A phone received by Rey Rivera seems to be key to the "Mystery on the Rooftop" episode of Unsolved Mysteries - but who was the call from?
Unsolved Mysteries ' first episode, "Mystery on the Rooftop," implies that Porter Stansberry was somehow linked to the death of his late friend Rey Rivera, whose body was found at the Belvedere Hotel in May 2006. However, a new report suggests that the Baltimore businessman likely wasn't behind a mysterious call that Rivera received before disappearing.
In Unsolved Mysteries, Rey's wife Allison Rivera recalls the day in question. She had left home for a business trip on May 16, 2006, and learned from a house guest that Rey received a call around 6:30 p.m. and left "in a hurry." The Netflix docuseries heavily implies that someone from Stansberry & Associates made the call, which is significant because Rey had written investment articles for the company. An Unsolved Mysteries interviewee also claims that Stansberry & Associates actually put a gag order on employees after Rivera's death.
Stansberry recently told The Baltimore Sun that he's "shocked and hurt” by speculation that he's involved with Rivera's death. The businessman states that Rivera had actually resigned from Stansberry & Associates six months prior to his death, and he believes that Unsolved Mysteries twisted the facts. For example, Stansberry claims that he never put a gag order on his employees, but rather had them direct any media inquiries to a spokesperson. He also addresses the theory that the mysterious phone call came from his company, which is actually a subsidiary of Agora Publishing - the parent company that Rivera had been writing for. According to Stansberry, nobody from his company would've been able to call Rey from the switchboard in Baltimore:
“Every person in our company who had worked with Rey was on the Eastern Shore at the time that call was made, having a corporate retreat in St. Michael’s... No one in my company was in town when Rey disappeared. The idea we were calling him from our switchboard is ridiculous.”
The Baltimore Sun report cites Rivera's interest in freemasonry, which is referenced in Unsolved Mysteries. Stansberry claims that Rivera asked him if he was "in leadership of the Freemasons," and a friend named Brad Hoppmann also states that Rivera asked him about being a freemason just one week before disappearing. In addition, an unaired Unsolved Mysteries clip shows that Rivera reached out to a local freemason group of the day of his disappearance. Someone linked to both Agora Publishing and the freemasons could indeed have placed the mysterious phone call to Rivera, yet Hoppman believes that his friend's mental health issues are what online sleuths should be focusing on:
“This is a real conversation the world can have about mental illness ... and it turned into a murder mystery where they’re accusing people of being involved.”
Unsolved Mysteries posits that Rivera received a call directly from Stansberry & Associates, but it was actually from the Agora Publishing switchboard. So, it's entirely possible that the call came from a different company that Rivera had been writing for. If the conversation was in any way stressful, it may have triggered Rivera to visit the actual physical building (which could explain the location of his vehicle). As for the manner of death, Rivera had reportedly asked the aforementioned Hoppman if he could stay alone at his Jersey City residence on the top floor, which seems to imply that Rivera was suicidal. In addition, author Mika Brottman (An Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere) says that she told Unsolved Mysteries filmmakers that the Belvedere Hotel roof was "easily accessed," which contrasts with the narrative presented by Netflix.
