Welcome back to the Pathlin, Chile for part two of our series about the
disappearance of Pamela June Ray. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
on what we talked about in our previous episode? Yes, Well, Pamela
June Ray was a housewife and mother who lived in Georgia and decided to leave
on a vacation to Panama City Beach with her son and her daughter. They
arrived at a motel at around five am, and because they couldn't check in
yet it was too early, Pamela was presumably just going to wait there in
the parking lot until the manager arrived. Well, her children were sleeping in
the back seat, but at some point Pamela went missing, and it was
on until eight thirty when a motel employee noticed that the two children were sleeping
unattended and called the police. And even though the children were woken up,
they had no memory of what happened. They didn't know where their mother was.
But there were other people who were called hearing screaming sometime between five twenty
and five thirty, and there was also a patrol officer who thought he saw
Pamela walking away with a car with an unidentified man who was likely her abductor.
The case remained called for several years until a convicted murderer named Mark Reeby,
who was serving time in prison for the murder of a Florida convenience store
clerk named Donna Callahan, suddenly confessed that he was responsible for Pamela June Ray's
murder, and he also said that he was a serial killer who had killed
as many as thirteen women, But he later recanted his confession, and he
has refused to provide a conclusive answer to any of Pamela's relatives about what he
killed her. But Reebee's daughter has claimed that she has memories of when she
was four years old of going on a road trip where her father suddenly decided
to move and took them out of the U haul truck, and she had
memories of her father digging up some holes in a remote field in Illinois and
putting garbage bags inside, which she now fears could be the remains of Pamela
and some of Reebe's other victims. But they performed at the search of the
area and been unable to find anything, so at this moment, it's still
unclear if Rhebe was responsible for killing Pamela and she is still a missing person.
So now, even though this case has still never been solved, for
reasons unknown, the original UNSAWD Mystery segment is currently not available for viewing on
their official film Rise channel on Amazon Prime and YouTube. And that's a major
shame since we've had significant developments in recent years which may be pulling this case
ever so closer to a resolution. Since it originally aired only four months after
Pamela went missing, unsaw Mysteries covered the story as a shorter, four minute
special alert segment, but it still resonated with viewers. What was particularly scary
is that Pamela was seemingly abducted a short distance away from her children, who
managed to sleep through the whole thing, and it seems likely that a patrol
officer just happened to see Pamela in the company of the man who abducted her.
If that officer had passed through the area only a few minutes later,
then this case might have turned out differently. So back in twenty ten,
Pamela's daughter Brandy made an appearance and a threat about this case at the Unsolved
Mysteries message board. I'm always referencing from the sitcoms online for him. She
left a few comments under the username Brandy Ray and of course, given that
she was only five years old at the time her mother went missing, she
does not remember much other than being woken up that morning by the police.
In our last episode, I mentioned that a pair of extensive articles about this
case were published at the website Lost and Found blogs dot com, and the
writer Heather Grautman used to moderate the aforementioned Unsolved Mysteries message board under the name
Krystaldon one of the articles, folks is on Pamela's disappearance, while the other
delves into the background of the prime suspect, Mark Reebe. As part of
research, Heather was also able to speak with Pamela's sister, ron de de
Strong, as well as a retired special agent from the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement named Dennis Haley after he was sent to prison. Reebe had personally requested
to speak with Haley before he confessed to the murders of a dozen women.
I have to really sit back and think about what this person's psyche is and
what his purpose for doing this is. I think Reeby had been caught it
is a very high probability, like Jules mentioned last time, that based on
the fact that he did strangle and murder and discard of another woman at which
he was convicted for, that he had done this before, or he had
had many other encounters before and could have done other crimes after the death of
Donna, the first victim that he's convicted for. But you know he's playing
games with not only law enforcement, but with the family. You do have
Pamela's sister, Ronda Strong, who's begging for Reebe to say more details,
to give her more information, to let her know where her sister could be
located. And he doesn't shut down that conversation with her. He just refuses
to say, here's the information you need to help you, or I didn't
do it. I was lying when I said that I killed your sister.
And so I go back and forth of saying, is this a man who
wants attention? Is this someone who's manipulating and just wants time out of his
jail cell. But here we do know that Rebe gave them that clue that
said she had a single key in her hand when he approached her, and
we know that that was true when Pamela got out of the car, locked
it and then went to speak to this man that she was seen with,
So in her case, I'm leaning more towards he likely does have the information
that poor Ronda needs to solve her sister's case. And even his own daughter
is saying, how can I help? How can I make sure you get
answers? Because I actually think I was present when items from his previous crimes
could have been discarded so heavy. This is such a sad situation because if
someone could do the right thing now right he never has before, but if
Reebe would do the right thing now, these families could start to move forward
and heal the damage that he's caused. Yeah, we won't go to much
detail about this on this episode, but Dennis Haley has looked through a lot
of unsolved cold cases from Florida that he believes that Mark Reebe might be responsible
for, And at first, of course, he was excited that, hey,
he's confessing to all these murders. I could potentially close a whole bunch
of cold cases. But then he recants it and they're still officially unsolved to
this day. But I do know that Dennis Haley thinks that Reebe is probably
telling the truth. Maybe he hasn't killed a dozen women, but he does
believe that he's been responsible for additional murders that he's never been convicted for.
But before we talk more about this case, we needed to say discuss an
issue which was going on in Pamela's personal life at the time she went missing.
While I don't believe this issue has any connection to Pamela's disappearance, it
is frequently mentioned in a lot of the reporting of this case, so we
feel that we need to address it. In nineteen eighty nine, a bank
clerk accidentally wired around four hundred thousand dollars to an account which belonged to the
family's trucking company. At the time, Pamela's father, Ralph Bennett, was
owed money by the government for work that his company had performed for them,
so rather than inform the bank about their error, he let the money sit
in his account for a while before he convinced himself it was meant for him.
Ralph decided to use the money to purchase a condominium in Panama City Beach,
but when the mistake was eventually discovered, Ralph would be charged with theft
of mislaid property. Ralph agreed to plead guilty to the offense in exchange for
a sentence of ten years probation, but one of the conditions was that he
had to pay back all the money. After making consistent payments for a while,
Ralph began to fall behind, and since he still owed one hundred thousand
dollars, the District attorney's office became frustrated by the lack of progress. In
response, they decided to indict the rest of Ralph's family, including Pamela,
for bank fraud, since they were all listed as coworkers of his trucking company.
This occurred a short time before Pamela left on her vacation, and she
was technically out on bond at that time, But in spite of the fact
that the money had once been used to buy a condo in Panama City Beach,
investigators ultimately determined that these legal issues had no connection to her disappearance,
and the family eventually had the records expunged. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that
Pamela happened to go missing in Panama City Beach while all this was going on,
as the circumstances clearly seemed to indicate that she was a random victim who
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had you told me that
she left her children with dad and went down to Panama City, or that
she was trying to set up accounts or something like that, I could see
there being a connection. But here you feel like she's been there a lot
of stress. We know school's getting ready to start again and her husband's working,
and she said, I've got to get out of here right like that.
That's a lot to be under legal pressure and to whether whether you did
it or not, right, but that's a lot of pressure. And she's
saying, I need a break with my babies. I'm gonna make an all
night drive. I'm gonna go check on my brother, who's been struggling with
all this as well. Probably made some really bad decisions, but he's still
my brother. And she just wants to catch her breath, and she makes
that drive. She gets to the motel early to check in, and she's
never seen again. And her kids are woken up and asked, where's your
mom and they don't know. So if her kids hadn't been with her,
I could maybe see investigators kind of leaning more towards this angle and looking into
it deeper. But I don't feel like there's any link. It's just a
very bizarre circumstance where you say, wow, there were actually some legal issues
at the time, which you believe it or not. Some really great families
have some legal issues going on, so you never know what's going on behind
the scenes. But I don't think they're linked. You can have legal issues
and still be the victim of an opportunistic predator exactly. Well, whatever legal
problem was Ralph Bennett might have faced for spending money which did not belong to
him, that doesn't change the fact that he was a tireless advocate for his
daughter, as he made countless trips from Georgia to Panama City Beach to hand
out Missing Persons flyers and spread awareness about the case. But Ralph also had
to endure a pretty painful experience when he went to visit Mark Reebe's mother during
the spring of nineteen ninety nine. By this point, Riebe had already confessed
his involvement in Pamela's disappearance, and he just happened to phone his mother from
prison while Ralph was there. She demanded that her son speak with Ralph,
and when Ralph got on the phone, Riebe actually told him that he killed
his daughter. Hearing this caused Ralph to drop on the floor in a state
of shock, and he would succumbed to a fatal heart attack just a few
months later. The fact that Raebe said this to a victim's father and a
since go on to recant his confession to Pamela's murder, leaving everyone uncertain about
whether or not he actually did it, comes across as particularly cruel. If
this case has one bright spot, it's that Reebe's family has developed a close
relationship with Pamela's family, as the majority of his relatives are sympathetic towards their
situation and have condemned Reebe's actions and want him to come clean and reveal the
truth about everything he did. So he told his own mother and then got
on the phone with Ralph and said, yeah, I did kill your daughter.
And now he's recanting it and he's already told law enforcement. Yeah,
exactly, Like it was just unfortunate coincidence that Ralph happened to be visiting his
mother when he phoned. But it just seems such a sadistic thing to do
It'd be one thinking he was telling the truth. I wanted to confess,
But the fact that he would put this poor man through such an ordeal and
then change his mind is just sickening. And what's really weird is if you're
going to tell your mother, like, Okay, let's say you're a dirty
scoundrel. You still might have a really deep love for your mom. Wants
your mom to not think you're a monster, and so I'd probably be like,
mom, I didn't do it, Like whatever you hear is not real,
right, and then go on and do whatever you want with law enforcement.
But he's like letting his mom know, yeah, I did do it,
and tells her poor father on the phone too that he did it.
That's I'm losing any doubt I had. You've got to believe he did it.
Like you said, most people would try to shield their mothers from the
stadistic acts that they committed. But the fact that he's telling his mother that
he did it would be the greatest indicator to me personally that he did it.
I mean, people lie to family members of victims all the time and
situations like that, but when you couple famla Junere's father being told this as
well as Reeve's mother. It just looks like he absolutely did do this,
and I just want to apologize if anybody hears any weird sounds during the podcast.
There is some protests happening in downtown Vancouver tonight. Our podcast generates protests.
That's how conversion. Officially, Reebe has only been charged and convicted of
the murder of Donna Callahan, but there are some people who believe he might
be a full fledged serial killer who has killed as many as thirteen women.
But not only has Reeby recanted all the confessions he made to those murders,
he is now even denying responsibility for the death of Donna Callahan, even though
his half brother William Alex Wells, has always maintained that Reebe was the one
who went through the act of fatally strangling Donna Rhebe claims that it was Wells
who actually killed her. In twenty seventeen, Reebe agreed to be interviewed on
the debut episode of the British true crime TV series serial Killer with Piers Morgan.
He claimed that the reason he falsely confessed to all these murders was because
he had made an arrangement with law enforcement to quote unquote protect his son,
and he decided to recant when they reneedged on their deal, but when Pierce
Morgan kept pressing him about the issue, Raebe dis to walk out of the
interview. These confessions were originally obtained by retired FDL special agent Dennis Haley,
who has been investigating Reebe for over two decades. Well. Haley personally believes
that some of the confessions Rebe made were false. He does suspect him of
being responsible for at least seven murders, including that of Pamela June Ray,
because in some of these cases, Reebe supposedly shared details that only the killer
could have known. For instance, Rehebe said that Pamela was only carrying a
single key when he abducted her, a detail which seems to be supported by
the fact that all of Pamela's keys besides one, were found insider vehicle.
If you want to learn more about the other crimes Reebe is alleged to have
been involved in, we'd recommend checking out the article Mark reebe Sins of the
Father, which is published at Lost and Found blogs dot com. Though we'll
be discussing one of these crimes momentarily, So that's the part for me.
The key is one of the ones where I'm deeply convicted that he did do
this because remember, people said that they saw her lock her car with the
two kids in it, and her other keys were later found inside the vehicle,
and so for him to know that unless they had published in a newspaper
article, or unless it said, you know, keys were found inside the
vehicle except for one, you know, unless that had been said somewhere,
how would he know that? And he even was going as far as to
describe this opportunistic moment where he had needed money, he told his wife to
pull the car over, and it just so happens that this single mother is
standing outside of her car, likely looking for someone that can help her check
into the hotel. So, oh man, there's very little doubt that this
man had something to do with her disappearance. And one thing about Piers Morgan,
I'm sure you know that he is not the most likable person in the
world too. When you see him, when you see him interviewing Mark Reebe
and Reebe walks out, you're actually thinking how rude, Like You're actually on
Peers Morgan's side for once, But Before we talk any more about Reebe,
I want to briefly discuss the other potential suspect that popped up on the radar
during the early stages of the investigation, and that's Andrew Paul Henry, who
allegedly kidnapped and raped another woman in Florida five months earlier, though those charges
were later dropped. When this crime was committed, the perpetrator apparently told the
victim he would kill her, but she somehow convinced him to let her go.
So if Henry was the abductor and he decided to do the same thing
to Pamela, then I can see him not wanting to run the risk of
letting his victim go this time around. Even though this other crime took place
in Chipley, Henry lived in Panama City, and a man matching his description
was seen sitting outside the Wilheighte Motel in the hours prior to Pamela's disappearance.
Otherwise, there isn't much information available about Henry, though at the time he
was charged with the attack in Chipley, he was already facing charges for violating
a pre trial release agreement by allegedly battering his wife, so he does not
sound like a model citizen. If Henry did abduc Pamela, there's not much
else that could be done since he's now deceased. But in the grand scheme
of things, Mark Reeby definitely seems like the more promising suspect. Absolutely,
he does I think Henry. It's interesting because Henry does have a abduction and
sexual assault that was opportunistic as well on his record. He wasn't convicted of
it, but he does have this mark against him, and again has some
other kind of seedy behaviors as well that have been noted. But I'm wondering
which one of those two men is six foot tall and one point fifty because
your girl over here is five to eight and weighs more than that. So
I'm wondering how skinny was this six foot tall man? And do both of
those men match that six foot one hundred and fifty pounds, you'd be really
skinny. It's six feet tall and one hundred and fifty pounds. That is
really thin. I mean, I know that the officer saw him from a
distance, so maybe he could be inaccurate, but yeah, that gives an
indication that he's probably seen some like skinny drug addicts. Before and figured,
Well, I know I'm able to tell the exact weight of people like that,
so I'm guessing that it is accurate, but it's never been confirmed if
Reeby or Henry were around that weight back in nineteen ninety two. Like,
just for reference, I'm five feet nine and I'm one hundred and twenty pounds,
and I'm an extremely small built person, like a very very thin person,
and this guy is what like three four inches taller and just a little
bit heavier. So I'm assuming that his body type is something like mine,
like very very thin, like the guy from Breaking Bad. You know,
the guy I'm talking about, the really thin guy from Breaking Bad, a
guy called skinny feet. Yes, skinny pee, Yes, I'm thinking a
build like that. Well, to clarify, Pamela was only five foot three
and one hundred and ten pounds, So even though that's a pretty skinny for
a tall guy, I still think he would have been able to overpower Pamela.
Oh, for sure, she's pretty petite at that size. Robin,
do we know which one of these men would fit that description more? Not?
Really? No, Like you see Mark Reebe today in interviews, he
doesn't look overly skinny but I can't say if he was that skinny back in
nineteen ninety two, and I haven't really seen much about Henry's description at all,
so I don't know if either of them are a strong match. And
people tend to gain a lot of weight as they age, too, so
just because he's not that thin now doesn't mean he wasn't then, Oh for
sure, and he could have been an addict at the time or things like
that as well. For sure, we know that the passing patrol officer saw
Pamela's likely abductor, but it sounds like he was too far away to get
a good enough look in order to positively identify him as Henry Reebe or anyone
else. I know that Rabe specifically mentioned that he and his wife were driving
a red Pontiac Firebird, but he said that she parked near the back of
the building when he approached Pamela, so the vehicle may have been out of
the officer's life line of sight. And incidentally, this firebird was never seized
by law enforcement, and its current whereabouts are unknown. The way the Wilheype
Motel was laid out is that the office Pamela parked in front of was located
separately from the rooms next to the main parking lot. According to the officer,
Pamela locked her car before following the man in that direction, so it
makes sense that he would have used this opportunity to abduct Pamela and force her
into another vehicle before fleeing the scene. You have to wonder what the man
could have said to Pamela to convince her to follow him, But perhaps he
was pretending to be an employee and told Pamela he had a room ready that
he wanted to show her. Rhebe's story is that he selected Pamela at random
because he wanted to rob someone. But if he's telling the truth, the
ironic thing is that she left her purse in the vehicle. However, since
there is a photograph of Reebe's wife wearing what appears to be Pamela's ring,
it's possible that this is the only thing that they stole from her. You've
got to be kidding me, So they have positively identified the fact that Rhebey's
wife is wearing Pamela's ring, which is the only thing you would have on
you if you locked your car and you had your purse and your keys and
everything else in the car. The only thing on my body would be possibly
earrings, a necklace, and my wedding ring. And if you abducted me
and took my body and disposed of my body, you then had the nerve
to not only keep my ring, but to flaunt it on your wife's hand.
That is very, very disturbing and very callous, I mean, to
be fair, we don't know one hundred percent certainty if it was Pamela's ring.
It just kind of looked that way in the photograph. But I'm assuming
that if it was that that she has probably gotten rid of it a long
time ago. Because it's potential evidence in a cold case. It seems like
there's a strong likelihood, given all that we know about Rebe and the very
I think it's highly likely that he's the person that is responsible, and to
take something like a ring as a trophy, like it's not It wouldn't be
like something that's unheard of that a killer would give a trophy that they took
from a victim to their wife or partner. Correct, Like, there's been
lots of other cases where we've seen this happen. Oh yes, And another
one is actually the Tommy Ziegler case where it's been alleged that his wife's brother,
Perry Edwards Junior, might have been the real killer, and Eunice's family
ring was missing and apparently Perry Junior gave it to his granddaughter many years later,
which is why they think is a strong piece of evidence that he was
the one who killed her. Now, we previously mentioned that Donna Callahan,
the one victim we know Rebe murdered, was briefly mentioned during the Unsolved Mystery
segment about the nineteen to ninety disappearance of convenience store clerk Deborah Poe, who
has still not been found at this day, Well believe it or not,
Even though Reeby never confessed to Deborah's murder, Dennis Haley believes that he might
also be involved in that crime if you recall the details of that case.
Shortly before Deborah was reported missing, an eyewitness reported walking into the store and
seeing an unidentified man behind the counter who sold her a pack of cigarettes.
Since he was wearing a T shirt for the heavy metal band Megadeth and has
never been identified Unsaw Mysteries, fans have nicknamed him Megadeth Guy. Well,
according to Dennis Haley. This witness later looked at a photo lineup and picked
out Reebe's half brother, William Alex Wells, who had been Reade's accomplice when
they murdered Donna Callahan. If you look at current photos of Wells, he
doesn't look anything like Megadeth guy at all. But there is a blurry photo
of a younger Wells in the afore mentioned Sins of the Father article from Lost
and Found blogs dot com, and he had long hair back then and seems
to have a closer resemblance. However, the article published excerpts of some emails
that Wells had sent to Ronda Strong in recent years, and he denies involvement
in Deborah Poe's disappearance, stating quote, I've spoken several times with investigators concerning
the Deborah Poe case, and I'll tell you the same thing I told them.
Not only was I on house arrest in Walton County, where my every
move was monitored by probation and parole, tax records and business records will show
that I have never been employed in Orange County, even though my picture was
picked in a photo pack that is designed to get certain people picked the investigators
knew it was impossible for me to have been in Orlando during that time.
End quote. Now Wells is the one who actually came forward and admitted that
they killed Donna, correct, So I mean he has a background of coming
forward and saying like, man, my conscience is heavy, this is what
happened, and he told the truth, which is what got Rebe arrested in
the first place. Do you think, like you said earlier in episode one,
that the fear of the death penalty if he did confess to his second
murder would be enough to make him stay quiet, or do you think at
this point he's trying to truly clear his conscience and admitted to what he had
participated in and is telling the truth that he didn't have anything to do with
this one. It's pretty convincing what he's saying, that I have this,
this, and this to back it up that I had nothing to do with
it, versus Reebe, who's on this range just saying like, ah,
I killed all these people, right, Like, I'm more inclined to trust
what Wells is saying. Well, yeah, because the reason that Wells was
implicated is that he first confessed to being involved in the murder of Donna Callahan
in a Bible study class in prison. And that's what happens to some of
these people, is that they get incarcerated and they find religion. And I
think he legitimately wanted to clear his conscience, which is why he eventually led
the authorities to Donna's remains. And I think that if he had been responsible
for Dever's disappearance, he could have confessed right then and there, because he
did make a plea deal. He pleaded no contest to ensure he would not
receive the death penalty for any of these crimes. So it doesn't make much
sense for him to withhold information and not confess to another crime when he's already
got two life sentences for Donna's murder. But it is interesting to think.
I personally don't believe that Wells is the infamous Megadeth guy, but it makes
me wonder could Mark Reeby have been involved? Could he been worked outside in
the car and had something to do with Debrah's disappearance. Well, if what
Wells wrote in his emails is true, then it's unlikely he was involved in
Debor Poe's disappearance. But what's particularly interesting is that Reeb initially attempted to implicate
Wells in Pamela June Ray's murder. As an example, Reebe once shared a
story with Agent Haley about how he'd followed Wells into the woods and watched him
dig up the bodies of Donna Callahan and Pamela June Ray before moving them to
another location. But we know this story cannot be true since Wells was already
in prison for another crime when Pamela went missing in August of nineteen ninety two,
and at no point would he have ever been in any position to dig
up Pamela's body. So this is why Hailey suspects that Reevee might have been
using Wells as a surrogate in his confessions where he falsely claims to have witness
Wells doing these things that he himself had done. Yeah, I don't one
thing that Wells had anything to do with this, which means Reeby probably didn't
either. When you have Reeby sharing these stories where he's making false claims and
then somewhere he's making accurate claims, it's making it easier for Dennis Haley to
pick through and say, like, okay, look, in the case we
have here with Pamela, we get details that he should not have known.
But then you also have cases where he's telling us, oh, we did
this and this, and Wells is going I was in prison at that time,
like I clearly didn't have anything to do with it. So I have
to lean with what Robin's saying. Wells was confessing to clear his conscience and
to get closer to Christ, which I do believe is very, very possible
for people in prison to do horrible acts and to say at the end of
the day the grace that God is valuable to them and that changing their life
is something that they need for their salvation and they want it. So if
he's going to go that route and Bible study in prison and he confesses to
a murder, why not come clean with all of it so that you can
truly get redemption and be saved and you know, get your salvation instead of
just saying like, oh, I'm going to confess to one of my wrongdoings.
You already went all the way. Let's just clear clear our conscience here.
So I am going to have to say that, you know, Reebe's
making stretches and just saying I'm going to take the situation with Wells, and
I'm going to just keep creating these falsehoods in certain cases, but I can't
look away from him. In Pamela's case, I just think he fits the
bill, and he said too much to too many people to not be the
one who killed her. Yeah, it's weird to think, like the power
of Christ compels you to confess to one murder but then not the other.
The idea of partial confession seems odd if the motivation truly is to be a
better Christian and to unburden yourself. But yeah, I agree, there's just
like nobody better than Rebe to be responsible for this, Like a lot of
these other guys found at first glance like oh yeah, this could be a
possible suspect. But when we go back to Rebe confessing to his mother and
Pamela's father and all of the other things that line up, as well as
his appearance and stuff, it just like who else could it really and truly
be. Wells has also provided an interesting story which seems to implicate Reebe in
Pamela's case. In nineteen ninety three, when they were both being investigated for
Donna Callahan's disappearance, Reebe went to visit Wells in prison and allegedly told him
that he paid a visit to the wooded area where Donna's remains were buried,
but decided to leave them there because he believed police would never find her.
However, Reebe then said he quote unquote had to move the other lady,
and when Wells asked who he was referring to, he replied, quote the
one from Panama City with the kids. Well Reebe's statement about leaving Donna's remains
where they were rang true because when Wells led the authorities to her body years
later, the original burial site had not been tampered with, meaning she was
never moved from that spot since nineteen eighty nine. Wells also claims that on
the same day Rebe visited him in prison, he had gone to a woman's
house and asked to use her shower because he was very sweaty and dirty.
Reeby told her that he even helping someone work on a transmission, but she
said it looked like he had dirt on I'm rather than oil or transmission fluid.
So could this mean that Reeby dug out Pamela from the location he originally
buried her? And moved her remains to another location. Yes, I think
it very well. Could I really feel deeply convicted about Wells saying I need
to unburden myself from the sins I've done and I want to come clean.
I want to help police the best I can. I want redemption and forgiveness.
And you know he's sitting there going like, Okay, so here's more
information you can have. Here's evidence that I wasn't present here, so you
can quit looking here. I mean, there doesn't seem to be much behavior
of Wells that is concerning after he comes clean and helps hit secure conviction,
agains himself and Rebe, and it's actually like he's trying to help law enforcement
with the best information he can. He also knows Reebe's a terrible person.
He also knows he really really made an awful mistake and or committed an awful
crime and has been redeemed from that, and so like he seems to be
doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing, which is the right thing at
this point. So I'm tending to really feel that if he says Rebe came
and said I had to move the other lady, and he's going what are
you talking about? And he specifically said the Panama City woman with the kids.
Come on, what's his motivation to lie at this point? Yeah,
I mean, it's one thing if Reeby had confessed like that while use in
prison, but for him to say this to Wells while he's still a free
man and hasn't been linked to any murders so far, and there's no reason
for Wells to lie about this as well. So yeah, that definitely gives
a lot of credence to the idea that he moved Pamela's body. And you
know, this could have actually been what prompted Wells to confess in the first
place, because he's sitting there talking to a man who doesn't to have any
concern he's possibly killing other people, and Wells is going, Man, I
got mixed up with the wrong stuff and made awful decisions and hurt somebody and
took their life, which I had no right to do. But to redeem
mine, I have to get on the right path. And here's this man
saying, Hey, not only did we kill that one lady, but I
also had to move this other woman. I could really see that weighing on
Wells going, like I got to confess to this mess, and I got
to get away from this guy. Like he's right now still Rebe's confidant and
someone that's coming to visit him in prison. Very bizarre dynamic if you were
just going to start lying about this man, I think he wants away from
him and it scared him to think. While there's multiple people that are getting
hurt by this person, you wonder what their dynamic was. It was it
like a Leonard Lake and like a Robert Ang type dynamic where you got you
got. Basically Robert Ang was the submissive in that relationship. Right, You've
got the dominant and the submissive. So I'm wondering if Wells was more of
the submissive role and Reebe was more the dominant. I think it's very possible.
Well, remember when he confessed to Pamela's murder, Rebe changed his original
story about what he did with her body, at first claiming that he buried
her before he said that he dumped her in the ocean. This theory also
takes on greater significance when you remember the story from Rhebe's daughter Jelena about him
moving to Illinois and having his children dig holes in order to bury some garbage
bags. Indeed, if those bags just contained your ordinary run of the mill
trash, i am not sure why Reebe would bother taking them on an eight
hundred mile trip and then go to the trouble of burying them rather than just
dumping them somewhere. Years ago, Jelena's two siblings spoke to Ronda and confirmed
that they remembered this incident having taken place. Well. A recent search of
the property where these bags were buried turned up nothing. It's worth mentioning that
the Macon County Sheriff's Department had very limited funds for this. We were only
able to spend one day digging up a small area on a large piece of
property, so that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't anything there, and they
have talked about performing further searches when it's viable. It's unsettling to think about
the possibility that Pamela's remains are buried on the property several states from where she
originally went missing from. But you also have to consider the fact that most
of the murderers reb is suspected of being responsible for are not from cases involving
missing persons, so could those bags have contained the remains of other missing victims
we don't even know about. I think they absolutely could. But the idea,
remember he said he had to move somebody, so is it possible that
he did bring her remains to his home and put him in those barrels or
the trash bags. He also had his own children dig the holes. According
to his daughter, that's really messed up. That's really disgusting that you would
have your children tell them they're digging a garden and then have them watch you
dispose of these bags you just traveled hundreds of miles with. And she was
four at the time. I mean, that's just crazy. And I mean,
I do not believe Julene is lying. I believe she is telling the
truth. But I also still wonder, because she was so young at the
time, what is her memory like. Is it's still reliable? But I
imagine this is one of those things that if it happens when you're a child,
you'll have a vivid memory of it, especially with the other children back
her up that this indeed did happen. There must have been something so incongruous
about dad traveling with these weird trash bags, and something just didn't sit right
in her four year old brain enough so that it made a big impression.
I guess the real wild card in this case is Reebee's wife, whom he
claims was present in their Pontiac Firebird when he abducted and murdered Pamela. There
really isn't all that much information available about her, so I have no idea
how thoroughly she has been investigated. But Journey, his email exchanges with Rhonda
Well, stated that even though there has never been any evidence to prove that
Repe's wife was complicit in any of his crimes, he does think it's possible
she could have been a participant. The best way to describe Mark Reebe is
that he's an enigma, because while he's technically only being convicted of one murderer,
he could potentially be one of the worst serial killers in the history of
the United States. But, as I'm sure you're well aware, it's not
uncommon for convicted murderers who have nothing left to lose played games with the authorities
for the fun of it. Like we mentioned earlier, Reebe spoke to the
father of a missing woman on the phone and told him he had murdered his
daughter. But then he decided to recant his confession and deny any involvement.
That's an incredibly manipulative thing to do, and Reebe has done the same thing
to the families of the other women he confessed to killing before he recanted.
I know that Reebe threw a fit and walked out of that interview with Pierce
Morgan, but making himself look like the victim is part of his persona,
so you get the sense that he was getting off on the fact that a
famous British TV personality wanted to interview him for a TV series about killers.
If Rebe was responsible for what happened to Pamela, then I have my doubts
that he will come clean and reveal where her remains are. And if this
case is solved, it will probably be through some other means. But thankfully
it sounds like investigators are still actively working on it and Pamela has not been
forgotten. So if you happen to have any information about the unsolved disappearance of
Pamela June Ray, please contact the Panama City each Police Department at eight five
zero two three three five zero zero zero. That's eight five zero two three
three five zero zero zero, Jules Ashley, any final thoughts on this case.
The more disturbing cases because of multiple factors. You have a mom who
left on a trip with her two little ones, who are awoken by police
officers at eight thirty in the morning in a city that they're not familiar with
and ask where's your mother? And their answer is, I don't know what
you're talking about. I don't know where she is, And and years and
years later their answers the same, I don't know where she is. But
there's so much information that leans towards who likely hurt her, which is Reeb,
and Reebe himself is the one who's placed himself in that situation, in
that circumstance. It's things like the key at the scene that he describes telling
his own mother that he killed her, talking about moving the woman with the
kids, moving her body after police are kind of suspecting him of another murder.
There's so many factors that are going into this man who's still today manipulating
poor Pamela's family and his own children. His daughter is trying to help bring
justice to Pamela. That Reebe doesn't care. It's a game to him.
It's something that allows him pleasure and attention, and it's disgusting. But at
the end of the day, you do see the these amazing moments where Jelena,
his daughter, and Pamela's sister are able to connect and not only come
to an understanding, but to have a friendship and a partnership where they're saying,
I want justice for Pamela, I want to help right the wrongs of
my father, and she wants to bring justice to her sister. It's things
like that in these moments, things were a child, a sibling, they're
able to say there is hope, there is optimism and grace in this horrific
loss of this person that we love. And man, it's overwhelming to think
her body hasn't been discovered and she hasn't been laid to rest. But I
think it's pretty clear what happened in this case. I wish there was someone
who could say I have additional information that can actually close the door so that
Reebee, who's an actual coward, has to face a court and a jury
and the family and say your time's up. You play the game. You've
been the mastermind for all of these years, but guess what, You're not
as strong as you think you're actually quite weak and now here's your consequence.
That would just be the ultimate justice. No matter what the actual outcome was
there, just to say you're not in control would be so rewarding for the
family. I think Rebe is exhibited that he's a pretty horrible human being.
He just likes to toy with law enforcement with the families. But when it
comes down to it, I think there's enough evidence for me personally to be
quite comfortable saying that I believe that he is responsible for what happened to Pamela
June Ray just I've got to move the lady's body for the one of the
kids from Florida, you know, those types of things. And then I
believe the Wells, all the things that he's saying are credible. He seems
to have found Jesus, and he seems to really be taking sharing this information
with law enforcement seriously. And I don't believe that he's fabricating things to try
to blame Rebe. But I also believe that when Reebe talked about Wells and
it wasn't possible that Wells could have been doing certain things, he literally was
using Wells as a surrogate to almost kind of like quasi confess or you know,
test the waters a little bit. I really do love that Julna,
mark Reeby's daughter, and Rohnda, Pamela's sister, we're able to find common
ground, Like Ashley just talked about. I love that. I think there's
a lot of healing in that. It comes from both sides being able to
commiserate over your shared trauma. And I love that they've had that they've been
able to do that. But I just really wish there was some kind of
resolution here where we could go, Okay, good. Mark Reeby is being
charged for the murder of Pamela June Ray, and the family deserves that because,
like you know, Ashley had said in her closing thoughts right at the
beginning, those little children going I don't know where my mother is, and
to be adults and to still have that same sentiment, and to know that
Mark Reebe is the one that likely holds the keys to that, it's just
so infuriating because he's been toying with everybody all along, and it would be
so nice to see this family be able to get some kind of piece here.
Yeah. I remember watching this on Unsolved Mysteries when it aired over thirty
years ago, and I didn't really envision that it would have such a connection
to the Deborah po case and the murders of Donna Callahan, even though they
both took place in Florida. But it seemed like we had about two decades
whether we're on any strong leads, and then all of a sudden, this
guy, Mark Reeby gets charged with Donna Callahan's murder and starts taking credit for
having killed Pamela. And even though he's recanded the confession, there is a
lot of credible evidence, like he's provided like we just said, he provided
a description of Pamela's key. We have his daughter saying that he was bearing
some trash bags, and I can totally see him deciding to recand his confessions
because Florida has the death penalty and he's thinking to himself, well, wait
a minute's this on me. So, even though I love getting this new
attention, I don't want to reveal too much and potentially go to the electric
chair or the gas chambers. But yeah, it definitely seems most likely that
he was responsible. I still think that the key to the case might be
Reebe's wife because it is kind of surprising that we don't know more about her.
But if he is telling the truth and she was present when this murder
took place, then she might be able to say what happened. She might
be able to testify against him or possibly lead the authorities to Pamela's remains.
So it is a bit disappointing that we don't know more information. But I
do think that like Reebe will probably never fully confess. He'll try to toy
with people, maybe give like surrogate confessions like he's done with his half brother
William Alex Wells, just to make it sound like that he's describing things that
Wells did, even though he might be like confessing to stuff that he himself
has done. Is just his way of toying with the authorities. But yeah,
it's he definitely seems like the most logical suspect to done this, And
it's just a horrifying nightmare the fact that this woman could go missing and be
abducted only a short distance away from her children while her children are sleeping,
and that they have to wake up and discover that their mother is gone and
that they will never see her again. So yeah, even though I don't
know if Reebie will ever make a full confession. I do think that I
do hope that the Macon County Shriff's office does a more extensive dig up there
in Illinois to the spot where these trash bags are allegedly buried, because if
they're able to surge it more extensively, maybe they will eventually come across Pamela's
remains and we can finally close the book on this case for good. Robin,
do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold
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