American Homicide - S1: E7 – The Toy Box Killer, Part 2

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

We continue the chilling crimes of David Parker Ray, the "Toy Box Killer." We explore the involvement of his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and daughter, Jesse Ray, and hear the brave testimony of survivors who faced unimaginable horror in his desert dungeon.  To reach out to the American Homicide team, please email us at [e-mail]. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From audio up, the creators of Stephen King's Strawberry Spring comes The Unborn, a shocking true story. My babies please, my babies. One woman, two lives and a secret she would kill to protect. She went crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals, slaughtered them in front of the kids, tried to burn her house down. Listen to The Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners, I'm Sloane Glass, host of the American Homicide podcast.

And I'm excited to share this riveting story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of season one of American Homicide, 100% ad free, and one week early through the I Heart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you'll love, like The Girlfriends, Betrayal, There and Gone South Street, Creating a Con,

The Story of Biccont, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, Murder Homes, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today. In our last episode, we covered the story of David Parker Ray. He would later be known as the Toy Box Killer. Today, we're picking up the story with David Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Hendy facing more than two dozen charges for kidnapping and torturing three women. It happened in his homemade sex dungeon in the middle of the New Mexico desert.

He wanted to pick women who he could control, who he could scare, who he could hurt. At this time, we knew of three victims, but that number would skyrocket. He kept journals and videos of his 40 or so victims. David Parker Ray, when he was finished with those victims, would kill them. The testimony of the three women who miraculously made it out alive

was the key to prosecuting him. The victims, what they endured is just, it's unbelievable. And so unbelievable that there were so many people when they were first told didn't believe it was true. Not just the people who first heard it, but the jury as well. They weren't so sure what they were hearing was true either. This is one of those cases that's like until you get that last piece of the puzzle, there's really nothing else to do with it.

My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide. You're listening to part two of The Toy Box Killer, and a warning that this episode contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault and violence. Discretion is advised. At the time of his arrest in 1999, David Parker Ray was 59 years old. He was a mechanic for the New Mexico Parks Department and lived in the tiny town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico, where he was very well liked. So he definitely had a sense of power, of authority in that place. Alex Tomlin was a local news reporter. He's this legendary figure here for all the wrong reasons, you know? The joke all the time in the newsroom is the worst criminal you are, they give you all three names. David Parker Ray grew up near Albuquerque. He was a bit of a loner who was picked on at school.

He was estranged from his mother and only occasionally saw his alcoholic father. But he spent a lot of time with his father's true detective magazines. They covered crime stories. It was one of the first of its kind. David said his fantasies about assaulting young women began when he was flipping through those pages. Then came his fascination with pornography. David's sister found his stash of pornographic pictures and hand-sketched drawings of women tied up and tortured.

When she questioned him about it, he laughed it off and said it was his new hobby. As a teenager, David Parker Ray even claimed he killed a woman, although there's no record of it ever happening. After high school, he bounced around from town to town taking jobs as a mechanic. He worked on cars, trains,

and even fixed airplanes for the army. He was married and then divorced four times. He was a father and had a daughter named Glenda Jean-Rae, who went by Jessie-Rae. You know, I can't imagine what it's like to be the daughter of the embodiment of Satan. So I have to imagine her life was not an easy one. Jesse didn't see much of her dad

since he was always on the road. She grew up into a biker chick who drove a motorcycle and wore blue jeans with a black leather vest. She shot a lot of pool and was a regular at the local bars in the dusty town of truth or consequences, which is a blip on the radar and located right next to Elephant Butte. Back in 1986, when she was just 19 years old,

Jessie went to the FBI with a warning about her dad. She claimed that he had been abducting and torturing women, then selling them to buyers in Mexico. The FBI investigated for over a year before closing the file, citing a lack of evidence. David Parker Ray was never charged with anything. He later went on to work for the state. So even after this tip to the FBI,

he was able to get away with it. And who knows what really happened to make Jessie come forward. But she later claimed that she had made that story up. Jessie said he owed her money from when the two used to sell pot together. She wanted revenge. And then at some point, their relationship changed.

Jessie Ray reported him, but it's clear after that, she became an active participant. Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety. Jessie Wave, she was her dad's recruiter. She would go out and she would look for targets. So Jessie Waiver went from turning her dad into the FBI to recruiting victims into the toy box. So not only was David Parker Waiver's girlfriend involved in kidnapping his victims, but so was his daughter. Following David's arrest in 1999, investigators located dozens of videotapes in the toy box.

One tape showed a slender woman with long blonde hair shackled to a table with duct tape covering her eyes. This woman had a distinctive tattoo on her right ankle. And that tattoo led investigators to Kelly Garrett. Kelly Garrett is an important figure in this story. Once a happy newlywed, her marriage was destroyed by an event she couldn't even remember. A story no one believed. Even she doubted what had happened.

But it all started with a girl she used to hang out with, Jessie Ray. Jessie and I met, I don't even remember exactly how we met. We had mutual friends, and anytime we'd see her at the bar, she would hang out with us. When Kelly was in her early 20s, she moved to Truther Consequences, New Mexico. she moved to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We had a lot of fun back in the day. We were always going out, playing pool, going to the lake. It was a lot of fun. The tiny town of Truth or Consequences is famous both for its natural hot springs

and its unusual name, which came courtesy of a radio game show. I think I had more fun here than I have anywhere else I've lived. But I think it's the people. I had really good friends here." Back in 1996, Kelly was a newlywed. Really she had just been married for less than a week. "...and we started fighting that day. I don't even know what we were fighting about. But I told him that I was leaving." So Kelly went out to blow off some steam from that silly fight.

"...I was gonna go hook up with some friends and go play pool. And I did. There were several of us that went out and we were bar hopping. I wasn't drinking. I was driving." There are just a handful of bars in the area, including a small biker bar named Raymond's. When you step inside, there are pool tables and a jukebox. Its dimly lit with strings of light shaped like jalapenos along the walls.

That's where Kelly bumped into Jessie Ray, David Parker Ray's daughter. We weren't like close friends. We were just acquaintances kind of because we would just hang out when we seen each other. After Raymond, the group headed to another local bar called Blue Water Saloon. That's where Kelly's night took a bad turn. I ordered one beer That's where Kelly's night took a bad turn. I ordered one beer, and some friends of mine started fighting. They were a couple. So I took them home and came back and finished my beer. When Kelly returned, the rest of her friends wanted to go home. So she let them take her car.

Jesse and I were the last two. And without her car... Jesse said she was gonna give me a ride home. And that's when Jesse took me to her dad. She's the one that took me to him. She knew what was gonna happen. David Parker Ray wound up keeping Kelly in his toy box for two and a half days. When I was captive, I don't remember him saying too much.

I remember him telling me at one point that they had been watching me for years. So what did David Parker Ray do to Kelly in the toy box? I have no idea. I don't remember. I just remember being in his house. She believes now that she was drugged, which affected her memory. And when she didn't turn up all weekend, Kelly's husband got concerned.

And my husband at the time put a missing persons report out on me. A couple of days later, Kelly remembers being driven in David Parker Ray's truck. The only thing that sticks in my memory from that ride is him stopping to get coffee. Kelly said she felt out of it during the ride. David dropped me off at my mother-in-law's house, which is where my husband was, and he told her that he found me wandering on the beach, out at the lake, Elephant Boot Lake,

because he lives out there. Kelly's husband had questions. Most importantly, where had she been all weekend? And I told them I didn't remember anything, and they did not believe me. Kelly's husband was furious. The two had had an argument, and Kelly disappeared for the weekend, but returned

with no memory of what happened. Her husband and his family didn't believe her. They all assumed she was with another man. Felt horrible, but who's gonna believe me when you say, I don't know where I've been all weekend. Not sure I would believe somebody if they told me that. Her husband was so angry that he wouldn't even let Kelly into the house.

Like the next day, we went to the courthouse and signed annulment papers. So we were married a total of 13 days. Kelly never reported what happened to the police, and she tried to forget what little she remembered. Three years later, a news story would change everything. The report mentioned a woman with a tattoo on her ankle. Kelly's former sister-in-law was watching the news in shock. Prosecutor Jim Yantz explains. Her ex-in-laws were vacationing, I believe, in Southern California. And when they checked into the hotel, the person at the desk said, oh, you're from Truth or Consequences. That's where the story is on the news from.

They didn't know anything about it. But they did recall Kelly. They did recall the tattoo. When they got back, they notified the FBI. They indicated that it was in fact their former daughter-in-law. And from that we were able to locate Kelly Garrett and the tribal tattoo was matched to the tattoo on her leg. Beginning of March, I think, somebody called and said they wanted to talk to me. Two investigators arrived with the tape they found of Kelly in the toy box.

Oh yeah, they did show me the video. After watching it, her memories of what happened still weren't clear. I remember bits and pieces. And if I remember enough of them, I can put them together. Then Kelly shared some vivid nightmares she had been having. These nightmares started after her time in the toy box. I would have a nightmare about somebody holding a knife to my throat,

or I would have a nightmare about being tied to a table. Duct tape has always been a trigger since then, but I didn't know why. It took me years before I could even say the word duct tape. I called it icky tape for a long time. And if I'm paying attention and somebody's using it, most of the time I can stand there while they use it. But if they do it and I'm not paying attention, I scream and panic and

run away and cry. Investigators couldn't help but note the eerie similarities of Kelly's nightmares to what David Parker Ray did to his other victims. He always had his keys hooked on his belt loop, and that's a trigger. The jingling of keys. The more Kelly talked, the more her painful memories flooded back. That's when it all clicked. She realized that those nightmares she had been having were actually suppressed memories. And then it started to come back to her.

She remembered her friend's father threatening her with a knife and then being duct taped and handcuffed to a fitness bench. It felt good that I could actually put things together, but it was also horrifying. Police filed additional charges against David Parker Ray and arrested his daughter, Jessie Ray.

They charged her with kidnapping, criminal sexual penetration, assault, and conspiracy. Jessie Ray was arrested 34 days after her dad was put behind bars. With David Parker Ray, his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and now his daughter, Jessie Ray, his girlfriend Cindy Hendy, and now his daughter Jessie Ray all in custody, could prosecutors get one of them to flip? Skylight Frame is more than just a photo frame.

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all a whirlwind romance, a new home and twins on the way. What no one knew was that Christy was hiding a secret so shocking it would tear their world apart. 911 response. What's your emergency? My babies please, my babies! One woman, two lives and the truth more terrifying than anyone could imagine. They had her as one of the suspects but they could never prove it. You're going to go to jail if you don't come with us right now. Throughout this whole thing I kept telling myself, nobody's that crazy.

Uncover the chilling mystery that will leave you questioning everything, a story of the lengths we go to protect our darkest secrets. She went bat shit crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals, slaughtered them in front of the kids, tried to burn her house down. Audio up presents the Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi listeners, I'm Sloane Glass, host of the American Homicide podcast, and I'm excited to share this riveting story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of season one of American Homicide, 100% ad free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts.

Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you'll love, like The Girlfriends, Betrayal, There and Gone South Street, Creating a Cont, The Story of Vic Contunt, paper ghosts, Pigten massacre, murder homes and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. It's now late 1999 and David Parker Ray still isn't talking, so investigators leaned on one of his two accomplices, girlfriend Cindy Hendy.

Jim Yontz was the deputy district attorney. Initially, she described herself as being one of his victims, but she became involved in actually enjoying the torture part of it and became his accomplice. If convicted, Cindy Hendy faced more than 200 years in prison. So prosecutors offered Cindy a deal. Plead guilty and cooperate with their investigation and they'll reduce the charges, meaning a lighter sentence. So Cindy agreed to the plea deal. It required her to testify against David Parker Ray. This is where the story turns even darker. And a warning, in all the cases I've covered,

this is one of the darkest details I have come across. What she shared shocked the investigators. Cindy Hendy reported that David Parker Ray killed at least 14 people. He reportedly dropped the bodies in Elephant Butte Lake and ravines in the area. She said to keep the bodies from rising to the surface, he would do something completely gruesome. Parker Ray would cut out the stomach of each victim and then fill the body with rocks.

The state police turned over every rock between Albuquerque and Elf and Bute, trying to find other victims, but we were never able to find those individuals. Then, in late 1999, David's accomplice and girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, had a change of heart. She stopped cooperating in the investigation.

Cindy told the court that she was still in love with David, so she fired her attorney and asked to withdraw her plea. Cindy's new lawyer argued that Cindy had an eighth-grade education and a mental disability that made it difficult for her to understand the consequences of the deal she made with prosecutors. But prosecutors believe that David Parker Ray's daughter, Jessie Ray, helped to convince Cindy Hendy not to testify. The two had jail cells near one another and would often communicate. I cannot believe that is allowed. David allegedly wrote letters to Cindy, urging her not to testify against him.

Still, the judge ruled that Cindy H urging her not to testify against him. Still, the judge ruled that Cindy Hendy could not change her plea. Even with the ruling, Cindy refused to testify against David. It was the first of many setbacks for prosecutors. David Parker Ray faced three separate trials, one for each victim. His lawyer argued successfully that if he was tried for his crimes against three victims together, he wouldn't have a fair shot at proving his innocence. So the three cases were separated into three different trials.

They would go one victim at a time. Then there was this hurdle. And keep in mind, this was a different time. Two of those victims were sex workers, and prosecutors feared that that made them lack credibility. He knew the type of woman he wanted to pick up. TV reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story. He wanted them to probably have a history of going out, of maybe drinking too much, of going home with people that they didn't know on the first night.

He wanted to pick women who no one was gonna cause too much of a fuss if they didn't come home in three days. They had video of him torturing and raping, and investigators believed he was a killer. But without any bodies or other evidence, they couldn't charge him with any other crimes. They used to open the toy box for reporters to come in, just to stir up people's memories.

As you can imagine, all of this affected tourism. No one wanted to go in or around the lake. It's one of those situations where you get around it, and it's almost like you can physically feel evil. It's a thickness. It's a sensation. It's the way your skin crawls, the way the wind hits you. It's just so uncomfortable. Somebody out there saw something. Somebody knows something.

And it's just going to be a matter of time until they say something. Cadaver dogs also searched David Parker Ray's property, but the only bones they found belonged to animals. Keane was strategic. I mean, that's why he got away with it for so long. That was his game. Then another tragedy. Three became two when one of the victims mysteriously died. Angela Montana was held in the toy box a few weeks before Cynthia Vigil.

But just before the trial, she reportedly died of a drug overdose. She was only 28 years old. Suddenly, the first case, which was to find David Parker Ray guilty for his crimes against Kelly Garrett, one that seemed like a slam dunk for prosecutors, was crumbling. They needed Kelly Garrett to be a witness at her own trial. Here's Kelly. I told him no. I knew how much it was gonna bring up. I knew how upset it was gonna make me. And I changed my mind. Ultimately and bravely, she agreed to testify.

People needed to hear. People needed to know that he was bad. The trial, scheduled to kick off in the spring of 2000, faced delay after delay. The defense wanted the case tried outside of Elephant Butte in order to find an impartial jury. So the judge moved the case some 250 miles north to the tiny town of Tierra Maria. Then, in between four long weeks of jury selection, David Parker Ray was hospitalized twice with

heart issues. More delays came when David's lawyer had to deal with a personal issue. When he finally returned to work, both sides held several heated hearings about what evidence prosecutor Jim Yance could show to the jury. Some evidence was just too graphic. And there was another problem. Kelly Garrett was held in the toy box in 1996, but the evidence was ceased in 1999 when police rescued Cynthia Vigil. Now prosecutors had to prove that each piece of evidence was also present

three years earlier. This led to dozens of pieces of evidence being excluded from the trial. The most heated debate over evidence involved the audio tapes found that described the crimes in the toy box. He played a tape that in chilling detail told them exactly what was going to happen to them. The judge did not allow it to be played at Kelly Garrett's trial because Kelly couldn't remember hearing it. But the judge did allow the jury to see a videotape of Kelly Garrett that was recorded in the toy box. When the trial began in the summer of 2000, that videotape became the prosecution's key

piece of evidence. Jurors heard hours of testimony from law enforcement and first responders before prosecutors finally played that videotape. As the six-minute video flickered on an old TV monitor, jurors leaned forward in their seats to take a closer look. The recording showed Kelly restrained on a table. It showed Parker Ray assaulting her by groping her and placing duct tape over her mouth and eyes.

Without any audio, it would be up to Kelly to describe what happened before, during, and after this six-minute long tape. But remember, Kelly couldn't recall what happened. She believed she had been drugged. For a long time, I don't think I was reliable because I couldn't compose myself enough sometimes to get out of bed. For two long hours, Kelly sat on the witness stand

and recounted what she could remember happened that weekend in July 1996. She said she had a beer at a local bar and then felt lightheaded. Jessie Ray offered to drive her home, but instead she took her to her father's place. Kelly remembered that David claimed to be a part of a satanic group

that wanted to use her as a sex toy. Then they tied her to what looked like a weightlifting bench. She then explained how over the next three days David Parker Ray abused her. She remembered his voice and said that at some point the duct tape over her eyes became loose and she was able to see his face. Kelly explained that she always thought what happened to her was a nightmare that eventually would go away, but it never did. It destroyed her life.

I used to be fun and outgoing and I could go places alone and and now I stay home. Very seldom ever go out. I can't even go to the grocery store by myself. Prosecutor Jim Yance then warned the jurors of the graphic nature of what came next. They would see the inside of the toy box. As jurors nervously shuffled in their seats,

Jim held up photos. We had jurors thatously shuffled in their seats, Jim held up photos. We had jurors that asked for breaks. We had jurors that were just shaking their heads no. We actually had jurors sometimes that would put their head down and were sobbing. It was incredibly difficult for them to hear it. The court-appointed public defender never called any witnesses to the stand, but simply used his cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses

to cast doubt in the minds of the jurors. He asked Kelly why she never told the police or even her friends or family what happened to her in the toy box. With her hands trembling, Kelly locked eyes with the lawyer and explained, she thought that these memories were nightmares. We couldn't prove that I was drugged because those drugs were found three years later.

The defense attorney used that same strategy to pick away at the contents of the toy box. The public defender set out to make each of the prosecution's witnesses unreliable. He asked the same question to each investigator who testified. Do you know if these items were in the toy box back in 1996? One by one, they each answered. I don't know. As for the defendant, David Parker Ray, he wore what became dubbed his uniform, a striped cowboy shirt with brown jeans and cowboy boots.

He appeared thinner than at the time of his arrest and his slicked back hair had more streaks of gray. His demeanor changed from smiling and flirting with his attorney's assistant to looking tired and slumping over in his chair. He continued to complain of chest pain, and by the time both sides made their closing arguments, David Parker Ray was joined at the defense table

with a giant tank of oxygen to help his breathing. As both sides stated their case to the jury, Parker Ray's lawyer again shifted the focus on the victims. He attacked Kelly Garrett's credibility and called her memory selective. He told jurors, If you're telling the truth, you don't have to remember. He argued that the sex between David Parker Ray and Kelly Garrett was consensual, and that the video proved it. Prosecutor Jim Yance got in the last word. He pointed out that Kelly did not need to put herself through the pain of testifying to face the world,

to tell them your most horrifying story, and to be called a liar. But Kelly chose to do so in spite of all of that. The case went to the jury on the afternoon of July 12, 2000, and now it was in their hands to decide David Parker Ray's fate. In the quiet town of Avella, Pennsylvania, Jared and Christy Akron seemed to have it all. A whirlwind romance, a new home and twins on the way. What no one knew was that Christy was hiding a secret so shocking it would tear their world apart One woman two lives and the truth more terrifying than anyone could imagine They had her as one of the suspects, but they could never prove it. You're going to go to jail

If you don't come with us right now throughout this whole thing. I kept telling myself Nobody's that crazy. Uncover the chilling mystery that will leave you questioning everything. A story of the lengths we go to protect our darkest secrets. She went bat shit crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals, slaughtered them in front of the kids,

tried to burn their house down. Audio Up presents the Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, listeners. I'm Sloane Glass, host of the American Homicide podcast, and I'm excited to share this riveting story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of season one of American Homicide 100% ad free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you'll love, like The Girlfriends, Betrayal, There and Gone South Street, creating a con, the story of Bicond,

paper ghosts, Pigten Massacre, murder homes and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus and subscribe today. Imagine this. Just minutes after jurors began deliberations, David Parker Ray had to be escorted out of the courtroom. The now 60-year-old felt a pain in his chest. His lawyer called it heart irregularities, and he was sent to a local clinic for treatment.

My greatest fear was David being released. Prosecutor Jim Yance knew his case was strong, but he was afraid of what the jury would come back with. Yance was frustrated that the judge didn't allow some key evidence, specifically the initiation tape that David Parker Ray played for his victims. Although jurors didn't see all of the evidence, the investigators and lawyers did. We saw all of the images. Now some of them were hand drawings of Davids. Some of them were actual photographs.

But no, I'd never seen anything like them before. Nor do I hope to again. While jury deliberations continued into their second day, the tiny town of Tierra Maria was packed with journalists waiting for a verdict. Prosecutors worried that the longer the jury deliberated, the greater chance of an acquittal. They wanted this investigation. Everybody worked together for one purpose, and that was to stop the nightmare of David Parker Ray. work together for one purpose, and that was to stop the nightmare of David Parker Ray. Then, on Thursday, July 14, 2000, the judge called everyone back into the courtroom.

By that point, the jury had spent days deliberating. For all 12 counts, they couldn't agree on a unanimous verdict. That trial ended up in a mistrial. The hung jury was a major victory for David Parker-Ray, who back in the courtroom showed no emotion. The prosecutors were stunned. They learned from reporters that two twenty-something female jurors were the holdouts for securing a conviction.

The two said they didn't believe Kelly Garrett's testimony. And one even believed the sex was consensual. I was there willingly. That's what that was said in court. They found over 100 videos, but only found three of us alive. But I was there willingly. Because most of the people that he took were either into drugs or prostitutes. And I was neither."

It's true. At the time, these women were not seen as believable. And we know that this is still a problem today. I know this from my own experience covering the Long Island serial killer. It's valid to question if that case, where multiple women's bodies were found along a shoreline, would have been taken more seriously and solved years earlier if the women hadn't been sex workers. Even with her credibility being questioned, what was more painful for Kelly is what she heard from a juror. Some people like it rough.

It was one of the jurors that said that. Some people like it rough. I'll never forget her saying that. That's about the only thing I remember about that trial. the only thing I remember about that trial. A man with a homemade torture chamber, who had journals and videos detailing what he did to dozens of victims, somehow managed to escape being convicted.

I was scared when Kelly's came back a hungery. I was really scared. Cynthia Vieja was preparing for her own trial. She didn't testify in the first case because she was the star witness in Parker Ray's upcoming second trial. I don't understand how a woman could not believe her. There's a whole video of her being tortured. There's drawings. There's rules he had. Never trust a chain captive.

What does that say? A chained captive. That tells you right there, they're there because they're not willing. So I don't know how anybody could believe that he was innocent. That's when I got really scared that They weren't going to believe me. For this trial, David Parker Ray would have to find a new lawyer. His previous attorney, a 12-year veteran of the Public Defender's Office, announced that he was taking a new job in Antarctica.

That's right. He was moving to a new continent. But before leaving, he stopped at a colleague's office with a message. Hey, look, I'm leaving the public defender's office and I've got a case I want you to take. Will you take it? I said, well, sure. What is it? He says, it's that case. And I said, that case? And he said, yes, that one. That case now belonged to Lee McMillan. They basically threw me to the wolves.

David Parker Ray was one of those cases that every attorney hopes you'll get once in a lifetime and then finally gets one and never wants another one. But then, things took another strange turn one weekend when a giant black bear broke through a plexiglass window and rummaged through the courthouse. The bear wound up chewing on some cans before leaving. Along with a broken window and shards of glass, the bear left behind a bloody trail of paw prints. One courthouse worker joked

that the case couldn't get any weirder, but it did. Before the retrial began, the judge, who was just 55 years old at the time, had a massive heart attack and died. Just the day before that, he had gone to the jailhouse and warned the guards to leave David Parker Ray alone. He had heard that he was being picked on. Replacing him was Judge Kevin Swayze, who at 38 years old was the youngest district judge in New Mexico.

This was his first major trial after he was appointed to the bench. A new judge and a complete redo of the trial meant anything was possible. He had just told the police that he was ready to talk to them. But prosecutors kept running into the same roadblocks. It almost goes back to that whole, this is so outrageous, it's hard for people to believe. What lengths would investigators go to to get David Parker Ray to reveal his secrets?

There was some talk that David Parker Ray would plead guilty to everything, as long as the state would make a deal. But would they run out of time? Probably the one thing that irritates the hell out of me about this case. In the final episode of The Toy Box Killer, prosecutors get another chance to convict David Parker Ray,

and this time, they'll get some help from an unlikely source. What happened in the end was something that shocked David Parker Ray's own lawyer. I did not trust that he would not start his own heart and walk out. That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at americanhomicidepodatgmail.com. That's americanhomicide Pod at gmail.com.

That's American Homicide Pod at gmail.com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is Kristen Malkuri. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krainchak. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio. Additional editing support from Nick Aruca, Tanner Robbins, Brit Robichaud,

Dave Sayah, and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser. Music library provided by MyMusic. Follow American Homicide on Apple podcasts, and please rate and review American Homicide on Apple Podcasts. And please rate and review American Homicide. Your five-star review goes a long way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

From Audio Up, the creators of Stephen King's Strawberry Spring comes The Unborn, a shocking true story. One woman, two lives and a secret she would kill to protect. She went crazy, shot and killed all her farm animals, slaughtered them in front of the kids, tried to burn their house down. Listen to the Unborn on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners. I'm Sloane Glass, host of the American Homicide podcast, and I'm excited to share this riveting

story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of season one of American Homicide 100% ad free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple podcasts. Plus you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you'll love like The Girlfriends, Betrayal, There and Gone South Street, Creating a Cont, The Story of Biccont, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, Murder Homes and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.