Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Police are knocking on the door of 50-year-old Carol Rey’s home. Carol’s adult son, John, called the police scared that Patricia may be missing.
She hadn’t answered his messages in days. But at this point, police are completely unaware of the horrifying secrets that lie just feet away from them inside the house…
2 days earlier….
officers arrive for a welfare check on a missing woman
this is 50 year old carol ray
she lives with her mother patricia and her 3 year old daughter
the officers ask if patricia is home and carole said no at the moment and she was wisiting her sister.
the officer explaine that someone was worried they didn’t know where she was at
carole explain that her son john and patricia having a little bit of tiff because of a bit of money and he has been trying to call her 24 hour and carol said that she gave patricia the messages yeasterday.
this made sense to the cops , carol’s mother patricia didn’t want to deal with her greedy grandson and decided to move out and ignore him at least what carol claimed
because at this point police are completely unaware of the horrifying secrets that lie just feet away from them inside the house.
and over the course of the next few days this simple missing person’s report….
would turn into hands down the most gruesome and distrubing case that they had ever worked on.
following the interaction with carol the previous night john would call the police again and slowly become more concerned that something had happened to patricia.
so at 11:00 a.m on january 22nd officers would arrive at carol’s for a second time with the intent to find a conclusive answer to john’s worries.
officer ask if it’s written down and carol look after her mother’s old calender.while the officer’s enter the home.
carole says that her mother patricia been staying right at her sister’s house for a couple of days .
when asked if her mom is back primarily carol answer is both and says that all of her mom’s clothes and everything are still here and she came by yesterday until about 5 pm and picked up her medications and fresh clothes and stuff like that.
based on the story patricia is back living at her house and is currently at the doctor’s office getting amonthly shot
everything lines up patricia temporarily stopped communicating with john due to a financial dispute
however john being a caring grandchild got worried something more sinister was at play.
it seems like it was just miscommunication however officer decide to get all of patricia’s information
and check her room just to ensure nothings off.
the officers have one simple task to wrap this case up simply confirm patricia is okay with their own eyes
to do this officer pelt decide to call the doctor’s office where patricia is apparently being treated hower the call doesn’t go as planed.
suddenly things are starting to miss a line…..
john insist that he thinks that patricia is missing.
and now the only person living with her is lying about her current location .
something is definitely not adding up so officers decide to speak to john again to further investigate the strange situation
the text message says ” don’t send te cops to my house again”
john’sclaims are frankly terrifying,not only does he suspect his mother of stealing from patricia and using her money but he thinks she may have even murdered her.
accusing your own mother of committing such a terrible act is something officers need to take seriously.
however there’s no evidence to suggest that carol had even harmed patricia let alone killled her,so these feel drastic , unfounded and premature.
officer gerebics seems to have felt these claims were over the top as well so he would lead john to the station to file a missing person’s report .
additionally he wants to learn about john’s history with carol and why he think she may have killed patricia .
alongside john would be carol’s ex -husband TJ who claimed to have important information that could help solve the case.
john physically last saw his grandmother eye to eye after halloween beginning of november ,before he went to north carolina, he came back from north carolina thanksgiving,so then he didn’t see her. he went there on christmas, didn’t see her.
john have been calling and asking his grandma to call him even said have his mother have his grandma call him or he’s going to do a welfare check, he threatened that a couple weeks ago.
and said yesterday he cracked and finally called it in.no voice contact with her since thanksgiving.
somebody texted john off her phone or of her facebook but john knew it’s not her just because the words they use ,it’s not how his grandmother talks
and TJ carol’s ex-husband says that he saw patricia only every time he drop his daughter off.and says it was around haloween time last time he saw patricia. but he did receive one text message
TJ says when carol types a lot of times it comes up kind of mispelled
it’s because of her glasses and stuff like that .
remember how carol said that patricia moved over to live at her sister’s house.
john visited that house, claimed that she hasn’t seen patricia in over 5 years
these interviews helped clarify why john would go as far as saying carol had killed patricia.
she’s been lying to them for months,nobody ‘s been able to see or speak to patricia and she happens to have a decent surplus of cash that the family has been pulling from .
and remember on top of all of that carol lied to police abut patricia’s whereabouts at the doctor’s office -the evidence makes it abundantly clear that carol’s not telling the and trying to hide something
and it’s likely something horrifying so police try and visit her house a third and final time,but this time they aren’t leaving without answers.
the officer told carol that patricia wasn’t at the doctor’s office.
carol says that’s woods cardiovascular is where her mom goes to a dr topazol is the one who treats her mom’s lymphocytic white blood cell cancer not the white blood cell cancer.
the officer confronts carol and said that carol had said patricia was at woodscardiovascular.carol answer is because her mom has got alot of doctors.
another officer ask how she gets to the doctor apointments and carols says her sister drives her , or carol herself drive her mother and sometimes their neighbor across the street.
officer confront carol that she didn’t drive her mom today and ask the question again how did she get to the doctor today though.
carol thinks patricia’s sister did. the confused officer ask if it’s the sister that lives in warren. carol answers is yes. the officer ask for her mom’s sisters number.
an officer says they just want to know where this lady is. carol understand but she says that they are upsetting her daughter and upsetting her and start talking about she just went throug a really bad domestic violence divorce situation and the father had CPS up her butt
the officer explain that they are there to find out if carol’s mom is okay that they got a bunch of people who are concerned about her and no one seems to know where she is .
carol’s is aware the her son’s father , her son and her brother which got his brother on high alert and start talking about hhis brother’s wife was just at carol’s home yesturday morning while my mom was laying on the couch to pick up $200 to do her tabs for the car ,for her son johns car she also says she can show a picture of her daughter and her mother.
when an female police officer interrupt saying patricia sending messages telling eveyone shes’ at carol’s home,currently.
carol says no and then said she’scoming back home because she just called. officer ask carol why she don’t call her right now.while they are there.
the female officer ask if patricia will answer the phone and carols say she doesn’t know because she went up there to get her B12. shot.
carol change drastic demeanor when she was directly ask to call patricia she’s no longer deflecting but rather soft spoken and delibrate quite her choice of words.
carol saying that john started this 3 -4 nights ago threatening to call if she didn’t talked to him. she didn’t talk to him by noon the next day. carol claims she had her call before she went to sam’s club and it was late like 11:45-11:50.
the phone call to patricia goes forward to an answering machin.
another officer getting annoyed asking why carol’s mother directly speak to john not through a message ,not through text or face time .
carol says patricia can talk to john and said she doesn’t have nothing to do with her and john ,though and she’s getting stuck in the middle of it.
and ask carol to try to call patricia again then she ask about the the doctor’s office patricia’s at.carol begin to say woods cardio but change to the weber cancer center and explain it’s behind macomb hospital.
coincidentally officer pelts would call this doctor’s office and yet again patricia was nowehere to be found.
pelt knew something was off
and decided to calll in detective Gerebics to question carol officially and confront her about her growing list of lies …
detective Gerebics start with asking about a consent from carol to search the house to see if there’s anything that would lead them thinkof who she may have went with to help carol out
like figure out where she went,if she didn’t tell carol otherwise and that carol was under the impression patricia was supposed to be with her sister
carol agreesanother detective ask who lives in the house ,carol say she does her mom and carol’s daughter.
carol gets the question if her mom have done this in the past,carol says her mom doesn’t tell anybody where she lives or what she’s doing.
detective Gerebics reminds carols that her son seemed pretty concerned that patricia wasn’t at carols house.
but patricia told carol that she’s with her sister that is a concern to detective Gerebics,carol agree and that’s got her worried -not worried but aggravated.
she’s not answering her phone calls the people that she say she’s with she’s not.
detective Gerebics doesn’t feel right if he leave this house without looking for anything that can point them in the right direction detective Gerebics wants to do his job properly and make sure that he guarantee when patricia walks back and she found out that he searched through her stuff to help try to find her patricia probably going to be okay with it.
carol doesn’t want to sign anything to get in trouble.
detectives ask if patricia normaly sleep over at people’s house without toothbrush,a bag of clothes like she was spending the night anywhere
and her coat and boots.
patricia had medical issues for a while.anything can happen, COPD , she had a stroke, all kinds of other issues out there.
detective Gerebics seem more concerned for carol’s mother then herself and carol pleaded that she also concerned but claims she just talked with her and seen her in the past 24,48 hours and she frazzled because her mom lied to her about talking to my aunt again.carol doesn’t know why she would do that .
detectives mean that their concerned because her mom left but she didn’t even pack a bag to go
so for like an overnight you don’t pack like a …just a toothbrush a change of clothes ,underwear?.
the answer to that – patricia didn’t have any teeth.
detectives need carol to tell them exactly what happened because carol’s story doesn’t add up, detectives poking their holes through it vert quickly
and says that carol act extremely nervous as she agree at because she had the police at her house last night and today .
detectives haven’t crackedcarol yet but they’re extremely close if they can get verbal consent to search the property they may be able to find clues to further solver the case or get carol to reveal more information .
detectives need carol to come clean now and let them know where her mother’s at.
if she’s in the house or in the garage, that she passed away from natural causes or whatever it is,and carol didn’t want to do anything,because maybe carol needed some extra money for social security or whatever it is .
but right now what carol’s doing is she hiding somebody whos possible dead
detectives explain that patricia hasn’t been in the house in two months three months.but carol says she has and her mom got dirty clothes inthe laundry room and patricia got clean clothes hanging right there.
what does that have to do with anything?that’s neither here not there.
detectives ask carol whats going on in her life. carol start talking about her mothers hairbursh is in the bathroom and detectives think’s that’s odd because patricia left for the night and wouldn’t she wnt to brush her hair in the morning?
carol was caught lying through her teath multiple times however dspite all of that detectives couldn’t get the consent to search her property
this leaves them in a tough situation ,it’s clear carol is lying and hiding patricia’s whereabouts but with no solid evidence they can’t be certain of carol’s involvement in the disappearance.
but luckily the police had a trick in mind involving carol’s current boyfriend ricky.
since ricky has been living in the house with carol he has the authority to give consent to areas of mutual access.
in this situation that allows officers to search the majority of the property despite carol’s objection to the search.
as longas ricky doesn’t have any involvement in patricia’s disapperarance he would have no reason to object to a search of the property.
ricky tells detective Gerebics that he saw patricia physically probably about a month ago.and ask what is about detective Gerebics explain that it is about patricia and that they want to find her.
detective Gerebics quick answer is no.
ricky tells detective Gerebics that carol lied on him, she sheated on him and she the one that told him that patricia was at her sister’s house.
thankfully it seems as though ricky has no idea of th crimes.
more importantly he would agree to a search of the property granting them access to most of the home.
if they discover anything serious they’ll needa search warrant to investigate futher but cursory look around the property is now fully legal .
they begin by searching her backyard
and cars.
after coming up empty in the backyard they check the last remaining spot carol’s garage.
a detective opened up that grey bin and it’s full of bloody towels and it stinks like a dead body
Not only had they found patricia’s deceased body in a storage bin but the body still wasn’t dry.
meaning the murder couldn’t have been more than 2 months ago as john originally suspected .
this terrifying scene couldn’t made the truth more clear .
carol ray had killed her mother and had been covering it up for weeks. however she may not have been the only one involved in this , ricky had been staying at the house for months now and the cops believe he had tohave known about the murder if he’d been living beside it the entire time.
with this in mind police place carol under arrest immediately and detain ricky too.following carol and ricky’s arrest both would sit in a jail cell while they waited for detectives to arrive at the station .
multiple hours later they would bring carol in for her first interrogation
the goal for this interrogation is not to get carol to confess because she obviously did it but to determine a motive and figure out if ricky was also involved.
carol’s story
that night we were sleeping between 1 am and 4 am in the morning and i heard loud banging , my daughter and i were sleeping in my room in the back and my mom was sleeping on the couch anyway , theres was a big crash … and it sounded like someone breaking through the glass window or breaking t down the door in the living room ,i grabbed my gun and were running down the the hallway and i had my trigger finger on the trigger lik an idiot but when i went .. not running but walking fast down the hallway
and i hit with my right foot i hit the … stupid stuff in that hallway.
and i had my hand like this and it went off when i shook her shoulder then i heard gurgling and then i screamed ” mom”
and i pulled her on the floor i didn’t notice it…but she had blood comingout of her mouth. but i thought somebody had … had broken a window or something like that there was a huge loud…crash….
if a suspect is highly emotional when recalling an event they will often have trouble remembering certain details in that moment you’ll often notice that the suspect unable to form full sentences and stuttering in their speech but carol shows none of this while crying she manages to form a detailed timeline of how she killed patricia .
this implies that her story of events bay be inacurate and the murder wasn’t a misstake like she claims.
now that they’ve heard it however the detectives would able to search for evidence that explicitly countered this story and that didn’t take them long at all.
the very next day they brought carol back out of her cell and into the interrogation room again .
what detective found specifically for tihs conversation is how detectives use to break her story apart
i didn’t see her bleeding, not right away it wasn’t obviously and it freak me out and i dropped it and i screamed out her name in the hallway i either crouched by her or shook her on the shoulders and called her name when i called her name after a few seconds and she wasn’t..it was just that ,it was just gurgling and then some blood started dripping out of her mouth
the cops are clearly trying to come across as understanding and compassionate to carol but if their main goal was to make her feel comfortable they wouldn’t have sat her in the coirner of the room and position themselves between her and the door
they want to eventually make her feel so cornered and pressured that she lets go of the truth so for now this nice guy demeanor is a complete act for the detective to build report as he tries to get to talk as much as possible.
now obviously detectives concern is they can kinda understand how she got there but they want carol to explain because to them it seems like carol couldn’t do this by herself.
so they want her to work them through,obviously panic, everything sets in carol’s freaking out and it’s her mother she love , right?
detectives want carol to walk them through the minutes after all that happened and ask if ricky was there that night.
carol says no. and said he’s intimidating and aggressive
remember an important part of this interrogation was to figure out if carol’s boyfriend ricky was also involved to any extent at the moment carol is claiming that he wasn’t on the scen at all as they ‘d recently had nmber of arguments. the cops have a chance to interview him later on but for now there’s one question regarding him that they just can’t seem to get their heads around.
did carol leave her mom on the couch? did carol move her somewhere else?
carol was trying to cover her up cause she didn’t want allison to see her if she came walking down the hallway.
detectives found her in the garage ,was she moved anywhere before the garage?
carol ‘answer is no .
this is where detectives are concerned with ricky.but carol picking up her mom there’s no way she picking her up .so how did carol do that by herself.
because she’s saying ricky’s not there … or did ricky cme over and help?did she have him help her move the tote?
she get the question if she ‘s afraid of ricky
carol remained completely silent for almost 30 seconds after she was asked this question.
the cops are right to assume that she scared but it might not be for the reasons they think
she could be scared of ricky and the consequences of implicating him in the crime but she could also be terrified of the situation she’s in-she’s going to jail for a very long time there is no escaping that anymore and that’s a scary reality for her.
whatever the reason is though the cops are still doing their best to give her a moral excuse or justification for what she did so she’ll talk a little more
she panicked and anyone would have done the same the best thing she can do to make things right is to tell them exactly what happened.
cops are really focusing on carol’s inability to physically move patricia to the garage as to them it was a clear sign that somebody else had to be involved
but at this point they’re not getting anywhere unfortunately this isn’t conclusive enough evidence to implicate anyone else and it’s not getting caril to talk.
but that’s okay because the detectives have one piece of evidence that they’ve been saving for this very moment that could prove without a doubt that everything carol said so far has been a total lie
they obvious did an autopsy on carol’s mom and they found some puncture wounds in her neck. three puncture wounds. not an old scar but actually fresh puncture wounds
how did those get there?
carol don’t know anything about those.nothing at all.
detectives ask if carol may have stabbed her mom after the fact.not saying carol killing her mother but like maybe carol put her out of her misery.if she suffering or anything like that .
carol says her mother didn’t even make a sound when she shot the gun on her she didn’¨t even say anyhing back.
cause here’swhat detectives don’t want to get caught up is that once they tell them exactly how deep they were if it was the cause of death or contributed to cause of death it can be really bad for Carol.
if she did try to do somethin with thouse wounds that the’ll cause those wounds or anything like that.detectives want carol to think what could’ve possibly cause those puncture wounds in her mothers neck?
carol doesnt know. she didn’t have anything to do with those wounds on her mothers neck.
preliminary review they look like knife wounds ,fresh but like a puncture like the end of a knife stabs or something
a gun accidentally going off into killing someone unlikely but believablebut two fresh deep knife wounds that carol hasn’t mentioned a single time.
it’s going to be extremely hard to explain this one away , not only does this imply the mujrder completely intentional but the fact that carol hasn’t mentioned it means that she knew that was the case and wanted to try to cover that part up .
did rick know eventually what happened?
not to carol knwoledge.
does rick knwo yor mom was in that bin?
carol didn’t tell him.
did he say anything to carol that would lead carol to believe that he knew?
and did carol acctually mean to kill her mother.
carol didn’t mean to kill her mother.
detectives going back to the puncture wounds
did carol freak out after she shot her mother? and she still breathing?and carol wanted to make sure that at this point it’s no good for he to be like this?
carol’s answer is absolutely not .she wouldn’t not. absolutely not.
did carol kinda poke her to see like ” is she alive?”
is she saying ouch?
carol just shook her and yelled mom!mom!mom!
at this point the interrogation as been goingon for over an hour and carol clearly doesn’t intend to deviate from her story .despite all the new evidence
the detectives are still no closer to obtaining a confession or any information about ricky from her so they figured they’ve got no choice but to speak to the man himself.
so later that day they bring ricky in for an interview of his own and attempt to get the truth out of him.whatever it may be.
ricky doesn’t know but somebody at the house said to him something about patty is not at her sister’s house where carol told ricky that he was at .
ricky physically seen patricia ( patty) about like a month and a half ago before thanksgiving.
and ricky stay at carol’s house everyday exept for 8th or 9th when he went home to his mom’s house.
already ricky is being much more open and giving much better answers to all of the detectives questions. he also seems exceedingly calm and as though he’s just trying to help the officers out .
right now he definitely isn’t coming across as a murder accomplice or blackmailer but there’s still plenty of time for the cops to catch him out
detective ask if carol does work.does she go anyhere? what does she do with most of her day?
ricky says most of the day keeing allison busy…cleaning the house,doing what she can,cause she needs some major surgeries..
detective ask if carol has any financial issues that with ricky or carol or patty or anything.
ricky camly answer no and says that carol take care of the bills.
detectives ask ricky if he know where she got the money.if she’s not working
ricky said that carol said she had a joint bank account with her mom
detectives asked if carol had been acting strange or suspecious to ricky or different
ricky says carol is bi-polar he always said she was the world greatest actress because ricky can’t tell when she’s being sincere or not and that ‘sone of the conditions of bi-polar.they’re compulsive liars. and ricky says he’s been caught in a lot of her webs before. he have been telling her, she’s been feeling more distant.
detectives ask where ricky sleep when he’s at carol’s home, ricky’s answer mostly in the bedroom with carol but sometimes on the couch.
they ask about carol’s daughter where she sleep and ricky tells them mostly in her bedroom.
they also asking about the garage, if ricky ever go in the garage.
ricky’s answer is hardly ever.
the detectives ask when he last time were in the garage
ricky thinks they went to go look for a screwdriver .but he doesn’t remember because it was early december
detectives ask if carol made ricky go and look for it or did ricky go
ricky said that she came with him
compared to carol’s interrogation ,this one seems extremely laid back and relaxed it feels as though there’s a big chance ricky genuinely just doesn’t know what’s going on
however the cops do pick up on the facts that he’s a little nervous ,he’s finding it hard to look the detectives in the eyes and he seems a little soft spoken
so to clear things up fully they decided to put the pressure on big time to see if he breaks .
detectives tell ricky thatthey got a real big problem and think ricky know what it is and think ricky need to be honest and upfront with the detectives.
so they going to give ricky the opportunity to tell the detectives whatreally happened
so what happened?
detectives doesn’t talk about the little details they ‘ve been asking they talking about patty.
again ricky claims that patty ‘s been at her sister’s house as far as he know.
detective told ricky that they know patty’s deceased and patty’s got a gunshot wound to her and she was found in a tote in carol’s garage.
detectives want ricky totell them everything he knows so he doesn”t implicate himself anymore than he ‘s already been implicated
and also tells him there’s investigative tools they have and they’re going to find out exactly when patricia died.
where ricky where when she died.detectives betting rickywre in that house and know exactly what happened
ricky says he never had a problem with patty and he doesn’t know anything. and talk about carol again that they don’t know this women that she has f**with his head, she has cheated on him behind his back without ricky knwoing about it the only way ricky found out about it was tripping over stuff . finding it on accident
carol showing ricky something on her phone then all of a sudden
” i love you to baby” pops up on carol’s phone
detectives ask why he still is with her.and he said they went through counseling this year ,tried to make things work because he love her and he loves allison as if she’s his own daughter.
this is not the reaction a guilty person would given in this position he’s never defensive and he never gets annoyed he just tries to explain things exactly as they are he’s not upset that he’s been caught,it feels like he’s upset that he’d ever be accused of this he also gave a few pieces of information that could be backed up by the detective .
such as the facts that carol had been cheating on him and that they’d been in therapy. in just 5 minutes detectives went from assuming him to be the man accomplice to completely discounting as a suspect
carol however completely stayed in the spotlight and it was eventually assumed that she acted alone and with intent in patricia’s murder .
it was determined that carol killed patricia all the way back in november and hid her body for roughly 2 months before john caught on to her her act.
charges:
first -degree murder
felony use of firearm
larceny of $ 20, 000 or more
sentence:
Life in prison
ricky was let go with no charges.