Four years after long-time Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar went missing, four candidates vying for his former position have promised to examine his case in search of concrete answers, if elected.

Current head prosecutor and Republican incumbent Michael Madeira remembers knocking on doors in Bellefonte -- campaigning for a post he would later assume -- when he first received word that Gricar was missing.

Madeira recalled a sense of disbelief, feeling he may have misunderstood what he was just told.

"When you hear something like that the immediate response is that, 'Nah, I didn't hear that right,' " he said.

Since those early days following Gricar's disappearance, investigations have left the Gricar family and the county with no definitive conclusions.

Gricar was reported missing on April 15, 2005. In 2004, he announced he would retire at the end of his fifth term, which turned out to be just months before his disappearance.

Gricar called his girlfriend the morning of the 15th, telling her he was taking off work and going for a drive. The next day, his red Mini Cooper was discovered abandoned miles away in a parking lot near the Susquehanna River. His county-issued laptop computer and its hard drive were later found in the river.

The case is still active, authorities say.

This week, the Bellefonte Police Department released information, saying Gricar purchased software to erase a computer hard drive and made searches on his separate home computer, including "water damage to a notebook computer."

Since then, law enforcement involved in the case has pursued every new lead and has gone back over old ones, Madeira said.

"We aren't getting credible new leads that are getting us anywhere," he said. "There are no new resources to be applied because there are no new leads to which we can apply resources."

But Democratic candidate for DA Stacy Parks Miller said she would "tear that file apart from front to back," in an effort to find answers in the missing DA's case.

While she could not speculate as to her exact recommendations or conclusions because she does not have access to the file, Parks Miller said if there is anything that could be done, she would make it a priority.

"I don't think the community can ever really rest until we have an answer to Ray's disappearance," she said.

Parks Miller, a Centre County defense attorney, said she intends to emulate aspects of the former prosecutor's time in office, returning it to "the successful and dignified place" it once was.

And a former assistant district attorney echoed similar sentiments. J. Karen Arnold, a former assistant district attorney under Gricar and Democratic candidate for district attorney, has been outspoken since Gricar's disappearance.

Arnold wrote in an e-mail that "investigative silence" can be a result of strategically withholding information from the public or can "serve simply as a shield of the fact that an investigation is going nowhere."

If she were voted into office, she would begin by reviewing the case file in detail from the start, examining witness statements, cell phone records and other reports, she wrote.

"I would then sit down with [Bellefonte Police Chief Shawn] Weaver and all officers, past and present, who have been involved at any level in the case, and talk to them in depth about why certain steps were taken or not taken," she wrote.

To be truly fair and accurate, Arnold wrote, the Bellefonte police force's work can only be examined after a new district attorney has access to all the investigation's information.

A third Democratic candidate, Anthony De Boef, said he would return some of Gricar's practices to the office if elected.

De Boef, who worked under Gricar for about four years, said Gricar expected "a very high standard of competence" and was especially concerned with cases involving victims of domestic and sexual assault. De Boef said he would prosecute those cases himself, if elected.

"He was determined to never let the people of Centre County down," De Boef said. "Everyone in the office was encouraged to understand not about winning and losing but justice for the people of Centre County."

And although the former assistant district attorney said he is not privileged to access the documents surrounding Gricar's disappearance, De Boef offered another approach to uncovering his former employer's whereabouts.

He suggested bringing in a "different set of eyes" and coordinating them with those of current law enforcement.

"We have a lot of talent in this area of retired officers," he said. "I'm sure I could organize a group of them to volunteer their time to review and brainstorm what to do."