The Toy Box Killer | David Parker Ray
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In July 1996, Kelly Garrett walked into a pool hall in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She needed to blow off a little steam after arguing with her husband and decided to meet her friend, Jesse Ray, for some cold beer and a few games of pool. The blue water saloon felt like home to the young, tattooed Kelly. She and Jesse spent the night drinking and lamenting about the men in their lives, but something felt wrong.

Kelly's beer was more potent than usual, and she found herself losing her balance as she walked into the parking lot. She knew she didn't drink that much. Someone must have drugged her.

that someone was her friend, Jessie. Then, somebody else hit her in the head and Kelly collapsed unconscious. Hours later, Kelly woke up to find herself chained in a decrepit mobile home. The smell stung her nostrils and the dog collar around her leash dug into her skin. She was naked and a short leash kept her from moving around the room. Unfortunately, Kelly's nightmare was just getting started.

A man entered the room, wearing a smile reserved for the most despicable people on the planet. He hovered over her like an ominous cloud, thinking about all the sick and twisted things he'd do to Kelly before killing her. Jesse walked up behind him, feeling the same exact thing. This sadistic man's name was David Parker Ray, the toy box killer and the father of Jesse Ray.

Kelly was just the latest victim to find herself chained in the toy box. Ray's secret solitude of sexual torture. David and Jesse dehumanized, tortured, and raped Kelly for the next 48 hours. They force Federer a cabinet's worth of drugs to mess with her memory and hinder any ability to fight back. They kept a camera recording to capture the ordeal as if making some sort of black market snuff film.

Ray and Jesse grew bored with their latest victim by sunrise on the third day. They drove out into the hot New Mexico sun and dumped her naked body on the side of the road. Some reports claim Ray slit her throat before leaving her for dead. Others say he and Jesse just threw her from the RV like week-old garbage. In either case, what they did to Kelly was part of their ritual.

a sick, twisted, and heartbreaking ceremony they'd done several times before and would do several times again. Meanwhile, Kelly clung to life in the blistering sun and somehow made it back to her husband. But he didn't believe her story. From his perspective, they'd just gotten in a blowout fight and she disappeared to a bar for three days. She was probably cheating on him and getting kidnapped was just a cliche cover story.

Kelly moved to Colorado after her husband filed for divorce. She kept her mouth shut for the next three years while Ray, his daughter, and two other accomplices wreaked havoc across the New Mexico desert. Part 1: The Birth of a Sadist A sadist derives pleasure and sexual gratification from inflicting pain or humiliation on others. David Parker Ray and his band of torturers fit that definition.

But are sadists born that way? Or are they the byproduct of their abusive childhood? To get to the bottom of Ray's sadistic ways, we can draw a line from his crimes to his sexually deviant father. Born in November 1939 in the small desert town of Belen, New Mexico, Ray faced an uphill battle with abuse and alcoholism. Like every cliche killer, Ray's father was a deadbeat drunk who used and abused his children.

He left when David was 10, divorcing his wife and moving to Albuquerque. From there, Ray and his sister, Peggy, lived with their disciplinarian grandfather. He wanted what was best for his grandchildren, but Grandpa Ray was the byproduct of an old-school way of raising kids. He'd beat them for misbehaving and forced them to work like animals on the family ranch before and after school.

At school, teenage Ray was the subject of bullying and ridicule. His grandfather forced him to button his shirts all the way up, which wasn't very hip in the early 1950s. A childhood friend remembered him as the docile type. She'd have to stand up for David since, at the time, he didn't believe in violence. David's life changed when his grandparents gifted him a motor scooter for his 13th birthday.

He learned to take it apart and put it back together, simultaneously discovering his love for mechanic work. Now, the same kids that mocked him in school were showing up with their bikes for Ray to fix. Their father only visited twice while they lived on the farm, but both visits did irreversible damage to Ray's impressionable young mind. His old man supplied him with violent porn magazines, forcing his teenage son to associate sex with abuse and violence.

The first red flags popped up when Peggy found her brother's twisted drawings. He drew whatever torturous bondage acts popped into his head, the kind of thing a teacher would send you to the counselor's office for. Instead, Ray laughed it off, calling it his new hobby. Eventually, Ray found stable work as an army mechanic but was discharged in 1963. By then, he'd been twice married and twice divorced. But as they say, the third time's a charm.

Ray met and married Glenda Burdeen, an 18-year-old single mother.

She had a son named Ron, who she brought to live with Ray's family. But Glenda got pregnant again, giving David his only daughter, born Glenda Jean Ray, who preferred they call her Jessie. John Glatt, author of "Cries in the Desert: The Shocking True Story of a Sadistic Torturer," describes Jessie as a fierce and independent young woman, someone Ray worshipped more than anything.

But David didn't think he was cut out to be a father, at least not at first. He abandoned his family when Jesse was just a few months old and reinvented himself as a hippie thumbing around New Mexico and Arizona. He grew his hair and beard and lived on odd jobs and repair work. His drifter days didn't last long, and Ray returned to his wife and children after a year on the road.

He landed a job as an aircraft mechanic and spent two years teaching eager aviation students. The family bounced between Texas and Albuquerque through the 70s and early 80s, and his third marriage eventually fizzled out. She stayed in Albuquerque with Jesse and their son while Ray worked as a traveling mechanic. He saw very little of his children and underwent another reinvention in 1983.

Ray became a thriving mechanic and manager at Canal Motors in Phoenix, Arizona. He formed strong relationships with the owners, Bill Bowers and Bill Stone, who regarded Ray as an expert mechanic. The three built a blossoming business, and Ray was flush with cash. He leased a plot of land in Elephant Butte, New Mexico, and moved into a double-wide trailer. There, he'd design and sell bondage equipment in secret.

but his little side hustle eventually turned into much, much more. Part two, the great escape. We can't say for sure when Ray started kidnapping, raping, and torturing women, but we do know when he stopped. David's last victim was a woman named Cynthia Vigil, and her death-defying escape is the only reason the toy box killer was finally brought to justice. It was 1999, and Cynthia was working as a prostitute in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It can get a little cold in March, especially at night. So Cynthia accepted $20 for oral sex in David Parker Ray's van. When she got in, she found another woman sitting in the back. This mystery woman was Cindy Hendy, Ray's girlfriend and accomplice. Originally from Seattle, Cindy left her boyfriend and three children behind and fled to New Mexico.

Seattle PD wanted her for theft, forgery and drug possession, but she'd end up going to jail for much worse. She fell in love with Ray and fed off the adrenaline rush she got from kidnapping, rape and murder. Once Cynthia was trapped in the van, Ray flashed a police badge and told Cynthia she was under arrest for prostitution. Cindy bound and gagged their victim and the trio drove four hours back to the toy box. Cynthia knew this wasn't an arrest.

It was a kidnapping. Inside Ray's murder house, they chained Cynthia to the bedpost and forced her to listen to a 20-minute recording. It was almost like a detailed instructional tape talking about all the horrible things she could expect while in Ray's clutches. Life as their sex slave involved the most horrible acts you can think of. Sex with animals, oversized toys, torture, bondage, and even electroshock therapy.

The tape ended and David and Cindy kicked off the evening of rape and torture by hanging Cynthia from the ceiling and striking her with whips. They stabbed her with an ice pick and pointed guns in her face while David had his way with her whenever he pleased. It was more than physical torture. David and Cindy wanted to humiliate Cynthia. They wanted to dehumanize her, to completely break her spirit so she'd do anything they wanted whenever they asked.

Her painful moans and cries for mercy meant nothing to them. At its peak, David pointed towards another room in the toy box, one he said contained more extreme implements. Cynthia knew that's where the other women had gone to die. If she wanted to make it out alive, she'd have to avoid that room by any means necessary. David and Cindy led average lives outside of the toy box.

They liked to keep their victims alive as long as possible and probably looked forward to torturing them after a long day's work. It was Cynthia's third day in the toy box when David left for work on March 22nd, 1999, leaving Cindy in charge of watching the prisoner. Cynthia's escape window opened when Cindy walked into another room, leaving a set of keys within arm's reach. With the tips of her fingers, Cynthia snatched the keys and undid her locks,

She grabbed a nearby phone and dialed 911, but Cindy cut the call short when she walked back into the torture chamber. She hit Cynthia in the back of the head with a lamp, and the impact knocked Cynthia to the ground along with a box of loose items. The ice pick, the same one Ray and Cindy used to torture her, sat at Cynthia's feet. She grabbed it to defend herself, forcing Cindy to take a step back.

Once there was enough distance, Cynthia raced for the door, kicked it open, and ran naked down the sandy street. Her chains rattled behind her, and two passing cars decided she wasn't worth helping. Blood poured down her face from where the lamp left the cut on her head. If she didn't get help soon, she might die in the desert.

By some miracle, Cynthia made it to a trailer park where she erupted through the door of a neat mobile home. She begged the woman inside for help, pleading hysterically about the hellish 48 hours she'd been through. The owner called 911 and the cops arrival allowed Cynthia to let her guard down. It was finally over, but all she could say was, "I'm alive, I'm alive."

She eventually calmed down enough to tell the police what happened and pointed them towards Ray's trailer. To her surprise, the cops were already there. Cynthia stayed on the line with 911 long enough for dispatch to hear the crashing lamp and ensuing struggle. The sudden disconnection convinced the operator that someone needed help at the Ray trailer. When they got there, the police didn't know what on earth they were looking at. Cynthia's memory came crawling back as she recovered in the hospital

She told investigators everything she could remember, but the only way to prove anything was to search the toy box. A search that probably scarred those involved for the rest of their lives. Part 3: Journey into the Toy Box The cops found everything they needed to corroborate Cynthia's story.

The broken lamp, the ice pick, her clothes, Ray's fake police badge. They even recovered a torturer's to-do list for Cindy and the audio tape they made Cynthia listen to. Police eventually searched the other room Ray used to threaten Cynthia. It was a 15 by 25 foot space and every inch of the wall was covered by some kind of sexual torture device.

The cops found rough sketches of what Ray planned on doing to his victims among a collection of surgical tools to inflict the most pain and torment. But the search didn't stop there. They found dildos, whips, syringes, restraints, and DIY electrical devices. It was like Willy Wonka's torture factory inside David Ray's trailer.

However, the most eye-opening piece of evidence was a detailed instruction manual about how to manipulate a sex slave. David relied on psychological torture to whittle his victims down to nothing. He liked to tell his victims what he planned on doing, down to the smallest detail. The most important thing was keeping his victims off balance. One minute he'd belittle them with mental abuse and torture. The next, he'd be kind and even extend small favors.

The final piece of evidence was a home movie showing David performing these heinous acts on another young woman. A woman with a noticeable tattoo. Part four, the friendly neighbor. The cops had David and his accomplices dead to rights.

The newly dubbed toy box killer made every reputable headline. And while printing his victim stories could be seen as exploitative, the media frenzy dug up a third victim who was willing to come forward. A woman named Angelica Montano read Cynthia's harrowing tale in the newspaper and knew she had to speak up. She'd gone to Cindy and David's trailer to pick up some cake mix. Instead, David threatened her with a knife and told her this was a kidnapping. Angelica was confused.

Until now, she assumed David was her friend. Was this some kind of joke? She turned to Cindy for help, only to see a gun in her face. David and Cindy raped and tortured Angelica for four days before dumping her body in the New Mexico desert. Thankfully, a police officer drove by shortly after and scooped Angelica off the road. She told him about everything she'd been through, but for some reason, he never followed up. Nobody did.

They ignored Angelica's story and she kept it to herself. The police department didn't have a rational answer for why they didn't investigate the rays earlier, but given Angelica's story and Cynthia's escape, they knew they had to take the investigation more seriously. Their best piece of evidence was the home movie. It was the only thing putting one of the girls in the toy box. Without her, David could walk. They had to find the girl with the tattoo.

Kelly Garrett's ex-mother-in-law caught wind of David's story as it spread across the country. She remembered when Kelly went missing for three days and how she came back battered and bruised. She blamed drugs at the time, but hearing the other stories filled in the missing puzzle pieces. She called the police, hoping they could track Kelly down. New Mexico authorities finally got a hold of Kelly at her home in Colorado.

They matched her tattoos to the girl in the video, cementing her as the star witness against David Parker Ray. Her testimony could put David and his team away for the rest of their lives. But high profile court cases are rarely that simple. Part five, the insufferable judge. Cindy flipped on David at trial to secure herself a lighter sentence. She told the cops an interesting story about how David preferred to dispose of human remains. According to Cindy,

David killed a man from Phoenix named Bill Bowers, his long lost business partner. According to Cindy, his body wound up in Elephant Butte Lake, which was David's favorite spot to dump the bodies. Bowers must have been the first he left in the lake because it floated back to the surface. To keep it down,

David slashed Bowers' stomach so the gases could release into the water instead of turning Bowers into a rotting buoy. But investigators never found any bodies when they searched Elephant Butte Lake. In fact, there have never been any human remains recovered that police could connect to David Parker Ray. The prosecution also convinced an accomplice named Dennis Yancey to testify against Ray specifically about the murder of another girl in 1997.

Her name was Marie Parker, Yancy's ex-girlfriend. Yancy thought they were heading out for a drug deal, but was confused when Ray and Jesse walked inside a saloon and dragged Marie back to the van. They drove her back to the toy box, where she met the same grisly fate as the other women. They raped and tortured her for three days, only this time, Ray told Yancy to strangle her to death and get rid of her body.

Even though the prosecution had an ironclad case against Ray, including two cooperating defendants, three eyewitnesses, and a literal sex dungeon full of evidence, Judge Neil Mertz stonewalled the case every chance he could. Instead of trying Ray for all three girls, he'd try him three separate times for Angelica, Cynthia, and Kelly. Next, the judge barred all of Ray's early interviews from being used as evidence in Cynthia's trial.

He blocked testimony from an expert FBI witness and even postponed the trial after Ray suffered a convenient heart attack. But instead of taking some time off, Mertz kickstarted Kelly's trial, which the prosecution believed was the weakest. Because Kelly's ordeal occurred in 1996,

Judge Mertz didn't allow David's "How to Control a Sex Slave" book into evidence. Somehow, the prosecution would have to prove anything found in the 1999 raid was present in 1996, a borderline impossible task without video evidence. Sadly, Angelica died of pneumonia before her trial at only 25 years old. Her death was another monkey wrench in the case and only bettered Ray's chances of getting away with everything.

Most of their evidence was disallowed. They lost one of their star eyewitnesses and Ray's lawyers pulled every trick in the book to get the serial killer off. Kelly testified against Ray, retelling her horrific story for the jury to hear. She even had to sit and watch her own torture video in court. But David's lawyers weren't going down without a fight, poking hole after hole in Kelly's story.

They said she was hopped up on drugs at the time. How could anyone trust her memory? How can you prove that David held her against her will? Maybe she wanted this. Judge Mertz declared a mistrial on July 14th, 2000. After two jurors somehow concluded that Ray was innocent, the New York Daily News caught up with one of them and asked why. How could you vote innocent after everything you just heard? The dissenting juror said they weren't convinced that Ray tortured Kelly against her will.

Their rationale? There's a lot of people who enjoy rough sex. The prosecution immediately retried Ray for Kelly's case, but the pesky judge had one last curve ball to throw. He died a few days before the second trial, and the next two judges in line were disqualified from the case for unknown reasons. Ray's retrial was delayed until April 2001, a full year removed from Cynthia's death-defying escape.

The jury brought the hammer down this time, convicting Ray on all charges. Still, Ray maintained his innocence, claiming he was the rape victim in this story. He said all these women wanted him to torture them. Making the tapes was pure entertainment for him. He even rationalized it by saying each video with a disclaimer saying, "For adult entertainment only." But David ditched his excuses when the prosecution put his daughter's life on the table. If he agreed to plead guilty in Cynthia's case,

Jesse would get away with a slap on the wrist. Ray got 224 years in prison for Cynthia's ordeal. Jesse was free after two. In a twist of fate, David never saw the inside of a jail cell. On May 28th, 2002, Ray died of another heart attack while being transferred to Lee County Correctional Facility. Meanwhile, Cindy came up for parole in 2017, but served two more years as part of her mandatory probation.

She's a free woman as of 2022. Yancey got out in 2011, but a parole violation sent him back to prison until 2021. He's kept a low profile ever since. As for Ray's perfect daughter, Jessie hardly spent any time behind bars. She is 55 years old as of 2022 and is probably lurking somewhere in the United States.

While her father's reputation will likely scar the rest of her life, we can't help but wonder if she plans on continuing the family legacy.