David Parker Ray

During his childhood, Ray and his younger sister Peggy lived with their disciplinarian grandfather.[6] He was sporadically visited by his violent, alcoholic father who would supply him with magazines depicting sadomasochistic pornography.[7][8] At Mountainair High School, in Mountainair, New Mexico, he was also bullied by his peers for his shyness around girls.[2]

His sexual fantasies of raping, torturing, and even murdering women developed during his teenage years.[9] Around this time, his sister discovered his sadomasochistic drawings, as well as pornographic photographs of bondage acts. After completing high school, he received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, where his service also included work as a general mechanic.[2]

Ray was divorced four times and had two children, including his accomplice, daughter Jesse Ray (born Glenda Jean Ray).[10][11]

Ray sexually tortured and presumably killed his victims using whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades, and saws.[12] It is thought that he terrorized many women with these tools for many years, while living in New Mexico, 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.[1]^:3

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.[1]^:3 Ray often had an audio tape recording of his voice played for his victims whenever they regained consciousness.[1]^:2

Ray posed as an undercover police officer and approached Cynthia Vigil in a parking lot.[13] He told her she was under arrest, for solicitation of prostitution, and handcuffed her. He put her in his trailer and took her to Elephant Butte. After three days of captivity, Vigil escaped from his trailer at Elephant Butte on March 22, 1999.[14][15]

To escape, she waited until Ray had gone to work, and then unlocked her chains. Ray's accomplice, Cindy Hendy, had left the keys on a nearby table before going to another room, where she participated in a telephone call. After Vigil got the keys, 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.[16]

Hendy fell to the floor and Vigil escaped. She 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.[15]

Police stopped Ray and Hendy, and Ray was taken to jail. After the publicity surrounding the arrest, another victim, Angelica Montano, came forward. She told a similar story and said that she had reported the incident to police, but there had been no follow-up.[1]

Ray had a video of another victim, Kelly Garrett (also called Kelly Van Cleave), which dated from 1996.[17] Garrett ultimately was found in Colorado alive, after police identified a tattoo on her ankle.[1] She later testified that she had gotten in a fight with her husband, and decided to spend the night playing pool with friends. On July 24, 1996, Ray's daughter, Jesse, who knew Garrett, took her to the Blu-Water Saloon in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, and drugged the beer she was drinking. Garrett had walked to the parking lot when she suffered a blow from behind, which knocked her unconscious.[18]

Ray took her to his trailer and attached a dog collar and leash to her neck. Garrett awoke, but blacked out several times during two days of torture and drugging. During this time, Ray noticed that she was breathing and slashed her throat open. Thinking that he had killed her, Ray dumped her beside a road near Caballo. She was later treated for her injuries at a local clinic. Neither her husband nor the police believed her story. Her husband believed she had been cheating on him the night she was attacked. He sued for divorce, and Garrett moved to Colorado. She was later interviewed on Cold Case Files about her ordeal.[19]

Two other accomplices were uncovered by the investigation: Glenda Jean "Jesse" Ray (Ray's daughter) and Dennis Yancy.[1] Yancy admitted to strangling his former girlfriend, Marie Parker, after Ray had kidnapped and tortured her. Yancy was convicted of second-degree murder and of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and was sentenced to two 15-year prison terms.[1] After that murder, Ray allegedly admitted to having had an accomplice named Billy Bowers, a previous business partner, whom Ray also murdered. The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent 100 agents to examine Ray's property and surroundings, but no identifiable human remains were found.[1]

To prevent women from reporting the crimes, Ray had drugged them with agents to induce amnesia. He made a tape recording of himself telling one woman that the drugs were "sodium pentothal and phenobarbital [sic]". One woman remained uncertain that her recollections of the abuse were anything but nightmares until she was contacted by the FBI. After questioning, she came to remember her mistreatment in increasing detail.[20]

A decision was made to try the cases involving Ray's attacks in three trials: one for his acts against Cynthia Vigil, one for those against Angelica Montano, and one for those against Kelli Garrett. Trial 1 resulted in a mistrial and retrial, with a conviction in the retrial on all 12 counts.[1]^:12 Montano died before trial 2, and there was no conviction. [In trial 3?,] Ray agreed to a plea bargain, in which he was sentenced in 2001 to 224 years in prison for numerous offenses in the abduction and sexual torture of three young women at his Elephant Butte Lake home.[1]^:13 Ray's daughter, Glenda Jean "Jesse" Ray, also was tried on charges of kidnapping; she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, with an additional five years to be served on probation.[21]

In 1999, accomplice Dennis Roy Yancy was convicted of the strangulation murder of Marie Parker in Elephant Butte, which Ray recorded.[16][20][22][23] In 2010, Yancy was paroled after serving 11 years in prison, but the release was delayed by difficulties in negotiating a plan for residence. Three months after his release in 2011, Yancy was charged with violating his parole. He was remanded to custody, where he is to remain until 2021, to serve the rest of his original sentence.[16][20][22][23]

In 2000, Cindy Hendy, an accomplice who testified against Ray, received a sentence of 36 years for her role in the crimes. She was scheduled to receive parole in 2017.[24] She was released on July 15, 2019, after serving the two years of her parole in prison.[25]

On May 28, 2002, Ray was taken to the Lea County Correctional Facility, in Hobbs, New Mexico, to be questioned by state police. He died of a heart attack before the interrogation took place.[26][27]

• List of serial killers in the United States
• List of serial killers by number of victims

• "David Parker Ray (profile)" (PDF). Radford University.
• Denise Schrock; Justin Reese; Ashlie Poindexter. "Serial Killer Information Center Project". Retrieved May 22, 2012.
• Transcripts of David Parker Ray's audiotapes to his victims
• Videotape shown in David Parker Ray retrial Associated Press
• The Toy Box Killer Criminal Minds
• Famous Serial Killer Profiles Roy Whyte
• The Toy Box (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) - Casefile True Crime Podcast
• True Consequences interview with Cynthia Vigil Jaramillo (Episode 5)