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David Parker Ray was a serial rapist and torturer of women; it is suspected that he was also a serial killer. The police in Arizona and New Mexico, United States, consider that, according to the statements of his accomplices, David Parker Ray was responsible for the murder of at least 60 women.
David Parker Ray’s nickname was toy box killer . The nickname comes from the fact that he had spent $100,000 soundproofing and equipping a truck trailer with various devices that he used to sexually torture his victims; the trailer was his toy box From him.
david parker ray
David Parker Ray was born in Belen, in the state of New Mexico, United States, on November 6, 1939. His parents, Nettie and Cecil Ray, were poor and lived with Nettie’s parents on a small farm where David was raised. and her younger sister, Peggy. Cecil Ray was alcoholic and violent; he assaulted both his wife and his children.
Cecil Ray abandoned Nettie and their children when David was 10 years old. Peggy and David went to live with their paternal grandparents on their farm in Mountainair, New Mexico, after Cecil and Nettie divorced.
Living with their grandparents meant a drastic change in the lives of Peggy and David. Her grandfather, Ethan Ray, was in his late 70s; his way of life followed strict precepts to which his grandchildren were forced to adhere. Failure to comply with the strict rules of the new family meant that the children received corporal punishment.
David was a tall, shy and clumsy boy, and he had a hard time adjusting to the new school. His classmates bullied him frequently.
David spent much of his spare time alone, drinking and taking drugs. It was at that time that he began to develop his fascination with sadomasochism. His sister, Peggy, discovered his collection of erotic photographs that included acts of submission and sadomasochistic drawings. Years later, David testified that his first victim was a woman whom he tied to a tree, tortured, and murdered as a teenager. It was not possible to confirm the veracity of this story or if it was the materialization of his fantasies about subjugation and torture of women.
When he finished high school, Ray worked as a car mechanic. He later joined the United States Army, where he returned to work as a mechanic; he left the army with an honorable discharge.
A victim who manages to escape
She was running desperate, naked, covered in blood, with a metal collar around her neck closed with a padlock, through the streets of Elephant Butte, in the state of New Mexico, on March 22, 1999. She was Cynthia Vigil and she was 22 years old. She didn’t know where she was and was desperate for someone to help her before her captors found her. She saw the open door of a mobile home and ran inside, pleading with the startled owner for help. The police arrived soon after and heard the terrifying story of how Cynthia Vigil had been kidnapped and tortured.
Vigil recounted that a man and a woman had kidnapped her, subdued her and raped her for three days. She had been tortured using whips, medical instruments, electric shocks and various sexual instruments, until she finally managed to escape from her. The bruises, burns, and puncture wounds that covered her entire body were clear evidence of the truth of her story.
Cynthia Vigil narrated that she met her captors in Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where she worked as a prostitute. The man had offered her $20 in exchange for oral sex, and so they went to her trailer home. Inside her trailer home was a woman who helped the man bind and gag her, as well as place a metal collar around her neck.
They rode in the motor home for over an hour. Stopping, they dragged Cynthia into a truck trailer, where she was chained to a post. She then played a recording describing what would happen to her while she was there.
A man was speaking on the recording, whom Cynthia assumed was David Ray; She explained that she was now a sexual slave and that the only way she should refer to him was as a master , and refer to the woman who was with him as her lover . And she was never to speak unless she was authorized to. Cynthia would be naked and chained the entire time; she would be fed and cared for like a dog. Similarly, she would be tortured and raped in front of an audience of friends, and she would be forced to have sex with animals; she would be subjected to anal penetration with dildos and placed in positions that would expose her private body parts.
He was also warned that he was one of the many people who had been held captive, and those who did not cooperate had died.
Survive
During her three days in captivity, Cynthia Vigil suffered electric shocks, whippings, and had medical instruments and dildos inserted into her vagina and rectum. David Ray hung her up and repeatedly raped her.
Cynthia was sure that she would soon be killed. However, when David Ray left the trailer she was able to access the keys to the chain lock, break free, and escape. She tried to call 911 but her captor’s partner captured her; they both fought and Cynthia was able to grab an ice pick and stab the woman through her neck. Cynthia ran out of the trailer.
In his desperate escape, he found the mobile home where he was able to ask for help, call the police and give them the location of the trailer.
the toy box
David Parker Ray and his girlfriend, Cindy Lea Hendy, were detained by police. During the interrogation, they both told the same story: that Cynthia Vigil was addicted to heroin and they were trying to help her get clean. The police search of David Ray’s mobile home and belongings told another story. In the mobile home they found items consistent with Cynthia Vigil’s version, including the recording she had been played.
In a trailer parked next to David Ray’s RV, police investigators found what he called the toy box . They found various instruments of torture, drawings describing the way in which the victims were tortured, various restraints, pulleys, whips and sexual implements. However, the most shocking piece of evidence was a video recording showing a woman being sexually tortured.
David Parker Ray and Cindy Lea Hendy were arrested on multiple charges, including kidnapping. As the investigation continued, the police found evidence revealing that the couple had had many more victims. Investigators also suspected that, in addition to being a serial rapist, David Ray was also a serial killer.
other victims
One problem authorities faced when launching the investigation was the credibility of Cynthia Vigil. She had recognized that she was a prostitute and there was no way to prove that she had not gone to that place voluntarily. However, after the newspapers published the story and the couple’s arrest, another victim came forward to make a statement to the police.
Angelica Montano told police that David Ray and Cindy Hendy also kidnapped her, raped and tortured her for three days; then she was drugged and abandoned on a highway in the desert. The police found her but for unknown reasons her complaint against her partner was never investigated. Angélica Montano decided to insist on denouncing her after seeing that the two torturers had been arrested.
Police investigators were able to identify the woman who had been recorded being tortured by a tattoo on her ankle. She was Kelly Garrett and she lived in Colorado. She had been married only days before David Ray and her daughter, Jesse Ray, kidnapped her and held her captive.
Jesse Ray, who was friends with Kelly Garrett, invited her to a bar and drugged the beer she was drinking. When Kelly Garrett was trying to leave the bar while high, David Ray hit her over the head and she was kidnapped. She was raped and tortured for three days; then they drugged her and abandoned her on the shoulder of a road near her in-laws’ house.
Kelly Garrett’s in-laws thought she had been under the influence of a drug overdose; Kelly Garrett was too confused to remember what had happened. So she got kicked out and Kelly Garrett moved back to Colorado. Then, as time passed, Kelly Garrett gradually recovered some of the memories of the most terrible experience of her life; however, when the police found her, she was still suffering from amnesia.
Cindy Hendy collaborates with the investigation
Immediately after she was arrested and her version of events was found to be false, Cindy Hendy agreed to a deal to assist in the investigation into David Ray. In exchange for her collaboration, he would have a reduced sentence.
Cindy Hendy told investigators that David Ray had told her that he had committed 14 murders and had told her the location where he had dumped some of the bodies.
Hendy described some of the ways that David Ray tortured his victims. One of them was the use of a mirror that was mounted on the roof of the trailer, on top of a gynecologist’s table to which he tied his victims, and which allowed him to observe in detail how he tortured them. David Ray also placed his victims in wooden devices that immobilized them in a flexed position, and in that position he would goad his dogs into raping his victims. On some occasions his friends were the rapists.
Another important contribution of Cindy Hendy’s statement to the investigation was the identification of other accomplices, including David Ray’s daughter, Glenda Jesse Ray, and Dennis Roy Yancy. According to Cindy Hendy, Jesse Ray and Dennis Yancy had been involved in the murder of Yancy’s ex-girlfriend, 22-year-old Marie Parker.
Dennis Roy Yancy was questioned and admitted that he was present when David and his daughter Jesse kidnapped Marie Parker and took her to the Toy Box . After torturing her for three days, David Ray and her daughter instructed Yancy to kill her, which he did by strangling her with a rope. Yancy said that David Ray threatened to kill him if he ever told anyone.
Jesse Ray denied having anything to do with his father’s actions, the kidnappings, or the murder of Marie Parker.
The end of torture and rape
Due to the collaboration agreement, Cindy Hendy received a reduced sentence of 36 years in prison. Hendy assisted in the investigation and also testified against David Ray in the court proceedings.
Dennis Roy Yancy received two sentences of 15 years in prison each, for second degree murder and for conspiracy to commit first degree murder. He was released after serving 11 years in prison but returned to jail after violating the conditions of his probation, where he must remain until 2021.
Jesse Ray was found guilty of kidnapping women for sexual torture and was sentenced to nine years in prison, six of which could be served under probation.
The judicial process provided that in the case of David Parker Ray an independent trial would be carried out for each identified victim; Cynthia Vigil, Angelica Montano and Kelly Garrett. Ray later accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced to 224 years in prison.
David Parker Ray died on May 28, 2002 of a heart attack while being taken by state police from the Lea County Correctional Center for questioning.
Sources
- Roy Whyte. Famous Serial Killer Profiles . 2021.
- The Toy Box Killer . Criminal Minds, 2012.
- Monica G. Alvarez. David Parker Ray, the murderer who tortured in a ‘Toy Box’ . The vanguard.