What happened to Rey Rivera from Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries? These are the theories

This week Netflix released the first six episodes of its new true crime series, Unsolved Mysteries. The first mind-boggling, unanswered case which the show examines is the death of Rey Rivera – a story which has many theories surrounding it.

On the day of his death, 32-year-old Rey Rivera took a phone call and then rushed out of his house. One week later, he was dead found in an unused conference room at the Belvedere Hotel, underneath a hole in the roof.

His death was ruled as “undetermined” and to this day, nobody knows for sure what happened. There are a few different theories about what might have happened to Rey Rivera, here they are.

The initial theory is that Rey Rivera jumped to his death

Out of all the theories surrounding the death of Rey Rivera, the one most believed by police and the media is that he died by suicide. It is believed he jumped from the Belvedere Hotel and fell through the roof of the conference room he was found in. However, his friends and family believe there was no reason why Rey would have wanted to do this.

On the Unresolved Mysteries Reddit thread for the case, one user hints towards a “mental episode” which happened very quickly. This could have been the reason behind him getting so scared by the alarm going off at his home in the days previously, which we are told about in the Netflix documentary. The theory says he was very anxious and paranoid and this “could have really convinced Rey he and he wife were in danger.”

Other theories say that the death of Rey Rivera was staged

The circumstances around Rey Rivera’s death are very strange and appear as though they may have been staged. Most notably, how his flip-flops were found placed next to the hole he fell through and nearby was his phone – which despite how far the fall would have been, was completely undamaged and still working. His glasses were also found there, those too without a scratch.

Detectives were also very sceptical about the possibility of him having being able to have jumped. To jump from the top would have meant leaping much too far forward, the angle was also virtually impossible if he had jumped from the nearby parking lot, and the final possible point was off a lower ledge of the hotel, which was said to be too small to manoeuvre on and was nearly impossible to get out onto.

On top of this, the medical examiner ruled that some of his injuries were not consistent with a fall. It was also discovered that cameras on the roof of the hotel were not working on the night. This theory believes Rivera was killed, and it was made to look like he took his own life.

It is also thought that he may have been killed because of money

Another theory is that Rivera was killed because of the work he did for Agora, an affiliate company of Stansberry’s firm. Rivera had been working with an old school friend, Porter Stansberry, helping with copy-writing, video editing and on its financial stocks newsletter.

Given the nature of what he was writing about, people who went on the advice of what was written in the newsletter sometimes ended up losing money. According to reports, Stansberry’s company had been ordered to pay $1.5million in restitution and civil penalties for “disseminating false stock information and defrauding public investors through a financial newsletter”. So it wouldn’t be too far to think that someone had lost a lot of money because of an investment made off the back of advice from the newsletter. Stansberry also allegedly took out a gagging order which stopped his employees from speaking about Rivera – the order is said to have made doing so a breach of their contracts.

The phone call which Rey Rivera took on the day of his death was traced back to his workplace, but nobody ever found out who had called as it was from the Stansberry switchboard.

The strangest of the theories is that the death of Rey Rivera was a game gone wrong

In the Netflix series we are told that Rey Rivera was an aspiring filmmaker and a note, oddly listing celebrities, phrases, moves and other names, was found after his death. Some believe his notes were research for a film idea, so another theory is that he died in some sort of elaborate game, playing out his ideas for the movie.

If you have any information about this case you can submit it via the Unsolved website. 

The first six episodes of Unsolved Mysteries are available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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