December 3, 2024 • 20 mins
Known as “The Toy Box Killer”, David Parker Ray was never charged with murder. However, he is believed to be responsible for 45-60 unsolved murders. Sloane unpacks the chilling story with Andrea Gunning (host of “Betrayal”) and Ben Fetterman (co-host of “There and Gone: South Street”).
Reach out to the American Homicide team by emailing us at AmericanHomicidePod@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, American Homicide listeners, this is your host's Loan Glass.
Thank you for joining us on our first bonus episode.
I am joined by the host of the Betrayal podcast,
Andrea Gunning. Hi, Andrea high Sloan, and Ben Fetterman. Ben
Fetterman is a producer on American Homicide and him and
(00:23):
Andrea host Barren Gone South Street Together. Hey, Ben, Hey,
This episode is obviously going to be different because it's
not our typical American homicide format where we are going
through a case. We are really going to spend some
time just on David Parker Ray, the Toy box Killer.
(00:44):
So our show's American Homicide. The episodes are called Toy
Box Killer, and we don't have any bodies hate same
bodies because it feels like a really removed way to
talk about these victims. But we're speaking about someone who
could be one of the most prolific serial killers in
American history, and we only know about a few of
(01:09):
his torture victims. That estimate from Jim Yance, the DA
prosecuted this case, is that there could be forty five
to sixty victims of David Parker Ray. So it's well
established that he was a murderer, even though it is unsolved.
I think that both of you covering unsolved cases can
(01:32):
speak to just the torment that can leave you just
talking about something but not being able to give an
audience any clear answers.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Sloan. One of the reasons why this story was important
to tell is because there are still families out there
that have missing loved ones. These potential forty five to
sixty individuals in New Mexico that remain on a missing
person's list.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
A lot of the serial killers that we talk about,
the actions are fast, they're horrific. But to hear about
someone who got their pleasure from extended periods of time,
torturing victims who, in some cases through a mixture of
drugs and electric shock therapy, it's sick. It's sick in
a way that there's no one else who has stayed
(02:20):
with me the way that he has.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, I remember exactly where I was the first time
I heard those tapes of him like that that welcome
greeting that he plays to his victims, and I think
I was like washing my dishes and I just stopped immediately.
I can't even really think about the emotion that came
over me other than just fear and deep empathy for
(02:45):
the person that was actually in that hearing that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I mean, what is on those tapes that he played
for these women is horrific, and yet I think we
as a production felt it was important to play those
to really show how evil this man was. It was
this is what it was, and what's your opinion of it?
(03:12):
Because our opinion was, this is some of the most
horrific evidence we've come across in this show.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
It's been a really long time since I listened to
something and it's kind of stopped me in my tracks,
and I felt the emotions and the fear, and I
was legitimate. I left feeling terrified of David Parker Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, Dre. I think one of the things that is
most terrifying about David Parker Ray is that he is
the epitome of a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is
a man that was able to go and operate throughout
the community because of his standing in it.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I think it's hard to imagine that there's a human
being like him who has existed, and to see someone
who is willing to make that audio tape and then
also make videos of what he was doing for his
own Pleasureugh, it's just such an awful one. And you
can go onto the FBI's website today and you can
(04:16):
see images of more things that they have found from
inside the toy box, and it's, Oh, it's just so
much that they're trying to use to identify more victims,
and a lot of it is clothing, so much jewelry.
And what I was thinking about when I first saw
all of that was how often, Drey, you can probably
(04:37):
speak to this as women. So much of our jewelry
has meaning behind it that's often about protection or sentimental reasons.
And I look at these bracelets and I think, how
many times did a woman look down see this bracelet
that her husband or her boyfriend or her mother had
given her with the hope that their daughter could wear
(04:59):
it to be safe and happy, and think of them,
And it's lying in this toy box, and he's keeping
it for his own enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I know that a lot of people when they listen
to true crime, they really want to understand the motivations
of the people that are behind it. But a lot
of the work that we do focuses on the people
who represent those jewelry items and what they lost and
what they went through. And this isn't just like a
one off, hyperbolic situation. This is a person that was
(05:30):
cloaked himself in as a normal person and was preying
on individuals and people were his prey.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So it's really scary, and I.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Just I think the most impactful part of this whole
three part series is how much you feel for the
victims and understand what they went through. Because to understand
this story and to hear it is to feel that fear,
and you really are sitting with to some small degree
that you can what some of these people went through.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I really like what you said about an artifact of
their time before David Parker Ray makes me think Kelly Garrett.
Kelly Garrett was the victim who the FBI was able
to identify from posting an image of her tattoo, and
her former in laws saw that and then reached out.
(06:25):
She continued to live after this experience and she had
no memory of the specifics. That's how much he can
alter a person's mind, not just you know, what he
did with the drugs and the torture, but just the
trauma behind this experience. And I think about her life before,
(06:46):
and I think about her life after, it's loss after
loss after loss.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
With Kelly, I think the hardest part is the fact
that no one, including herself believed what happened to her
that night, to the point that it led to her divorce,
to the point that she got gas lit by her family,
by herself, by the entire community by saying this isn't happening.
(07:15):
But fundamentally, as we've said, not only did her brain
get altered from the trauma that she experienced, but then
also how she was drugged, but then just the path
that she was on was completely changed when she was
dumped on the side of the road, and you just
(07:36):
have no idea why. It's really devastating, And part of me.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Is like, oh, thank god, she doesn't remember what she
went through, the trauma, the violence that she just went
through for X amount of days. But then how he
was able to weaponize that too for all of those years.
It is astonishing to me, but it's it's one of
the things are I'm like it. To have full clarity
(08:02):
of that amount of pain for that amount of time
also scares me too.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, And so much of that has to do with
the victims who he picked, women who people didn't look
for when they went missing because of their work as
sex workers. I think about Cynthia V. Hill and what
it took for her to escape, and I think about
her running with just feet of chains attached to her.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Running naked with a dog collar around your neck down
the street, just trying to find any sort of sanctuary.
That's what it took to unravel this case.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Right, and what could have continued to happen if she
had not done that. We have an audio clip from
Darren White, who worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety,
and he speaks about what this case, what it did
to him.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
When you do this work as long as I have,
you wish there are certain aspects of it that you
could just push a button and you could hit a
race and you wouldn't have to see that again. But
unfortunately that's not the case. Those are images, horrible images
that will live with us for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There was an FBI agent, Patty Rust. It was her
job to detail everything that was found in the toy box.
She's making drawings. She's been five days just going over
at the evidence and when she got home after those
five days she took her own life. She could be
considered another victim of David Parker Rays. It's so sad,
(09:42):
so sad to tell the story. It really it breaks
my heart. You know, this is a this is an
FBI agent. You can imagine what this woman had seen.
You can't discount what it would do to a person
in the timing of events that after being so immersed
in his toy box, she couldn't go on. I think
(10:06):
it has to just change the way that you view
the world. And it's just devastating that it ended up
the way that it did with Agent Rust and I God,
I wish that, you know, she had been able to
get some help in some way.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
When Ben and I were investigating there and Gone and
we didn't know exactly what happened to two people, Richard
Patron and Danielle Embo, they went missing and they haven't
been found twenty years later, and so we kind of
an idea of what happened and who was involved, but
we don't know the manner of death. And that was
something that you have to play different scenarios when you're
(10:44):
doing an investigation. You have to think through you know,
did this happen or did that happen? Like was this
how they were killed? You know, I'm not in the FBI.
I've just worked on a few cases, but it is
extremely difficult, especially when you're tasked to find justice. You
can't help but feel bought in, and then this other
level of reality can really be jarring, emotionally jarring. I
(11:08):
don't know how you felt about it, Ben, but I
would often find myself finding it too hard to think
too deep on what happened to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think what comes to mind for me about this
part of our conversation and comparing it to There and
Gone is FBI agents are just they're humans too, and
there's a level of feeling, seeing, experiencing something. You can
(11:40):
try to be as detached from the job as you
want to be, but at some point you are a
human being and can't completely be devoid of emotion. And
for this female agent that took her own life, I
obviously can't imagine, but I know as a human being
that there are things that impact us that we just
can't turn away from, and it affects us in different ways.
(12:03):
And that's where my mind went for There and Gone,
You and I got very close to Agent Vito Verselling.
I mean he is a tenured, you know, decades long
special agent on the force. He did not necessarily see
any crime scene photos or results of what happened to
(12:24):
them that could have that type of impact. But how
it did impact him, Dre is the relationships with the families,
that pursuit of wanting to get them answers, and his
inability to let go of that case and move on
that case will always continue to be with him, just
(12:44):
like for the agents in New Mexico around toy Box,
this case will always loom over that field office.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I mean, he invested one hundred thousand dollars in create
the toy box, this torture tamer one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And one thing that I find remarkable as well is
that the toy box, this physical trailer, still sits in
the parking lot of the field office, the FBI field
office that investigated this, And I think the only reason
it is still there is that hope that these forty
(13:26):
five to sixty bodies may eventually turn up, that there
may be evidence in the toy box to be able
to say, hey, David Parker, Ray was responsible for this
and to bring justice for those families to know what
happened to their loved one. There's one piece of this
(13:49):
story that is really the open ended piece to it
that bothers me outside of everything that we've talked about,
which is this map that was recovered on his property
that had you know, pins in this lake just randomly
scattered about. And we cover the fact that there was
(14:13):
this drought that occurs, and everyone expected because of that drought,
this is how we're going to find all these missing people.
And yet when that event occurs, that drought occurs, the
reservoir runs dry, there are no bodies. And it left
me with the question was this just another token that
(14:35):
he held onto of where he committed all these crimes
or was this another part of his manipulation to lead
law enforcement towards an empty search. And I just don't
know that bothers me about this case.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I want you to hear something from Darren White, who
worked on this case.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I think still at this point, your hope is, with
like any case that you are asked about that's unsolved,
your hope is that bringing it back there'll be a
tension that comes with this airing and you hope that
with what Cynthia is doing and others talking about it,
(15:15):
that maybe it just sparks something in somebody to do
the right thing. And so I see it as an
opportunity to raise awareness about the case. And the only
thing that's going to make me feel good about this case,
(15:35):
if that's even possible, is solving some of these homicides
and finding some.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Of these women. Well can you imagine being the FBI
agent who had a meeting set up with David Parker
Ray where he says he's going to talk and he
dies from a heart attack. It's just so frustrating, and
it's particularly frustrating because a heart attack is just so
not what he deserved. I mean this, it's such a
(16:04):
get out of jail free card really after what he did,
for there to be no accountability, for him to get
to die suddenly when his victims had been tortured endlessly,
it just feels so unjust.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know, when I was listening to this show that
you guys put together, it was just like one thing
after another, but it just kind of goes to show
just like the wake and how expansive his destruction is
and it doesn't stop at just the investigation. I mean,
there's like a black cloud that hangs over this whole
(16:42):
entire story.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, I mean the judge who died.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's just when the judge had the heart attack, I
was like, you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
May you gotta be kidding?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Made Oh no? Yeah. A victim passes away right before
one of the trial commences, which put a ton of
pressure on the other two women who go into the
trial thinking I'm just going to be experiencing what I've
experienced all these years, which is no one's going to
believe me.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He feels like an extension of the underworld that so
many people around him could kind of get that curse.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I mean, you look back, he got pretty damn close
to not having to face what he was responsible for.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It really is as if you made a deal with
the devil.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
In what you guys put together for the Toy Box Killer,
you really get the impact of how terrifying and violent
and bad of a person David Parker Ray was.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You did a really great job.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And then so you guys are done with New Mexico
and then the next up is we're heading to my
neck of the woods in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, now, we're in New Jersey. For people listening who
don't know this, which would be anyone listening, We're based
out of Philadelphia, so the New Jersey story, we're really
familiar with these areas, you know, particularly Cherry Hill. Cherry
Hill's what forty five minutes away, you know. We want
to keep those lines open between us and the American
(18:12):
Homicide listeners in our email, in our Instagram because a
lot of these stories take place in communities that you
all know well and have insights, and we want to
hear those things. And we also want to hear what
you want to hear more of. So if there's questions
or anything that comes up, or cases that you believe
(18:32):
deserve more attention, reach out. Let us know. You can
email us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
I just love being joined by you guys.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I'm excited for New Jersey. Thanks dre Ben, thank you
both so much. You can contact the American Homicide Team
by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide
is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and is
(19:06):
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gams. The series is
also written and produced by Todd Gams, with additional writing
by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is
(19:26):
Kristin Melcurrie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck.
Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aaruka. American Homicide's
theme song was composed by Oliver Bains of Neiser Music
Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts,
(19:46):
and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five star
review goes a long way towards helping others find this show.
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
MHM
Hi, American Homicide listeners, this is your host's Loan Glass.
Thank you for joining us on our first bonus episode.
I am joined by the host of the Betrayal podcast,
Andrea Gunning. Hi, Andrea high Sloan, and Ben Fetterman. Ben
Fetterman is a producer on American Homicide and him and
(00:23):
Andrea host Barren Gone South Street Together. Hey, Ben, Hey,
This episode is obviously going to be different because it's
not our typical American homicide format where we are going
through a case. We are really going to spend some
time just on David Parker Ray, the Toy box Killer.
(00:44):
So our show's American Homicide. The episodes are called Toy
Box Killer, and we don't have any bodies hate same
bodies because it feels like a really removed way to
talk about these victims. But we're speaking about someone who
could be one of the most prolific serial killers in
American history, and we only know about a few of
(01:09):
his torture victims. That estimate from Jim Yance, the DA
prosecuted this case, is that there could be forty five
to sixty victims of David Parker Ray. So it's well
established that he was a murderer, even though it is unsolved.
I think that both of you covering unsolved cases can
(01:32):
speak to just the torment that can leave you just
talking about something but not being able to give an
audience any clear answers.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Sloan. One of the reasons why this story was important
to tell is because there are still families out there
that have missing loved ones. These potential forty five to
sixty individuals in New Mexico that remain on a missing
person's list.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
A lot of the serial killers that we talk about,
the actions are fast, they're horrific. But to hear about
someone who got their pleasure from extended periods of time,
torturing victims who, in some cases through a mixture of
drugs and electric shock therapy, it's sick. It's sick in
a way that there's no one else who has stayed
(02:20):
with me the way that he has.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, I remember exactly where I was the first time
I heard those tapes of him like that that welcome
greeting that he plays to his victims, and I think
I was like washing my dishes and I just stopped immediately.
I can't even really think about the emotion that came
over me other than just fear and deep empathy for
(02:45):
the person that was actually in that hearing that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I mean, what is on those tapes that he played
for these women is horrific, and yet I think we
as a production felt it was important to play those
to really show how evil this man was. It was
this is what it was, and what's your opinion of it?
(03:12):
Because our opinion was, this is some of the most
horrific evidence we've come across in this show.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
It's been a really long time since I listened to
something and it's kind of stopped me in my tracks,
and I felt the emotions and the fear, and I
was legitimate. I left feeling terrified of David Parker Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, Dre. I think one of the things that is
most terrifying about David Parker Ray is that he is
the epitome of a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is
a man that was able to go and operate throughout
the community because of his standing in it.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I think it's hard to imagine that there's a human
being like him who has existed, and to see someone
who is willing to make that audio tape and then
also make videos of what he was doing for his
own Pleasureugh, it's just such an awful one. And you
can go onto the FBI's website today and you can
(04:16):
see images of more things that they have found from
inside the toy box, and it's, Oh, it's just so
much that they're trying to use to identify more victims,
and a lot of it is clothing, so much jewelry.
And what I was thinking about when I first saw
all of that was how often, Drey, you can probably
(04:37):
speak to this as women. So much of our jewelry
has meaning behind it that's often about protection or sentimental reasons.
And I look at these bracelets and I think, how
many times did a woman look down see this bracelet
that her husband or her boyfriend or her mother had
given her with the hope that their daughter could wear
(04:59):
it to be safe and happy, and think of them,
And it's lying in this toy box, and he's keeping
it for his own enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I know that a lot of people when they listen
to true crime, they really want to understand the motivations
of the people that are behind it. But a lot
of the work that we do focuses on the people
who represent those jewelry items and what they lost and
what they went through. And this isn't just like a
one off, hyperbolic situation. This is a person that was
(05:30):
cloaked himself in as a normal person and was preying
on individuals and people were his prey.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So it's really scary, and I.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Just I think the most impactful part of this whole
three part series is how much you feel for the
victims and understand what they went through. Because to understand
this story and to hear it is to feel that fear,
and you really are sitting with to some small degree
that you can what some of these people went through.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I really like what you said about an artifact of
their time before David Parker Ray makes me think Kelly Garrett.
Kelly Garrett was the victim who the FBI was able
to identify from posting an image of her tattoo, and
her former in laws saw that and then reached out.
(06:25):
She continued to live after this experience and she had
no memory of the specifics. That's how much he can
alter a person's mind, not just you know, what he
did with the drugs and the torture, but just the
trauma behind this experience. And I think about her life before,
(06:46):
and I think about her life after, it's loss after
loss after loss.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
With Kelly, I think the hardest part is the fact
that no one, including herself believed what happened to her
that night, to the point that it led to her divorce,
to the point that she got gas lit by her family,
by herself, by the entire community by saying this isn't happening.
(07:15):
But fundamentally, as we've said, not only did her brain
get altered from the trauma that she experienced, but then
also how she was drugged, but then just the path
that she was on was completely changed when she was
dumped on the side of the road, and you just
(07:36):
have no idea why. It's really devastating, And part of me.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Is like, oh, thank god, she doesn't remember what she
went through, the trauma, the violence that she just went
through for X amount of days. But then how he
was able to weaponize that too for all of those years.
It is astonishing to me, but it's it's one of
the things are I'm like it. To have full clarity
(08:02):
of that amount of pain for that amount of time
also scares me too.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, And so much of that has to do with
the victims who he picked, women who people didn't look
for when they went missing because of their work as
sex workers. I think about Cynthia V. Hill and what
it took for her to escape, and I think about
her running with just feet of chains attached to her.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Running naked with a dog collar around your neck down
the street, just trying to find any sort of sanctuary.
That's what it took to unravel this case.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Right, and what could have continued to happen if she
had not done that. We have an audio clip from
Darren White, who worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety,
and he speaks about what this case, what it did
to him.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
When you do this work as long as I have,
you wish there are certain aspects of it that you
could just push a button and you could hit a
race and you wouldn't have to see that again. But
unfortunately that's not the case. Those are images, horrible images
that will live with us for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There was an FBI agent, Patty Rust. It was her
job to detail everything that was found in the toy box.
She's making drawings. She's been five days just going over
at the evidence and when she got home after those
five days she took her own life. She could be
considered another victim of David Parker Rays. It's so sad,
(09:42):
so sad to tell the story. It really it breaks
my heart. You know, this is a this is an
FBI agent. You can imagine what this woman had seen.
You can't discount what it would do to a person
in the timing of events that after being so immersed
in his toy box, she couldn't go on. I think
(10:06):
it has to just change the way that you view
the world. And it's just devastating that it ended up
the way that it did with Agent Rust and I God,
I wish that, you know, she had been able to
get some help in some way.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
When Ben and I were investigating there and Gone and
we didn't know exactly what happened to two people, Richard
Patron and Danielle Embo, they went missing and they haven't
been found twenty years later, and so we kind of
an idea of what happened and who was involved, but
we don't know the manner of death. And that was
something that you have to play different scenarios when you're
(10:44):
doing an investigation. You have to think through you know,
did this happen or did that happen? Like was this
how they were killed? You know, I'm not in the FBI.
I've just worked on a few cases, but it is
extremely difficult, especially when you're tasked to find justice. You
can't help but feel bought in, and then this other
level of reality can really be jarring, emotionally jarring. I
(11:08):
don't know how you felt about it, Ben, but I
would often find myself finding it too hard to think
too deep on what happened to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think what comes to mind for me about this
part of our conversation and comparing it to There and
Gone is FBI agents are just they're humans too, and
there's a level of feeling, seeing, experiencing something. You can
(11:40):
try to be as detached from the job as you
want to be, but at some point you are a
human being and can't completely be devoid of emotion. And
for this female agent that took her own life, I
obviously can't imagine, but I know as a human being
that there are things that impact us that we just
can't turn away from, and it affects us in different ways.
(12:03):
And that's where my mind went for There and Gone,
You and I got very close to Agent Vito Verselling.
I mean he is a tenured, you know, decades long
special agent on the force. He did not necessarily see
any crime scene photos or results of what happened to
(12:24):
them that could have that type of impact. But how
it did impact him, Dre is the relationships with the families,
that pursuit of wanting to get them answers, and his
inability to let go of that case and move on
that case will always continue to be with him, just
(12:44):
like for the agents in New Mexico around toy Box,
this case will always loom over that field office.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I mean, he invested one hundred thousand dollars in create
the toy box, this torture tamer one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And one thing that I find remarkable as well is
that the toy box, this physical trailer, still sits in
the parking lot of the field office, the FBI field
office that investigated this, And I think the only reason
it is still there is that hope that these forty
(13:26):
five to sixty bodies may eventually turn up, that there
may be evidence in the toy box to be able
to say, hey, David Parker, Ray was responsible for this
and to bring justice for those families to know what
happened to their loved one. There's one piece of this
(13:49):
story that is really the open ended piece to it
that bothers me outside of everything that we've talked about,
which is this map that was recovered on his property
that had you know, pins in this lake just randomly
scattered about. And we cover the fact that there was
(14:13):
this drought that occurs, and everyone expected because of that drought,
this is how we're going to find all these missing people.
And yet when that event occurs, that drought occurs, the
reservoir runs dry, there are no bodies. And it left
me with the question was this just another token that
(14:35):
he held onto of where he committed all these crimes
or was this another part of his manipulation to lead
law enforcement towards an empty search. And I just don't
know that bothers me about this case.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I want you to hear something from Darren White, who
worked on this case.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I think still at this point, your hope is, with
like any case that you are asked about that's unsolved,
your hope is that bringing it back there'll be a
tension that comes with this airing and you hope that
with what Cynthia is doing and others talking about it,
(15:15):
that maybe it just sparks something in somebody to do
the right thing. And so I see it as an
opportunity to raise awareness about the case. And the only
thing that's going to make me feel good about this case,
(15:35):
if that's even possible, is solving some of these homicides
and finding some.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Of these women. Well can you imagine being the FBI
agent who had a meeting set up with David Parker
Ray where he says he's going to talk and he
dies from a heart attack. It's just so frustrating, and
it's particularly frustrating because a heart attack is just so
not what he deserved. I mean this, it's such a
(16:04):
get out of jail free card really after what he did,
for there to be no accountability, for him to get
to die suddenly when his victims had been tortured endlessly,
it just feels so unjust.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know, when I was listening to this show that
you guys put together, it was just like one thing
after another, but it just kind of goes to show
just like the wake and how expansive his destruction is
and it doesn't stop at just the investigation. I mean,
there's like a black cloud that hangs over this whole
(16:42):
entire story.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, I mean the judge who died.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's just when the judge had the heart attack, I
was like, you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
May you gotta be kidding?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Made Oh no? Yeah. A victim passes away right before
one of the trial commences, which put a ton of
pressure on the other two women who go into the
trial thinking I'm just going to be experiencing what I've
experienced all these years, which is no one's going to
believe me.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He feels like an extension of the underworld that so
many people around him could kind of get that curse.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I mean, you look back, he got pretty damn close
to not having to face what he was responsible for.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It really is as if you made a deal with
the devil.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
In what you guys put together for the Toy Box Killer,
you really get the impact of how terrifying and violent
and bad of a person David Parker Ray was.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You did a really great job.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And then so you guys are done with New Mexico
and then the next up is we're heading to my
neck of the woods in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, now, we're in New Jersey. For people listening who
don't know this, which would be anyone listening, We're based
out of Philadelphia, so the New Jersey story, we're really
familiar with these areas, you know, particularly Cherry Hill. Cherry
Hill's what forty five minutes away, you know. We want
to keep those lines open between us and the American
(18:12):
Homicide listeners in our email, in our Instagram because a
lot of these stories take place in communities that you
all know well and have insights, and we want to
hear those things. And we also want to hear what
you want to hear more of. So if there's questions
or anything that comes up, or cases that you believe
(18:32):
deserve more attention, reach out. Let us know. You can
email us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
I just love being joined by you guys.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I'm excited for New Jersey. Thanks dre Ben, thank you
both so much. You can contact the American Homicide Team
by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide
is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and is
(19:06):
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gams. The series is
also written and produced by Todd Gams, with additional writing
by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is
(19:26):
Kristin Melcurrie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck.
Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aaruka. American Homicide's
theme song was composed by Oliver Bains of Neiser Music
Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts,
(19:46):
and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five star
review goes a long way towards helping others find this show.
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
MHM
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.