Submerged How a Cold Case Condemned an Innocent Man to Hide a Family's Darkest Secret

By: Hillel Levin

Published by Penzler Publishers, 2024

In March 1993, sixteen-year-old Rayna Rison was abducted outside the La Porte, Indiana, veterinary hospital where she worked. A month later, her body was found submerged under tree limbs in a rural pond. Police targeted her brother-in-law, Ray McCarty, as the prime suspect. Although a grand jury indicted him for the murder in 1998, prosecutors later dropped the charges. Then in 2013, county officers arrested Jason Tibbs, Rayna's middle-school boyfriend, convicted him, and sentenced him to forty years in prison.

After a two-year investigation, drawing on dozens of interviews and more than a thousand pages of police files, author Hillel Levin completes the case against McCarty, following clues and leads that detectives overlooked. In the process, he reveals startling new information about the killer's murder weapon and accomplices, and uncovers the politics and misconduct that enabled the prosecutor to convict Jason Tibbs. Although cold cases are celebrated in popular culture, Jason's trial shows the perils they can pose for innocent defendants.

At the heart of Submerged is the tragic story of Rayna Rison, an exceptional young woman with a promising future whose family and justice system failed to keep her from harm. Ironically, the person now held accountable for her murder is the friend she most saw as her protector.