Unseen - The Toy Box Killer: The Disturbing Case of Cynthia Vigil | UNSEEN

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

“Are you comfortable now? I doubt it.” -- On March 20th, 1999, Cynthia meets up with her friend, never expecting she is minutes away from being abducted. When she wakes up, a chilling voice speaks to her – it's coming from a recording.  As her tears dry up, the early memories of her tough childhood revive, and a voice in her heart tells her: escape. Footage from: I Survived a Serial Killer (A&E), House of Horrors: Kidnapped (Investigation Discovery), Wicked Attraction (Investigation Discovery), It Takes a Killer (Oxygen), Barcroft TV, A&E, KOAT, KRQE, Street Safe NM, True Consequences Podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello there, bitch. Are you comfortable right now? Wrists and ankles chained, gagged, probably blindfolded. You were obviously here against your will. For a little while, at least, you need to get your shit together and listen to the state. This audio recording was made by David Parker Ray, also known as the Toy Box Killer. What you're about to hear was played for Cynthia Vihil, the day she was captured. Now, I'm going to tell you in detail why you have been kidnapped. what's going to happen to you and how long you'll be here.

Under the circumstances, I bet that is a scary thought. You're going to be kept in an environment that is even more secure than a prison cell. Here, your status is no more than that of one of the dogs or one of the animals out in the barn. Because, basically, you've been snatched and brought here for us to train and use as a sex lady. The recording lasts for 50 minutes. The content is extremely disturbing, but what will be shared in this video is the crucial piece of evidence that will lead to David Parker Ray's conviction. Cynthia Vihil, taken captive by the notorious toy box killer, chained, enslaved, violated for three days. But she fought back and escaped, and David Parker Ray was arrested that same day.

When the FBI raided his house, nothing could prepare them for what they would find in the white trailer parked outside. Cases such as Kelly Van Cleve and Mary Parker, which have left police baffled for years, were finally resolved. And David Parker Ray was sentenced to 224 years in prison, all because of one survivor. But the most shocking part is every piece of the puzzle was hidden in plain sight. I don't understand how nobody seen me. That made no sense to me. In the small town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, 19-year-old Kelly Van Cleve lives with her husband,

It's July 25, 1996. Kelly goes missing after a fight with her husband. He starts searching around town for his wife, informs the police. They soon find out she was last seen at a local bar, the Blue Water Saloon, with a few friends, one of them, a woman named Jesse Ray. Three days later, July 28th, Kelly is brought back home by a park ranger. She appears to be drunk, with bruises and blood everywhere. I was so dazed and incoherent.

My hair was a mess. I had sand everywhere. I was still in the same clothes. I was in the day I left. The ranger says he found her wandering around the beach, delirious. But Kelly has no recollection of the past three days. She's in pain, terrified. I did not know what had happened, and I didn't know what to do.

July 5, 1997, one year after Kelly's disappearance, a close friend of hers goes missing, 22-year-old Mary Parker. Two days later, Mary's mother walks up to the sheriff's office, stating that she hasn't heard from her daughter in days. Police investigate. The tracks lead back to the Blue Water Saloon. Kelly was there. She saw Marie leave with her ex-boyfriend, Roy Yancey,

and a common friend of theirs, Jesse Ray. Police interrogate Jesse, who says she dropped Mary home that night. After nearly two weeks with no news on Mary, because she is known for substance abuse, the case is dropped, and Mary is treated as a runaway. She had two little girls. There was no way she was going to leave her kids. So I knew something would happen.

It's March 20th, 1999, 150 miles away from where Mary was last seen. 22-year-old Cynthia V. Hill is living out of a hotel room. I was running from a boyfriend at the time. I didn't want to be around him, so I had a friend's motel. After staying there for days, she feels safer than at home. But she doesn't know a man has been stalking her. As she leaves the hotel in the morning, she encounters a friend named DJ. He tells her someone has been asking for her.

and that the man is waiting in an RV across the street. Cynthia knows she shouldn't go inside, but dismisses her instinct. She walks in, closes the door. A few minutes later, the RV drives off, and Cynthia goes missing as well. Days pass. Cynthia is nowhere to be found. Her hotel room empty. No one tells the police about the sudden and unusual disappearance of Cynthia,

not even her friend DJ, who saw her leave. It's March 22nd, 1999. The 911 operator for the Sierra County Sheriff's Department receives an unusual call, but no one is there. Minutes later, a second person calls 911 with shocking information that will be the first clue to what happened to all three women. Kelly, Mary, and Cynthia. Our young lady, they're running to the house. She said she's just been raped. She's got her chain on her and everything. Since I'm one right away, this lady's naked and everything else. She said they've been holding us for three days. The woman she is referring to is 22-year-old Cynthia Vihil, and unlike Kelly, Cynthia remembers everything. The morning of her abduction, Cynthia is sitting inside the RV, next to the man who has been asking for her.

The man doesn't look very threatening, but something unusual happens that should raise a red flag. I noticed that he'd given DJ some money out the window and DJ took off running and left me there. Cynthia and the man talk for a few minutes. He seems interested in her line of work. Then, he takes out a handcuff and snaps it at her wrist. Cynthia panics. She tries to make a run for it and pull herself away. But the man is too strong, and he's holding on tight.

I was like, literally my fingertips are touching the door. At that moment, a woman comes out from behind the shower curtain and shocks her with a cattle prod. That knocked me to my knees. They handcuffed me to the cabinet. The two captors drive off. Their prey chained tightly in the back of the RV. While the car is in motion, Cynthia unscrews the cabinet handle she's attached to.

I remember getting up on my feet, crouching down. And I was like, as soon as the RV stops slow enough, I'm going to hit the door. But the RV stops abruptly, sending Cynthia rolling to the floor, exposing that she's untied herself. I was loose. My hands were behind my back, but I was loose. Well, she came to the back with a gun. That's when they took all my clothes off me. They shackled my feet, duct taped my face from my chin around the top of my head.

Then, after driving for hours, the vehicle slows down to a stop. Cynthia's taken out of the RV at gunpoint. Once outside, she can see other trailer houses all around. In clear sight, she hopes someone will notice her as she's in handcuffs, naked, with a gun at her side. But that hope quickly fades. It was broad daylight. I don't understand how nobody seen me. I didn't understand that.

That made no sense to me. Once inside, they sit her on the bed, put a metal slave collar around her neck, padlocked and chained to the wall. I couldn't wrap my mind around what was going on. I was so in shock. I was totally freaking out because I didn't know what the future held for me at that point. And then he played a tape of him talking. Hello there, bitch.

Are you comfortable right now? I doubt it. Wrists and ankles chained, jagged, probably blindfolded. I don't know the details of your capture because this tape is being created, July 23rd, 1993, is a general advisory tape for future female captives. All of a sudden, I knew that I wasn't the only person that he had done this too. Now, you're obviously here against your will.

Totally helpless. You're very scared. You probably think you're going to be . And you're f***ed you're right about that. You've been snatched and brought here for us to train and use as a sex slave. You may be married, have a kid or two, boyfriend, girlfriend. I don't give a rat's ass about any of that. I don't want any hear about it.

Here, your status is no more than that of one of the dogs or one of the animals out in the barn. I won't have any qualms at all about sacking your throat. As she is lying in bed, terrified, what she hears next explains why none of the neighbors saw her and why she shouldn't wait for their help. The only close house belongs to our friends, and they don't hear or see anything.

They know about our hang-ups. You may be required to service them, occasionally. The rest of it basically said what was going to happen to you, like how he was going to torture you. During the next three days, Cynthia suffers unimaginably at the hands of her captors, the details of which we will not be sharing. They were both just like that was something they did every day.

At this point, I was numb. Every night, the two captors make their bed on the floor next to her. and every night she hears them talk about their twisted plans. I knew I was going to die. I knew that they were going to kill me. I just didn't know any. I wanted to die. I wanted to take my own life.

On the last night, she overhears them talk about a little girl, a girl they planned to kidnap at a young age, and turn into their slave. And Cynthia understands they already know which girl it will be. And I just stayed laying there. They gave a little girl going through what I just went through. That little girl stayed in my head. March 22nd, something clicks inside Cynthia's mind.

She knows she needs to escape to stop them from ever hurting anyone else. I was figuring how do I get out of this. My head was telling me to stay calm and do what they say. The man is getting ready to leave for work. He's dressed in a uniform, almost. like a cop. That's when he tells her. A sweet chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet,

go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet, no. Crispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326 participating stores only while supplies last the app for full terms. And he gets back. He's taking her into the toy box. I didn't know what that meant. I just, I knew it was going to be more tortured.

She recalls the recording and how the man described his toy box. It dawns on her. There is something worse waiting for her. You're going to be kept in the hidden slave room. It is relatively soundproof. escape-proof, and it is completely stocked with devices and equipment to satisfy our sexual fetishes and deviations. You haven't seen anything yet. I knew I had to find a way to escape.

The man unties her wrists and ankles, leaving only the collar chained around her neck. He puts a bucket next to the bed as her toilet for the day. After the man leaves, Cynthia is alone with the woman. Cynthia's mind is racing and racing, wondering how she's ever going to escape, but she can't try anything because the woman is sitting right next to her, watching TV. Then, the phone rings. The woman takes a call and walks into the other room, making one crucial mistake. I seen that she left the keys on the coffee table, and I said, here's my chance to get the keys.

I have to choke myself to get my boyfriend. body that far to reach the table of my foot. With her captor still just a few feet away, Cynthia can't make any loud noise. She pulls a table closer using just her feet, grabs the keys between her toes. Then, when she finally holds the keys in her hands, her captor returns. But Cynthia doesn't care. She tries key after key to unlock the collar from the wall. The woman grabs a green lamp from the table and starts hitting her with it.

With every hit, Cynthia sees black. But she has to stay awake. She has to unlock herself. I knew if I didn't get away, I would die. I'm telling myself, you cannot give up. Finally, one of the key turns, releasing the padlock from the wall, Cynthia jumps off the bed, grabs the phone the woman just dropped, and dials 911. But before she can say anything, the woman stabs her with a knife.

Cynthia drops the phone and takes the ice picture. she finds on the table close by. In one final rush of adrenaline, she stabs the woman, just enough to stunt her, and runs off through the front door. As she's running in the dirt road, naked, covered in blood,

with a chain still attached to her neck, she signals to a passing car, asking for help. But the stranger in the car locks her door, and storms off, so Cynthia continues to run, and run. She searches for her house with signs that someone is home.

When she sees one with an open door, she runs inside without knocking. The elderly woman inside hasn't noticed her yet. Cynthia grabs her by the shoulders and turns her around, screaming for help. It's a young lady that ran into the house and says she's just been raped. She's got her chain on her and everything. She's been someone right away. This lady's naked and everything else.

She said they've been holding her for three days. When police arrive, Cynthia locks herself inside the house. She doesn't trust them, as she remembers seeing her abductor wearing a similar uniform. And it wasn't until a state cop showed up. Open the door, I ran past all them cops and jumped on him, and he put me in the cop car. He's like, I promise you, I promise you, you'll be okay. When we got to the hospital, that cop did not leave my side. Even when he was off duty, he stayed there right by my side.

New tonight, the woman who escaped the torture chamber of a sadistic sexual predator. He survived three days of torture in Ray's House of Horror. Hill Hadamillo says what she heard in David Parker Ray's torture chamber makes her believe there are other victims out there. March 22, 1999, minutes after Cynthia is taken to the hospital, her two captors are intercepted a block from where she was found, trying to skip town in their RV. The FBI execute a search warrant on their residence, but nothing can prepare them for what they will find.

You go to the room where Cynthia was kept, it was just frightening off of the main trailer. There was a converted rider truck. Then Pandora's box was open. Never seen anything like it in my life. You could tell it was just a place of evil. I wouldn't state your name for the record. David Redd. David Parker.

Was she a willing participant? Yes. She not want to do it if she was willing. The FBI believed David was responsible for somewhere between 45 and 60 murders. But what happened to Kelly Van Cleve and to Mary Parker has yet to be uncovered. As the FBI is investigating the scene, they come across a videotape. It is a recording of a woman held captive inside the toy box. On her leg, they identify a very particular tattoo.

They share the tattoo on national news, hoping someone will recognize it. Very shortly afterwards, a woman came forward and said, that's my tattoo, that's me. They showed me pictures of my tattoos that they had taken off of a video, and I had to identify myself from those pictures. After I seen the pictures that they showed me, everything started to click. Since her disappearance three years prior, Kelly has been having nightmares, but she still can't remember what happened, until they share with her a portion of the transcript of the recording of David Parker Ray's voice,

which explains what he did to her. This episode is brought to you by Ultima Replenisher. Health is all about balance, like a set. salad with fries. So why not have balance in your hydration? With six essential electrolytes and no junk, Ultima provides balanced hydration you can enjoy every day. That means no sugar, calories, or carbs, and it's not loaded with sodium.

Just delicious plant-based flavors you'll actually look forward to drinking. Shop Ultima on Amazon or in store at Target and Whole Foods Market. If I killed every b*** that we kidnapped, there'd be bodies strung all over the country. So, I've devised a safe, alternate method of disposal. After we get completely through with you, you're going to be d-diggled up real heavy. You're going to be kept a couple days while I play with your mind. You're not going to remember a fucking thing about this little adventure. So I knew all of my nightmares that I had been having.

They weren't just nightmares, they were true. And then I started remembering other things. The woman named Jesse Ray, who was last seen with Kelly on the night of her disappearance, was working with David Parker Ray. She drugged Kelly and drove her to David's house. Jesse Ray was actually David's daughter. And the park ranger who brought Kelly back to her house when she disappeared was none other than David himself.

As Kelly's disappearance was identical to that of Mary Parker, the FBI reopens her case, which leads them to Roy Yucing. Gansy. When Roy is interrogated, he confesses everything. From what I understand is that he's had many years of kidnapping, torturing, and killing women. He was instructed to kill Marie Parker. How did you come up with the idea to kill Marie? That was David Ray Parker's idea. I was told not to tell anybody anything or I was going to be killed and thrown him to get.

And he told you that, David. Mary Parker's body remains missing, but the family can finally have closure. When the case goes to trial, both Cynthia and Kelly are forced to face David and his girlfriend, Cindy. He acted like he was totally innocent and he had done nothing wrong. And it pissed me off. I didn't want to cry and let him know how much he hurt me. I didn't want to be his victim. I didn't want to go to court.

I didn't want to have to go face him, but I did it because I had to do what I could to save other women. All of David Parker Ray's accomplices pled guilty to their crimes, and eventually so did Ray. The jury gave him the maximum sentence of 224 years in prison. Nothing can repair the damage done by such evil, but because of Cynthia's incredible courage and strength, there will never be another victim. And the young girl she was worried about during her captivity is finally safe and sound. David Parker Ray died in prison that same year of a heart attack.

When I found out that he had passed away, I was happy. But at the same time, I was really sad because the people that are missing their loved ones, their bodies, who knows where they're not. at. Now, more than 30 years after her escape, she's still sharing her story to help other women in need reach out for help. Cynthia has become a force in her community. I have a nonprofit called Street Safe New Mexico. 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.

Thank you.