Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Toy-Box Killer” Pt. 2 - David Parker Ray

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

By 1986, David Parker Ray was 46 years old, and had been abducting, raping, torturing, and killing women throughout the American Southwest for over 30 years. He would continue his reign of terror well into 1999, when one of his final victims would defy the odds and escape his torture, in horrific and dramatic fashion. Sponsors! Ring - Get a special offer on a Ring Starter Kit available right now at Ring.com/SerialKillers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The sun was shining and the air was dry, as it usually was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As she'd done all of March 1999, Cindy V. Hill paced the sidewalk, working the street, looking for a client. An RV pulled into a nearby parking lot. The driver was an older-looking man with weather-wrinkled skin. He waved at her, calling her towards him. She approached the RV. Now, the man asked her to step inside so they could discuss business.

Inside, space was cramped. The man's tall, wide frame imposing as he slowly moved between her and the door. She asked what he wanted to do, and he pulled out some handcuffs. At that moment, a woman with a wild look burst through the bathroom door, a stun baton raised in her hands. The woman slammed the stun baton into Cindy Behill's stomach. Beehil dropped to the ground as the man cuffed her arms together.

The man and woman laughed as they towered over her. They told her she belonged to them. She was their toy. She would never go home alive. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson, and this is serial killers, a podcast original. Every Monday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This is part two of our examination of the horrifying sexual sadism of David Parker Ray, the Toy Box Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. Last week, we discussed David's early life from the traumatic experiences that shaped his vile sexual interests as a boy to the many horrendous things that later led to his own daughter to turn him in to the FBI, even after assisting her father in some of his crimes. This week will detail the first official law enforcement investigation into his activities, his most publicized crimes, and the events that led to his capture. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love.

Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. We also now have merchandise. Head to Parcast.com slash merch for more information. Before we begin, we'd like to extend an extra caution. the crimes David Parker Ray inflicted upon his victims are more upsetting and gruesome than a typical serial killer.

Even as seasoned professionals, we found his crime's stomach turning. Though we're presenting them with the utmost sensitivity, we do advise added caution regarding the facts of this episode. David Parker Ray abducted, tortured, and murdered women from the time that he was 15 years old in 1954 to the day of his capture on March 22, 1999. Across his 45-year crime spree, he likely claimed more than 60 victims in cities all throughout the United States. Many of those victims were brought to his long-term home

in truth or consequences, New Mexico. David Parker Ray was meticulous in his kidnapping. He targeted vulnerable women and disposed of them so efficiently that most of the bodies were entirely untraceable. He became most well known for the dramatic escape of his final victim, who ultimately revealed the full extent of his depravity, exposing the evils of his torturous toy box to the world. By 1986, David Parker Ray was 46 years old and had been abducting, raping, torturing, and

killing women for over 30 years. Despite his prolificacy, he was so thorough in covering his tracks that he'd never been arrested or even investigated by law enforcement. All that changed in June 1986. When David's 19-year-old daughter, Jesse, went to the FBI. Jesse had grown up aware of her father's atrocious crimes and knowing that his actions were illegal. However, for much of her life, she thought they were just a part of everyday human behavior. However, after she got into a fight with her father, the cause of which is unknown, she decided

to get revenge by reporting his activities to the law. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. According to a study published in the Journal of Research and Personality, written by Ryan P. Brown of Rice University, and An individual's intrinsic tendency towards vengeance is directly correlated with narcissistic

personality traits. It's likely that whatever argument Jesse and her father had resulted in him damaging her ego in some way. So while we don't know exactly what he did that made her decide to report him, it's likely she was only doing so for selfish reasons. But whatever her motives were, her information proved incredibly interesting. The FBI agents she spoke to were stunned by what she had to say. She detailed her father's sexual appetite and run-ins with sex workers.

She told them all about his extensive collection of sex toys and homemade torture devices. Then she delivered a bombshell. Her father had a penchant for abducting young women, torturing them, and either killing them or selling them into sexual slavery down south in Mexico. Her accusations were fairly general in their scope, as she couldn't name any of his specific victims, but they were shocking enough to get the FBI interested. The agents thanked Jessie for her statements,

and the FBI immediately began an investigation into David Parker-Rae's activities. We don't know much about the specifics of the investigation. However, we know they searched for some of his alleged victims, but could find no trace of them. We also know that they brought David in for questioning on multiple occasions. Strangely, when David was brought into talk, he was startlingly forward about his personal life. He was very cooperative and told agents all about his sexual fetishes. He spoke fondly of his love for BDSM and told them he was part of the underground kink community in Phoenix.

He even told them that he sold some of his personally created torture devices in BDSM magazines. David showed the investigators the ads he had placed and led them to the PO box where he was. received and shipped orders out of Elephant Butte Lake. Perhaps most surprisingly, David was uncomfortably open about the overwhelming nature of his sexual urges. He said that ever since he was 13, he had been obsessed with bondage culture, and more disturbingly, sadism. He could go months out of time living life normally, but then his sexual fixations would kick in, and he would become obsessive. He would spend weeks of his time, quote, fantasizing about everything imaginable, including killing women, in order to ejaculate. David even told the FBI investigators that he thought he was, quote, potentially dangerous.

Without ever confessing to any specific crimes, David had effectively told the FBI almost everything about his inner mental life. We don't know if the FBI ever tapped David's phones or searched his home. We do know that the investigation lasted for an entire year, from June of 1986 to the summer of 1987. Yet FBI investigators failed to find any concrete evidence of criminal wrongdoing on David's part. Because Jesse had been either unable or unwilling to provide any specific details about the victims, the FBI was left with general accusations and no hard evidence. David's strange willingness to cooperate with the investigation, meanwhile, could be interpreted two different ways.

At the time, the investigators believed that his statements were simply the ramblings of a very unusual but innocent man. However, in hindsight, we know that he was an incredibly confident killer, who knew that he had not left behind any evidence the FBI could find. An FBI agent later spoke about the initial investigation, saying, quote, a thorough investigation was accomplished based on information known at the time. When the logical investigation was completed and the leads were covered, the case was closed. David was left alone to continue killing. And to make matters worse, he had managed to abduct at least two women while the investigation was still ongoing.

One was a 25-year-old sex worker. He chained up while she was sleeping. He hung her from the ceiling with coughs attached to her wrists and subjected her to all manner of sexual torture. He held her like this for two weeks before ultimately disposing of her. Whether we killed her, sold her into slavery, or released her back into public life, we do not know. The other girl he abducted that year was a 15-year-old he found hitchhiking home from school. He tortured her too, but found this victim particularly enjoyable because her small size made her, quote, like a Barbie doll, pretty and easy to handle.

Similarly, we do not know this victim's ultimate fate. Somehow, these two victims went completely unnoticed by the FBI, despite the fact that they were actively investigating him at the time. Instead, David Parker-Ray remained free to continue terrorizing the state of New Mexico. At some point over the course of 1986, Jesse eventually made up with her father. She began visiting him at his home like she used to, and it was only a matter of time until she began assisting him in his crimes once more. Interestingly, David's next notable murder was the first and only murder that investigators suspect he committed for non-sexual reasons. Last episode, we spoke about how in 1982, David had started a mechanics shop with a friend and business partner named Billy Ray Bowers.

Both Billy and David were skilled and accomplished mechanics, and their combined. combined talents helped their small shop grow into a profitable and lucrative business in Phoenix. Through this business, David had made enough money to afford at least two homes, and for years things were going well. But by 1988, Billy was getting tired of the mechanic life. He started discussing the possibility of selling his half of the business and taking off. This greatly upset David. We don't know exactly why, but rumors spread around town that, in hindsight,

provide some insight into David's motivations. A mutual friend recalls David and Billy frequently fighting about money in the summer of that year. By September 15th, their arguments had escalated, and Billy had begun telling his family that he was afraid that someone might try and kill him. It's unclear if Billy ever claimed that David was threatening him, but Billy had made secret company workbooks

informing his employees to contact the police, if anything ever happened to him. By the end of September, Billy Bowers disappeared. None of his family members, co-workers or friends knew where he had gone, and they immediately contacted the police. The police conducted a thorough investigation of the shop and even interrogated David extensively. David denied the accusation of his involvement vehemently.

While the police still suspected that he might have been involved, they had found no body and no concrete evidence with what to pursue a case against him. During that same year, David abducted two more women in Phoenix. One was an 18-year-old sex worker. The other was a 16-year-old runaway. Both had been tied to different beds and held for two weeks at a time. These were also occasions where he, quote,

shared them with a friend, showing that he had an unnamed accomplice assisting him during this time period. Around this time, Around this time, David also purchased a detachable semi-trailer that he parked in the backyard of his home in truth or consequences. He began soundproofing this trailer and stocking it with twisted sex toys and homemade torture devices. Eventually, this trailer would become known as David Parker Ray's infamous toy box. In September 1989, only a few miles away from David's home,

a fisherman boating in Elephant Butte Lake came across a tarp floating in the water. He immediately called the police, and when they attempted to pull the tarp into their boat, they discovered the tarp had two fishing anchors tied to it, and that the tarp was tightly wrapped around a body. The body was that of a man, and it had clearly been submerged for some time. Upon examination, it was evident that the man had been murdered with a single gunshot to the back of his head. Due to decomposition, the body was unidentifiable,

but David Parker Ray knew whose corpse had just been found. It was Billy Bowers, and he had floated to the surface after spending a year submerged within the lake. Billy was the only one of David Parker Ray's victims whose body was ever found. Coming up, we'll discover how three women managed to survive David's tortures.

And now back to the story. By 1989, David Parker Ray had been abducting, raping, torturing and murdering women for 34 of his 49 years. In all that time, only one of his victim's bodies had ever been found, that of Billy Ray Bowers, his former business partner who he had shot and submerged in Elephant Butte Lake. Even though Billy Bowers' body had been found, it also remained unidentified. and David Parker Ray was still free to stalk the streets. He had abducted at least one woman per year for three decades, and his villainy was not going to stop anytime soon. Over the next several years, he greatly expanded upon the collection of torture tools in his toy box.

Most notably, he modified a weightlifting bench by adding straps and leg rests to approximate a gynecological chair, but with a painful twist. He added electrical wiring so he could send electrical shocks through his victim's bodies. Meanwhile, he was still abducting and torturing women while he was in Phoenix. In 1993, he recorded and perfected his abduction introduction tape, which he would play for new victims as they awoke in his torture chamber. He had recorded the tape to inform his victims about every disgusting thing he was going to do to them. And within the same year, he had the chance to see how horrifying,

effectively that tape could be. He abducted two different sex workers at two different times. One he kept for four days, the other he kept for five. He played the tape for both, watching them break down crying before subjecting them to what the tape had promised. With both, he wrote about experimenting with new torture devices, including using ankle winches to widen their pelbuses and simulate the pain of childbirth and instruments of pain like a barbed steel bra, nipple screws, and weights.

As his torture methods darkened, his personal life started to devolve. The next year in 1994, he and his wife, Joni Lee, began having marital problems. He would later tell investigators about the issues he had with his wife during his interrogation. He said, Joni Lee knew what I liked, but she wouldn't let me use her. She was jealous of the fantasy. We kind of drifted apart. Over the year, she just got more and more crazy. She was having epilepsy attacks, and she started drinking real heavy.

At one time, she held a pistol up to my head. I couldn't take it anymore. David and Joni Lee got divorced in 1994. Following the breakdown of their marriage, Joni Lee moved to Pennsylvania, and David sold his part-time home in Phoenix and moved to truth or consequences full-time. As truth or consequences was a small town, there weren't many mechanic positions available for David, but the Elephant Butte-Bute Lake State Park was hiring.

David applied, and with his strong resume, he was offered a position as a state park employee. This would give him an official government uniform, possibly making him more dangerous. According to a study published in the Journal of Psychology by Ming S. Singer and Alan E. Singer, police officers are perceived as more competent, more reliable, more intelligent, and more helpful when they're wearing their uniforms, as opposed to when they're not. While the study was limited to police uniforms, these findings provide some evidence to suggest that uniforms in general increase the positive perception of the public,

and it's likely that David took full advantage of this. The uniform likely increased his trustability in the eyes of his future victims. This would have made abducting women substantially easier for him, especially as he roved across Elephant Butte Lake State Park. His new job also allowed him to drive all over the state park, including the most secluded sections of the wilderness. This provided him with every opportunity to scout out abandoned areas where he would be able to freely dispose of bodies. Throughout 1995, he abducted at least three different women, all rather young in age. He had updated his

toy box with medical textbooks and medical supplies to help himself keep them alive as long as possible. He also installed two different drawers, each about the size of a coffin. He could put a woman in each box and store them under a bench, making it possible for him to capture two different women at the same time and hold them both hostage for longer periods of time than ever before. For David, these boxes also greatly increased the fear he built in his vision. victims. If he kept them caged in the dark, they would spend the entire time deathly afraid of when he would next return. It was a brief respite from the pain, but this only escalated their fear of

the pain to come. Even more disturbingly, if he held two women captive at the same time, each could hear the others cries of pain, and hear the other's whimpers, without having any power to help them escape. David was a true master, at both physical and and psychological torture. He continued abducting women into 1996, but the most notable of these abductions would occur on July 25th. David Parker Ray was in his home, maintaining

his surgical equipment and longing for another victim. He had recently started taking Viagra, and his sexual appetite had grown increasingly more potent. That little blue pill was a godsend to David, the perfect thing to help him when his old age got in the way of his good time. He picked up the phone to hear his daughter, Jesse, on the other end. She was calling to tell him that she would soon be bringing another toy for him to play with.

David was excited. He went to his toy box and began preparing. He rewound his cassette tape, prep the weight bench, and selected the tools he felt most inclined to use. Across town, a 23-year-old woman named Kelly's. Van Cleve was hanging out with her friends at the Blue Water's Saloon. She had gone to the bar in anger after she'd gotten into a fight with her new husband. He always wanted to have sex, but the act hurt for her. She didn't know why intercourse felt painful. It just did.

So far, the night out had helped her forget the fight, and she had stayed out even longer than she had intended. She was supposed to be the designated driver, so she hadn't had anything to drink. But the person whose car she was supposed to drive, had already left. She didn't mind staying behind. It was fun spending her time with her pals, and her friend, Jesse Ray, had already offered her a ride home. The group caroused and played pool while Kelly drank a single beer. By midnight, the party was beginning to wind down, and Jesse and Kelly went outside to Jesse's motorcycle. It had been a fun night for Kelly. Jesse climbed onto the bike, and Kelly climbed on behind her. As they started,

going, Jessie turned down the road, but Kelly noticed that they had turned the wrong way. Kelly yelled out to her, telling her that she was lost. Jesse yelled back. She wasn't lost. She was tipsy, and she was going home to get a cup of coffee. It would take just a moment for the coffee to wake her up, so she could safely get Kelly home. Kelly was hesitant, but she agreed. It wasn't like she had any other options. Jesse pulled into the driveway at her father's home. Kelly followed her inside. Jessie told Kelly to have a seat on the couch. Kelly did so and watched as Jesse went into the other room.

Kelly looked away for just a second, her mind wandering back to her husband. She knew he'd still be up, worrying about where she was, growing angrier and more worried by the second. Then from the other room, David Parker Ray came running. He held a long, sharp knife and raised it in front of Kelly's face. He threatened her, saying that she was his now and she better get used to it. Then, Jessie came back into the room holding a dog collar and handcuffs. Jesse began clamping them around Kelly's wrist and her neck.

Kelly was shocked. David and Jesse marched Kelly out of the house, holding a knife to her throat. They walked past a large satellite dish to the door of a white semi-trailer parked in the backyard. David opened the door to the trailer. and a powerful odor came wafting out, one of sweat, tears, and death. He marched Kelly in, closed the door behind them, and turned on the lights. The sight of the room was terrifying. A sign read, Welcome to Satan's Den,

and hand-drawn depictions of complicated torture mechanisms were plastered on the walls. Racks were lined with fiendish devices for tearing skin and stretching people's insides. Worst of all was the weight bench sitting in the center of the room, chains and straps attached. David and Jesse forced Kelly onto the bench, then strapped her down. They attached bars and cuffs to her ankles, then raised her legs and spread them apart. David took a knife and began cutting through her clothes. In just a few short minutes, Kelly was naked, helpless and afraid. David moved to his video cameras, flea.

flipped a switch and turned them on. Then he moved to a tape recorder and hit play. The recorder projected David's own voice, saying the most horrible things Kelly had ever heard. She watched as David and Jesse left the room, leaving her only with the tape. That dreadful tape, running for minutes on end, listing torture after torture.

The next few days were a blur. Kelly remembered being repeatedly abused. But the most traumatizing to her were the moments where David attempted to use oversized dildos on her. He said he had stolen her for the sake of a satanic ritual group that he was a part of. For Kelly, normal consensual sex was painful. David's use of oversized objects increased the pain tenfold. She didn't know it then, but that pain was due to her having a tilted uterus, a medical condition in which a woman's womb is angled backward.

For many women, a tilted uterus can be harmless and have no effect on their lives, but for Kelly, that condition restricted the flexibility of her internal organs. This condition frustrated David. As he told Kelly multiple times that if he couldn't get his instruments of torture far enough into her, then she was useless to him and his cult as a sex toy, he told her multiple times that he'd have no problem,

problem getting rid of her. For the next three days, Kelly remembered David torturing her at least six separate times. By the third day, David's frustration was readily apparent. He pulled an unknown cocktail of drugs from his cabinets. He stuck a needle into her arm and injected the drugs, casting Kelly into a foggy haze. She could feel her memories of the past few days slipping away from her, as everything went. The next thing Kelly remembers was David pushing her out of his vehicle. He was dressed in his state park uniform, and as she turned her head, she noticed she was

out of her prison, and back on a normal street in front of a normal house. Her head was pounding, and she felt David grab her arm. He pulled her into a yard. Then she realized it was her yard, or rather her in-laws' yard, where she lived with her husband. David knocked on the door. Her husband answered, and his parents were with him. She began to cry from joy. She was so happy to see them, but they glared at her and asked her where she had been.

She told them she couldn't remember. They accused her of running off to be with another man. At that time, David chimed in and said he had found her wandering around the lake, clearly drugged out of her mind. They were furious with her. They turned her away, proclaiming that they were going to file for divorce and that she was no longer welcome in their home. Kelly was stunned. She didn't know what to do. David gently pushed her back to his truck. Flabbergasted, she followed him and sat down in the front seat.

David then dropped her off at one of her friend's houses and said she was free to go. In the years following, Kelly had a hard time remembering her entire torturous experience. she would not report the situation to the police because she knew that as she didn't trust her own memories, nobody else could ever hope to. Kelly would write them off as a long, disturbing dream and try to move on. Unbeknownst to her,

she was the first known victim to survive David Parker Ray's sadistic fantasies. Yet, even after a brief moment of twisted mercy, David would not be stopped for another three years. We'll learn about one of David's victims who didn't survive after this. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak. Got that right. And now, the conclusion of this serial killer's story. On July 29, 1996, 56-year-old David Parker Ray released one of his hostages named Kelly Van Cleve

after pumping her full of memory-erasing drugs. Yet even while he had released one woman, he would still seek to satisfy his disturbing sexual urges by abducting another, and he would have two new accomplices assisting him. Sometime after the release of Kelly Van Cleve, David and Jesse met a 36-year-old woman who had just moved to Truth of Consequences. Her name was Cynthia Hendie, or Cindy, for short,

and she had moved to New Mexico with her abusive boyfriend as they fled drug charges in their home state of Washington. Cindy broke up with her boyfriend months after moving to New Mexico, but as she hung around the seetier side of the Truth or Consequences bar scene, she met David and Jesse. Cindy found herself attracted to David, and the two began dating shortly after meeting. Around that same time, Cindy met a 24-year-old man named Dennis Roy Yancey.

Yancey was a local ne'er-do-well who had committed many acts of vandalism and often got into bar fights. He was also suspected of committing the murder of another man his age, but a lack of evidence allowed him to walk free. Yancey, Hendy, David, and Jesse, all had shared interests in drugs and alcohol, often meeting up to drink and get high. As they began to spend time together, they realized they also had a shared interest in sexual sadism. By 1997, David had introduced Yancey and Cindy to his toy box.

We don't know how many abductions these two participated in, but we do know the name of at least one of their victims. In the early months of 1997, Yancey breached. briefly dated a 22-year-old woman named Marie B. Parker. Marie was a mother of two young girls, but her drug addiction had led her to living in a tent by the lake. She had been charmed by Yancey at first, but after he treated her poorly, the two broke up. Yancey took the breakup personally, and he decided that Marie should be taught a lesson. He convinced David to help him abduct her and keep Marie as their next sex slave.

On July 5, 1997, Marie B. Parker went missing. A friend reported her disappearance to the police, but they had little evidence to go on and no way to track her. They kept her missing file open, but were unable to do anything more. Meanwhile, Marie was locked up in David's toy box. David, Cindy, and Yancey took turns torturing the girl for days, possibly even weeks. When they were finished abusing her, David or ordered Yancey to kill her and get rid of the body.

Yancey obeyed David's orders. He strangled Marie. Drove her corpse to the middle of the desert. And buried her body never to be found again. Over the next two years, Dennis, Cindy, and Yancey, and Jesse, abducted and tortured an unknown number of women. Yancey traveled in and out of town, and Jesse moved into her own place. But sometime in 1998, Cindy,

moved into David's home, making their relationship even more reliant on sadism. The couple's next publicly known abduction occurred on February 17, 1999, when David was 59 years old, and Cindy was 39. David and Cindy were well known within the partying and drug-fueled community of truth or consequences. One of their longtime friends within this community was a woman named Angelica Montaña. Angelica was a sex worker known around town for her glass eye. While strangers identified her by her prosthetic, her friends knew her as a lovely and friendly

person. Her friendliness often took the form of baked goods, and as her boyfriend's birthday was approaching, she decided she wanted to bake him a cake and throw him a party. Cindy and David said they had cake mix they weren't using back at David's trailer. They offered to give the mix to Angelica if she wanted to come by their place. to pick it up. Angelica readily agreed. She had known the couple for quite some time, and to her, this was just one more instance of their friendship bringing them together. The trio drove out to David's trailer, and they all entered the home. However, as soon as

they stepped inside, David pulled a knife from his pocket. He held it up to Angelica's throat. He threatened her and told her that she was being taken hostage. At first, Angelica thought her friends were simply playing a prank. She laughed. But then David punched her full force in her stomach. She knew he wasn't joking. David and Cindy stripped Angelica up her clothing, brought her to a bedroom in the house, and chained her to the bed. They forced her to take drugs and to listen to David's recording. They proceeded to rape and torture her for two days, then marched her to the toy box, where they escalated their violence and introduced her to electric torment. Angelica was chained to the high-tech gynecological chair, the toy box, for three days.

And during that time, she began to lose hope. In a last-ditch effort to break free, she pretended to be enjoying the torture. On her fifth day of captivity, while David was torturing her on his own, Angelica told him that she had enjoyed their time together, but asked if he would let her go soon. She said her two boys were probably wondering where she was and promised David that she wouldn't tell a soul about what they'd been doing. After all, she claimed to have enjoyed it.

In a moment that bewilders detectives to this day, David told Angelica that she'd always been a nice lady, and he decided to let her go. Cindy vehemently disagreed with this decision and argued with David, saying that if they let Angelica go, she would surely tell the police. But David stood his ground. On Sunday, February 21st, David and Cindy cleaned Angelica, inside and out, then clothed her and drove her miles down the highway.

They let her out on the side of the road and drove away. Angelica could hardly believe it. She walked on the road with her thumb out, looking for a ride back home. A man named Gary Laiba, an off-duty deputy for the sheriff's department, offered to give her a ride. As they drove, she told him that her own friends had held her hostage and detailed a couple of the sexual tortures they'd inflicted on her. Then she told him they had let her go.

Unfortunately, Gary didn't believe her. According to a study titled, Police Perceptions of Rape Victims and Impact on Case Decision-Making, a systematic review, published in the journal, Aggression and Violent Behavior, several different factors can affect how officers view the credibility of rape victims. One of the most substantial influence on police perception is the level of intoxication of the victim. The study found that the more intoxicated a victim was, the less credible police found the reports of sexual assault.

When Gary picked Angelica up, she was still reeling from the effects of the drugs David and Cindy had forced her to take. He saw she was high and believed her extreme story even less, at least not until a month later, when David Parker Ray's toy box would be thrown open for all the world to see. On March 20, 1999, David Parker Ray and Cindy Hendy drove to Albuquerque in their RV. They had gone with the express purpose of abducting a sex worker, And in a short matter of time, David had picked up a woman named Cindy Vihill.

When Vihil entered their RV, Cindy, David's girlfriend, had popped out of the bathroom and electrocuted Vihil with a stun baton and handcuffed her wrist together. They locked Vihil in a wooden box and drove her all the way back to David's home, in truth or consequences, 150 miles south of Albuquerque. Once there, they marched her into the bedroom in David's home. shocking her with a stun baton any time she made the slightest motion towards a window or door. The couple strapped her to the bed and locked a metal dog collar around her neck, attaching the chain to the wall. They played the tape, and Vihil was effectively terrified. She remembered praying to God, asking him to either provide some means of escape or let her die quickly. For the next two days, David and Cindy raped and tortured VIII.

Vihil while keeping her chained to the bed. Sometimes they would unchain her limbs so she could use the restroom, but the collar around her neck never came off. Vihil had almost lost hope by March 22, 1999. After a round of rape and torture, David loosened her chains to allow her to use the restroom. They were planning on taking her to the toy box later that day, so they allowed her chains to remain relatively loose. And midday, David decided to go and get supplies for the fun they had at store that night.

He and Cindy made sure Vihil's chains were fastened to their posts. Then he left the home, leaving Cindy behind. Cindy mocked Vihil, then left the room to watch TV. Vihil could hear the television from the other room as she languished in pain. Then her eyes fell on the bedside table. Cindy had left the key to her locks right next to her. Vihil's heart started to pound. The keys were right there, and she was confident that if she was willing to stretch, she could grab them.

Vihil stretched and reached, her legs throbbing with pain as she pushed her torso, first one inch and then another. Finally, after minutes of pained reaching, her fingers touched the cold, hard metal of the key. Behill snatched up the key and quickly unlocked her limbs. She tried to unlock the collar around her neck, but the lock was a different size. For a moment, her heart dropped, thinking the jig was up. But then, she looked up. She saw the lock attaching the chain to the wall was the same size as all the others. Excitedly, she tried the key.

And it worked. She was free to run. The collar still on her neck. Vihil sprinted from the room, the chain trailing behind her. When she entered the main room, she saw that Cindy Hendy was on the couch, directly blocking the exit. Cindy leaped to her feet and screamed, grabbing a lamp. Thinking quickly, Vihil looked around and saw an ice pick on the table. She grabbed the pick just as Cindy crashed the lamp against her head. The lamp cut a gash in Vihil's forehead, but Vihil steals herself against the blow.

She wasn't going back into that bedroom alive. She flew at Cindy and brought the pick directly into the back of Cindy's neck. Cindy fell to the ground, stunned by the wound. Vihil pressed forward and ran out the front door. Several neighbors saw the woman running naked down the road, clothed only in a metal dog collar. They called the police. And a neighboring couple even allowed Cindy to hide in their house as the police made their way over. When police arrived, Vihil told them everything that it had.

happened to her. Police immediately put the word out to capture David, and they found him with Cindy searching the roads for Vihil. They arrested him on the spot, finally bringing 59-year-old David Parker Ray's 45-year reign of terror to an end. It would take investigators some time to piece together the case against David. After getting search warrants, they found David's horrifying toy box, his recordings, and a single videotape of the torture of a woman with a distinctive tattoo. Police would later discover that the woman in the tape was Kelly Van Cleve.

She had moved away to California and had spent the last three years of her life, thinking her abduction was just an assortment of nightmares, thanks to the drugs David had forced on her. She was horrified to find out that the nightmares were real, but she was eager to testify against David and Jessie. Upon hearing about the David Parker Ray case, Deputy Gary Laba remembered the conversation he had with that strange hitchhiker a month earlier.

He hadn't believed her then, but now he believed her completely. He found Angelica Montaño. She was also eager to testify against David. After further searching of the residents, police found David's meticulous journals listing all of his victims. They pressed David for a confession, and he was eager to talk, but he deliberately avoided giving them any names. Instead, he spoke of all his past crimes as elaborate fantasies. He told them all about his vile actions, while still maintaining his legal deniability,

confessing without ever truly confessing. Police pressed Jesse and Cindy for more information. Jesse was tight-lipped in an attempt to defend herself and her father, but Cindy was easily manipulated. After brief interrogations, Cindy told police that David had bragged to her about killing all sorts of women. He had bragged about his first killing when he was 15. He had bragged about killing his former business partner, Billy Ray Bowers, and he had ordered Dennis Roy Yancey to kill Marie B. Parker.

only a few years before. Following this information, police immediately arrested Yancey, who crumbled under intense interrogation. He quickly confessed to the murder of Marie B. Parker and to assisting David with several abductions and tortures. Meanwhile, the investigators began searching for bodies all throughout the desert. Diving teams searched Elephant Butte Lake, and digging crews searched David's yard. But ultimately, investigators were unable to find any physical evidence of David's many victims. Some investigators believe David could have been responsible for up to 60 different disappearances. But the only body they ever found was that of Billy Ray Bowers.

Unfortunately, the only evidence they had linking David to Bowers was purely circumstantial. They considered trying David Parker Ray for murder in Bowers case, but failed due to a stark lack. of concrete evidence. As such, David Parker Ray was never convicted of murder. Luckily, as he had three surviving victims willing to testify, David was tried for every other heinous crime he had committed. After two years' worth of trials and investigations,

on September 20, 2001, David was found guilty of several counts of kidnapping, assault, unlawful sexual penetration, and a massive list of other crimes. He was sent to be sent to him. to 224 years in prison. For the next eight months, David was interrogated by various law enforcement officials

in an attempt to identify his many victims. Unfortunately, these attempts were entirely unsuccessful, and he was ultimately shipped to the Hobbs Lee County Correctional Facility. On May 28, 2002, the first official day of his prison sentence, he was placed in a holding cell to wait while his paperwork processed. After only a few minutes of sitting in his new prison, his heart stopped. He had a massive heart attack that killed him instantly, and he was declared dead at 8.40 p.m.

David Parker Ray was one of the most prolific serial killers of the previous century, and despite his extremely high body count, only one of his victim's bodies was ever found. His infamous toy box scarred many of the investigators who searched through it, and it scarred more women than we can ever know. The heinous crimes he committed within its walls helped it truly earn the name, Satan's Den. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Monday with a new episode.

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Cereal Killers was created by Max Cutler. It's a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler. Sound design by Dick Schroeder, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Maggie admire. This episode of serial killers was written by Giles Hofsef and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Want to hear something spooky. Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very

snake light lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide. Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed, is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat.

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