PORTLAND, Ore. — On May 19, 35-year-old Daniel Ray's body was found near the Steel Bridge in the Willamette River.
His family said they stopped hearing from him back in November and have spent the past seven months praying he was alive.
"Anywhere he goes, he calls me," said Geri Ray, Daniel's mother, while in tears. "He notifies me; that's why it hurts because I know my child."
Geri Ray said her son was always in contact with his family back in Texas and New Orleans. She last spoke to him on Oct. 31 before he got on a Greyhound bus in Spokane, Washington, headed towards Texas.
On Nov. 2, Ray had stopped in Portland and was arrested after getting into an altercation at a Subway. After he was released the same day, his family never heard from him again.
His younger brother, Willie said, they didn't receive much help from Portland police when they tried to report him missing.
"It was just terrible," Willie stressed. "Felt like no help when we were just hoping that he might call. We were just hoping it would turn out differently."
Ray was traveling to Texas for his 2-year-old daughter's birthday. The mother of his child, Destine Bogans, said he would FaceTime his daughter nonstop.
"It's definitely hard, and I am definitely going to miss the father he was to his child," she said.
The family said Ray's cause of death is still being determined. Bogans said Ray was a strong swimmer and would never take his own life.
"There's no way you could make me believe that that man killed himself," she insisted. "I believe he was murdered. I believe he was thrown in that river."
With very few clues, the family isn't sure exactly when Ray died, but they're hoping someone knows something that can give them answers.
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is conducting a death investigation and the medical examiner is working to determine Ray's cause of death.