By Bridget Heath
I would like everyone to give a moment of silence for all the victims of David Parker Ray.
Sometimes we forget to pay homage to the people who were victimized and the people and families who were harmed in these types of cases.
I hope and pray that one day all of these victims can be found safe and alive. Even though some won't we still need to pray that we get Justice for the families and victims that were too afraid to come forward and that are left behind. Amen
David Parker Ray was born November 6th 1939 in Belen New Mexico. During his childhood, Ray and his younger sister Peggy lived with their disciplinarian grandfather. Their father would visit and would supply him with magazines depicting sadomasochistic pornography. At mountaineer high School in Mountainair New Mexico he was also bullied by his peers for shyness around girls.
Ray's first dove into sadomasochism around the mid 1950s when he was just a teenager.
Ray began to develop a secret fascination with sadomasochism.
There was an interview with Ray's first wife Peggy and she had always been aware of Ray's fantasies and fetishes but she did not know to what extent they went and she also claimed that Ray engaged and sadomasochistic relationships with prostitutes unbeknown to her.
David Parker Ray had sexual fantasies of raping, torturing, and even murdering women developed during his teenage years, his sister also discovered his sadomasochistic drawings as well as pornographic photographs of bondage acts. Apparently Ray graduated high school and he received an honorable discharge from the US army where his service work also included work as a general mechanic. Hard to believe.
Ray was divorced four times and had two children, including his accomplice, daughter Jesse Ray (born Glenda Jean Ray).
David Parker Ray also known as "Toy Box Killer", kidnapped, raped, and torture dozens of women from approximately the mid 80s to 1999 when the New Mexico law enforcement finally captured him after his final victim managed to escape and run down the highway and nothing but a dog collar.
The toy box killer did abduct, confined, and assault women on his own. While he worked at New Mexico's parks department ray met Cindy Hendy and they became romantically involved. In a 1993 recorded message, Ray tells his captives they will be forced to sexually service Hendy as well.
David Ray Parker lived in elephant Butte a small New Mexico town of 1300 people and it was close to his work at the state park and the lake. Ray's neighbors also maintain he had struck them as a polite man and they would have never have suspected him of the crimes in which law enforcement charged and convicted him. He hid in plain sight.
He gained access to miles of abandoned land as well as reservoir where police propose he could have done to his victims’ bodies without witnesses. Ray would use the remote location of Truth or consequences N.M to set up a cargo trailer he then refurbished into a steel-line torture chamber the resort Town located approximately 5 miles from elephant Butte contained a few local dive bars which Ray frequented for victims.
Cindy Hendy an accomplice of David Parker ray worked at the state park where she met Ray the two quickly bonded over their shared violent sexual fantasies. Ray was 20 years her senior 37-year-old Hendy began living with him soon after she moved to New Mexico when her relationship with an abused ex-boyfriend soured.
Hendy stated that Ray started to brag to her about all the women he had murdered he said at least one a year for about 40 years.
Cindy wasn't sure if she believed Ray's story at first and she said she was both nervous and intrigued after hearing it. They seem to feed off each other and Cindy got an opportunity to show what she could do.
Cindy said that Ray never hurry or tortured her in the way he had done his victims but in 1999 there horrific crimes spree ended when the victim got away.
Cynthia vigil Jaramillo ran down the street of a tiny village in elephant Butte New Mexico she ran naked and bleeding with a dog collar and gained her freedom.
She ran to the home of Darlene breech she called 911. The bloodied woman told breech and the police department that I'm alive I broke free. Jaramillo told her story to police and great detail.
Ray spent more than $100,000 and countless hours hand building his torture chamber Ray also possibly made snuff films as he reported making money by filming his activities and selling videotapes.
These victims may not ever be found because in addition to building a torture chamber out of chains and pulleys, and fully labeled with leg spreader or ankle spreader he definitely covered his tracks by burying his victims in East elephant Butte lake.
One of the few victims still alive Kelly Garrett, testified that Ray's daughter Jesse drugged her while she was drinking at the saloon. Jesse called her dad to come pick them up from the bar once inside the vehicle Jesse and Ray clamped a metal dog collar around Kelly's neck and transported her to Bass road. Red tortured Kelly for 4 days while his daughter watched like the other women she was drug raped subjected to electric shock and bound using a variety of gruesome methods on day 4 rage of Garrett to an isolated spot in the nearby desert to slit her throat after seeing blood gushing he walked away.
But Garrett survived she told her story to her husband he did not believe her Garrett went to the police who also dismissed the events as fanciful thinking she was mentally deranged she filed an official police report which got misplaced no one took Garrett seriously until Jaramillo.
Marie Parker, a former girlfriend of Ray's accomplice Dennis Roy Yancey was also seen at Blue Waters saloon.. the saloon was a dive bar that catered to drifters and the few locals that lived around elephant Butte. It's alleged that she was strangled to death by Dennis Roy Yancey. Ray's daughter supplied her with meth and coke.
Ray claimed he sold video copies to online acquaintances who shared his love as a district torture and hatred of women but weather Parker was one of his victims filmed for profit is not known. Parker's body was found in abandoned building a Truth or consequences New Mexico the body showed no obvious signs of torture and her murder was not connected to Ray until his accomplice Yancey gave a confession in 1999 when he turned on Ray.
Angelica Montano visited Ray and Hindi’s home in February of 1999 she was kidnapped and held at gunpoint. She was tortured for 3 Days inside the house then they took Angelica to the toy box and strapped her to the gynecological table. She begged for mercy for 4 days Angelica was dumped on the side of the highway outside Truth or consequences she was able to hit try to Albuquerque and went to the local police who did nothing. Montana came forward after the rest of Ray and Hindi and following Jaramillo’s escape and testimony Montana was deposed and died with a bout of pneumonia which led to heart failure shortly before the trial.
Billy Bowers was Ray's longtime business partner who went missing on September 22nd 1988. 6 days later a man fishing an elephant Butte lake found a body floating in McRae canyon area it had been secured with boat anchors. But the school showed a bullet hole and the corpse still had $50 of money in trouser pockets. He was listed as a John Doe until Ray's girlfriend and accomplished Cindy handy confess that Ray murdered Bowers and dumped his body in the lake shortly after he went. The authorities obtain dental records and law enforcement was able to positively identify the body that flew to the surface as Billy Bowers in 1999.
Ultimately Ray was arrested and his home on Bass road that contained the toy box trailer was searched and seized all of that evidence along with testimony of credible witnesses such as Yancey, Jesse Ray, and Hendy got him prosecuted. He received a sentence of 224 years.
Cynthia Lee Hendy received a sentence of 36 years in prison for her involvement in the abduction and tortures.
Glenda Jean Jesse Ray Ray's daughter received 5 years of probation for a second degree kidnapping.
Dennis Roy Yancey sentenced to two consecutive 15-year sentences for kidnapping and second-degree murder.
On May 28th 2002 Ray was transported to the Lee county correctional facilities in Hobbs New Mexico to be questioned by State Police he died of a heart attack before the schedule interrogation took place at the age of 62 with him dad the case became a dead end nobody's were found no possible victims were identified and no old suspicious deaths related to Ray or everly officially linked to him in November 2002 the toy box was open to the public with the hope that it would lead to more surviving victims coming forward in October of 2011 the FBI performed a search of McCray canyon near elephant Butte lake looking for potential victims but none were found in February of 2012 the Australian federal police contacted FBI about a potential victim known as Connie who had been mentioned in a letter from a man named Mark that was postmark in Sydney and was found in raised residents after his arrest.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written, transcription slips and all; several names come through garbled in the original, including Montano as Montana and Hendy as Handy and Hindi. One point has to be put plainly because the article does not. David Parker Ray was never convicted of murder. He was convicted of kidnapping, torture and sexual assault and sentenced to 224 years, and this archive records him as suspected of up to sixty deaths with none proved. So the passages here about victims buried in Elephant Butte lake describe a suspicion, not a finding. No body was ever recovered and tied to him. The one killing named in the article, that of Marie Parker, was attributed to Dennis Roy Yancey on his own confession, and Yancey was sentenced for second degree murder; Billy Bowers was identified as a body in the lake, and the claim that Ray shot him comes from Cindy Hendy, an accomplice giving evidence. Ray died in 2002 before he could be questioned further. The women who lived, Cynthia Vigil Jaramillo, Kelly Garrett and Angelica Montano, are the reason any of this is known, and the article is right that two of them went to police and were not believed.