Ranee Gregor: A suspect at last

There is finally news on Ranee, but it is among the most horrible sorts of news a family could hear. My heart goes out to John's and her loved ones.

Story from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07058/765229-85.stm. Photo and age progression of Ranee from the Charley Project:

Serial killer admits to 2 Findlay deaths in 1977
Tuesday, February 27,
2007
By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Having just received his first
paycheck from a busboy job at a nearby fast-food restaurant, John Feeny, 17,
decided to take his girlfriend, Ranee Gregor, days shy of 16, on a date. He left
with her in his family's rusted yellow van. They headed to a remote area of
Findlay called lovers' lane. Hours later, on Oct. 22, 1977, the boy was
shotgunned to death. The girl was missing.
They became two victims
connected -- for years, only by widespread suspicion -- to serial killer Edward
Surratt.
Now, almost 30 years later, Mr. Surratt has admitted to six
unsolved murders, including the pair of teenagers, Beaver Township, Ohio, Police
Chief Carl Frost said yesterday.
Mr. Surratt, currently serving multiple
life sentences in Florida, was long suspected by police to have committed at
least 18 murders, most of them in Ohio and Pennsylvania. During the fall and
winter of 1977-78, Mr. Surratt pulled the region into a panic, most often by
entering homes, shooting the male and often raping and killing the female.
Mr. Surratt also admitted, Chief Frost said, to the 1977 murders of David A.
Hamilton and his wife, Linda; and John J. Davis and his wife, Mary. Those were
the four unsolved cases in Mr. Frost's township.
He received a reminder of
that following last year's county fair, when somebody -- he doesn't know who --
wrote the names of the Davis couple atop a photograph, posted at the fair, of
the area police department. After a series of phone calls, Chief Frost arranged
for two investigators in Florida -- one representing the Bal Harbour, Fla.,
police and one representing "America's Most Wanted" -- to question Mr. Surratt.
For his cooperation, Mr. Surratt wanted a transfer to a prison in South
Carolina, where in 1978 he'd been convicted of killing a man with a baseball
bat. He has been told prisons in that state have spring mattresses and air
conditioning. Florida is willing to cooperate with the move, Chief Frost said,
"because they're interested in getting rid of him anyway. He has been a pain."
Mr. Surratt, 65, a Marine Corps veteran and a former Aliquippa truck driver,
agreed to speak only with the "America's Most Wanted" representative, Joe
Matthews, a former homicide detective. He told Mr. Matthews that the bodies of
both Linda Hamilton and Ranee Gregor, never found, were "unrecoverable."
Other details, Chief Frost said, were vague.
"He didn't sit down and
say, 'I went in this door and I shot him when he said this.' He didn't give us
the full admissions," Chief Frost said.
Police now want more details about
the six murders and admissions to other unsolved cases. Chief Frost plans,
perhaps within the next month, to travel to Florida to assist with the process.
After Ranee Gregor's disappearance, her parents kept the girl's room exactly
as she'd left it. On the night of his date, John Feeny had been instructed to
return the van to his parents by 10 p.m., so his mother -- who worked nights --
could drive to work. Rita Feeny, John's mother, says the loss "is still raw."
"I'd like my son back," she said. "That's not going to happen ... and I have
to face that reality. If you have to be blunt, my son bled to death in our car;
the fancy medical term is exsanguinate. But ... it's still there. You think
about that on birthdays. There's a hole in all of your holidays. In everything.
And it comes to the surface every so often, when you think about what would have
happened if he'd had a chance to grow up."

If you have any information about the disappearance of Ranee Ann Gregor, please call the Robinson Township Police Department at (412) 788-7111 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

Of course, there is always a chance that this guy could be lying. There is always a tiny little chance that Ranee could somehow alive. If you want, you can still print out and hang up a poster of her, even if only to try to get tips on her murder. You can print a poster of her here.

Websleuths thread on this case: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14937