In a filing cabinet at the Panama City Beach Police Department, there are 25 years of files but no answers as to what happened to a Georgia woman who vanished while visiting the beach.
“We got a call the next morning, August 12th, that Pamela June Ray came up missing. She came down here from Georgia with her two young children,” Chief Drew Whitman said.
Whitman was working as a patrol officer the morning of August 12th, 1992.
Ray had parked her blue car at the former Wilhite Motel on Front Beach Road.
Officers found her purse and sleeping children locked inside the car, but Ray was nowhere to be found.
“Some people heard screams. They never called the police,” Whitman said. “That was one of our problems. No one wanted to get involved, and from there we just keep trying to follow leads.”
Seven years after she disappeared, police said Mark Riebe confessed to killing Ray but later recanted his statement. Riebe is currently serving a life sentence in prison for killing a Gulf Breeze woman.
“We’ve talked to him occasionally, but we get no new leads from him that we can actually identify him as our number one suspect,” Whitman said.
Investigators still receive tips from time-to-time. Those are investigated and placed among the files, but the case remains cold.
“We haven’t forgotten about her,” Lt. J.R. Talamantez said. “Somebody knows something. All we need is one little piece of the puzzle and all of this will make sense.”
If anyone has information on the case, they’re asked to call beach police at (850) 233-5000.
