Ray Merrill, Regina Rachid: ‘Web Of Lies’ — Brazilian Beauty Killed Californian

He was as handsome as she was beautiful. And police say nothing could keep Ray Merrill away from his Brazilian beauty, Regina Rachid. Not even the likelihood that she had stolen thousands of dollars from him before she finally murdered him and set his body on fire in Brazil. Tonight’s Web Of Lies is not an episode that you’ll want to miss. The Ray Merrill story is a cautionary tale of what could happen when a lonely bachelor becomes entangled in the web of an exotic seductress. Investigation Discovery’s Web Of Lies episode is called “Love Goes South.”

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April 2006: South Of Hell

It’s a sad story. Those who knew Raymond ‘Ray’ Merrill well say that he was a handsome but complicated man who at times didn’t listen to reason. Those facts would end up being the death of him.

Ray Merrill was a divorced carpenter, construction worker, and musician who was looking for love. He had a liking for Latin women, the Los Angeles Times reported. His first wife was originally from Argentina. His girlfriend was also a Latin woman.

At 56-years old, he thought he had struck gold in a feisty Latina woman who he’d met online. Regina Rachid, whose real name is Regina Rachid Filomenta Crasovich Rachid, was from Brazil. With stunning looks, she teased and enticed the still-handsome musician.

They talked online. They exchanged steamy and passionate emails. They developed an intense love affair right over the web. But a web was exactly what Regina Rachid was casting out for the unsuspecting Ray Merrill, who police claimed kept glamorous photos of her all over his computer.

Before long, Ray had taken off to Brazil to meet Regina Rachid in person. From there, he was hooked. But when he returned to the United States, Merrill had discovered something disturbing–and looking back–it was something that should have been very telling.

Someone had charged thousands of dollars on his bank cards. Now who could that have been? Most people believed that it was his new foreign girlfriend. But Ray Merrill didn’t seem to want to make that connection.

@CorpusNoxa Thought of u but not in a bad way “@DiscoveryID: Catfish + Investigation Discovery = Web of Lies. pic.twitter.com/LRcyLFIwWt”

— Carey (@young007) January 14, 2015

American Man Vanishes In Brazil

Even with this knowledge, he headed back to Brazil a few more times, and each time, Regina Rachid asked for more money. Ray Merrill was always the type of man who watched his dollars. But he wanted to help her get established so he gave her money to open up a beauty clinic, where she could give Botox shots to her customers. And according to SF Gate, he also bought her an SUV. Although, she told him that it wasn’t the expensive one that she had expected.

When Merrill disappeared without a word, his family feared that something horrible had happened to him in Brazil. What they didn’t know at the time was that Ray Merrill’s body had been found on a lonely rural road in Brazil. The poor man had been drugged, strangled with a wire, and then set on fire. He spent days in a drugged state in Regina’s home before finally giving up the password to his bank card. (Merrill always had a bad feeling about her house.)

Raymond Merrill was buried in a pauper’s grave since no one knew who the American man was. The family had their fears confirmed after the body was exhumed and identified as Raymond Merrill.

His killer turned out to be Regina Rachid, who had received help from two other people: Nelson de Sequeira Neves and Evandro Augusto Ribeiro, according to Justice4Raymond.

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Police say the motive in the killing was money. It was all about the money. After his death, Regina stole money out his bank accounts, and spent lavishly, along with her accomplices. The robbery of another man is what ultimately led police to Regina Rachid.

To find out how the case ended, watch Web Of Lies tonight at 9/8 p.m. Central on Investigation Discovery.

[Featured Image by Felipe Dana/AP Images]