Death of Rey Rivera

On May 24, 2006, the body of Rey Rivera was found inside the historic Belvedere Hotel in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Although the event was ruled a probable suicide by the Baltimore Police Department, the circumstances of Rivera's death are mysterious and disputed. Background: Rey Omar Rivera was born on June 10, 1973, to Angel and Maria Rivera. At the time of his disappearance, Rivera was a 32-year-old finance writer for Stansberry and Associates. Rivera and his wife Allison had relocated from California to Baltimore to work for his longtime friend Porter Stansberry as a writer and videographer for Stansberry's investment company. Disappearance: Rivera went missing from his residence on May 16, 2006, after receiving a phone call from the Stansberry offices, according to a guest staying at the Rivera home at the time. After several days of searching for clues on Rivera's whereabouts, his family found his car located in a parking lot off of Saint Paul Street in Mount Vernon near his workplace. Rivera's coworkers went to the top of a parking structure near where the car was discovered, and noticed a hole in the roof of the south wing of the Belvedere Hotel. Police soon discovered Rivera's partially decomposed body inside the conference room under the roof's hole. Investigation: As police began to analyze the case, numerous aspects conflicted with the notion of Rivera jumping off the main roof of the Belvedere Hotel. Partly due to the hotel's mansard roof, there was a considerable horizontal distance between the hotel tower and the location of the hole in the lower roof, a distance that was unlikely to have been covered by a person jumping from the top of the tower. The vertical distance of approximately 50 metres (building height 188 ft = 57 metres) would have taken approximately 3.3 seconds. This suggests if he did come from the roof, and travelled a horizontal distance of 45 feet (13.7 metres) before impact, he would have had to have a horizontal speed of 4.2 metres per second (15.1 km/h), between a fast jog and a sprint for an average fit male wearing sports shoes. Rey was wearing flip flops or barefoot and would have had a maximum run up of just over 10 metres (2.5 seconds). An additional theory is that Rivera may have jumped from a ledge several floors below the roof, but it would have been difficult for Rivera to access the ledge from the privately-owned condominiums and offices that had windows onto the ledge. Evidence found at the scene further complicated the case. Rivera's eyeglasses and phone were found relatively intact on the lower roof near the hole. Because circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear, the medical examiner marked Rivera's death as inconclusive. Once Rivera's body was found, Stansberry and Associates placed a gag order on its employees, preventing the police from conducting interviews regarding Rivera's death. After searching the house for evidence, Allison found a note behind Rivera's computer. The confusing note included the names of prominent figures in Hollywood, Freemasonry quotations, and additional ramblings. The Federal Bureau of Investigation analyzed the note and ruled it not to be suicidal in nature. Police would soon step back from their investigation into the case after ruling Rivera's death as a probable suicide. Media: An Unexplained Death: A True Story of a Body at the Belvedere (2018) written by Mikita Brottman analyzes the Rivera case. Rivera's death was featured in the first episode of the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries in July 2020.