Bob Buehner thinks the case of missing Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar was handled incorrectly -- but his fellow district attorneys disagree.

Just days after Montour County District Attorney Buehner and former Lock Haven District Attorney Ted McKnight publicly criticized the investigation into their colleague's 2005 disappearance during a press conference last week, the officials they challenged have answered back.

In light of Buehner's and McKnight's comments, the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association held a press conference Friday to support the investigation and Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira, whose handling of the case has been the target of Buehner's and McKnight's attack.

In its statement, the association had harsh words for critics of the investigation, decrying the "personal, vicious attacks against the public servants who have shown nothing but professional dedi

cation and determination in solving this case despite little evidence."

Gricar, who was set to retire in December 2005, left work on April 15, 2005 in his red Mini Cooper and has not been heard from since. Though his car, laptop and hard drive were recovered, the investigation into Gricar's disappearance is ongoing.

Buehner, who said he attended the press conference at the request of Gricar's nephew, Tony Gricar, called the association's comments "repugnant and disgraceful."

"If this is the quality and quantity of a criminal investigation into the disappearance of a sitting DA, what chance would an average family have if their loved ones went missing?" Buehner said.

However, the association said concern for Ray Gricar should not cause his colleagues to cross jurisdictional boundaries.

"As fellow prosecutors and long-time colleagues of Ray, it is difficult to still not have answers three years after his disappearance. However, our personal desire for answers cannot, and should not, take precedent over Pennsylvania laws and jurisdiction," the statement read.

In a letter sent to Madeira on June 3, Buehner mentioned several leads he said Madeira and the Bellefonte Police had not adequately followed. They included sending Ray Gricar's recovered hard drive to a private company for analysis and questioning McKnight about a witness who may have been the last person to see the former district attorney alive.

However, Madeira said the hard drive -- which was recovered in October 2005 in the Susquehanna River -- was already sent to Kroll Ontrack Inc., a company that retrieved information from a hard drive in the crashed space shuttle Columbia. In addition, he said the Bellefonte Police had questioned the witness McKnight mentioned. The man claimed to have seen Ray Gricar driving toward Lewisburg on the day of his disappearance in a red Mini Cooper.

Although he had already followed up on Buehner's suggested leads, he had no reason to share this fact with Buehner, Madeira said Wednesday.

"He has no right to the information and I have no obligation to give it to him," he said. "It's not his investigation or his county."

Madeira did not immediately respond to phone calls this past weekend seeking comment.