Murder In America - EP. 7 NEW MEXICO - The Toy Box Killer & His Sadistic Torture Chamber

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

What you’re about to hear, is extremely disturbing. Listener discretion for this episode is HEAVILY advised.  This is the depraved, sick story of David Parker Ray, the Toy Box Killer, a man who tortured and murdered an estimated 60 women in his "toy box" torture chamber throughout various decades. And once you hear David's audiotape... you can NEVER get it out of your mind. Once again, listener discretion, is HEAVILY advised.  You’re listening, to Murder in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night, it's easy sometimes to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, nobody has all the answers.

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This is not a joke. Seriously, this is a real warning. This episode is dark. Wrists and ankles chained, gagged, probably blindfolded. You are disoriented and scared too, I would imagine. Perfectly normal under the circumstances. For a little while at least, you need to get your shit together and listen to this take. It is very relevant to your situation.

I'm going to tell you in detail why you have been captured, what's going to happen to you, and how long you'll be here. I don't know the details of your capture, because this tape is being created July 23, 1993, as a general advisory tape for future female captives. The information I'm going to give you is based on my experience dealing with captives over a period of several years. If at a future date, there are any major changes in our procedures, the tape will be upgraded. Now, you are obviously here against your will, totally helpless, Don't know where you're at. Don't know what's going to happen, do you? You're very scared or very pissed off. I'm sure that you're ready to try to get your wrists and ankles loose and know you can't.

Now you're just waiting to see what's going to happen next. You probably think you're going to be raped and you're fucking sure right about that. Our primary interest is in what you've got between your legs. You'll be raped thoroughly and repeatedly in every hole you got. Because, basically, you've been snatched and brought here for us to train and use as a sex slave. Sound kind of far out? Well, I suppose it is to the uninitiated, but we do it all the time. It's going to take a lot of adjustment on your part, and you're not going to like it a fucking bit.

But I don't give the big rat's ass about that. It's not like you're going to have any choice about the matter. You've been taken by force, and you're going to be kept and used by force. What all this amounts to is that you're going to be kept naked and chained up like an enemy, to be used and abused anytime we want to, any way we want to. And you might as well start getting used to it, because you're going to be kept to. and used until such time as we get tired of fucking around with you. And we will, eventually, in a month or two, maybe three.

It's no big deal. My lady friend and I have been keeping sex slaves for years. I cannot predict the future. I can't predict changes of procedure. But if this tape is being played for you, I have to assume that it is still reasonably accurate. And I can only give you advice. Be smart and be a survivor.

Don't ever scream. Don't talk without permission. Be very quiet. Be docile and abysmal. and by all means show proper respect. Have a nice day. The torture chamber that you're trapped in, knowing that you're about to be tortured to death.

And that's only a small, small portion of the transcript from this terrifying audio tape. This is the depraved, sick story of the toy box killer. And once again, listener discretion for this episode is heavily advised. You're listening to Murder in America. in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. The weather that day was nice and cool,

and families were outside, picnicking, hiking, and enjoying the first week of spring. Elephant Butte is a small and beautiful town where a lot of people settled down or retire, but relaxation wasn't on the mind of a woman named Cynthia Vihil. In a scene taken straight from a horror film, Cynthia found herself running frantically for her life. She was completely naked, covered in bruises in blood,

and had a five-foot-long chain wrapped around her neck. She had just escaped from her captor and was running as fast as she could, attempting to find safety. She was screaming out for help, banging on people's doors, begging them to let her inside, but no one was answering. For the past three days, Cynthia had been bound, restrained, sexually assaulted, and tortured in unimaginably painful and gruesome ways. This wasn't just a jog. This was her only chance at survival, her only opportunity to save her own life. And as she ran, her heart was beating so fast she felt like it might explode. Around every corner she imagined her captors sitting, waiting to catch up with his prey,

and take her back to his torture chamber. The adrenaline pumping through her veins propelled her to keep running, to keep screaming, step after step. But as she continued on gasping for air and calling out for her, help, she began to lose hope. It seemed like no one was going to help her. And if no one helped Cynthia, she knew she was going to die. On this particular day, an elderly couple was sitting in their home enjoying their afternoon when they suddenly heard a frantic knock on their front door, followed by a woman screaming for help. They peaked out the window to see the visitor on their front steps,

and as they pulled back the curtains, they saw a woman, naked, covered in blood, with a five-foot-long chain around her neck. She's begging for them to let her inside, screaming, please let me in, they're coming, please don't let them get me. So after a moment of consideration, the couple cautiously opens their door and lets the woman in. The girl runs inside of the kitchen and hides under the kitchen table, shaking to her core. She tells the couple, I've been held captive for the last three days, repeatedly raped and tortured. Call the police. New Mexico, on December 6, 1939, a baby boy was brought into the world. At this point in someone's life, there are endless possibilities of how your life could turn out.

He could have become a doctor, a humanitarian, or even the president of the United States. But what happens to all of that potential when a child's upbringing is filled with abuse and neglect? When parents don't have their child's best interests at heart. For Cecil and Nettie Ray, their abuse would go on to play a part in raising one of a America's most sadistic serial killers, David Parker Ray, a man known for kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing his victims inside of his infamous toy box. David had an unfortunate life from the very beginning. In his immediate family were his sister Peggy and his parents, Nettie and Cecil. Cecil was a violent alcoholic who was barely ever

around. He would leave his family for months at a time and no one ever knew where he went when he was gone. When he would come home, Cecil would often sit little David, down and show him violent pornography, twisted videos that included graphic depictions of torture and sadomasochism, and David was exposed to all of this when he was just a young boy. This would have a profound effect on David throughout his life. David's mother, Nettie, wasn't much better of a person than her husband. Nettie was notorious throughout their extended family for neglecting her children and fleeing when she didn't feel like taking on her role as a mother.

And because both parents weren't around very often, David spent a lot of. lot of time with his aunt. But David's aunt proved to be the sickest individual in his upbringing. She was much worse than Cecil Inetti. When David was a young boy, his aunt would force him to have sex with her when no one was around. And just to be very clear, we aren't talking about normal vanilla sex here. David's aunt was considered to be a masochist, which is defined as someone who becomes sexually gratified by their own pain and humiliation. She would often use David to satisfy her urges by making him hurt her. This would end up playing a huge, role in the person David would become later in life. Because this was David's first sexual experience,

along with the violent porn he was shown at a young age, all he knew about sex was that it included pain and torture, and that those who were being abused tended to enjoy it. When David was around 10 years old, he and his sister Peggy ended up moving in with their grandparents in Mountain Air New Mexico. But sadly, his life didn't get much better. His grandparents didn't give David the structure and nurturing that he desperately needed. Instead, They often left him alone in the house, and when they did pay attention to him, the attention was full of criticism and verbal abuse. When he was young, David never really had a support system around him, or even people

to talk to. Because of this, he started journaling at a young age. Writing down one's thoughts is a therapeutic practice that therapists across the globe often recommend to their patients. But David's journals would prove to be an outlet where he would express his dark and demented fantasies. At one point, family members found these journals that David was keeping and to see. discovered disturbing hand-drawn images of women being tortured, beaten, and murdered.

This was where his fantasies were carefully crafted and expressed. David's journals were a place where he could sit and dream of the perfect way to kidnap, torture, and kill someone. He once said that he was just 10 years old when he first started fantasizing about torturing and mutilating women. These dark thoughts followed David throughout his childhood and into his adolescence, where they only intensified. He was bullied a lot in high school because he was extremely shy and didn't really know how to talk to women.

People would call him names and make fun of him openly in the hallways. And when you think about it, high school is really a time when a lot of people start to experiment sexually. And David didn't know how to have proper relationships with women because his only experience with sex at the time was the rape that his abusive aunt forced him to participate in and the violent pornography that he was shown at a young age. Because of this, when David met a woman, he didn't think about how to impress her or how he would ask her out. He would dream about torturing her. These thoughts continued to build for years until he finally reached the point

where he was ready to act on these fantasies. David committed his first rape in 1956 at just 16 years old. He kept a detailed journal of the experience, noting that his victim was around 16 years old, very pretty, and he kept her at Pine's Shadow, a large expanse of wilderness where he raped and tortured her all weekend.

Investigators also believe that this could have been David's first murder. By the time he graduated high school in 1958, David had tortured and murdered at least four women, according to his journals. He was only 17 years old, and he was already a sadistic serial killer. After high school, David found a job as a mechanic in the military, a position that he held for a few years before being honorably discharged. Despite him being a deranged killer behind closed doors, David just seemed like your average Joe. People said he was charming and kind and he would always lend a helping hand. But David really struggled with keeping relationships. In his life, he was married and divorced numerous times and had two children, a son and a daughter.

In the late 60s, early 70s, David continued to spiral into darkness. During this period in his life, he would torture and murder at least two women a year. But around the mid-70s, David's sadism only grew more intense, and during some of these years, he killed up to five women a year. At this time in David's life, he's a park ranger, so he has hundreds of acres of land right at his fingertips. And authorities eventually concluded that it was somewhere in this blank expanse of nature that he would bury his victims. His sadistic pattern of torture, rape, and murder occurred regularly over 40 years, and during this time period, law enforcement never even had David Parker Ray on their radar. That is, until March 22nd, 1999, when one of David's victims escaped.

The first woman to ever escape David's sick fantasy was the woman we discussed at the beginning of the story, who was frantically running through the streets trying to get help. And her name was Cynthia V. Hill. At the time, Cynthia was a beautiful 22-year-old who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had had a very rough upbringing, and as an adult, Cynthia had ended up finding a job as a sex worker. She didn't prefer this lifestyle, but she did what she had to do to make ends meet. On March 20th, 1999, as Cynthia was walking through Central Albuquerque, she ran into a friend of hers, and this friend pointed to a nearby motorhome and said that the man that lived there wanted

to hire Cynthia for her services. Now Cynthia really needed the extra money at the time, so she agreed and got inside of David Parker Ray's vehicle. After discussing the services she would provide, David pulls out a park ranger badge and tells her that she's under arrest for solicit The next thing Cynthia remembers is that a woman comes out from behind her and tries to put handcuffs on her. At this point, Cynthia knows that this isn't an arrest. This is an abduction. David and Cindy proceed to handcuff Cynthia to the pipe in the RV and then they get back into the vehicle.

At this point, Cynthia is freaking out and she knows that if she doesn't escape, these people are going to kill her. So she starts pulling at the pipe and she notices that some of the screws are looking at the loose, so she carefully takes out each screw one by one and releases herself, which leads to a brief moment of relief. As she stands up to walk to the door of the RV, she feels the vehicle come to a stop. They had reached a traffic light. The sudden quick stop caused Cynthia to lose her balance, and she violently bumps into the RV's wall. David and Cindy hear this, and Cindy comes running back into the RV. She attacks Cynthia with the cattle prod and forces her back into the handcuffs. Cindy then strips Cynthia naked and duct tapes her mouth shut, making sure she won't be able to escape again.

Cynthia feels tired and defeated knowing that she was just feet away from freedom, and I'm sure that she was awash with gloom as she sat and considered her fate. David and Cindy then proceed to drive the RV 150 miles away from Albuquerque to their home in Elephant Bute. Once they arrive, they force Cynthia out of the RV and immediately attached shackles to her feet. They lead her into a room in the house and put a thick, collared chain around her neck, a chain that was attached to the wall, a device intended to prevent victims from escaping. They then handcuff both of Cynthia's arms and legs to the corners of the bed. They gag her, put a blindfold over her eyes, and she's forced into a world of darkness.

The room is silent for a moment, void of noise, and Cynthia's heartbeat is pumping loudly through her ears when suddenly she hears the sound of a tape recorder. And what plays on this tape recorder will stick with Cynthia for the rest of her life. Now, I already read you some of the transcript at the beginning of this podcast, and it's really long. It's incredibly long. So I'm just going to pick out a part to read to you guys from what Cynthia was played and try to illustrate how depraved this man and woman were.

If you want to hear the full recreation of the audio tape, I'm going to be uploading it to our. Patreon tomorrow. But anyways, here's a little bit of the transcript from the audio tape that Cynthia heard once she got to the toy box. We've had a lot of practice at this and we're not real concerned about you escaping. You're fucking sure not going to go anywhere. Now if you're not already naked, you soon will be. Your clothing will be bagged up and saved until such time as we decide to turn you loose. As far as being naked goes, you might as well get used to it. For what you're going to be used for, clothing would just be in the way. Besides, I'll be able to. I'll be able to.

Not like watching a naked woman's body, all of it, whether it be in a room or on the TV set. As I've already said, you'll be fed and watered on a regular basis. Not as much of either as you're used to, I'm sure, but enough to keep you healthy. You'll only be fed once a day like the rest of the animals. And during the first few days, until you adjust to it and your stomach shrinks up, you're going to feel a little weak and you'll be hungry all the time. It won't take long, three or four days. And during the first few days, until you adjust to the environment, I prefer to keep you in a weakened condition anyways. Now, you already know that you've been kidnapped and brought here for us to train and use as a sex slave.

I realize that being abducted and forced into sexual slavery is a hard pill to swallow. Some girls really have a lot of trouble with it, and I'm sure that you will to a certain extent. But face it, you can't get away. You can't say no. You're going to be naked all the time. You won't be able to struggle or resist. You're going to have to lay there and take it, good or bad, no matter what is being done to you. A scary thought?

Yes, but there are no honest. options. Nothing that you can say or do will change the fact that it's going to happen. Many girls beg and plead, almost all of them cry a lot, especially during the first three or four days, and some of them scream and threaten. But I have a poster on the wall in the playroom that says it all. If they're worth taking, they're worth keeping. And I'm going to tell you, just so you know, since you're being kept here against your will, we will never trust anything you say or do or promise. There's going to be a lot of other things done to your body besides just fucking and sucking. But for that, for the most part, you'll either be in stringent bondage or strapped down on a gynecology table. You won't be able to struggle or resist anyway. Now you're going to be required to learn fast. Training is not one of my favorite things to do, and I prefer fucking around with a slave that's already trained. I've given you the basics, so there is not that much to learn. But until you accept the fact that you are a slave, you're going to have problems with it. Remember that each time you fuck up, you are going to be punished. And after it happens a few times, you're not that you're going to be punished. And after it happens a few times, you're not. You're going to be punished. And after it happens a few times, you're not you're a few times. You're

Sometimes you're really going to dread it. Some girls tend to be a little rebellious. I sure as hell wouldn't advise that, because it will get you in serious trouble. Here, you definitely need to be dossal. You're not in any position to be otherwise. And like I said before, that is just a small portion

of the transcript of this audio tape, and it gets very graphic, very descriptive, and it's one of the most disturbing things that I've ever read in my life. I can't imagine the fear that Cynthia and all the other victims had in their hearts when they heard this played for him. Over the next few days, Cynthia experiences the unthinkable.

David and Cindy brought her into their soundproof torture room, and they began pulling out devices from David's infamous toy box, a name given to the box by David himself. There were signs in the room that read Satan's den and the bondage room. The room and the toy box itself were filled with chains, whips, pulleys, clamps, straps, dildos, leg spreaders, branding irons, leather belts, paddles, sandpaper, syringes, surgical blades, saws, and images of terrifying rape scenes. And these tools that I just described are only the tip of the iceberg.

He even had a spiked rod that he would insert into the orifices of his victims. He also had these dolls, anatomically correct dolls too, spread throughout the torture chamber that had bondage devices attached to them and other torture devices as well. David had anatomy books and even torture books that would have instructed the reader on how to inflict the maximum amount of pain on someone without killing them. In the center of the room sat a rusty old gynecologist chair with straps and cables attached to it. There was a mirror above the chair so that victims were forced to watch everything that was happening to them.

There were even notes on a piece of paper that David would read if he ever started to feel bad for his victim. Remember, a woman will do or say anything to get loose. They will kick, scratch. Offer money, bite, yell, beg, scream, run, offer sex, threaten, lie, wait for opportunity. Standard excuses are sob stories, menstruating, pregnant, venereal disease, AIDS, sick, kids with babysitter, have to work, a sick baby, sick parent, claustrophobia, missed by husband or friend, bad heart, can't miss school. Don't let her get to you. If she is worth taking, she's worth keeping.

Never trust a chained captive. Cynthia said that they would hang her from the ceiling like she was a piece of meat in a slaughterhouse, and they would torture and sexually assault her for hours at a time. The duo would also torture Cynthia by attaching clamps to her body that were attached to a motor. After attaching the clamps, they would turn the motor on and it would electrocute Cynthia, giving her electric shocks that were so painful she would sometimes pass out. They had designed these electric clamps so that the shocks weren't enough to kill her, but it would still render her completely helpless.

And it goes without saying that this method of torture is extremely painful. On the third day of her captivity, Cynthia was exhausted, barely clinging on to life. David seemed to recognize this, and as he headed out for work that morning, dressed in his park ranger attire, he decided to leave Cynthia's arms and legs unchained, figuring she was too weak to escape, so Cynthia was held only by her neck chain at this point. David leaves from work, leaving Cynthia and Cindy in the house alone together. Minutes later, Cindy walks into the room and she's on the phone, talking to someone in a normal tone of voice, as if there isn't a dying captive lying helpless on the bed in front of her.

However, unbeknownst to Cindy, Cynthia was watching her and she quickly noticed that Cindy had the keys to her neck chain held in her hand. As she's talking on the phone, Cindy becomes distracted and she sets the keys down on a table and leaves the room. Cynthia knows that her only chance to make it out alive is to grab those keys. so she stretches her leg out and pulls the table closer to her, and then stretches her arm out, reaching with all of her might, and in a stroke of luck, she's able to grab the keys. At this point, Cynthia knows that Cindy could walk in the room at any moment, and she doesn't want her to see that the table has been pulled towards her,

so she starts to push it back to its original position. But as she's pushing the table back, Cindy walks back into the room. Cindy sees that the keys aren't on the table, so she immediately runs over to Cynthia and tries to get the keys from her. But Cynthia, knowing that these keys are the only way she's going to see another day, puts up a fight. And because Cindy is unable to get the keys away from her, she grabs a lamp and starts beating Cynthia in the head with it.

There's glass everywhere. And while Cynthia is getting hit in the head over and over, she sees a phone that is within her reach. So she grabs it and quickly dials 911. But before she is able to talk to dispatch, Cindy takes the phone from her and hangs up. While Cindy is struggling to hang up the phone, Cynthia sees an ice pick laying nearby and she slashes Cindy in the back of the head. She then takes the keys, unlocks her chain, and runs out of the house as fast as she can.

Now the call that Cynthia made to 9-1 went through to dispatch, and they immediately called the number back. And when they do, Cindy answers, and she tells them that everything's fine. The first call was just a butt dial. But the dispatch said that the woman that they talked to seemed very, very, agitated and she was really out of breath. So they decided to send an officer to the address for a welfare check. The local police department sends a deputy to David's home, along with a few state rangers, and as they're driving to the residents, they see a car on the side of the road with a woman trying to flag them down. So they pull over to see what the woman needs, and she tells

them that she had just seen a woman running down the road, naked, covered in blood with a chain around her neck. Around this time, they get the call from the elderly couple telling authorities that they have a naked, bloody woman at their house. The woman later described Cynthia and said, Her wrist looked like hamburger meat. She had beautiful, long brown hair, and it was matted with blood. She was dirty all over. Her breasts were black and blue,

and there were bruises all over her arms and legs. They send an ambulance and a police officer to the elderly couple's residence, and when they arrive, Cynthia runs out of the front door towards the police. She tells them what happened, and that the people who took her captive were named David and Cindy. She then pointed to the police officer and said he's one of you because his park ranger uniform looked a lot like the police officer's uniform. And it didn't take long for

authorities to put two and two together and realized that their perpetrator was David Parker Ray. Both he and Cindy tried to skip town after Cynthia escaped, but as they were making their escape, police officers saw David's vehicle speeding down the road. They pulled him over and arrested the two of them. While officers are arresting Cindy, they notice that she's bleeding profusely from her head, the wound caused by Cynthia slashing her with an ice pick. So they take her to the hospital. And interestingly enough, they take her to the same hospital that Cynthia is being treated at. And while Cynthia sitting in her hospital room, being treated after days of extremely sick and painful torture, she's rocking back and

forth, telling herself, aloud, I'm safe here, I'm safe here, I'm safe here. And she still has the chain around her neck at this point. Apparently, the chain had a padlock on it so it wasn't easy to remove, but she begs the hospital staff to take it off of her. They eventually get it unhooked, and when it releases, Cynthia throws it across the room. Around this time, Cynthia looks out of her hospital room, and she sees Cindy being escorted through the halls by officers. If you remember, they're being treated at the same hospital. And when Cynthia sees her, she starts screaming, help, help, don't let her get me,

she's here to kill me. I can't imagine the trauma that Cynthia endured during those days of torture. After Cindy was treated at the hospital, she was brought into police custody. And officers start to question both she and David in separate rooms. David and Cindy had thoroughly planned

what they were going to say before they were arrested because both of them had the same story. They admitted to investigators that yes, they did kidnap Cynthia. But the reason they did so was because they were trying to help her with her heroin addiction. And the reason why she was chained up was because they knew she would be withdrawing and they really wanted to help her. Investigators knew this wasn't true because of the terrible injuries Cynthia had all over

her body. They also saw David's toy box and torture room, so they had reason to believe that he was a monster. They immediately arrest Cindy Hindi and David Parker Ray that day and charged them both with kidnapping, assault, criminal sexual penetration, and conspiracy. And the media went absolutely crazy over these arrests. Two sadistic torturers and a serial killer caught in a small town made big headlines. And because of all of this media coverage, a woman named Helica Montanio came forward and told investigators that she too had been one of David Parker Ray and Cindy's victims. She said that on February 17, 1999, she was hanging

out at a bar with Cindy because the two of them were friends. And Cindy asked her if she wanted to come over afterwards. And because she knew her, she agreed. As soon as they got back to the house, David and Cindy attacked her, tortured and raped her for days. And Cindy actually ended up convincing David to let her go because she kept saying that she had a sick kid she needed to go home to. So they just dropped her off on the side of the road and let her go. And she ended up telling her telling the police, but they didn't believe her story at the time and they didn't even look into it. The FBI wanted to find out just how many people that David Parker Ray had victimized, so they actually released photos that David took of the women that he had tortured.

David enjoyed keeping these photographs, mementos of sorts, so that he could return in his mind to each grisly rape and murder that he had committed, almost a happy place for him that he took pleasure in returning to. Police eventually released this one picture of a naked woman in the gynecologist's chair in the middle of a torture session. They had released these photos in hopes that someone could help identify these victims, and soon after they released this specific photo, investigators got a call from a woman named Kelly Garrett,

and she told them, I don't remember this situation at all, but that is definitely me in the picture. Kelly goes on to tell investigators that she and her husband got in a fight one night in July of 1996, and that she had left their house to go to a bar and have a few drinks. While she was there, she ran into this woman. The two hit it off, and after a few drinks,

the woman had asked her, hey, do you want to come back and hang out of my place afterwards? And Kelly was still mad at her husband at the time, so she agreed. On the way to her place, the woman had asked Kelly. Do you mind if we stop at my dad's place really quick? Kelly says that she doesn't mind, and the woman pulls in to David Parker Ray's residence. Interestingly enough, this woman wasn't Cindy Hendy, the woman who helped capture and torture Cynthia. In fact, David hadn't even met Cindy at this point yet. The woman who helped lure Kelly to David's residence was David's own daughter, Jesse Ray.

Kelly told investigators that she followed Jesse into the house, and the next thing she remembers is Jesse and David coming after her with duct tape. Over the next few days, David pumped Kelly full of drugs, drugs that made her completely forget anything and everything that happened in the torture chamber, which is why she initially didn't remember David taking pictures and videos of her in the gynecology. chair. After days of torturing and raping Kelly, David puts on his park ranger uniform, puts Kelly in the back of the ranger vehicle, and drives her back home, and tells her family that he found her wandering around, dazed and confused. Kelly knew at the time that there was something

sketchy about this situation, but she couldn't remember anything from the past few days, so she doesn't even know how to approach authorities. Over the next few years, she has terrible nightmares that never really makes sense to her, but as soon as she sees the picture in the guy in the call, chair, everything starts to make sense. So law enforcement immediately arrest David's daughter, Jesse Ray, as well. After the arrest, Cindy knows that she's in big trouble, so she starts telling investigators everything she knows so that she can get her sentence reduced. She tells them about how David's been killing women since he was a teenager, that he had killed women in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and Alaska. And she also confesses to her part in the abductions.

She told investigators that she was very infatuated with David, so that's why she helped him abduct women. And even though they let some of them go, about 14 of the girls were murdered. She said that David had disposed of their bodies in Elephant Butte State Park, where he had worked as a park ranger, and that he would put their bodies in Elephant Butte Lake, because the body of water was over 57 square miles, and he knew that no one would ever be able to find them. And usually bodies float to the surface after you put them in water. So David would take out all of their organs so that they would never surface. She also told investigators that it wasn't just her and his daughter, Jesse, that had helped him kill women.

He also had an accomplice named Roy Yancey. When investigators bring Roy in for questioning, he almost immediately confesses to everything. He specifically brought up one instance where David made him kill his own girlfriend on July 4, 1990. Her name was Marie Parker. Apparently, they all went to a party at David's house that night, and David drugged Roy's girlfriend. He then brought the drugged up Marie and Roy to his toy box, handed Roy a rope, pointed a gun to his head, and forced him to kill Marie Parker in front of him. They then drove Marie's body to a nearby canyon to dispose of her. And even though they have the testimony of Cindy and Roy, and investigators thoroughly search all of David's suspected dumping sites,

they are never able to locate one single body of his murder victims. And based on witness testimony and David's journals, authorities believed that he killed up to 60 women. David ended up making a plea deal, saying that he would plead guilty to all charges against him if his daughter Jesse would be released from prison. And even though she was his accomplice in his murders, investigators accepted the plea deal and released Jesse after only serving two and a half years. Cindy received 36 years in prison for her part in Cynthia and Angelica's kidnapping. Roy pled guilty and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

David himself was sentenced to 224 years. Now, in an almost Shakespearean twist that infuriates me, and I'm sure this is going to infuriate everybody that's listening, the ending of this story is shrouded in mystery and sadness. While David was in prison serving his sentence, he seemed to have found God or religious of sorts and decided that he was going to confess to everything he had ever done and tell investigators information about how they could find the bodies of his victims. This would have been huge. They could have recovered many corpses, brought closure to all the families that were affected in this massive

crime spree, but in a tragic turn of events, right before David was able to confess, he died in prison of a random heart attack. The FBI believed that David Parker Ray killed anywhere from 40 to 60 women all around the United States. He would flash a badge, gain people's trust, and then he would use them

to satisfy his demented urges. And not one single murder victim was ever found. He was meticulous, and he had practiced murdering women and disposing of their bodies for nearly 40 years. And he was going to, good at what he did, which is why none of his victims were ever found. Their bodies remain somewhere

among the vast New Mexico desert, and David Parker Ray took those locations to the grave so we could never find them. So in a way, he's still torturing his victims beyond death. Now, we don't know what happened to the toy box. We don't know if investigators destroyed the trailer, if they're still holding it somewhere as evidence. It's just an unknown. I don't even know what happened to all of the torture devices that David Parker Ray used to dismember and torture his victims. But hearing this story and digging deep into the details, one can only imagine the amount of pain that these victims felt when they were under the control of David Parker Ray. Still, to this day, none of the bodies have been located, not a single one. And this goes perfectly with the

theme of our show. I've been sitting your thinking recording this this entire time. What do these victims have to say? What about the victims that were never even identified? Victims that the police were never able to find. The police were never able to provide closure on, missing persons cases that still remain unsolved. And this story goes to show you can never trust anyone. if David Parker Ray could get away with murder for decades and still hold a job as a park ranger. Who else is out there right now in a position of power, abusing that power to get away with murder? I don't know. I have no answers.

This is the end of the story. But I can only imagine at the bottom of that deep, dark lake, that those bodies are sitting waiting to be found, crying out helplessly into the dark abyss, pleading for help and screaming for revenge. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening to episode seven of murder in America. Wow, we have been on a crazy journey so far. We've gone through Texas, Idaho, South Dakota, and now New Mexico. And I hope this episode wasn't too intense for you guys listening at home.

I'm sure that some of you had to turn this off halfway through because, man, is this one sick and twisted story? Courtney's not here right now. She's at work. I'm just finishing this up for the both of us. And we both got to tell you guys that we love you if you're out there listening. And we appreciate you supporting us in our endeavors to tell these stories of the victims who are forgotten. Like I said, I'm going to be recording David Parker Ray's full audio transcript. or I should just say the transcript to audio

of the tape that he would play his victims that's going to be on Patreon go subscribe to our Patreon we've uploaded a lot of stuff recently and I'll leave you guys with this if we could talk to these spirits of those people whose bodies are laying at the bottom of the lake

what would they have to say? It makes you wonder the dead don't talk or do they see on the next one everybody