(Please ask if for some reason your character may know this, before just assuming it is so. Ryo is a private person so it is not likely most of this will ever be stated.)
Ryo is half-Japanese, half-American. His Mother was Japanese, Father American. They were Art Dealers, and often left Ryo at home on his own as he got older. He was extremely close to both, who made sure that they were back every Christmas, and on all other important holidays, to spend time with their son. When they were away, care was left to his Aunt Elena, who lived nearby enough to handle things if something came up, although typically Ryo could handle things himself.
At the age of 18, the day of Christmas Eve, Ryo's parents were due back from England where they had been doing business. After leaving school, Ryo went straight home in order to be able to greet his parents, but instead his Aunt Elena (Aunt on his Father's side) was there, exclaiming how she was extremely glad that she had managed to get home before he did. Confused, she went on to explain to Ryo that his parents had been shot multiple times (the car and their bodies had been riddled with so many bullets there was no way they could have survived their injuries) and drugs had been found in the car in the box they were carrying with them. It was then that Ryo declared he would become a cop someday.
Although not enough proof was ever gained to confirm them as ever having carried the drugs in illegally, in fact they had no record or links to anyone who might in fact sell or manufacture drugs, Ryo's family took on a cold shoulder, talking about how it was disgraceful to have thieves in the family, and how Ryo would end up the same. It was at this point that his Aunt Elena decided to take Ryo in, and, along with her husband, care for him.
After a few months of Ryo's being there, Elena decided he needed a break from New York, where a continual barrage of comments still flooded in due to the murder of Ryo's parents, and the reasons why, so she took him on one of her photo shoots, being a photographer. For this shoot they went down to an extremely small town with a lake, where they rented the house there.
During this time, Ryo met a girl about his age named Charlotte Owen, of whom he began to get to know for the months he was there. He was warned against her, however, because years before her parents had been slain, and although the murders had been blamed on robbers, the Brother was suspiciously calm for someone of only eight years old. Coupled with the fact that, several years later, Charlotte began to date another boy who ended up dissapearing, and later being found with a slit neck, people were convinced something strange was going on with the family.
However, Ryo did not believe this, as he was falling for Charlotte. Or, at the least, he did not believe that she had anything to do with it. However, before he left, both she and her Brother dissapeared. Having had a bad feeling, Ryo had gone to their house, only to discover that no one was home and that it seemed something had been dragged to the lake. When the police investigated, it was found that the bedroom on the second floor was covered in blood, and the theory came to be that Charlotte's brother had killed her, dumped her body in the lake, and ran.
Ryo knew different, as Charlotte left her shoes by the lake, a sign he had told her about previously which meant a person had comitted suicide in Japanese Culture, something she took to heart.
Upon returning after these events, Ryo and his Aunt discussed options, and it was decided to send Ryo off to another small town to handle a year or two of his college, and that he would come back later to work on becoming a cop. This is when they finally decided to send him to White Ridge, finding it to be the best for his needs.
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