A mysterious death that was hotly debated at the time due to its strange clues and a recent feature on Unsolved Mysteries has shone the light once again on this odd case.
Rey Omar Rivera was born on June 10 1973 to Angel and Maria Rivera. He was very close to his family due to his father serving in the army so the family had moved a lot as a result and couldn't maintain long term in person connections. In November 2005, he married Allison in an idyllic ceremony in Puerto Rico. His family described him as happy and fun loving, Allison says her husbands dream was to become a writer and director as well as starting a family together, she says that Rey was desperate to be a father. Rey was a big film fan and films were everything to him and he had a dream about acting but as many find out, making a career in the film industry is a difficult one. Allison and the Rivera family describe Rey as always laughing, funny and having a smile that would light up a room.
Rey and Allison
Rey and Allison had relocated in December 2004 from California to Baltimore to work for Rey's longtime friend, Porter Stansberry, as a writer and videographer for Stansberry's investment company, Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, which was a subsidiary of Agora Publishing. Rey and Stansberry had been friends since high school and played water polo together. Although Rey had never written about financials or stocks his friend had always wanted him to come work for him and after Rey wasn't earning great money at the time and he was glad for the opportunity. Rey stopped working for the company just six months before his death but according to Stansberry he worked on a freelance basis for another subsidiary of Agora Publishing.
The couple knew little of the Baltimore area and made a pact that they were going to live there for 24 months, they soon found a great home, church and community with Allison saying they were very happy.
Rey and Allison
REY GOES MISSING
On May 16 2006, Allison was preparing for a business trip with Rey making her breakfast and carried her suitcase to the car for her and then Allison left for the three hour drive. Allison says the day was a beautiful one and that her final words to Rey were "I love you so much" to which he replied "Thank you for loving me so much". At around 6.30pm, after finishing her meetings and checking into her hotel, she called Rey but he did not answer which she thought was strange.
At the time, the couple had a house guest, Claudia, who was a work colleague of Allison's. Later on that evening she called Claudia and asked about Rey as he had still not called her. Claudia revealed that at around 6.30pm Rey had answered a phone call on his mobile phone and had then left the house in a hurry. While on the phone with Allison she checked the house and noticed all the lights were on but Rey had not returned. The next morning Claudia rang Allison at around 5.30am and told her Rey still wasn't home.
Allison knew something wasn't right as Rey didn't do things like this, so she left her hotel and returned home. She called Rey's family and friends but no one had heard from him, his brother, Angel, shared Allison's belief that something had happened to him so he flew to Baltimore from Orlando, Florida, that afternoon. When Allison came home she saw Rey's car, a black 2001 Mitsubishi Montero, was not there, meaning wherever he had gone he had used his car to get there. She also found an opened soda can, a bag of chips and his Invisaligns in the kitchen. Upstairs, the main bedroom light and the office light were on.
Rey's missing person poster
At around 7pm, Angel arrived in Baltimore, Claudia had returned to New York, Rey's parents came from Puerto Rico and Allison's parents also arrived to help in the search. The first step they took was calling hospitals to see if Rey had been admitted and been put down as a John Doe but no man had been admitted that sounded like Rey. Stansberry put up a reward of $1,000 for information on his friends whereabouts and also got the media involved. Rey was reported as missing on May 17 2006 at 3.00pm.
Rey's family and friends searched around different areas in Baltimore, asking inside coffee shops, restaurants and shops in the hope that someone had seen him. Allison found his credit cards had not been used, his phone was dead and that there was no activity on their joint bank account. Everyone was fearing the worst but they still held out hope.
On May 22, his parents decided to try and look for his car in parking lots around Baltimore. Luck was on their side and they managed to spot their sons car in a parking lot behind a building on St. Paul Street in space 7. The car had a ticket on it and the parking attendant told Allison that the car had most likely been parked there the evening of Rey's disappearance as he had found it there the following morning. Allison was confused as she could not understand why Rey would be there.
Rey's car
Rey's car was found near the Belvedere, which is a historic hotel that includes condominiums, restaurants, bars and lounges, Stansberry's business is also located nearby so there was some logic to Rey being there. Police searched the car but failed to find anything helpful to the investigation but did note his phone was not in the car, meaning Rey had it on him.
REY IS FOUND
On May 24, a few of Rey's co-workers decided to go to the top of the parking garage next to the Belvedere. When looking over the edge they spotted flip flops on the lower roof area which was near to a hole in the roof. They immediately called the police and officers had a manager unlock the door to the conference room with the hole underneath it. Inside, the officers found the body of Rey which had apparently crashed through the metal roof. The Rivera family were informed later that day at Baltimore Police Headquarters. Rey was 32 years old.
Police began their investigation into what had happened to Rey. His body had been found in a prone position and was heavily decomposed, eight days had passed since he first went missing. Despite the decomposition, the medical examiner discovered multiple fractured ribs, punctured lungs, lacerations, damage to the skull and two fractures to the right leg. Taking into account the extent of the injuries he had suffered police concluded that he had fallen from a great height and then crashed through the roof. It was also noted that the hole was clean and not too large which suggested Rey fell almost vertically through the roof, something that seemed quite odd considering most people when falling from a height will fall horizontally. One person described the hole as if it was like Rey had gone through the roof like a projectile.
The hole in the conference room roof
Questions swirled such as, where did Rey come from to land in the conference room? Initial thoughts were that Rey had either been pushed, jumped or fell from the top of the hotel roof and went through the roof of the conference room which would be around ten stories down, the top of the roof was approximately a forty foot open area. However, there are a few different places where Rey could have fallen from, such as air conditioning units and air ducts. There was a forty five foot area between the edge of the roof and the hole in the ceiling of the conference room.
Detective Micheal Baier stated that the hole Rey made was around a 45 degree angle from the top of the hotel roof meaning if he had just slipped off the roof he wouldn't have landed where he did. He would have needed a huge and fast run up to the edge to land there but Rey was in flip flops meaning this would have been physically impossible. Allison says that her husband was very scared of heights and would have been scared to have been on the roof as it had no railing and she was at a loss as to why he would be up there at all. Detective Baier did not believe Rey had jumped.
The room Rey was found in with an outline of his body, screenshot from Unsolved Mysteries
Another theory was that Rey had jumped from the top of the parking garage where his co-workers had been, the distance was about 20 feet. Detective Baier felt that the jump would have been survivable and that as Rey had such severe wounds, a fall from a greater height could be the only match. He ruled out this theory.
A third theory was that Rey had fallen from a ledge on the 11th floor as the ledge wraps around the building. Rey could only have accessed this ledge by either going through an office or someone's condo and there was also the issue of the windows being half windows, meaning they barely opened at all let alone enough for a full grown man to get through. The ledge is also very small and would be difficult for an adult man to use without falling off. Due to conflicting evidence it has not been determined exactly where Rey fell from.
During searches of the conference room and roof where Rey's body was found they discovered his mobile phone and that strangely it had very little damage and it still worked, the screen wasn't even cracked. His glasses were also found nearby and that they also had oddly little damage to them. WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller became very interested in the story and reported on it several times, she felt it was strange that Rey's phone and glasses had so little damage despite the force that would have been needed to send Rey through the roof and she thought it was odd that his flip flops were on the roof and not in the room with him and that only one of them was broken. Allison noticed what appeared to be drag marks on one of them and found the way the one flip flop is broken strange. Detective Baier believed the evidence on the roof had been staged. Rey's money clip had not been found on his body, he usually kept his money, identification and other items in it. They have never been found. The clip was a wedding gift from Allison and was engraved with his initials, she searched the car throughly when it was returned to her from the police and could not find it, something she doesn't feel is right is that it's vanished as Rey always had it on him and it should have been found with his other things on the roof or nearby.
Allison showing the phone on Unsolved Mysteries
Investigative reporter Stephen Janis looked into Rey's case, he asked several people at the hotel if they had seen Rey or heard anything that night but no one reported anything. Angel tried to retrace his brothers steps, trying to walk through the lobby and upstairs to the roof but found he could not do this without someone spotting him. He did note there are several back stairways and hallways that he would have had to navigate before reaching the roof and Stephen Janis noted that the door to the roof area was always locked or meant to be always locked. It appears that Rey would have to have had previous knowledge of the layout of the hotel to be able to get to the roof.
Baier checked CCTV footage but found no trace of Rey on it and the camera on the roof had unfortunately been disconnected, no one could give Detective Baier any evidence that Rey had been inside the hotel that night. There were no witnesses or calls that placed him there but despite the inconsistencies in the case the Baltimore Police ruled Rey's death as a suicide.
Rey's family and friends disputed this heavily, Angel noted that Rey was not suffering any mental health problems nor did he take drugs, Allison felt they were very happy in their lives saying the pair had plans to start a family and that there was no evidence that Rey had wanted to end his life. When Allison called police for updates in the case she was coldly told to accept that her husband had committed suicide and to move on to which she replied for them to show her some evidence that Rey had indeed killed himself and she would.
The top of the roof of the Belvedere to the hole in the conference room
In yet another strange twist in the case, an unidentified person was very interested in Rey's computer. The computer was taken by police as evidence and when Allison went to the police station to pick it up the detective mentioned that someone had called a few times asking if they could come to pick it up and seemed very interested in the status of the device which troubled Allison greatly. It is unknown if the police tried to locate this person.
Allison met with the medical examiner who was assigned to her husbands case who informed her that they were not planning on closing his case despite the police's ruling. The examiner stated that the way Rey's shins were broken were not consistent with a fall but they could not say how these injuries could have occurred. Due to the many inconsistencies with the case the medical examiner ruled the manner of death as undetermined, which means that there isn't enough evidence to indicate a murder, accident, natural death or suicide.
During the search for Rey, Allison found a note taped to the back of her husbands computer, its text shrunk down to a very small size. She thought that the note had been written the day he vanished as she found scraps of it in the bin. It said; "Brothers and Sisters, right now, around the world, volcanos are erupting. What an awesome sight... whom virtue unites, death will not separate.". The note had different names on it as well, such as movie stars and family ones. Detective Baier found the note very unusual and Allison noted that there was one entire page which listed people he knew but oddly the list did not include some of the most important people in his life. The note also said; "I stand before you a man who understands the purpose and value of our secrets. That's why I cherish them as secrets.".
The note on the back of the computer
Allison was at a loss as to what the note meant so decided to take the first line and Google it, her first hit was to do with the Freemasons. Her husband had been curious about secret societies such as the Freemasons and she suspected Rey had been wanting to do a screenplay about them. Others felt the note was cryptic and may have been written in code as in one part it said "That was a well-played game. Congratulations, to all who played.".
Rey was a writer and like many writers had often wrote down inspiration when it struck which meant pieces of it were generally everywhere and that small fragments written on one small piece of paper would have only have made sense to him. Rey was also known to write quite philosophical things which would explain some of the writing. Allison gave the note to police who then sent it onto an FBI lab who concluded the note, while very strange, wasn't a suicide note, something Allison also agrees with.
Something that also stumped the investigation was Rey's sudden departure from his home the day he vanished. He took very little with him which would suggest he intended it to be a quick trip outside the house and that the reason for leaving seemed to happen in a hurry. Claudia recalled to Allison how she had heard Rey answer his phone in his office and then quickly run down the stairs and leave the house, with no explanation. The call itself was apparently quick and ended with Rey exclaiming "Oh". The call was traced back to Stansberry & Associates but as the call had come from a switchboard they could not track down the extension to find out who the caller was.
Rey with Porter Stansberry
Once Rey's body had been discovered, police tried to question Stansberry & Associates employees but the company put a gag order on the whole staff within hours of Rey's body being found, this meant they could not talk to police according to their company lawyers. Porter Stansberry did not return calls from the police and has not spoken to anyone about the case since Rey's body was found. Both Detective Baier and Allison found this extremely suspicious as why would you not want to help find out who had hurt your friend? Who you had known since high school, who you had gone to prom with, when you had been helpful before the body was found.
Rey had been working as a freelance videographer for Stansberry & Associates which meant he produced documentaries and videos of conferences. Prior to that he worked on a newsletter called the Rebound Report, which gave readers stock tips like buying stock that was not currently doing well but would rebound in the future. Before coming to Baltimore, Porter Stansberry put out a letter under a firm called Pirate Investors that touted the investment in a Russian firm that had found access to valuable uranium but the tip did not work out and investors complained.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges against Stansberry and fined him $1.5 million. The company claimed it was their First Amendment Right to give out the information about the Russian firm but the SEC countered that the advice was fraudulent. Interestingly, Allison revealed that one of the reasons she and Rey had come to Baltimore was to help clean up Stansberry's and the company's reputation following the scandal.
Scenes of interest in the case
Allison noticed that about two weeks before Rey's death he seemed worried by something but didn't think much of it at the time. On Monday May 15, at 1am, the day before he vanished, the house alarm went off (something it had never done before) and when Allison went to investigate Rey came quickly out of another room with a baseball bat and seemed to be very frightened. This concerned her as her husband was usually someone not afraid of anything.
When police came out to investigate the cause of the alarm they told Allison that a squirrel probably triggered it. On Tuesday May 17, at 1am, once again, the alarm went off. When investigating Allison saw that the window on the ground floor had been tampered with. Allison believes someone tried to gain access to their house that night and that the two alarm incidents are connected to Rey's death. The second alarm coincides with Rey going missing hours earlier on May 16.
Allison believes Rey found something out he wasn't meant to and was murdered in an attempt to silence him but unfortunately she has no idea what the information could be. Angel believes his brother was killed over money, he suspects that someone lost a lot of money due to Rey's Rebound Report and killed him over it. Detective Baier cautioned Allison over investigating Rey's death as the people who killed her husband may wish to cause her harm if she got too close, he also says he is the only homicide detective involved that did not believe that Rey's death was a suicide but only three weeks into the investigation Baier was reassigned.
A few theories in the case have evolved over the years:
Porter Stansberry: The allegations of fraud and that the SEC became involved, on the night Rey vanished he received a call from Stansberry & Associates and he leaves his home immediately, Rey's car is found nearby the offices, after Rey's body was found the company put a gag order on their employees within hours and Porter has refused to speak to police and refused to be interviewed for Rey's segment on the show Unsolved Mysteries which aired on July 1 2020 despite being helpful in the initial search and getting the media involved.
Suicide: The FBI released a report stating they thought Rey had Bipolar Disorder, Rey and Allison were not happy living in Baltimore, he had visited the Belvedere multiple times before his death, Rey was apparently friends with two bartenders who worked at the bar located on the 13th floor and would often take smoke breaks on the roof proving Rey knew how to get onto the roof and a physicist determined that if Rey ran at 11mph he could have jumped from the roof and landed in the spot where his body was found. You can click the link here to read the full report.
The Game: David Fincher's film, The Game, features a character dying similar to Rey. A theory posted on Reddit points out the connection between the note and the film, the 1997 movie follows a man who takes part in a scheme that blurs his concept of reality and ends with him jumping from a roof and through a glass ceiling. The theory suggests Rey was copying the film. Allison does not give any validation the theory.
Helicopter: A theory has evolved that Rey was dropped from a helicopter. The hole and the fact that no one saw Rey enter the hotel that night suggests he came to be there from another source. A previous employee of the hotel agrees with this theory and Detective Baier states that the helicopter wouldn't have been low enough for people to hear or see if Rey fell from a large height and if the helicopter had been flying at a higher altitude than the building then it could have easily slipped away.
Staged: In Unsolved Mysteries, it showed the reporters and detectives expressing doubts about falling through the roof. There were three points they identified that could have been where Rey came from, the very top of the hotel roof, the parking garage and the 11th floor ledge all having their own problems and also the fact that the hotel roof CCTV was disconnected. Rey's glasses and phone were found with barely any damage which led people to believe that Rey's body had been placed under the hole rather than him falling with the phone and glasses placed there after. The medical examiner also told Allison the shin injuries were not consistent with a fall and there are the odd flip flops position on the conference room roof and the apparent drag mark on one.
The fall highlighted from the 11th floor ledge
OUR CONCLUSION
At Apollo's Raven, we find Rey's death very suspicious and find it hard to believe that the police would rule his death a suicide despite there being some very prominent discrepancies. If Rey had wanted to end his life why leave the house so suddenly after the phone call, he left lights on and food out, that speaks of someone who has had to leave their home very suddenly for an urgent matter and plans to return, not someone who had the intention of killing themselves. Rey seemed to have had a happy family life and didn't suffer from any mental health problems before so it seems unlikely that he would suddenly have a breakdown out of no where. There is also the sudden movement at 6.30pm, if you had planned to end your life you don't have a solid time you had planned to do so like an appointment.
There is also the lack of a suicide note, the odd note that many have poured over isn't like any note someone would leave behind. We don't think that this has anything to do with his death as the information is too random, it seems like the notes of a writer, Rey wanted to be a screenwriter and had a curiosity about secret organisations, something that would make for a good screenplay. The random films he listed could have been inspiration points for something and the names listed could be him using real life people he knew to base characters or names on, as far as we know Rey wasn't trained in codes and secret messaging to a degree that even the FBI would be stumped, we feel that the note, perhaps hidden out of a simple desire to be protective over any work before it could be shown to anyone, was simply a random note from a writer jotting down ideas and thoughts ready for when the whole idea came together.
We also feel very suspicious towards Porter Stansberry and his company, if your friend, who you have known since high school, goes missing suddenly and without reason, you would do everything you could to find them. While Stansberry originally helped greatly with trying to find Rey he suddenly stopped when his body was found. His refusal to speak with police and his family is extremely odd as why stop all communication. The fact that Rey was called out of his house by someone at his company, his car was found not far from the offices and his body in the hotel nearby is troubling enough but tied in with then putting a gag order on his employees so no one could talk is extremely suspicious, if you had nothing to hide why go to such lengths. For a friend such as Stansberry it is within reason that Rey would drop everything he was doing to come and help him. We feel Porter Stansberry knows something about Rey's death and is not coming forward for an unknown reason, whether he had something to do with his death or is scared of someone else remains a mystery. Either way we feel Porter Stansberry knows something and the phone call leads to him as it was his company and also his friend.
Allison says her husband was worried about something leading to up his death but unfortunately didn't disclose what that was, the two alarms going off with Rey welding a bat and looking terrified are two more odd incidents in this case. The chances of someone trying to rob the same house twice at the exact same time not long after are slim and we agree fully with Allison about the break ins being connected to Rey's death, the timing of before his disappearance and just after are too convenient. Someone trying to get a hold of Rey's computer from the police is also troubling and may be the reason behind the break ins.
Rey's injuries and crime scene are also strange. His injuries were not consistent with a fall such as his, his phone and glasses were unharmed despite the fall, the flip flops oddly positioned with one having signs of being dragged, falling through the conference room roof almost perfectly vertical and the police having no idea where he could possibly have come from for it all to add up are just some of the inconsistencies of this case. There is also Rey's fear of heights, anyone who is terrified of something will not easily go anywhere near of what they are afraid of. The fact that Rey is not caught anywhere on CCTV in the hotel is also very strange as you would have to have had very good knowledge of the layout of the hotel and any potential blind spots in the cameras or security to move around unseen. We believe that Rey was murdered as the signs for his death being a suicide just don't add up. There is also the mystery of where the money clip is, the prospect of someone stealing it is slim considering the roof is out of view and would have required a lot of effort to steal something so small and no one has used Rey's cards not to mention you would have stolen the phone as well as the clip.
While we can only hypothesise on the theories of his death, we believe that money is the main motive behind his death. Porter Stansberry had been in trouble with fraudulent information regarding stocks and wanted Rey to work for him to fix the reputation of himself and his company, Rey then did the newsletter giving stock advise despite not being very proficient in finance and stocks which is something Rey was not 100% comfortable with doing in the first place. Whether this unknown person who caused Rey's death held him responsible for them losing a large amount of money or Rey became involved in Stansberry's previous mess with fraudulent information and was killed in the aftermath is unknown. We believe either way Rey was caught up in a situation revolving around money and died as a result. This person we believe has a great deal of money and influence as this case was ruled a suicide fast, the one detective who thought otherwise was transferred only three weeks into the investigation, Porter Stansberry and the company have remained silent despite the years passing and people leaving the company freeing them of gag orders which would lead us to suspect this person is someone who people are afraid of and of the repercussions of speaking out.
Rey and Allison on their wedding day
We recommend watching Rey's Unsolved Mysteries episode as it really gives a wonderful insight into Rey as a person and the specifics of his case, the episode was titled "Mystery on the Rooftop" and can be found on Netflix. If you have any information about Rey's case please click this link to the Unsolved Mysteries website to submit any clues.
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