Naked apart from an iron dog collar and a set of chains, a young woman who escaped after being held captive by the ‘Toy Box Killer’ led police to the house where she was tortured – what they discovered there was horrifying
Banging on the door of a trailer in New Mexico, a distraught young woman who was naked apart from an iron dog collar and a set of chains begged for help.
It was March 22, 1999, and although Cynthia Vigil was dazed and confused she knew she’d been held captive and raped for days, and asked the neighbours to call the police.
Captain Rich Libicer of the New Mexico State Police said: “She told this amazing story of how she had been abducted in Albuquerque then chained to a bedpost and kept in a man’s house. She had a bed, a bucket for a toilet and she had been raped and tortured over a period of three days.”
The 22-year-old sex worker told them where they could find the house but what they discovered there was horrifying, reports Crime Monthly.
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Inside was a bedroom containing torture devices and outside there was a soundproofed trailer owned by David Parker Ray, which he referred to as his ‘Toy Box’.
The centrepiece was a medical-grade gynaecological table with chains, pulleys, whips, satanic items, photographs of women being tortured, syringes and details on how to bring someone back after pushing them to the extremes of drugs and torture.
As soon as he stepped inside, Captain Libicer said he was “sure people had died there”. Ray – who was considered by most who knew him to be a charming and polite man – was a psycho-sexual killer who had tortured and murdered countless women in the most sadistic ways imaginable.
Born in 1939 in New Mexico Bay, Ray and his younger sister Peggy were brought up by their grandfather – a strict disciplinarian. A friend of Ray’s said: “If his grandfather wanted him to do something, he’d jump. In today’s terms he was abusive but we called it being strict.”
When Ray’s alcoholic father visited he’d often beat Ray while also supplying him with sadistic porn. Ray’s tendency towards sadomasochism started as a teenager, when he claimed to have murdered a woman after torturing her at knifepoint.
He served in the US Army, receiving an honourable discharge, and was married and divorced four times. He had two children – his daughter Glenda Jean, known as Jesse – went on to become Ray’s accomplice.
Jesse was exposed to her father’s love of sadomasochism at a young age and developed a taste for it, according to reports. She gave birth to a child in 1990, but denied rumours the father was Ray. But Jesse wasn’t his only partner in crime – he was joined by girlfriend Cindy Hendy and a man named Dennis Roy Yancy.
Cindy came into Ray and Jesse’s lives in 1996 and was a fan of the bondage sex scene. On the run from the law, she began dating both Jesse and mutual friend Yancy. When Ray became involved in their three-way relationship he convinced Yancy to murder one of their victims – Yancy’s ex-girlfriend Marie Parker. Her body was never found.
Ray would meet women in bars in towns around his home in Elephant Butte, New Mexico and after striking up conversations with them, he would invite them back to his place where they would end up drugged and tied to the bed or chair.
Next to his torture devices was a checklist of things that reminded Ray what a person might do to escape. Under a list entitled ‘Standard excuses and sob stories’ were reasons such as ‘kids with a babysitter’, ‘pregnant’ and ‘Aids’, and there was also a list reminding him not to forget handcuffs, neck chain and ‘hood or gag’.
The women were taken into the Toy Box to be raped and tortured after watching a tape recording in which Ray explained what he was going to do to them. This would instil fear in his victims – something which Ray enjoyed seeing.
The tape ended with Ray saying: “Be smart and be a survivor. Don’t ever scream. Be quiet. Be docile. Be obedient and by all means show proper respect.”
The victims were raped and tortured by Ray and his accomplices and sometimes a dog was brought in to participate while they were also subjected to watching what was happening to them on monitors.
Cynthia was the first known victim to escape after Ray had gone to buy food and accidentally left the keys to her handcuffs close enough for her to reach.
Ray caught her trying to call 911 and escape and a fight broke out. But Cynthia stabbed him in the neck with an ice pick and fled to the neighbours property. Recalling her ordeal, she said: “The way he talked, I didn’t feel like this was his first time. He told me I was never going to see my family again. He told me he would kill me like the others.
Cynthia’s story led to another woman coming forward claiming she had also been held captive and tortured. Angelica Montano said she was kidnapped and raped shortly before Cynthia in February 1999 and left on the side of the road.
There were more women – Ray filmed his crimes and kept a diary with details of the murders of more than 50 women – but because these victims were often sex workers or drug addicts it was impossible to prove. Ray only faced trials concerning three women that survived and was sentenced to 224 years in prison.
Less than three years after going to prison, David Ray Parker, who was 62 at the time, had a heart attack and died. Meanwhile Cindy Hendy received 36 years but was released on parole in July 2019 and Ray’s daughter Jesse – who denied her involvement in the crimes – received two and a half years on charges of kidnapping, followed by five years probation. No one knows where she is now.
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