On Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018, Dean Wright was apprehensive. His 55-year-old brother, Raymond Wright, a household man and grasp carpenter, had vanished. Dean Wright spoke to his brother each day, however now Ray Wright had not answered any texts or calls in two days.
“I known as, and I known as, and I known as, straight to voicemail each time,” Ray Wright’s daughter, Haley Kendall, says. Her sister Kennedy Wright instructed “48 Hours, “It was actually scary.”
Contributor Natalie Morales spoke with Wright’s household about his disappearance for “Who Took Our Dad? The Abduction of Ray Wright,” an all-new “48 Hours” airing Saturday, Feb. 3 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Dean Wright had repeatedly checked his brother’s workshop and residential within the Sacramento suburbs. Nothing appeared misplaced, aside from the truth that Ray Wright’s truck was lacking.
On that Saturday afternoon, Dean Wright returned to his brother’s home. He knocked on the door, then turned the lock along with his spare key.
“And instantly I smelled marijuana smoke,” Dean Wright stated. “And that is once I knew … that is fully flawed as a result of he did not like that … And I am getting more and more tense about it … So, as I walked ahead … I noticed a cup on the countertop. And that had not been there. And it had condensation on it … I took one other step-and-a-half …”
Out of the blue, the storage door burst open. Dean Wright stood nose to nose with an intruder. “[He] yelled at me, ‘Get out of right here …’ And I stated, ‘Who’re you?’ … ‘The place’s Ray?'”Â
The person stepped towards Dean Wright, he says, then abruptly turned and escaped out the again. Dean Wright instantly known as 911 and filed a lacking individual’s report. He confirmed investigators one thing important:Â the cup on the kitchen counter, recent with soda and ice. It might turn out to be their first clue.
“[It] was the one piece of proof left by the burglar on the sufferer’s residence,” Rocklin Police Sergeant Zack Lewis stated. “As days go by, it turns into extra suspicious.”
Ten days after Ray Wright went lacking, police discovered his deserted truck in a close-by condominium advanced, stripped of its license plate. Brown stains on the carpet liner at the back of the car had been later confirmed to be Ray Wright’s blood.
Then, six days after the truck was found, investigators obtained one other big break. An officer driving behind a white van observed it had expired registration with present registration sticker tabs. When police tried pulling the van over, the driving force hit the fuel, main them on a chase with speeds reaching 100 mph. The pursuit ended with the driving force slamming into one other car, breaking his leg and being rescued from his smoking van. Police recognized him as Victor Grey and arrested him for felony evasion and DUI. Once they searched DMV information, they found the registration tab on Grey’s van belonged to none aside from Ray Wright’s car.Â
“That is the primary connection that they are in a position to make between Victor Grey and Ray Wright’s disappearance,” Sacramento County Prosecutor Matt Chisholm instructed Morales.
Then, in April 2018, whereas Grey was in jail, investigators obtained an important DNA hit, matching the straw from that soda cup present in Ray Wright’s house to Grey. Grey was a convicted felon, so police had his DNA on file.Â
And when investigators searched the van Grey crashed, they unraveled what they describe as “a treasure trove of proof.” At the back of the van, inside a black tarp, they pulled out a hat with the phrases “Ray Wright Design,” together with a bloody rain jacket, Ray Wright’s destroyed cellphone, his driver’s license and a damaged pair of glasses. Grey’s cellphone was additionally within the van — and what investigators discovered there furthered the thriller. Inside that cellphone was a photograph of a handwritten letter to somebody named “Bob.”Â
“And it is clear that Victor has grievances with Bob,” Chisholm stated. “The grievances stem about not being paid for delivering the ‘dude’ to you. “I am carried out ready and want a fats bundle at the moment,” the letter reads. Prosecutors consider Victor was demanding fee from Bob for delivering Ray Wright to him. Within the letter, prosecutors say Grey writes how he “hand delivered you your revenge.”
Digging into Ray Wright’s previous, investigators had discovered that whereas driving drunk, Wright brought about an accident in November 2011 — six years previous to his disappearance. He severely injured a person named Robert “Bobby” Manor and Manor’s spouse, who nearly died.Â
Ray Wright was convicted of felony DUI and ordered to pay greater than $275,000 to the victims. Placer County District Legal professional Investigator Ashley Englefield stated, “he had sometimes made funds on that debt, however not very a lot.”Â
After the accident, Ray Wright instantly give up ingesting, rejoined Alcoholics Nameless and adjusted his life. However Manor was left in ache and with a everlasting limp. Witnesses who knew Manor instructed police he by no means forgave Ray Wright, and after Ray disappeared, the witnesses say Manor instructed them —”I obtained him.” Investigator Englefield believes “the motive was strictly revenge.”