David Parker Ray- Also known as the Toy-Box Killer,was an American kidnapper, torturer, rapist and suspected serial killer. Though no bodies were found, he was accused by his accomplices of killing several women and suspected by the police to have murdered as many as 60 women from Arizona and New Mexico, while living in Elephant Butte, New Mexico, approximately seven miles north of Truth or Consequences. He soundproofed a truck trailer that he called his "toy box", and equipped it with items used for sexual torture. Ray was convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001.
During his childhood, David Parker Ray and his younger sister, Peggy, lived with their disciplinarian grandfather. He was sporadically visited by his violent, alcoholic father, who would supply him with magazines depicting sadomasochistic pornography. At Mountainair High School, in Mountainair, New Mexico, he was bullied by his peers for his shyness around girls.
Ray's sexual fantasies of raping, torturing, and even murdering women developed during his teenage years. Around this time, his sister discovered his sadomasochistic drawings, as well as pornographic photographs of bondage acts. After completing high school, Ray received an honorable discharge from the United States Army, where his service included work as a general mechanic.
Ray was divorced four times and had two children, including his accomplice, daughter Jesse Ray (born Glenda Jean Ray).
Ray sexually tortured and presumably killed his victims using whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades, electric shock machines, and saws. It is thought that he terrorized many women with these tools for many years with the help of accomplices, some of whom are alleged to have been several of the women he was dating. Inside the torture room, along with numerous sex toys, torture implements, syringes, and detailed diagrams showing ways of inflicting pain, there was a homemade electrical generator which was used for torture.
A mirror was mounted in the ceiling, above the obstetric table to which he strapped his victims. Ray also put his victims in wooden contraptions that bent them over and immobilized them while he had his dogs and sometimes other friends rape them. He has been said to have wanted his victims to see everything he was doing to them. Ray often had an audio tape recording of his voice played for his victims whenever they regained consciousness.
Cynthia Vigil was abducted from an Albuquerque New Mexico, when a man claiming to be an undercover cop told her she was under arrest for solicitation of sex work and put her in the back of his car. That man was David Parker Ray, and he brought Vigil to his nearby soundproof trailer, which he called his “Toy Box.”
To escape, she waited until Ray had gone to work, and then unlocked her chains with keys that Hendy had left on a nearby table. Hendy noticed Vigil's attempt to escape and a fight ensued. During the struggle, Hendy broke a lamp on the survivor's head, but Vigil unlocked her chains and stabbed Hendy in the neck with an icepick.
Vigil fled while wearing only an iron slave collar and padlocked chains. She ran down the road seeking help, which she got from a nearby homeowner who took her in, comforted her, and called the police. Her escape led officials to the trailer and instigated the capture of Ray and his accomplices. Police detained Ray and Hendy.
Another victim, Angelica Montano, came forward with a similar story to Vigil. She said she had been held captive by Ray after Hendy invited her to the house to pick up a cake mix. After being raped and tortured, Montano convinced the pair to release her along the highway. She was picked up by an off-duty law enforcement officer and told him what happened, but he did not believe her and left her at a bus stop. She also later called police about the incident, but there had been no follow-up.
Loretta Romero, Angie Montano’s mother, said her daughter had a good heart but had lost all respect, lost her smile, lost everything because of David Ray. Mrs. Romero said she is here for Angie and her two little boys whose lives Ray had ruined. Mrs. Romero said she feels sorry for David Ray, that she forgives him and that her (now deceased) daughter would forgive him. But Angie’s mother said she never will forget. Less forgiving was Cynthia Vigil’s grandmother, Bertha Vigil. Mrs. Vigil told Ray he is a poor excuse for a human being and asked him how he would like it if she did to his daughter what he had done to Cynthia.
Inside the torture room, along with numerous sex toys, torture implements, syringes and detailed diagrams (made by Ray himself) showing different methods and techniques for inflicting pain, there was a homemade electricity generating device that was used in torture. Ray would often have a recorded audio tape of himself played for his victims whenever they regained consciousness.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in Virginia and the FBI’s foremost expert in the field of investigating criminal sexual sadism, testified that examination of Ray’s home, the trailer he had converted into his infamous “toy box” and the sexual paraphernalia and drawings found there suggest that Ray is a “criminal sexual sadist.”
She said Ray’s toy box and custom equipment were extremely impressive in terms of sexual sadism, their potential lethality and the time, money and effort it took to keep them a secret. O’Toole said there is no known therapy for Ray’s paraphilia (psycho-sexual disorder) and that its corresponding behavior can be stopped only by apprehension.
Ray’s victims made their statements to the court and to Ray before the judge pronounced sentence. Kelly Garrett who earlier was crying and holding hands with Cynthia Vigil in the courtroom, said she wants Ray to live a for long time and suffer in prison. She said the sick pervert will find no friends in prison and she hopes he will be controlled and used in the same manner that she and Ray’s other victims had. Kelli managed to make it to the parking lot when Jesse hit her from behind, knocking her unconscious. David Parker Ray took her to his trailer and attached a dog collar and leash to her. She awoke , but over the course of the next two days, she blacked out multiple times. When David noticed she was still breathing, despite the drugs and torture, he slashed her throat open.
Police also found photos and video of another victim in the trailer and animal bones buried in the nearby ground. The victim in the video turned out to be survivor, Kelli Garrett.
Police were able to track down Kelli in Colorado. She testified that she had gotten into a fight with her husband and decided to go out and play pool with friends. On July 24, 1996, Jesse Ray, who just happened to be friends with Kelli, took her to the Blu-Water Saloon in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where she drugged the beer Kelli was drinking.
Thinking she was dead, he dumped her on the side of the road near Caballo. When she came to, she didn’t remember what had really happened. She was treated for her injuries at a local clinic, but neither her husband, nor police, believed her story, that she awoke in the middle of nowhere, no memory after she left the bar. Her husband believed she had been cheating on him the night she was attacked and promptly filed for divorce. That’s when Kelli relocated to Colorado.
The victims were whipped, shocked, and sexually assaulted, but not before she was made to listen to a recording explaining the horrors she would have to endure. The tape stated that Cynthia had to call Ray "master" and his girlfriend Hendy "mistress" and only speak when spoken to. The blood-curdling recording also detailed how the rape and torture would be carried out. The tape said in part:
"You have been taken by force, and you're going to be kept and used by force. What all this amounts to is that you're gonna be kept naked and chained up like an animal, to be used any time we want to, any way that we want to. And you might as well start gettin' used to it, because you're gonna be kept here and used until such time as we get tired of f**kin' around with you."
Apparently, he also explained that she would never see her family again and that he would kill her like all the rest.
Once Ray was behind bars, the police got a chance to look at his trailer, which was also his home. What they discovered was unsettling.
The trailer had a gynecologist-type table with a mirror on the ceiling so that the victims could watch themselves getting tortured. They found whips, straps, leg spreader bars, saws, sex toys, clamps, pulleys, and surgical blades on the floors.
The trailer additionally had a wooden contraption that would bend the victims over and immobilize them as they were getting raped.
As if that was not horrifying enough, the wall had diagrams showing various torturing methods and causing pain to the captives. The police also found a tape that showed a scared woman being raped and tortured by the murderous pair.
After the truth about Ray came out, it became apparent that Cynthia was not the only woman to get away after being tortured by the killer.
Angelica Montano, an acquaintance who had visited his house to borrow some cake mix, ended up getting drugged and tortured as well.
One of Ray's tricks was to use drugs that would induce memory loss, such as sodium pentothal and phenobarbital. For that reason, his victims had a hard time remembering what they went through while in his hands.
With testimonies from two witnesses, evidence was quickly stacking up against Ray and his accomplice Hendy. Hendy quickly started sharing details about the murders. She even revealed that Ray had even gotten assistance from his daughter Glenda Ray, who helped him with abductions and murders.
Apparently, another friend of Ray, Dennis Roy Yancy, had also helped him with his crimes. For instance, when Marie Parker was abducted, drugged, and tortured by Ray and his daughter Glenda in 1997, it was Yancy who killed her.
In the trailer, police found a tape from 1996 showing a terrified woman being assaulted and tortured by Ray and Hendy. With this strong evidence and case against them, Hendy cracked under pressure. She told the police what she knew about the murders and other accomplices. Hendy said Ray’s daughter, Glenda “Jesse” Ray, and a friend, Dennis Roy Yancy, helped in the abductions and murders. Ray had been married and divorced four times in his life, and Jesse was a child from one of those marriages.
Once in custody, everything began to unravel. In exchange for a plea deal, Cindy turned on David almost immediately. She confessed to investigators that David Parker Ray had told her about 14 murders that he had committed, and where some of the bodies had been dumped. She spoke of the different ways that he would torture his victims, including putting them into wooden contraptions that bent them over and immobilized them while he had his dogs rape them – sometimes having friends come over to take part.
Marie Parker
Cindy gave up the names of other accomplices, which included David’s daughter, Glenda “Jesse” Ray, and Dennis Roy Yancy. According to Cindy, Jesse and Dennis had participated in the murder of Dennis’ former girlfriend, 22 year old, Marie Parker.
Despite testimony from Cindy, and accounts of the survivors, the FBI was unable to prove that David Parker Ray had killed anyone. Thus he was only tried in the cases of the survivors, in three separate trials; 1 for Cynthia Vigil, 1 for Angelica Montano, and 1 for Kelli Garrett.
7 Photos from the inside of the Toy Box
No One Believed the Survivors
Because of the drugs, Garrett had little memory of what happened in Ray’s trailer during those two days. However, she remembered being assaulted by him, but it didn’t seem reliable because she only had pieces of a story.
Like many of the other women Ray let live, the drugs and women’s socio-economic standing made it challenging for their testimonies to be readily accepted by jurors. These women had endured to most awful experiences of their lives and couldn’t get any kind of justice.
When law enforcement found Vigil, she was wearing nothing but a dog collar and chain. Ray reportedly treated his victims like dogs, forcing them to eat on the floor while bound with a leash. Vigil said Ray bathed her like a dog.
She said he forced her to perform sexual acts for him and his accomplices. Vigil’s unfathomable experience didn’t just include assault or torture, but Ray also used a form a beastiality on her. While we will spare you the details, Vigil will never forget.
There Was a Second Trailer
During the police investigation, they found a second trailer. It contained surgical tools, anatomy texts, and a self-authored manual on how to restrain his victims. They also found a diary written by Ray suggesting he had murdered several victims.
In his book, Ray wrote that bondage was a must, and the neck collar was permanent. He included psychological torture methods, like a blindfold and the use of a slow approach. His manual said to keep the victims “off-balance,” so their minds and bodies would be in a state of stress.
A Large Search Effort
The investigation team had the task of collecting and labeling each item. The evidence had to be handled carefully so that it would not be thrown out of court. Police believed Ray was a serial offender, possibly a serial killer, and wanted to be sure to put him away.
New Mexico Public Safety Director Darren White told reporters that what he found was so disturbing it made his stomach turn. Authorities were reluctant to give out details, but White told residents that the “nightmare was behind bars.” However, reporters were hungry for more details.
No One Suspected Him
Reporters went around the area to learn more from those who knew Ray. People said he seemed like a regular guy. No one ever had problems with him, and he didn’t have a criminal record, so there was no suspicion about what he might have been doing.
Ray was like everyone else in the town, and people always saw him coming and going from the property that he leased. His neighbors knew he had a job and never heard or saw anything suspicious. It made police wonder how long he had been doing this.
After looking in his trailers, police turned their attention to Ray’s property. They found bone fragments, but they were from animals, not humans. The FBI had over 100 agents on the case and widened their search into Arizona and Texas to look for potential victims.
Hendy Made a Deal
In exchange for a reduced sentence, Hendy provided details of Ray’s alleged murders. She said Ray killed his business partner, Billy Bowers, and she helped dump the body in the lake. However, the body floated to the surface. She said Ray learned to make the remains sink. Hendy also claimed that Ray disposed of many bodies in the lake and ravines around south-central New Mexico. Authorities followed the leads in ten different states, using radar and cadaver dogs, but no remains were found. Hendy received 36 years for her role in the crimes.
His Daughter Pled Not Guilty
Hendy gave information about Ray’s other accomplices, including his daughter Jesse. She was arrested and charged with kidnapping women for sexual torture. Jesse’s lawyer, Billy Blackburn, entered a “not guilty” plea. He stated Jesse denied any involvement with her father and his supposed crimes.
However, years earlier, Jesse reported her father to the FBI. She said that Ray had abducted and sold women in Mexico, but no victims were identified.
The allegations were non-specific, so the FBI didn’t file a report. Jesse was only given two and half years in prison, with five years of probation.
Yancy Got a Reduced Sentence
Yancy, who admitted to killing one of Ray’s victims, told the police about Jesse’s involvement in the kidnapping and torture of Marie Parker. Ray and Jesse came to him when they were “done with her” and instructed him to kill Parker and dump the body.
To reduce his sentence, Yancy attempted to show the police where the body was but couldn’t find it. Ray might have moved it in case Yancy cracked. Yancy was charged with second-degree murder, evidence tampering, and conspiracy. He received a reduced sentence of 36 years.
Authorities decided that Ray would have three trials: one for his acts against Vigil, a second for those on Montano, and a third for Garrett. His first trial began on March 28, 2000, for the kidnapping and assault of Vigil. The judge made it difficult to use all the evidence. The judge suppressed Ray’s early interviews with the FBI and New Mexico State Police and banned the media from the jury selection. Judge Mertz created holes in the case. It was like he didn’t want Ray to be convicted of his awful crimes.
After the jury selection, Ray suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. He had a history of heart trouble, but the prosecutor thought he was trying to delay proceedings. The judge postponed the trial for a week, resulting in more delays and excluding expert witnesses. Unexpectedly, Judge Mertz decided to start a different trial for the kidnapping and torture of Garrett. It had the weakest evidence, but Mertz scheduled it anyway. The delays pleased Ray because he felt like he was manipulating the system. It made him feel powerful.
The Injustice Continued
On May 7, 2000, Montano died from pneumonia. After her ordeal, she became a drug addict to cope with the pain Ray inflicted, and without her testimony, the trial was called off. Ray got away with Montano’s kidnap, rape, and torture, but there were still Garrett and Vigil’s trials.
After Hendy was sentenced for her involvement, Garrett’s trial finally got back underway. Ray faced 12 counts of sexual abuse, kidnapping, and conspiracy. Garrett claimed Ray tied her up and kept her naked in his trailer the entire time.
On July 14, 2000, Judge Mertz declared a mistrial. The jurors deliberated for eight hours and couldn’t come to an agreement about the 12 charges. Two jurors couldn’t find Ray guilty of assault; some voted to acquit because Garrett wasn’t persuasive, and others didn’t believe it was torture.
Garrett received a retrial after the mistrial. Two days into the trial, Judge Mertz died. This caused even more delays, but it picked up again in April 2001. The Court of Appeals upheld Mertz’s ruling to exclude certain pieces of evidence like the items found in the trailer. It was another uphill battle, but the prosecutor was more than prepared to get a conviction. The same people testified, including Garrett. She described being on a leash and strapped into the chair. Ray’s attorney questioned why it took her so long to come forward.
Although Ray’s lawyer hounded Garret about the differences in her testimonies, she could only explain that her memory was clouded because she was drugged. Ray’s audiotapes and videotapes were played in court, and she cried as she watched. The jury showed no reaction. Ray vowed that he was innocent and would fight all the way to the Supreme Court if convicted. The jury found him guilty on all 12 charges for Garrett’s case. Finally, there was some justice for the women he hurt, but their pain would never disappear.
He Gave an Interview
After his conviction, Ray gave an interview to offer his side. He said, “I feel raped. I got pleasure out of a woman getting pleasure. I did what they wanted me to do.” It was unbelievable to hear the words come out of his mouth, but he didn’t stop there.
Ray said his sadistic tapes were a source of entertainment for him. He said there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the tape stating that it was for adult entertainment only. Ray had one conviction behind him, but the worst was yet to come.
Vigil’s trial was initially interrupted when Ray had a heart attack, but it continued after Garrett’s trial. Ray started with his claims of innocence, but within a week, he had reached a plea deal. There was too much evidence in Vigil’s case, and he had no chance of winning. Ray received more than 223 years in prison. He said, “I can only be sorry for what I did.” Some believe he took the deal because he wanted redemption and the time to reflect on what he did and “make it right with God.”
Ray quickly tried to appeal his sentence. He claimed that his plea was involuntary, and his “exhausted mind was clouded by his ill health, medication, and pressure applied by his lawyers.” A panel of judges rejected his appeal, stating he was not pressured. Ray also stated that he wasn’t allowed expert witnesses to testify that the medication confused him. The judges said he was on a normal dose of medication. On May 28, 2002, Ray was being transferred to the general prison when he suffered a heart attack and died.
There Were Many Unknown Victims
In the investigation, police found evidence of several more killings. Ray detailed about 50 of them in a diary, but authorities couldn’t create a case. Hendy and Yancy identified areas where Ray supposedly disposed of bodies, but police found nothing.
Experts believe that someone who put so much effort into his “toy box” and killed numerous women over many years would likely have a larger number of victims. The unidentified personal effects and jewelry found in his trailer also point to more victims. As of 2011, the FBI was still getting leads.
Known Victims
1950-1999: Supposedly committed up to 60-100 murders. Known victims:
1999:
February 21: Angelica Montano (abducted and held captive; was released)
March 19: Cynthia Vigil (abducted and held captive; she escaped)
Unspecified dates:
Billy Bowers (alleged; an accomplice; killed by Ray)
Marie Parker (tortured by Ray, then fatally strangled by Yancy)
Kelly Garrett (abducted by Glenda, held captive, slashed her throat, and left her for dead; was rescued)
Since Ray died, Vigil has tried to move on and help other people. In 2010, she founded Street Safe to support and protect sex workers on the streets of Albuquerque. Although she can never get rid of the memories, Vigil started a new life. She eventually got married and had three sons. Vigil continues to share her story in hopes of helping the FBI identify more victims. She feels lucky to have survived and said, “If I didn’t get away, I wouldn’t have my three wonderful boys. I wouldn’t be here.”
Hendy Got Out of Jail
Although Hendy was sentenced to 36 years in prison, she became eligible for release after serving half of her sentence. Additionally, her last two years in jail counted as parole, so when she was released in 2019, Hendy didn’t have to report to the state. Yancy was also released after 11 years but returned to prison three months later for a parole violation. He was to remain in jail until 2021 to serve the rest of his original sentence. None of them should have been allowed out of jail for helping a monster.
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