Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED A SERIAL KILLER: The Toybox Killer

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

In 1999, Cynthia Vigil was abducted and held captive for 3 horrific days in Truth or Consequences, NM. Cynthia managed to escape and report her experience to the police. Once her kidnapper, David Parker Ray, is taken to jail, an intense FBI investigation revealed that he has an entire torture chamber unlike anything investigators have ever seen called The Toy Box. Cynthia's heroic escape opens up a Pandora's box of kidnappings, torture and murder. In this episode, Cynthia recounts her incredible act of survival and strength and describes how she put an end to the horror brought on by The Toy Box Killer.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Tempo - Check out TempoMeals.com/SURVIVED for 60% off your first box!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. David Parker Ray, known as the toy box killer, has been arrested for kidnapping and sexual torture. In my 30-year career, I've never experienced the investigation such as this. What he did to women, he was an evil man. I'd go out, find me some good-looking little bitch. Hand-keeper in my playroom for a sex toy. The toy box was a chamber of horrors.

everything you can imagine to have a person tortured and actually killed. You wonder how many victims were out there. He pulled out a badge and handcuffs and told me I was under arrest. He put a metal collar around my neck that was attached to a metal chain. It was something out of a horror movie. You're going to be whipped, abused, and tortured. I knew if I didn't get away, I would die. I did you have a crash.

No! Your wrists and ankles are chained, and a long, heavy chain is going to be kept locked around your neck. I've told you exactly what I've planned to do, and it's going to be painful as hell. That's the way I want it to be. I'm vindictive as hell, so be real careful. Real people who faced death and lived to tell how. This is I survived a serial killer. My name is Cynthia Vihil Hadamil, and I survived a serial killer.

Growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I didn't have much family. My mother was killed in 92. I pretty much had nobody, and so I started working the streets and selling drugs to survive at 15. By the time March of 99 came around, I had been working the streets in Albuquerque for six years. My friend told me that some guy was looking for a date. I approached the driver's side. I get in. We talk about a date, and we go to the back of the art.

As he's handing me money, he pulled out a badge and handcuffs and told me I was under arrest. I just felt something was off that he wasn't a cop. I was trying to get to the door, and some woman came out from behind a curtain. She has a gun, and she had this red and white, long cattle prod. And she just jabbed it right in my neck and shocked me. And they duct tape my wrist and my ankles together. My clothes are being taken off. At that point, I was asking, why are you doing this?

And her response was, oh, don't worry, we're just going to rape you. She said it in a way like it was normal, like it was everyday life for them. I knew at that point I wasn't the only victim of theirs. David Elston is the undersheriff of Sierra County, New Mexico. In 1989, there was a body that was recovered in Elephant Butte Lake. It was wrapped up in a blue tarp that was floating in the lake. There was no leads to any type of investigation onto why he was placed in Elephant Beach Lake. Jim Yance is a deputy district attorney for the 7th Judicial District in New Mexico.

Because of the time he spent in the water, we were unable to get DNA or identify the individual. It had already been over two hours since they took me from Albuquerque. I feel the RV going over a bumpy dirt road, and it stops. I have no clothes on, and they walked me from the RV into a trailer. It looked like a normal home. Pictures on the wall, a TV, couch, knickknacks, a radio.

They walked me down about five steps. It looked totally different than the living room did. There was a dress there that had several tools on it, like pliers on ice pick. a small torch, and a series of chains hanging from the ceiling and a hospital bed in the center of the room. It was something out of like a horror movie. They sat me on a bed.

They put a metal collar around my neck that was attached to a metal chain. And they were padlocking me to the wall. And they handcuffed my hands to the top of the bed and they shackled my feet to the bottom of the bed. So I pretty much couldn't move. I had no clothes on, and she makes him a sandwich. He tells me he's going to play a tape,

and I need to pay attention to it. Okay, bitch. We both know what you've been brought here for. The tape was his voice, telling me what's going to happen, that I would be raped over and over. You're going to be tied or chained in different positions. whipped, abused, and tortured.

He's just eating while this is playing. Like it's no big deal. It seemed like he got tired of telling girls what was going to happen that he pre-recorded it, so he just play the recording for the women. I couldn't wrap my mind around what was going on. I was so in shock. I knew what was happening to me. I just didn't know what the outcome was going to be.

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and I'd have to do stuff to him. And if I didn't get, I would get killed. It's kind of hard to find a villain partners. So when I get the urge, I go out and find me some good-looking little bitch and keep her in my playroom for a while for a sex toy. And this time, it's your turn. He raped me repeatedly all day. I was totally freaking out because I didn't know what the future.

held for me at that point. The next morning, I'd already been with them almost 24 hours. He took me to the back room. It had a massage table in it. They tied me to it. They clamped these clamps to me, and they would shock me.

I realized the more I was in pain, the more excited he got. If I took the pain and not showed him any emotion, he got frustrated and he gave up. The next day, I was so exhausted. I was in so much pain. He told me he was going to work, and that when he got back from work, I was going to go to the toy box. I didn't know what that meant. I just, I knew it was going to be more torture. I knew I had to find a way to escape. About a month before Cynthia Veehill was abducted, and Angelica Montanio was taken captive.

They gave her a combination of drugs that would fog her memory. And she was tortured. Ultimately, after a day or two, she was released near Interstate 25. She eventually caught a ride with a Luna County Sheriff's Deputy. She began to tell him what had happened to her from the snippets of memory. He wanted to immediately report the matter. She didn't, because she didn't have that good of a memory, and she was scared.

She made him breakfast, gave him a kiss, and he went off to work. At some point, she got a phone call. She went down the hallway and she disappeared. I realized she had left the keys that they had always carried on the coffee table in the living room. I was able to reach the coffee table with my feet. I pulled the table towards me to get the table.

the keys. I was able to get the chain unlocked from the wall. She walked in and she ran down and was trying to fight me. She beat me with the glass lamp. Every time she hit me in my head, I'd see black. I knew if I didn't get away, I would die. I'm telling myself, you cannot give up. She stabbed me in my back with an ice pick.

I was bleeding. I grabbed the ice pick and went at her head with it. And I hit her forehead. I grabbed the phone and I dial 911 and I dropped the phone. The 911 call came in from Vass Road. The one was on the other line. I ran out the front door and I don't know if she's chasing me and bloody and no clothes whatsoever. She eventually saw an open door to residents, went in there screaming for help and 911 was called again.

I arrived at the 911 hang up call on Vast's. On Bass Road, I recognize the residents of being David Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cynthia Hindi. Elephant Butte is a small community. Everybody pretty much knows everybody. David Parker Ray was employed by the state parks as a mechanic, just a very well-liked guy. The things that I saw inside of there,

it was obvious that there was a struggle, but there was nobody inside of the residence. Over the radio, I heard about Cynthia V Hill. They were transporting her to Sierra Vista Hospital. They were using a pair of bolt cutters to cut a padlock off of her neck. I was also notified that David Ray had left the state parks. So I left the residents to try to intercept him. I did stop him, told him that he was being detained for investigative purposes.

Cindy Hindi was located by other officers and was also taken for further questioning in the investigation. Lisa Bauman is a retired agent from the FBI evidence response team. The FBI was called down to Elephant Butte. We preserved the property and started processing the scene. You go to the room where Cynthia was kept, it was just frightening. Off of the main trailer, there was a converted rider truck. When I entered the truck, I had a very eerie feeling because you could tell it was just a place of evil.

It had all the instruments in it for doing whatever an individual wanted to do, from torture to holding captive to killing. It made you wonder how many victims were out there. In the middle there's a gynecological table with weights and pulleys. And then next to that was a medical cabinet where David had various drugs where he could knock women out. This was the toy box. It was a torture chamber.

If they would have brought me to the toy box. I think I would have died. It was a chamber of horrors. Everything you could imagine to have a person restrained and tortured and actually killed. During interviews with the FBI, David said he had been involved in this since about the age of 15 or 16. I could fantasize. I let my fantasies get away with me. It was about 45 years developing what he did to people.

I dreamed of kidnapping women and raping him. end of the greatest things had to do with him while I had him. He told us a lot, but he always claimed this was fantasy. The FBI believed that he was not relating fantasies, but rather was relating incidents of two events. There were a number of individuals that came forward that people they knew had gone to David Ray's residence, and the individuals were never seen again. From that, the FBI Behavioral Science Unit believed David was responsible for for somewhere between 45 and 60 murders.

He was not admitting to any murders. So in order to charge him with murder, we needed to find a body. We called in some search dogs. They spent hours and hours going over every inch of that property searching for victims. But we didn't find any bodies to link them to any murders. Eventually, the FBI came upon a tape

showed an individual in the toy box. She was totally nude and David was touching her in various ways and on her right calf there was an incredibly ornate tribal swan tattoo. From there we were able to get the name of Kelly Garrett. In 1997, Kelly became friends with David's daughter Jesse. She found herself at the local bar. Kelly asked for a ride home. Jesse agreed to take her home but said,

first she had to stop by her dad's house. Jesse and David went into a back room. When they emerged, they handcuffed Kelly, and she was taken out into the toy box. She was left out there for several days. Being tortured at various times before David takes her back to her in-law's house. David actually used his state park vehicle, was dressed in his state park uniform, and told the in-laws that he had found her wandering along the beach.

She had been drugged as a result. Her memory was somewhat lapsed, so it was not reported. When the FBI found her in 1999, memory started to come back as to where she had been, what had happened to her and who was involved. Now we know that David Parker Ray's daughter, Jesse, was involved with her dad and abducting women, and she was arrested. We also learned the statement that Cindy Hendy made to law enforcement that David had told her he had killed an individual back in the late 80s named Billy Ray Bowers. During the course of the investigation of David Parker Ray, we had learned that the body that was recovered in Elephant Butte was connected to him. They identified the decedent to dental records,

and it was discovered that he was associated with David Parker Ray at a car dealership in Douglas, Arizona. I believe David Parker was a mechanic for that dealership there, and the individual that was in Lake was David Parkeray's boss. The fact that Billy Ray Bowers disappeared, the fact that he turns up in a lake next to David Parker Ray's residence, we believe that he was responsible for the murder of, Billy Ray Bowers.

Unfortunately, without any DNA, we weren't able to charge him with that. As the investigation got bigger, I started thinking that he's a serial killer. And if I hadn't escaped, he would have killed me. And he would have done it to many more women. We wanted to be able to charge him with murder. So in order to charge him with murder, we needed to find a body. This time of year, I'm trying to stay consistent with eating well. But my schedule makes that feel like a moving target.

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quickly and there were literally hundreds of leads coming from various interviews. We wanted to be able to charge David Parker Ray with murder. Any leads that came up, we pursued aggressively to possibly find a body. Inside of the residents, we found a map of Elephant Butte Lake. On that map were certain locations with X marks. We can only speculate that that's maybe where he disposed the bodies.

As a maintenance foreman, he had access to every inch of that lake, every inch of the shoreline, and could easily high. or dispose of anything he wanted. The FBI spent weeks searching Elephant Butte Lake. We took boats everywhere and kept looking for bodies but could never find one. Unfortunately, we could not link him to any murders. David Ray is accused of kidnapping and raping a woman.

Cindy Handy, David's girlfriend had already indicated she would not testify against David. So it was critical that Cynthia testified. and relate what happened to her during her captivity. Without her getting up on that stand and pointing at David, the nightmare would have continued. When I was kidnapped and tortured, David Parker-Ray, had a lot of power and control over me, but I had already stopped being as a victim at the trial.

I realized that I could take some control back. The case ultimately came to a conclusion in 2001 with David being sentenced to 224 years in the penitentiary of New Mexico. David was sentenced for the sexual assaults and the kidnappings, torture of Kelly Garrett and Cynthia Veehill. Angelica unfortunately died before her case could be presented in full. David Parker-Ray was serving his sentence in jail when he had a heart attack. passed away in, I believe, is 2002.

Cindy Hendy was sentenced to 54 years. She's recently been paroled. We do feel there are some unanswered questions. We're just not going to give up. If there is any leads, the case will be reopened and definitely pursued. I really want to stress that Cynthia B. Hill's the hero of this story.

It wasn't until years later that I thought maybe I escaped because I had another purpose in life and I wasn't done. I have a nonprofit called Street Safe, New Mexico that I started in 2009. And it's been serving the women that have been raped, trafficked, or attacked. I love helping others. Helping others helps me not be a victim of David Parker Ray. Finding the one can feel impossible. And in today's world, it's even harder.

false profiles, inaccurate pictures, incompatibilities, ghosting on dates. Is this sounding familiar? But if you're ready to make your move to a new place, it doesn't have to feel like dating. All it takes is a simple search on Apartments.com to find your perfect match. Whether you're looking for a three-bedroom condo downtown, a two-bedroom duplex in a quiet neighborhood, a cozy studio in a walkable city, or even a single-family home in a cul-de-sac, You can find a place that checks all the right boxes. So whichever stage of life you're in,

settle down in your perfect home by using Apartments.com. No more swiping and awkward first dates. Make it easier to get a place that gets you. Visit Apartments.com, the place to find a place. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows. We're coming at you with everything we got. This is the mindset. Free.

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