One Year Ago Today (December 29, 2020)…The Phoenix and Peoria, Arizona police departments and the FBI put out a call for information about an alleged sexual offender and cold-case murder suspect who once lived in Southern California, saying they believe there may be additional victims who have not come forward.
Lance David Ray, 53, was taken into custody in October in Bloomington, Indiana, where he was visiting, after DNA allegedly linked him to the crimes that occurred in 2000, according to the FBI’s Phoenix office. He was extradited to Phoenix and booked into the Maricopa County Jail.
Ray is accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two teens at gunpoint that year — a 14-year-old boy in Peoria and a 17-year-old in Phoenix — and killing an 18-year-old man who was shot and killed in Phoenix after a struggle, the FBI said.
Investigators looking into those crimes believe “that additional victims may exist,” according to an FBI statement.
According to the FBi and Phoenix police, Ray lived in the San Francisco area in the early 1990s before moving to Portland, Oregon, in 1993. He lived in various places in Oregon, Washington and California until 1999, when he moved to Phoenix, where he lived from 1999 to 2003.
Ray returned to California in 2003 and lived in the state until 2017, when he moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
While in California, his cities of residence included Santa Ana and Lake Forest in Orange County and Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.
Authorities asked anyone with information on Ray to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or email ReportRay@fbi.gov with your name, date of birth, phone number and address.