come back to be verified," he said.

Zaccagni said other details, such as the cigarette ash on the floor and the search dogs circling as if Gricar got into a vehicle, were pre-reported, but he gives Baron the benefit of the doubt considering the other unreported details she's provided.

In the scenario Baron has presented to investigators, a car followed Gricar, not just that Friday when he unexpectedly took the day off, but for days or weeks before.

Baron, official psychic spokeswoman for Court TV set to star in a new series called "Haunting Evidence," said Gricar, once coerced out of his car, climbed into the backseat of the tan car, where another man waited.

From there, the car traveled only five or 10 minutes, using a highway, before ending up at a location connected with freight - either a warehouse or other facility with large bay doors.

Route 15 runs between Lewisburg and Milton, and is less than 10 miles.

Baron also provided investigators with details of the neighborhood where she believes Gricar was taken because "he stumbled onto something." She didn't rule out drug trafficking, and said Gricar's work interfered with the kidnapper's business arrangements, one she suggested has gone on for years.

Zaccagni said for now Gricar still is being considered a missing person, but he did say a short list of suspects has been compiled in the event it becomes a homicide. Zaccagni did not name anyone police might scrutinize.

For now, the case grows colder with each day Gricar remains missing.

"There's absolutely no evidence," he said of Gricar's vanishing. Police essentially have ruled out two theories that touch on mental illness, he said. Either Gricar checked himself into a mental health facility to seek treatment, or the prosecutor experienced a psychotic episode and is wandering somewhere, have fallen to the bottom of the list of possibilities.

Reports of Gricar sightings in Wilkes-Barre also have not panned out. Zaccagni said the most recent sighting of Gricar comes out of Michigan, and like other leads, officers are following up, even though there is a strong likelihood it will turn out to be yet another red herring.

"We'll check it out," Zaccagni said.

Mirror Staff Writer Greg Bock can be reached at (814)946-7446 or by email link provided.

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