DATE OF LAST CONTACT: 6th November 1968
MISSING FROM: Falmouth, Barnstable County, Massachusetts
DATE OF BIRTH: 23rd May 1957
AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE: 12
HEIGHT: 4′ 10
WEIGHT: 75 lbs
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: White male. Brown hair. Brown eyes. He has dimples in his cheeks and is said to look younger than his age. Wearing a black leather jacket, olive green pants, a blue sports shirt and brown loafers. He was carrying a math book.
INVESTIGATING AGENCY: Falmouth Police Department and Massachusetts State Police – Cape Islands District
BASIC CASE FACTS
- At 3.15pm on Wednesday 6th November Raymond Barabe’s mother saw him in the parking lot of the Falmouth Plaza Shopping Center and told him to go home.
- He gave her a wave and a smile and left – but he never made it home and, despite a few sightings, was never seen again.
- Local police classed him as a runaway and never did a search, but strangely the District Attorney treated his case as a priority which raises questions as to why?
Raymond Barabe’s behaviour had been on a downward spiral in the months leading up to his disappearance, both at home and at school, but nobody ever knew why or what had happened to cause it. Still, no one thought Raymond, young for his age, would ever run away – until one day he disappeared just feet from his home. Did a twelve year old boy leave all of his problems behind and run away as local police suspected? Or was there something else going on in the quiet seaside town of Falmouth, Massachusetts – something that would have dire consequences for Raymond Barabe?
RAY’S STORY
Raymond Louis Barabe, who went by Ray, was born on 23rd May 1957 to parents Roland and Dorothy in the seaside town of Falmouth, Massachusetts. Dad, Roland, was a stock clerk at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute – a marine research facility based in Falmouth. Ray had an older sister, Marian, and a younger brother, Donald. Ray was said to look young for his age but he was also said to be smart beyond his years, though only an average student at school. He was called likeable and intelligent, with an independent streak, but he was also said to be a “real scrapper” for his size and everyone agrees: Ray was no angel. Ray had grown up at 2 Toledo Street in Falmouth which was a large home on a lake shore but the family had recently downsized to a smaller single level home at 36 Alma Road which was closer to the centre of town and positioned right by the Falmouth Plaza Shopping Center. Ray was not happy about the move and strongly disliked the new house, which was one more in a list of things that were negatively impacting Ray’s life at that time.
“HELL IN LOAFERS“
Before moving on to Ray’s disappearance it is important to talk about what had been happening in his life in the preceding weeks and how a change in his personality could have been relevant.
Ray is described by those who knew him as “hell in loafers” – he was no angel and didn’t back down from a fight but in recent weeks his behaviour had changed noticeably.
Ray hated his new home at 36 Alma Street and he spent an increasingly large amount of time hanging around his old neighbourhood where his friends lived – in fact his parents said that he went there everyday. Although it was only a ten minute walk to his old neighbourhood, it must have seemed like a million miles to a boy who had been uprooted from his life and friends.
Most of Ray’s friends were older teens; in fact his closest friend, Norman Vaughn, was several years older than him. Norman’s mom, Irene, was a Falmouth PD police officer and she said there were many nights when she saw Ray, apparently lonely and hanging around his old neighbourhood, and felt sorry for him. But when she would invite him into her home he would say that he just wanted to be alone. This is unusual behaviour for a twelve year old and also raises the question as to why he was returning to his old neigbourhood only to linger in the streets by himself.
Things at home had recently become equally stressful for Ray as he and his younger brother, Donald, had begun to argue and fight a lot. To Ray it seemed as if his parents always took his younger brother’s side and he accused them of loving his brother more than him. His parents told him that it may seem that way, but that they loved all of their children equally. Ray didn’t seem convinced by their reassurances and they later told a newspaper that “Something had gone amiss in his home life”. His father, who had been a Master Sergeant in the army and a deeply religious man, admits that he could be a very strict father.
Things weren’t going much better at school. Ray’s mom Dorothy said “I had to go down to the school I don’t know how many times. I had to talk to his history teacher, his math teacher, the principal – all of them, it seems”. Although the summer break seemed to have been fine, as soon as Ray started back at school he had problems adjusting. Ray suddenly hated school and was getting into trouble for playing pranks – pranks which he claimed were nothing to do with him but that he was being blamed for. Ray’s father said: “Ray couldn’t understand this injustice. It seemed like the whole world was against him”
And Ray had even managed to come to the attention of the local police too. He and another boy had been questioned about their “unauthorised presence in two businesses”. One of the police who questioned him had threatened to put Ray behind bars for ten years. This terrified Ray and his father said it gave him a strong fear of the police.
It seems like this young twelve year old boy suddenly had the weight of the world on his shoulders for some reason. Was this feisty little scrapper being bullied at school? Did he feel unloved and unhappy in his home life? Or was there something deeper going on?
DISAPPEARANCE
Wednesday 6th November was a cool winters day with highs of 50F (10C). Nixon had just been declared the winner of the presidential election and no doubt this was the main topic of conversation for everyone in town. For Ray it had been a normal school day and now, with school out, he was dilly-dallying home; carrying a math book in his hand.
At 3.15pm Dorothy had some errands to run so she went to the Falmouth Plaza Shopping Centre. The house on Alma Road actually backed onto the plaza, in fact it was so close that you could just hop over the fence, so it is likely that she was on foot.
Dorothy saw Ray in the parking lot and shouted over to him to “Get home”. She vividly remembers that he was carrying a school math book and she says he “gave me a funny smile and a wave”.
That was the last time she saw him. Ray never did return home. Despite the fact that he was mere feet from his back yard – in fact a later news article says he disappeared from his backyard – he never made it there. The smile that Ray gave his mom stood out to her that day, it wasn’t a smile that she recognised. Was Ray smiling and waving a last goodbye to his mom? Was he smiling because he knew he was about to disobey his mom and not go home? Or was this just the mocking laugh of a teenaged boy?
How is it possible for a young man to disappear within sight of his home? Did Ray get into someone’s car in the car park? Did he have a prearranged meeting that day? Or did he ignore his mom and head off to his old neighbourhood? That is what his family originally thought.
THE SEARCH
The following statement which appeared in a 1970 Boston Globe article sums up how the Falmouth Police Department handled Ray’s case – despite the fact that Ray’s best friend’s mom was a Falmouth police officer:
“Falmouth Police consider Ray a runaway. They never have delved into the possibility of foul play. Nor have they ever conducted a systematic search for him”
A month after Ray’s disappearance his parents offered a $500 reward for information leading to his safe return. There had been a few sightings around town, specifically in a Falmouth store, and his father believed that he was close by and being sheltered by a friend.
To this end Ray’s dad returned to their old neighbourhood nightly looking for his son. He placed blankets in their old home, which was still sitting empty, in case Ray returned there so that he would be warm in the deserted property. But there was never any sign that Ray had returned there. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Ray’s birthday all passed without a word and the family grew more distraught – each ring of the phone or knock on the door heightening their hopes that it would be their son – but their hopes were repeatedly dashed.
When The Boston Globe did a story about Ray in July of 1970, twenty months after his disappearance, the family and their views had changed somewhat. Ray’s mom Dorothy, aged forty-one, had fallen pregnant again. She told reporters that she felt the new baby was a divine gift to replace her handsome boy who never came home. With sadness in her eyes she said that she no longer believed that Ray was alive: It’s a mother’s intuition. Ray would have become homesick by now”, she said, adding: “There was a lot of love in the little boy I remember and I think that the holidays and his birthday and affection for his family would have drawn him home”. But she also remembers the withdrawn youngster that he had become and noted that she never really understood him. “He didn’t open up”, she said. “He didn’t discuss his problems with us. We had to drag things out of him. I thought I knew him, but I didn’t know him as much as I thought”.
But Ray’s dad had a totally different viewpoint. He thought his son was alive: “I think he’s having a ball! I think he’s living with a hippie gang somewhere”.
There was one more piece of information in the 1970 Boston Globe article that intrigued me.
Despite the fact that the Falmouth Police Department had essentially swept the case under the rug and declared Ray a runaway, it seems that the District Attorney’s office felt differently. The DA assigned three State’s detectives to the case who looked into every lead, interviewed everybody Ray knew, and seriously considered the possibility that Ray had been murdered.
This intrigued me. While it was more common in this time period for the DA’s office to involve itself in cases being handled by the local police, and even to have a different point of view, this usually involved more high profile cases where there was some evidence of foul play or where they felt the local police were mishandling the case. The fact that they became involved in what appeared to be a simple runaway case made me wonder if they may have suspected that Ray’s disappearance could be linked to something else so I did a bit of digging – turns out this quaint little seaside town has some big problems back in 1968!
MELVIN REINE
In 1968 Falmouth was in the grip of a mobster-like figure called Melvin Reine. He was a convicted arsonist who was also suspected in the murders, attempted murders, and disappearances of several Falmouth residents. Can it be a coincidence that Ray disappeared at the same time that all this was happening and can we connect Ray and Melvin?
In the winter of 1968, at the same time Ray disappeared, Melvin Reine and a teenaged friend set fire to a Falmouth holiday home. It was the latest in a series of twelve arsons that had gripped the town over the last few months but it would be the last – the law finally caught up with Melvin Reine early the next year. He was convicted of seven of the twelve arsons and spent eighteen months of an eight year sentence behind bars. So who was Melvin Reine and what does he have to do with Ray’s disappearance?
Known as ‘The Fox’, Reine was 27 years old in 1968. He was a violent man and the entire town was terrified of him. A former police officer who felt Reine’s wrath said “People knew to stay out of Reine’s way. They warned their children to be polite to him. No one would say anything to him, it was honest to god, a fearful time. Even his family knew he could, at any moment, become explosive”.
Reine was a terrifying figure for the residents of Falmouth, who never knew if their home would go up in smoke if they got on the wrong side of him, and of course this meant that finding anybody willing to testify against him was difficult. He had no fear of law enforcement or anybody else.
In 1971 Reine’s wife and the mother of his two sons, Wanda, vanished. Reine claimed he had put her on a bus to visit relatives, but locals and police suspected she had been murdered. She remains missing to this day.
In 1972 Charles Flanagan was found murdered execution-style in the cranberry bog across from Reine’s home. The young man had been to a movie with Reine’s teenaged babysitter, Shirley Souza, whom Reine was also romantically involved with. It is suspected Reine murdered him in a jealous rage.
In 1977 the police had finally managed to persuade someone to testify against Reine in the remaining arson cases. 17 year old Paul Alwardt, who had been an employee at Reine’s garbage hauling business, was placed in protective custody and put on a ferry by police to stay with his family in Martha’s Vineyard. He was to testify to a grand jury the next day. Amazingly he never made it off the ferry! He too is still missing. Police suspect Reine had someone on board, possibly in law enforcement, who got to him and pushed his body overboard.
In 1979 Reine shot police officer Raymond Busby in the face while he was driving to work. Busby survived, but was forced to flee and go into hiding with his family for fear of repercussions since he had identified Reine as the shooter. Time passed with no more murders or disappearances until 2005, when his wife, the former babysitter Shirley Souza, was shot and killed in the garage of her home.
No one was ever convicted in any of these murders or disappearances. People in town simply would not talk – they were terrified. There is suggestion that the Falmouth PD and high up official figures were paid off by Reine, or that they were simply too scared to pursue him. Melvin Reine was a dangerous murderer who had made several people disappear. He was not averse to murdering young men. But can we link Ray Barabe to Melvin Reine? Yes, unfortunately I believe that we can.
LINK TO A MURDERER?
One thing that is made clear in all the articles about Melvin Reine is that he hung around with teenagers. A fomer Falmouth PD juvenile officer said “Reine was a pied-piper for kids”. He befriended teenagers who were attracted to his wealth and his open-top sports car and then he would use them in his nefarious activities. Two of his teenage companions were convicted with him in the arson cases. Remember – Ray’s friends were all older teens. Had Ray come under the influence of Reine due to his association with older kids? It is very possible.
I admit that I was struggling to find a connection that might link Ray and Reine, but then I saw this line in a 2005 Cape Cod Times article about Reine:
“Despite having a wife and child at home, Reine hung out with teens and cruised Main Street near the Plaza”
…Near the Plaza! The shopping center where Ray lived! The very place from where Ray disappeared! I believe that this is a significant link in the two cases. Here we have a dangerous criminal who is quite happy to murder his friends and family that hangs around teens in the very same spot, at the same time, where a young teen vanishes. For me the coincidence is simply too overwhelming. I strongly believe that Ray may have been Reine’s first victim.
WHAT HAPPENED TO RAY?
I don’t think Ray ran away. I don’t think he chose that moment, carrying only a math book and with no money, to run away. Nor do I think he was living it up in some hippie commune. I think Ray was murdered.
I believe Ray had gotten in over his head and had some knowledge of the crimes, possibly the arsons, that Reine was committing. I think this is the explanation for his sudden change in behaviour. His mom said that he didn’t open up and discuss his problems, that she realised she didn’t really know what was happening with him. I think she was right. I think Ray was under enormous stress and probably terrified – lets not forget that he was only twelve. He had already had a run in with police that scared him half to death him – the threat of going to prison had given him a deep seated fear of the police. To me, Ray’s behaviour suggests someone with a great weight on their shoulders and no one to turn to about it.
I believe that Ray, just a young boy, had begun to crack under the pressure and that Reine or his cronies were aware and needed to silence him. Perhaps Ray was being hassled at school by other teens who were in thrall to Reine. On that fateful November day I think Ray got into Reine’s car – he probably trusted him – remember, he was like the pied-piper for the teens in town. Or possibly Ray went to his old neighbourhood and was picked up from there. Wherever they went that day I think Reine murdered Ray to silence him; he was probably already dead by the time he was reported missing.
What happened to Ray’s body? Maybe he ended up in the cranberry bog across the street from Reine’s house, but there is a darker and more likely option. Melvin Reine owned a trash hauling business and he had access to the town’s landfill – in fact the town later accused him of illegal dumping there. I think Ray, along with the other people that disappeared, were probably dumped at the landfill. A sad fact and one which means their bodies will likely never ever come to light.
I strongly believed that the District Attorney, back in 1970 when they were attempting to further prosecute Reine for the arson cases, had connected Ray’s disappearance to Reine in the same way that I have. Perhaps they had even more evidence, and that is why they were investigating more vigorously and looking at the possibility of murder. If so, they weren’t successful.
Melvin Reine died a slow death in a care facility from dementia in 2013, taking all his secrets to the grave. Ray’s parents have both passed, as has his younger brother Donald. A few years ago someone contacted Ray’s sister Marian about doing genetic genealogy in case Ray was still alive but she asked to be left alone and not contacted again. Ray has a cousin who, as far as I am aware, is the only person actively looking for Ray – he had the Falmouth PD reopen the case as a cold case.
SOURCES
The Boston Globe – 29th July 1970
Cape Cod Times – 2005 article about Melvin Reine
Find a Grave – Melvin Reine
Cape Cod Times article about Melvin Reine’s death
Reddit Post about Ray
Below is the Missing Person flier for Ray created and distributed by the wonderful advocacy group Locks of Reunification. Please feel free to share this far and wide and give the Locks group a follow to show your support:
Never Seen Again 