The true story behind the inexplicable death of Rey Rivera

Last July, Netflix premiered Unsolved Mysteries and since then many have been wondering about Rey Rivera’s case and how he really died.

Unsolved Mysteries is the Netflix reboot of the successful series of the same name created by John Cosgrov and Terry Dun Meurer in 1987 and which aired until 2002.

The first episode of this remake is dedicated to the inexplicable death of Rey Rivera, a Puerto Rican man who committed suicide by jumping from the top of a hotel in Baltimore, Maryland.

However, his case was full of strange details that did not fit into the official version and have caused years later how Rey Rivera died to remain a mystery.

How did Rey Rivera die?

Rey Rivera was a 32-year-old aspiring screenwriter who worked as a financial newsletter writer and videographer for his friend Porter Stansberry.

He was newly married to a woman named Allison and they were planning to start a family.

On May 16, 2006, Rey Rivera received a phone call and left his house. That was the last time his family saw him.

They did not hear from Rey until six days later, when his body was found in an empty conference room at the Belvedere Hotel in Batlimore.

His body had multiple fractures and judging by the hole in the ceiling, it looked as if Rey had fallen, jumped, or been pushed by someone from several stories high.

In his fall he would have gone through the ceiling of the living room and remained in the position in which he was found by the authorities.

In the absence of suspects or a motive to consider the case a homicide, the Baltimore Police Department classified it as a suicide.

However, there were too many elements that simply didn’t make sense in this version.

The Rey Rivera case: the inconsistencies

From the beginning, the media, friends, family and even specialists questioned the police suicide theory.

To begin with, the injuries on Rey Rivera’s body did not correspond to the type of fall he had suffered.

And according to authorities it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for Rey to have gone through the living room ceiling the way he did.

In addition, objects such as his cell phone, his glasses and even his shoes were practically intact. Something unthinkable for someone who supposedly fell from more than 10 stories high.

Then there is the fact that Rey’s family never detected any type of depressive behavior, much less suicidal behavior. And if that were not enough, it turns out that Rey had a fear of heights.

(We’re not psychologists, but it sounds highly unlikely that someone with acrophobia would choose to jump off a building to take their own life.)

It was also quite suspicious that there was not a single witness to the event; and that, in a curious coincidence, the hotel’s security cameras failed and did not record anything that happened.

The strange letter and the reference to The Game

One of the strangest elements of the investigation of the RIvera case was the discovery of a letter written by Rey Rivera a few days after his death.

In it he addressed his brothers and sisters and spoke of a game that had been well played. She also mentioned deceased figures such as actor Christopher Reeve and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

It also included several people Rivera was with and wanted to “make five years younger”; as well as several phrases used in a Masonic order and even a list of movies.

Due to the strange composition of the text and the words used, the FBI concluded that it was not a suicide note, but a letter written in some type of code.

From this information on the Reddit portal, theories began to emerge about the meaning of this note, and one of the users believes that the “game well played” that Rey Rivera was talking about was a reference to the movie The Game.

In it there is a scene in which the protagonist jumped from the roof of a luxurious hotel and went through the glass ceiling. Circumstances quite similar to those of Rivera’s death.

Theories about Rivera’s death

So far there are three popular theories about what really happened to Rey Rivera.

The first is the version of suicide that was finally accepted by the Baltimore Police and that ensures that Rivera jumped to his death.

The second assures that, if it were a suicide, it could only have happened on the 11th floor of the Belvedere hotel; And even so, it has its complications.

And the theory of the 11th floor only holds up considering that Rivera would have had to enter a room or office of the hotel, since there was no other way to reach the ledge.

But, as we already said, there were no witnesses. Nobody saw him pass or get up. And if they saw it, they never declared.

Finally, a third theory suggests that it was a settling of scores by some angry customer of Agora Inc., the company affiliated with Porter Stansberry’s company.

Rey Rivera was in charge of writing the financial bulletins. His brother, Ángel, believes that maybe Rey made a report that caused someone to lose a lot of money and exact revenge.

Added to that is the fact that during the weeks before his death the security alarm at Rivera’s home was activated twice.

And the call Rey received before her disappearance was from her work, but since it came from a switchboard it was impossible to trace it.

Finally, to make matters more suspicious, Porter Stansberry allegedly forbade his employees from speaking about the Rivera case and himself refused to be interviewed.

You can now see the story of Rey Rivera and many others just as strange in Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries.