November 21, 2024 • 34 mins
We continue the chilling crimes of David Parker Ray, the "Toy Box Killer." We explore the involvement of his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and daughter, Jesse Ray, and hear the brave testimony of survivors who faced unimaginable horror in his desert dungeon.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In our last episode, we covered the story of David
Parker Ray. He would later be known as the Toy
box Killer. Today, we're picking up the story with David
Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Hendy facing more than
two dozen charges for kidnapping and torturing three women. It
happened in his homemade sex dungeon in the middle of
(00:20):
the New Mexico Desert.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
He wanted to pick women who he could control, who
he could scare, who he could hurt.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
At this time we knew of three victims, but that
number would skyrocket. He kept journals and videos of his
forty or so victims.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
David Parker Ray, when he was finished with those victims,
would kill them.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
The testimony of the three women who miraculously made it
out alive was the key to prosecuting him.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
The victims, what they endured is just.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
It's unbelievable and so unbelievable that there were so many
people when they were first told, didn't believe it was true.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Not just the people who first heard it, but the
jury as well. They weren't so sure what they were
hearing was true either.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
This is one of those cases it's like, until you
did that last piece of the puzzle. There's really nothing
else to do with it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide.
You're listening to part two of The Toy Box Killer
and a warning that this episode contains graphic descriptions of
sexual assault and violence. Discretion is advised. At the time
of his arrest in nineteen ninety nine, David Parker Ray
(01:39):
was fifty nine years old. He was a mechanic for
the New Mexico Parks Department and lived in the tiny
town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico, where he was very well.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Liked, so he definitely had a sense of power of
authority in that plafe.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Alex Tomlin was a local news reporter.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
He's this legendary figure here for all the wrong reasons.
You know, the joke all the time in the newsroom
is the worst criminal you are, they give you all
three names.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
David Parker Ray grew up near Albuquerque. He was a
bit of a loaner who was picked on at school.
He was a strange from his mother and only occasionally
saw his alcoholic father, but he spent a lot of
time with his father's true detective magazines. They covered crime stories.
It was one of the first of its kind. David
said his fantasies about assaulting young women began when he
(02:35):
was flipping through those pages. Then came his fascination with pornography.
David's sister found his stash of pornographic pictures and hand
sketched drawings of women tied up and tortured. When she
questioned him about it, he left it off and said
it was his new hobby. As a teenager, David Parker
Ray even claimed he killed a woman, although there's no
(02:58):
record of it ever happening. After high school, he bounced
around from town to town taking jobs as a mechanic.
He worked on cars, trains, and even fixed airplanes for
the army. He was married and then divorced four times.
He was a father and had a daughter named Glenda
Jean Ray, who went by Jesse Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know, I can't imagine what it's like to be
the daughter of the embodiment of Satan, so I have
to imagine her life was not an easy one.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Jesse didn't see much of her Dan since he was
always on the road. She grew up into a biker
check who drove a motorcycle and wore blue jeans with
a black leather vest. She shot a lot of pool
and was a regular at the local bars in the
dusty town of Truth or Consequences, which is a blip
on the radar and located right next to Elephant Butte.
(03:49):
Back in nineteen eighty six, when she was just nineteen
years old, Jesse went to the FBI with a warning
about her dad. She claimed that he had been abducting
and torturing women, then selling them to buyers in Mexico.
The FBI investigated for over a year before closing the
file citing a lack of evidence. David Parker Ray was
(04:11):
never charged with anything later went on to work for
the state, so even after this tip to the FBI,
he was able to get away with it. And who
knows what really happened to make Jesse come forward, but
she later claimed that she had made that story up.
Jesse said he owed her money from when the two
used to sell pot together. She wanted revenge, and then
(04:33):
at some point their relationship changed.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Jesse Ray reported him, but it's clear after that she
became an active participant.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Jesse Waver she was her dad's recruiter. She would go
out and she would look for targets.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So Jesse Ray went from turning her dad into the
FBI to recruiting victims into the Toy Bob. So not
only was David Parker Ray's girlfriend involved in kidnapping his victims,
but so was his daughter. Following David's arrest in nineteen
ninety nine, investigators located dozens of videotapes in the toy box.
(05:16):
One tape showed a slender woman with long blonde hair
shackled to a table with duct tape covering her eyes.
This woman had a distinctive tattoo on her right ankle,
and that tattoo led investigators to Kelly Garrett. Kelly Garrett
is an important figure in this story. Once a happy newlywed,
(05:36):
her marriage was destroyed by an event she couldn't even remember,
a story no one believed. Even she doubted what had happened.
But it all started with a girl she used to
hang out with Jesse Ray.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Jesse and I met. I don't remember exactly where we met.
We had mutual friends, and anytime we'd see her at
the bar, she would hang out with us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
When Kelly was in her early twenties. She moved to
Truther Consequences, New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
We had a lot of fun back in the day.
We were always going out, playing pool, going to the lake.
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
The tiny town of Truther Consequences is famous both for
its natural hot springs and its unusual name, which came
courtesy of a radio game show.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
I think I had more fun here than I have
anywhere else I've lived. But I think it's the people.
I had really good friends here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Back in nineteen ninety six. Kelly was a newlywed. Really,
she had just been married for less than.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
A week, and we started fighting that day. I don't
even know what we were fighting about, but I told
him that I was leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So Kelly went out to blow off some steam from
that silly fight.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
I was going to go hook up with some friends
and go play pool, and I did. There were several
of us that went out and we were bar hopping.
I wasn't drinking. I was driving.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
They're just a handful of bars in the area, including
a small biker bar named Raymonds. When you step inside,
there are pool tables in a jukebox. It's dimly lip
as strings of light shapes like jalapenos along the walls.
That's where Kelly bumped into Jesse Ray, David Parker raised daughter.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
We weren't like close friends. We were just acquaintances kind
of because we would just hang out when we see
each other.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
After Raymonds, the group headed to another local bar called
Blue Water Saloon. That's where Kelly's night took a bad turn.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
I ordered one beer and some friends of mine started fighting.
They were a couple, so I took them home and
came back and finished my beer.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
When Kelly returned, the rest of her friends wanted to
go home, so she let them take her car.
Speaker 6 (08:02):
Jesse and I were the last two and without her car,
Jesse said she was going to give me a ride home,
and that's when Jesse took me toward Dad. She's the
one that took me to him. She knew what was
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
David Parker. Ray wound up keeping Kelly in his toy
box for two and a half days.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
When I was captive. I don't remember him saying too much.
I remember him telling me at one point that they
had been watching me for years.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
So what did David Parker Ray do to Kelly in
the toy box.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I have no idea. I don't remember. I just remember
being in his house.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
She believes now that she was drugged, which affected her memory,
and when she didn't turn up all weekend, Kelly's husband
got concerned.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
And my husband at the time put a missing persons
report out on me.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
A couple days later. Kelly remembers being driven in David
Parker race truck.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
The only thing that sticks in my memory from that
ride is him stopping to get coffee.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Kelly said she felt out of it during the ride.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
David dropped me off at my mother in law's house,
which is where my husband was, and he told her
that he found me wandering on the beach out at
the Lake Elephant Boot Lake because he lives out there.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Kelly's husband had questions, most importantly, where had she been
all weekend?
Speaker 6 (09:32):
And I told him I didn't remember anything, and they
did not believe me.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Kelly's husband was furious. The two had had an argument,
and Kelly disappeared for the weekend, but returned with no
memory of what happened. Her husband and his family didn't
believe her. They all assumed she was with another.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Man felt horrible. But who's gonna believe me when you
say I don't know where I've been all weekend. I'm
not sure I would believe somebody if they told me that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Her husband was so angry that he wouldn't even let
Kelly into the house.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
Like the next day, we went to the courthouse and
signed an oment papers, so we were married a total
of thirteen days.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Kelly never reported what happened to the police, and she
tried to forget what little she remembered. Three years later,
a news story would change everything. The report mentioned a
woman with a tattoo on her ankle. Kelly's former sister
in law was watching the news in shock. Prosecutor Jim
Yance explains.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Her ex in laws were vacationing, I believe in southern California,
and when they checked in to the hotel, the person
at the desert, oh, you're from Truth to Consequences. That's
where the story's on the news. Fun. They didn't know
anything about it, but they did recall Kelly. They did
(11:01):
recall the tattoo. When they got back, they notified the FBI.
They indicated that it was in fact their former daughter
in law and From that, we were able to locate
Kelly Garrett and the tribal tattoo was matched to the
tattoo on her leg.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Beginning of March, I think somebody called and said I
wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Two investigators arrived with the tape they found of Kelly
in the toy box.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
Oh yeah, they did show me the video.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
After watching it, her memories of what happened still weren't clear.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
I remember bits and pieces, and if I remember enough
of them, I can put them together.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Then Kelly shared some vivid nightmare she had been having.
These nightmarees started after her time in the toy box.
Speaker 6 (11:51):
I would have a nightmare about somebody holding a knife
to my throat, or I would have a nightmare about
being tied to a table. Duct tape has always been
a trigger since then, but I didn't know why. It
took me years before I could even say the word
duct tape. I called it icky tape for a long time.
(12:15):
And if I'm paying attention, then somebody's using it. Most
of the time, I can stand there while they use it,
But if they do it and I'm not paying attention,
I scream and panic and run away and.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Cry investigators couldn't help but know the eerie similarities of
Kelly's nightmares to what David Parker Ray did to his
other victims.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
He always had his keys on his belt loop, and
that's a trigger, the jingling of keys.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
The more Kelly talked, the more her painful memories flooded back.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
That's when it all clicked.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
She realized that those nightmare she had been having were
actually suppressed memories, and then it started to come back
to her. She remembered her friend's father threatening her with
a knife and then being duct taped and handcuffed to
a fitness bench.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
That felt good that I could actually put things together,
but it was also horrifying.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Police filed additional charges against David Parker Ray and arrested
his daughter, Jesse Ray. They charged her with kidnapping, criminal
sexual penetration, assault, and conspiracy. Jesse Ray was arrested thirty
four days after her dad was put behind bars. With
David Parker Ray, his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and now his
(13:46):
daughter Jesse Ray all in custody, could prosecutors get one
of them to flip. It's now late nineteen ninety nine
and David Parker Ray still isn't talking, so investigators leaned
on one of his two accomplices, girlfriend Cindy Hendy. Jim
(14:09):
Yance was the deputy district attorney.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Initially, she described herself as being one of his victims,
but she became involved in actually enjoying the torture part
of it, and became his accomplice.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
If convicted, Cindy Hendy faced more than two hundred years
in prison. So prosecutors offered Cindy a deal. Plead guilty
and cooperate with their investigation and they'll reduce the charges
mean in a lighter sentence. So Cindy agreed to the
plea deal. It required her to testify against David Parker Wray.
(14:44):
This is where the story turns even darker and a warning.
In all the cases I've covered, this is one of
the darkest details I have come across. What she shared
shocked the investigators. Cindy Hendy reported that David Parker Ray
killed at least fourteen people. He reportedly dropped the bodies
(15:04):
an elephant Butte Lake and ravines in the area. She said,
to keep the bodies from rising to the surface, he
would do something completely gruesome. Parker Way would cut out
the stomach of each victim and then fill the body
with rocks.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
The state police turned over every rock between Alburquirkue, and
Elf and Butte Tiny to find other victims, but we
were never able to find those individuals.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Then, in late nineteen ninety nine, David's accomplice and girlfriend,
Cindy Hendy, had a change of heart. She stopped cooperating
in the investigation. Cindy told the court that she was
still in love with David, so she fired her attorney
and asked to withdraw her plea. Cindy's new lawyer argued
(15:52):
that Cindy had an eighth grade education and a mental
disability that made it difficult for her to understand the
consequences of the deal she made with prosecutors. But prosecutors
believed that David Parker Ray's daughter Jesse Ray, helped to
convince Cindy Hendy not to testify. The two had jail
cells near one another and would often communicate. I cannot
(16:14):
believe that is allowed. David allegedly wrote letters to Cindy
urging her not to testify against him. Still, the judge
ruled that Cindy Hendy could not change her plea. Even
with the ruling, Cindy refused to testify against David. It
was the first of many setbacks for prosecutors. David Parker
(16:37):
Ray faced three separate trials, one for each victim. His
lawyer argued successfully that if he was tried for his
crimes against three victims together, he wouldn't have a fair
shot at proving his innocence, So the three cases were
separated into three different trials. They would go one victim
at a time. Then there was this hurdle, and keep
(17:00):
in mind, this was a different time. Two of those
victims were sex workers, and prosecutors feared that that made
them lack credibility.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
He knew the type of woman he wanted to pick up.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
TV reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
He wanted them to probably have a history of going
out and maybe drinking too much, of going home with
people that they didn't know on the first night. He
wanted to pick women who no one was going to
cost too much of a fuss if they didn't come
home in three days.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
They had video of him torturing and raping, and investigators
believed he was a killer, but without any bodies or
other evidence, they couldn't charge him with any other crimes.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They used to open the toy box for reporters to
come in, just to stir up people's memories.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
As you can imagine, all of this affected tourism. No
one wanted to go in or around the lake.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's one of those situations where you get around it
and it's almost like you can physically feel evil. It's
a thickness, the sensation. It's the way your skin crawls,
the way the wind hits you. It's just so uncomfortable.
Somebody out there saw something, somebody knows something, and it's
just gonna be a matter of time until they say something.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Cadaver dogs also searched David Parker Rai's property, but the
only bones they found belonged to animals.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Keep was strategic. I mean, that's why you got away
with it for so long. That was his game.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Then another tragedy three became two when one of the
victims mysteriously died. Angela Montana was held in the toy
box a few weeks before Cynthia V. Hill, but just
before the trial, she reportedly died of a drug overdose.
She was only twenty eight years old. Suddenly, the first case,
(18:50):
which was to find David Parker Ray guilty for his
crimes against Kelly Garrett. One that seemed like a slam
dung for prosecutors was crumbling. They needed Kelly Garrett to
be a witness at her own trial. Here's Kelly.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
I told him, No, I knew how much it was
going to bring up. I knew howpset it was going
to make me, and I changed.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
My mind ultimately and bravely. She agreed to testify.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
People needed to hear, people needed to know that he
was bad.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The trial, schedule to kick off in the spring of
two thousand, faced delay after delay. The defense wanted the
case tried outside of Elephant Butte in order to find
an impartial jury, so the judge moved the case some
two hundred and fifty miles north to the tiny town
of Tierra Maria. Then, in between four long weeks of
(19:46):
jury selection, David Parker Array was hospitalized twice with hard issues.
More delays came when David's lawyer had to deal with
a personal issue. When he finally returned to work, both
sides held several heated hearings about what evidence prosecutor Jim
Yuns could show to the jury. Some evidence was just
too graphic, and there was another problem. Kelly Garrett was
(20:11):
held in the toy box in nineteen ninety six, but
the evidence was seized in nineteen ninety nine when police
rescued Cynthia V.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Hill.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Now prosecutors had to prove that each piece of evidence
was also present three years earlier. This led to dozens
of pieces of evidence being excluded from the trial. The
most heated debate over evidence involved the audio tapes found
that described the crimes in the toy box.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He played a tape that, in chilling detail, told them
exactly what was going to happen to them.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The judge did not allow it to be played at
Kelly Garrett's trial because Kelly couldn't remember hearing it, but
the judge did allow the jury to see a videotape
of Kelly Garrett that was recorded in the toy box.
When the trial began in the summer of two thousand,
that videotape became the prosecution's key piece of evidence. Durs
(21:06):
heard hours of testimony from law enforcement and first responders
before prosecutors finally played that videotape. As the six minute
video flickered on an old TV monitor. Jurs leaned forward
in their seats to take a closer look. The recording
showed Kelly restrained on a table. It showed Parker Rey
(21:27):
assaulting her by groping her and placing duct tape over
her mouth and eyes. Without an audio, it would be
up to Kelly to describe what happened before, during, and
after this six minute long tape. But remember, Kelly couldn't
recall what happened. She believed she had been drugged for.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
A long time. I don't think I was reliable because
I couldn't compose myself enough sometimes to get out of bed.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
For two long hours, Kelly sat on the witness stand
and recounted what she could remember happened that weekend in
July nineteen ninety six. She said she had a beard
a local bar and then felt light headed. Jesse Ray
offered to drive her home, but instead she took her
to her father's place. Kelly remembered that David claimed to
(22:15):
be a part of a Satanic group that wanted to
use her as a sex toy. Then they tied her
to what looked like a weightlifting bench. She then explained
how over the next three days David Parker Ray abused her.
She remembered his voice and said that at some point
the duct tape over her eyes became loose and she
(22:39):
was able to see his face. Kelly explained that she
always thought what happened to her was a nightmare that
eventually would go away, but it never did. It destroyed
her life.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
I used to be fun and outgoing, and I could
go places alone, and and now I stay home very
seldom ever go out. I can't even go to the
grocery store by myself.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Prosecutor Jim Yons then warned the jurors of the graphic
nature of what came next. They would see the inside
of the toy box. As jurors nervously shuffled in their seats,
Jim held up photos.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
We had cheers that asked for breaks. We had chers
that were just shaking their heads. Now, we actually had
chors sometimes that would put their head down or sobbing.
It was incredibly difficult for them to hear it.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
The quarter appointed public defender never called any witnesses to
the stand, but simply used his cross examination of the
prosecution's witnesses to cast down in the minds of the jurors.
He asked Kelly why she never told the police or
even her friends or family what happened to her in
the toy box. With her hands trembling, Kelly locked eyes
(23:59):
with the lawyer explained she thought that these memories were nightmares.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
We couldn't prove that I was drugged because those drugs
were found three years later.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
The defense attorney used that same strategy to pick away
at the contents of the toy box. The public defender
set out to make each of the prosecution's witnesses unreliable.
He asked the same question to each investigator who testified,
do you know if these items were in the toy
box back in nineteen ninety six. One by one, they
(24:33):
each answered, I don't know. As for the defendant, David Parker,
ray He Warwick became dugged. His uniform a striped cowboy
shirt with brown jeans and cowboy boots. He appeared thinner
and then at the time of his arrest, and his
slicked back hair had more streaks of gray. His demeanor
(24:54):
changed from smiling and flirting with his attorney's assistant to
look looking tired and slumping over in his chair. He
continued to complain of chest pain, and by the time
both sides made their closing arguments, David Parker Ray was
joined at the defense table with a giant tank of
oxygen to help his breathing. As both sides stated their
(25:17):
case to the jury, Parker Ray's lawyer again shifted the
focus on the victims. He attacked Kelly Garrett's credibility and
called her memory selective. He told jurors, if you're telling
the truth, you don't have to remember. He argued that
the sex between David Parker Ray and Kelly Garrett was
consensual and that the video proved it. Prosecutor Jim Yons
(25:41):
got in the last word. He pointed out that Kelly
did not need to put herself through the pain of testifying,
to face the world, to tell them your most horrifying
story and to be called a liar, but Kelly chose
to do so. In spite of all of that. The
case went to the jury on the app afternoon of
July twelve, two thousand and now it was in their
(26:04):
hands to decide David Parker Ray's fate. Imagine this, Just
minutes after jurors began deliberations, David Parker Ray had to
be escorted out of the courtroom. The now six year
old felt a pain in his chest. His lawyer called
it heart irregularities, and he was sent to a local
(26:26):
clinic for treatment.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
My greatest fear was David being released.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Prosecutor Jim Yarns knew his case was strong, but he
was afraid of what the jury would come back with.
Yance was frustrated that the judge didn't allow some key evidence,
specifically the initiation tape that David Parker Ray played for
his victims. Although jurors didn't see all of the evidence,
the investigators and lawyers did.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
We saw all of the imagers. Now, some of them
were hand drawings of David's. Some of were actual photographs.
But no, I'd never seen anything like them before, nor
do I hope to again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
While jury deliberations continued into their second day, the tiny
town of Tierra Maria was packed with journalists awaiting for
a verdict. Prosecutors worried that the longer the jury deliberated,
the greater chance of an acquittal.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
On day one of this investigation, everybody worked together for
one purpose, and that was to stop the nightmare David
Parker Ray.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Then on Thursday, July fourteenth, two thousand, the judge called
everyone back into the courtroom. By that point, the jury
had spent days deliberating for all twelve counts. They couldn't
agree on a unanimous verdict.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
That trial ended up in a misstoial.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The hung jury was a major victory for David Parker Ray,
who back in the courtroom, showed no emotion. The prosecutors
were stunned. They learned from reporters that two twenty somethingter
female durers who were the holdouts for securing a conviction.
The two said they didn't believe Kelly Garrett's testimony, and
(28:14):
one even believed the sex was consensual.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
I was there willingly, That's what that was said in court.
They found over one hundred videos but only found three
of us alive. But I was there willingly because most
of the people that he took were either into drugs
(28:41):
or prostitutes, and I was neither.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's true at the time, these women were not seen
as believable, and we know that this is still a
problem today. I know this from my own experience covering
the Long Island serial killer. It's valid to question if
that case where multiple women's bodies were found along the
shoreline would have been taken more seriously and solved years
(29:05):
earlier if the women hadn't been sex workers. Even with
her credibility being questioned, what was more painful for Kelly
is what she heard from a juror.
Speaker 6 (29:16):
Some people like it rough. It was one of the
jurors that said that some people like it Rod. I'll
never forget her saying That's about the only thing I
remember about that trial.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
A man with a homemade torture chamber, who had journals
and videos detailing what he did to dozens of victims,
somehow managed to escape being convicted.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
I was scared when Kelly's came back a hungry I
was really scared.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Cynthia Viha was preparing for her own trial. She didn't
testify in the first case because she was the star
witness in Parker Ray's upcoming second trial.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I don't understand how a woman could not believe her.
There's a whole video of her being tortured, there's drawings,
there's rules. He had never trust the chain captive. What
does that say? A chained captive that tells you right
there there because they're not willing. So I don't know
(30:23):
how anybody could believe it he was innocent. That's when
I got really scared that they weren't going.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
To believe me. For this trial, David Parker Ray would
have to find a new lawyer. His previous attorney, a
twelve year veteran of the Public Defender's Office, announced that
he was taking a new job in Antarctica. That's right,
he was moving to a new continent. But before leaving,
(30:55):
he stopped at a colleague's office with a message.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
Hey, look, I'm leaving the Public Defender's Office and I've
got a case I want you to take. Will you
take it? I said, well, sure, what is it? And
he says it's that case? And I said that case
And he said, yes, that one.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
That case now belonged to Lee McMillan.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
They basically threw me to the wolves. David Parker Ray
was one of those cases that every attorney hopes he'll
get once in a lifetime and then finally gets one
and never wants another one.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
But then things took another strange turn one weekend when
a giant black bear broke through a plexiglass window and
rummaged through the courthouse. The bear wound up, chewing on
some cans before leaving, along with a broken window in
charge of glass. The bear left behind a bloody trail
of Paul prints. One courthouse worker joked that the case
(31:47):
couldn't get any weirder, but it did. Before the retrial began,
the judge, who was just fifty five years old at
the time, had a massive heart attack and died. Just
the day before that. He had gone to the jailhouse
and warned the guards to leave David Parker Ray alone.
He had heard that he was being picked on. Replacing
(32:10):
him was Judge Kevin Swayze, who, at thirty eight years old,
was the youngest district judge in New Mexico.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
This is his first major trial after he was appointed
to the bench.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
A new judge and a complete redo of the trial
meant anything was possible.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
He had just told the police that he was ready
to talk.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
To them, but prosecutors kept running into the same rule blox.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
It almost goes back to that hole. This is so outrageous.
It's hard for people to believe.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
What lengths would investigators go to to get David Parker
Ray to reveal his secrets.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
There was some talk that David Parker Why would plead
guilty to everything as long as the state would make
a deal.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But would they run out of time?
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Probably the one thing that irritates the hell out of
me about this case.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
In the final episode of The Toy Box Killer, prosecutors
get another chance to convict David Parker Ray, and this
time they'll get some help from an unlikely source. What
happened in the end was something that shocked David Parker
Ray's own lawyer.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
I did not trust if he would not start his
own hard walk out, that's.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Next time on American Homicide. 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 Sloane Glass
(33:42):
and is 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 Gans. The
series is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with
additional writing by Benfetter and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer
(34:03):
is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart teap is Ali Perry. And
Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, additional
editing support from Nika Ruka Tanner, Robbins, brit Robashow, Dave Seya,
and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide theme song was composed by
Oliver Bains of Noisier Music Library provided by my Music.
(34:28):
Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts 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 wherever
you get your podcasts,
In our last episode, we covered the story of David
Parker Ray. He would later be known as the Toy
box Killer. Today, we're picking up the story with David
Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Hendy facing more than
two dozen charges for kidnapping and torturing three women. It
happened in his homemade sex dungeon in the middle of
(00:20):
the New Mexico Desert.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
He wanted to pick women who he could control, who
he could scare, who he could hurt.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
At this time we knew of three victims, but that
number would skyrocket. He kept journals and videos of his
forty or so victims.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
David Parker Ray, when he was finished with those victims,
would kill them.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
The testimony of the three women who miraculously made it
out alive was the key to prosecuting him.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
The victims, what they endured is just.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
It's unbelievable and so unbelievable that there were so many
people when they were first told, didn't believe it was true.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Not just the people who first heard it, but the
jury as well. They weren't so sure what they were
hearing was true either.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
This is one of those cases it's like, until you
did that last piece of the puzzle. There's really nothing
else to do with it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide.
You're listening to part two of The Toy Box Killer
and a warning that this episode contains graphic descriptions of
sexual assault and violence. Discretion is advised. At the time
of his arrest in nineteen ninety nine, David Parker Ray
(01:39):
was fifty nine years old. He was a mechanic for
the New Mexico Parks Department and lived in the tiny
town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico, where he was very well.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Liked, so he definitely had a sense of power of
authority in that plafe.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Alex Tomlin was a local news reporter.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
He's this legendary figure here for all the wrong reasons.
You know, the joke all the time in the newsroom
is the worst criminal you are, they give you all
three names.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
David Parker Ray grew up near Albuquerque. He was a
bit of a loaner who was picked on at school.
He was a strange from his mother and only occasionally
saw his alcoholic father, but he spent a lot of
time with his father's true detective magazines. They covered crime stories.
It was one of the first of its kind. David
said his fantasies about assaulting young women began when he
(02:35):
was flipping through those pages. Then came his fascination with pornography.
David's sister found his stash of pornographic pictures and hand
sketched drawings of women tied up and tortured. When she
questioned him about it, he left it off and said
it was his new hobby. As a teenager, David Parker
Ray even claimed he killed a woman, although there's no
(02:58):
record of it ever happening. After high school, he bounced
around from town to town taking jobs as a mechanic.
He worked on cars, trains, and even fixed airplanes for
the army. He was married and then divorced four times.
He was a father and had a daughter named Glenda
Jean Ray, who went by Jesse Ray.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know, I can't imagine what it's like to be
the daughter of the embodiment of Satan, so I have
to imagine her life was not an easy one.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Jesse didn't see much of her Dan since he was
always on the road. She grew up into a biker
check who drove a motorcycle and wore blue jeans with
a black leather vest. She shot a lot of pool
and was a regular at the local bars in the
dusty town of Truth or Consequences, which is a blip
on the radar and located right next to Elephant Butte.
(03:49):
Back in nineteen eighty six, when she was just nineteen
years old, Jesse went to the FBI with a warning
about her dad. She claimed that he had been abducting
and torturing women, then selling them to buyers in Mexico.
The FBI investigated for over a year before closing the
file citing a lack of evidence. David Parker Ray was
(04:11):
never charged with anything later went on to work for
the state, so even after this tip to the FBI,
he was able to get away with it. And who
knows what really happened to make Jesse come forward, but
she later claimed that she had made that story up.
Jesse said he owed her money from when the two
used to sell pot together. She wanted revenge, and then
(04:33):
at some point their relationship changed.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Jesse Ray reported him, but it's clear after that she
became an active participant.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Jesse Waver she was her dad's recruiter. She would go
out and she would look for targets.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So Jesse Ray went from turning her dad into the
FBI to recruiting victims into the Toy Bob. So not
only was David Parker Ray's girlfriend involved in kidnapping his victims,
but so was his daughter. Following David's arrest in nineteen
ninety nine, investigators located dozens of videotapes in the toy box.
(05:16):
One tape showed a slender woman with long blonde hair
shackled to a table with duct tape covering her eyes.
This woman had a distinctive tattoo on her right ankle,
and that tattoo led investigators to Kelly Garrett. Kelly Garrett
is an important figure in this story. Once a happy newlywed,
(05:36):
her marriage was destroyed by an event she couldn't even remember,
a story no one believed. Even she doubted what had happened.
But it all started with a girl she used to
hang out with Jesse Ray.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Jesse and I met. I don't remember exactly where we met.
We had mutual friends, and anytime we'd see her at
the bar, she would hang out with us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
When Kelly was in her early twenties. She moved to
Truther Consequences, New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
We had a lot of fun back in the day.
We were always going out, playing pool, going to the lake.
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
The tiny town of Truther Consequences is famous both for
its natural hot springs and its unusual name, which came
courtesy of a radio game show.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
I think I had more fun here than I have
anywhere else I've lived. But I think it's the people.
I had really good friends here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Back in nineteen ninety six. Kelly was a newlywed. Really,
she had just been married for less than.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
A week, and we started fighting that day. I don't
even know what we were fighting about, but I told
him that I was leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So Kelly went out to blow off some steam from
that silly fight.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
I was going to go hook up with some friends
and go play pool, and I did. There were several
of us that went out and we were bar hopping.
I wasn't drinking. I was driving.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
They're just a handful of bars in the area, including
a small biker bar named Raymonds. When you step inside,
there are pool tables in a jukebox. It's dimly lip
as strings of light shapes like jalapenos along the walls.
That's where Kelly bumped into Jesse Ray, David Parker raised daughter.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
We weren't like close friends. We were just acquaintances kind
of because we would just hang out when we see
each other.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
After Raymonds, the group headed to another local bar called
Blue Water Saloon. That's where Kelly's night took a bad turn.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
I ordered one beer and some friends of mine started fighting.
They were a couple, so I took them home and
came back and finished my beer.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
When Kelly returned, the rest of her friends wanted to
go home, so she let them take her car.
Speaker 6 (08:02):
Jesse and I were the last two and without her car,
Jesse said she was going to give me a ride home,
and that's when Jesse took me toward Dad. She's the
one that took me to him. She knew what was
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
David Parker. Ray wound up keeping Kelly in his toy
box for two and a half days.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
When I was captive. I don't remember him saying too much.
I remember him telling me at one point that they
had been watching me for years.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
So what did David Parker Ray do to Kelly in
the toy box.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I have no idea. I don't remember. I just remember
being in his house.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
She believes now that she was drugged, which affected her memory,
and when she didn't turn up all weekend, Kelly's husband
got concerned.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
And my husband at the time put a missing persons
report out on me.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
A couple days later. Kelly remembers being driven in David
Parker race truck.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
The only thing that sticks in my memory from that
ride is him stopping to get coffee.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Kelly said she felt out of it during the ride.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
David dropped me off at my mother in law's house,
which is where my husband was, and he told her
that he found me wandering on the beach out at
the Lake Elephant Boot Lake because he lives out there.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Kelly's husband had questions, most importantly, where had she been
all weekend?
Speaker 6 (09:32):
And I told him I didn't remember anything, and they
did not believe me.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Kelly's husband was furious. The two had had an argument,
and Kelly disappeared for the weekend, but returned with no
memory of what happened. Her husband and his family didn't
believe her. They all assumed she was with another.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Man felt horrible. But who's gonna believe me when you
say I don't know where I've been all weekend. I'm
not sure I would believe somebody if they told me that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Her husband was so angry that he wouldn't even let
Kelly into the house.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
Like the next day, we went to the courthouse and
signed an oment papers, so we were married a total
of thirteen days.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Kelly never reported what happened to the police, and she
tried to forget what little she remembered. Three years later,
a news story would change everything. The report mentioned a
woman with a tattoo on her ankle. Kelly's former sister
in law was watching the news in shock. Prosecutor Jim
Yance explains.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Her ex in laws were vacationing, I believe in southern California,
and when they checked in to the hotel, the person
at the desert, oh, you're from Truth to Consequences. That's
where the story's on the news. Fun. They didn't know
anything about it, but they did recall Kelly. They did
(11:01):
recall the tattoo. When they got back, they notified the FBI.
They indicated that it was in fact their former daughter
in law and From that, we were able to locate
Kelly Garrett and the tribal tattoo was matched to the
tattoo on her leg.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Beginning of March, I think somebody called and said I
wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Two investigators arrived with the tape they found of Kelly
in the toy box.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
Oh yeah, they did show me the video.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
After watching it, her memories of what happened still weren't clear.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
I remember bits and pieces, and if I remember enough
of them, I can put them together.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Then Kelly shared some vivid nightmare she had been having.
These nightmarees started after her time in the toy box.
Speaker 6 (11:51):
I would have a nightmare about somebody holding a knife
to my throat, or I would have a nightmare about
being tied to a table. Duct tape has always been
a trigger since then, but I didn't know why. It
took me years before I could even say the word
duct tape. I called it icky tape for a long time.
(12:15):
And if I'm paying attention, then somebody's using it. Most
of the time, I can stand there while they use it,
But if they do it and I'm not paying attention,
I scream and panic and run away and.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Cry investigators couldn't help but know the eerie similarities of
Kelly's nightmares to what David Parker Ray did to his
other victims.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
He always had his keys on his belt loop, and
that's a trigger, the jingling of keys.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
The more Kelly talked, the more her painful memories flooded back.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
That's when it all clicked.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
She realized that those nightmare she had been having were
actually suppressed memories, and then it started to come back
to her. She remembered her friend's father threatening her with
a knife and then being duct taped and handcuffed to
a fitness bench.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
That felt good that I could actually put things together,
but it was also horrifying.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Police filed additional charges against David Parker Ray and arrested
his daughter, Jesse Ray. They charged her with kidnapping, criminal
sexual penetration, assault, and conspiracy. Jesse Ray was arrested thirty
four days after her dad was put behind bars. With
David Parker Ray, his girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, and now his
(13:46):
daughter Jesse Ray all in custody, could prosecutors get one
of them to flip. It's now late nineteen ninety nine
and David Parker Ray still isn't talking, so investigators leaned
on one of his two accomplices, girlfriend Cindy Hendy. Jim
(14:09):
Yance was the deputy district attorney.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Initially, she described herself as being one of his victims,
but she became involved in actually enjoying the torture part
of it, and became his accomplice.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
If convicted, Cindy Hendy faced more than two hundred years
in prison. So prosecutors offered Cindy a deal. Plead guilty
and cooperate with their investigation and they'll reduce the charges
mean in a lighter sentence. So Cindy agreed to the
plea deal. It required her to testify against David Parker Wray.
(14:44):
This is where the story turns even darker and a warning.
In all the cases I've covered, this is one of
the darkest details I have come across. What she shared
shocked the investigators. Cindy Hendy reported that David Parker Ray
killed at least fourteen people. He reportedly dropped the bodies
(15:04):
an elephant Butte Lake and ravines in the area. She said,
to keep the bodies from rising to the surface, he
would do something completely gruesome. Parker Way would cut out
the stomach of each victim and then fill the body
with rocks.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
The state police turned over every rock between Alburquirkue, and
Elf and Butte Tiny to find other victims, but we
were never able to find those individuals.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Then, in late nineteen ninety nine, David's accomplice and girlfriend,
Cindy Hendy, had a change of heart. She stopped cooperating
in the investigation. Cindy told the court that she was
still in love with David, so she fired her attorney
and asked to withdraw her plea. Cindy's new lawyer argued
(15:52):
that Cindy had an eighth grade education and a mental
disability that made it difficult for her to understand the
consequences of the deal she made with prosecutors. But prosecutors
believed that David Parker Ray's daughter Jesse Ray, helped to
convince Cindy Hendy not to testify. The two had jail
cells near one another and would often communicate. I cannot
(16:14):
believe that is allowed. David allegedly wrote letters to Cindy
urging her not to testify against him. Still, the judge
ruled that Cindy Hendy could not change her plea. Even
with the ruling, Cindy refused to testify against David. It
was the first of many setbacks for prosecutors. David Parker
(16:37):
Ray faced three separate trials, one for each victim. His
lawyer argued successfully that if he was tried for his
crimes against three victims together, he wouldn't have a fair
shot at proving his innocence, So the three cases were
separated into three different trials. They would go one victim
at a time. Then there was this hurdle, and keep
(17:00):
in mind, this was a different time. Two of those
victims were sex workers, and prosecutors feared that that made
them lack credibility.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
He knew the type of woman he wanted to pick up.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
TV reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
He wanted them to probably have a history of going
out and maybe drinking too much, of going home with
people that they didn't know on the first night. He
wanted to pick women who no one was going to
cost too much of a fuss if they didn't come
home in three days.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
They had video of him torturing and raping, and investigators
believed he was a killer, but without any bodies or
other evidence, they couldn't charge him with any other crimes.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They used to open the toy box for reporters to
come in, just to stir up people's memories.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
As you can imagine, all of this affected tourism. No
one wanted to go in or around the lake.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's one of those situations where you get around it
and it's almost like you can physically feel evil. It's
a thickness, the sensation. It's the way your skin crawls,
the way the wind hits you. It's just so uncomfortable.
Somebody out there saw something, somebody knows something, and it's
just gonna be a matter of time until they say something.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Cadaver dogs also searched David Parker Rai's property, but the
only bones they found belonged to animals.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Keep was strategic. I mean, that's why you got away
with it for so long. That was his game.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Then another tragedy three became two when one of the
victims mysteriously died. Angela Montana was held in the toy
box a few weeks before Cynthia V. Hill, but just
before the trial, she reportedly died of a drug overdose.
She was only twenty eight years old. Suddenly, the first case,
(18:50):
which was to find David Parker Ray guilty for his
crimes against Kelly Garrett. One that seemed like a slam
dung for prosecutors was crumbling. They needed Kelly Garrett to
be a witness at her own trial. Here's Kelly.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
I told him, No, I knew how much it was
going to bring up. I knew howpset it was going
to make me, and I changed.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
My mind ultimately and bravely. She agreed to testify.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
People needed to hear, people needed to know that he
was bad.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The trial, schedule to kick off in the spring of
two thousand, faced delay after delay. The defense wanted the
case tried outside of Elephant Butte in order to find
an impartial jury, so the judge moved the case some
two hundred and fifty miles north to the tiny town
of Tierra Maria. Then, in between four long weeks of
(19:46):
jury selection, David Parker Array was hospitalized twice with hard issues.
More delays came when David's lawyer had to deal with
a personal issue. When he finally returned to work, both
sides held several heated hearings about what evidence prosecutor Jim
Yuns could show to the jury. Some evidence was just
too graphic, and there was another problem. Kelly Garrett was
(20:11):
held in the toy box in nineteen ninety six, but
the evidence was seized in nineteen ninety nine when police
rescued Cynthia V.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Hill.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Now prosecutors had to prove that each piece of evidence
was also present three years earlier. This led to dozens
of pieces of evidence being excluded from the trial. The
most heated debate over evidence involved the audio tapes found
that described the crimes in the toy box.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He played a tape that, in chilling detail, told them
exactly what was going to happen to them.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The judge did not allow it to be played at
Kelly Garrett's trial because Kelly couldn't remember hearing it, but
the judge did allow the jury to see a videotape
of Kelly Garrett that was recorded in the toy box.
When the trial began in the summer of two thousand,
that videotape became the prosecution's key piece of evidence. Durs
(21:06):
heard hours of testimony from law enforcement and first responders
before prosecutors finally played that videotape. As the six minute
video flickered on an old TV monitor. Jurs leaned forward
in their seats to take a closer look. The recording
showed Kelly restrained on a table. It showed Parker Rey
(21:27):
assaulting her by groping her and placing duct tape over
her mouth and eyes. Without an audio, it would be
up to Kelly to describe what happened before, during, and
after this six minute long tape. But remember, Kelly couldn't
recall what happened. She believed she had been drugged for.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
A long time. I don't think I was reliable because
I couldn't compose myself enough sometimes to get out of bed.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
For two long hours, Kelly sat on the witness stand
and recounted what she could remember happened that weekend in
July nineteen ninety six. She said she had a beard
a local bar and then felt light headed. Jesse Ray
offered to drive her home, but instead she took her
to her father's place. Kelly remembered that David claimed to
(22:15):
be a part of a Satanic group that wanted to
use her as a sex toy. Then they tied her
to what looked like a weightlifting bench. She then explained
how over the next three days David Parker Ray abused her.
She remembered his voice and said that at some point
the duct tape over her eyes became loose and she
(22:39):
was able to see his face. Kelly explained that she
always thought what happened to her was a nightmare that
eventually would go away, but it never did. It destroyed
her life.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
I used to be fun and outgoing, and I could
go places alone, and and now I stay home very
seldom ever go out. I can't even go to the
grocery store by myself.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Prosecutor Jim Yons then warned the jurors of the graphic
nature of what came next. They would see the inside
of the toy box. As jurors nervously shuffled in their seats,
Jim held up photos.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
We had cheers that asked for breaks. We had chers
that were just shaking their heads. Now, we actually had
chors sometimes that would put their head down or sobbing.
It was incredibly difficult for them to hear it.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
The quarter appointed public defender never called any witnesses to
the stand, but simply used his cross examination of the
prosecution's witnesses to cast down in the minds of the jurors.
He asked Kelly why she never told the police or
even her friends or family what happened to her in
the toy box. With her hands trembling, Kelly locked eyes
(23:59):
with the lawyer explained she thought that these memories were nightmares.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
We couldn't prove that I was drugged because those drugs
were found three years later.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
The defense attorney used that same strategy to pick away
at the contents of the toy box. The public defender
set out to make each of the prosecution's witnesses unreliable.
He asked the same question to each investigator who testified,
do you know if these items were in the toy
box back in nineteen ninety six. One by one, they
(24:33):
each answered, I don't know. As for the defendant, David Parker,
ray He Warwick became dugged. His uniform a striped cowboy
shirt with brown jeans and cowboy boots. He appeared thinner
and then at the time of his arrest, and his
slicked back hair had more streaks of gray. His demeanor
(24:54):
changed from smiling and flirting with his attorney's assistant to
look looking tired and slumping over in his chair. He
continued to complain of chest pain, and by the time
both sides made their closing arguments, David Parker Ray was
joined at the defense table with a giant tank of
oxygen to help his breathing. As both sides stated their
(25:17):
case to the jury, Parker Ray's lawyer again shifted the
focus on the victims. He attacked Kelly Garrett's credibility and
called her memory selective. He told jurors, if you're telling
the truth, you don't have to remember. He argued that
the sex between David Parker Ray and Kelly Garrett was
consensual and that the video proved it. Prosecutor Jim Yons
(25:41):
got in the last word. He pointed out that Kelly
did not need to put herself through the pain of testifying,
to face the world, to tell them your most horrifying
story and to be called a liar, but Kelly chose
to do so. In spite of all of that. The
case went to the jury on the app afternoon of
July twelve, two thousand and now it was in their
(26:04):
hands to decide David Parker Ray's fate. Imagine this, Just
minutes after jurors began deliberations, David Parker Ray had to
be escorted out of the courtroom. The now six year
old felt a pain in his chest. His lawyer called
it heart irregularities, and he was sent to a local
(26:26):
clinic for treatment.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
My greatest fear was David being released.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Prosecutor Jim Yarns knew his case was strong, but he
was afraid of what the jury would come back with.
Yance was frustrated that the judge didn't allow some key evidence,
specifically the initiation tape that David Parker Ray played for
his victims. Although jurors didn't see all of the evidence,
the investigators and lawyers did.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
We saw all of the imagers. Now, some of them
were hand drawings of David's. Some of were actual photographs.
But no, I'd never seen anything like them before, nor
do I hope to again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
While jury deliberations continued into their second day, the tiny
town of Tierra Maria was packed with journalists awaiting for
a verdict. Prosecutors worried that the longer the jury deliberated,
the greater chance of an acquittal.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
On day one of this investigation, everybody worked together for
one purpose, and that was to stop the nightmare David
Parker Ray.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Then on Thursday, July fourteenth, two thousand, the judge called
everyone back into the courtroom. By that point, the jury
had spent days deliberating for all twelve counts. They couldn't
agree on a unanimous verdict.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
That trial ended up in a misstoial.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The hung jury was a major victory for David Parker Ray,
who back in the courtroom, showed no emotion. The prosecutors
were stunned. They learned from reporters that two twenty somethingter
female durers who were the holdouts for securing a conviction.
The two said they didn't believe Kelly Garrett's testimony, and
(28:14):
one even believed the sex was consensual.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
I was there willingly, That's what that was said in court.
They found over one hundred videos but only found three
of us alive. But I was there willingly because most
of the people that he took were either into drugs
(28:41):
or prostitutes, and I was neither.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's true at the time, these women were not seen
as believable, and we know that this is still a
problem today. I know this from my own experience covering
the Long Island serial killer. It's valid to question if
that case where multiple women's bodies were found along the
shoreline would have been taken more seriously and solved years
(29:05):
earlier if the women hadn't been sex workers. Even with
her credibility being questioned, what was more painful for Kelly
is what she heard from a juror.
Speaker 6 (29:16):
Some people like it rough. It was one of the
jurors that said that some people like it Rod. I'll
never forget her saying That's about the only thing I
remember about that trial.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
A man with a homemade torture chamber, who had journals
and videos detailing what he did to dozens of victims,
somehow managed to escape being convicted.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
I was scared when Kelly's came back a hungry I
was really scared.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Cynthia Viha was preparing for her own trial. She didn't
testify in the first case because she was the star
witness in Parker Ray's upcoming second trial.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I don't understand how a woman could not believe her.
There's a whole video of her being tortured, there's drawings,
there's rules. He had never trust the chain captive. What
does that say? A chained captive that tells you right
there there because they're not willing. So I don't know
(30:23):
how anybody could believe it he was innocent. That's when
I got really scared that they weren't going.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
To believe me. For this trial, David Parker Ray would
have to find a new lawyer. His previous attorney, a
twelve year veteran of the Public Defender's Office, announced that
he was taking a new job in Antarctica. That's right,
he was moving to a new continent. But before leaving,
(30:55):
he stopped at a colleague's office with a message.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
Hey, look, I'm leaving the Public Defender's Office and I've
got a case I want you to take. Will you
take it? I said, well, sure, what is it? And
he says it's that case? And I said that case
And he said, yes, that one.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
That case now belonged to Lee McMillan.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
They basically threw me to the wolves. David Parker Ray
was one of those cases that every attorney hopes he'll
get once in a lifetime and then finally gets one
and never wants another one.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
But then things took another strange turn one weekend when
a giant black bear broke through a plexiglass window and
rummaged through the courthouse. The bear wound up, chewing on
some cans before leaving, along with a broken window in
charge of glass. The bear left behind a bloody trail
of Paul prints. One courthouse worker joked that the case
(31:47):
couldn't get any weirder, but it did. Before the retrial began,
the judge, who was just fifty five years old at
the time, had a massive heart attack and died. Just
the day before that. He had gone to the jailhouse
and warned the guards to leave David Parker Ray alone.
He had heard that he was being picked on. Replacing
(32:10):
him was Judge Kevin Swayze, who, at thirty eight years old,
was the youngest district judge in New Mexico.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
This is his first major trial after he was appointed
to the bench.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
A new judge and a complete redo of the trial
meant anything was possible.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
He had just told the police that he was ready
to talk.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
To them, but prosecutors kept running into the same rule blox.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
It almost goes back to that hole. This is so outrageous.
It's hard for people to believe.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
What lengths would investigators go to to get David Parker
Ray to reveal his secrets.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
There was some talk that David Parker Why would plead
guilty to everything as long as the state would make
a deal.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But would they run out of time?
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Probably the one thing that irritates the hell out of
me about this case.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
In the final episode of The Toy Box Killer, prosecutors
get another chance to convict David Parker Ray, and this
time they'll get some help from an unlikely source. What
happened in the end was something that shocked David Parker
Ray's own lawyer.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
I did not trust if he would not start his
own hard walk out, that's.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Next time on American Homicide. 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 Sloane Glass
(33:42):
and is 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 Gans. The
series is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with
additional writing by Benfetter and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer
(34:03):
is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart teap is Ali Perry. And
Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, additional
editing support from Nika Ruka Tanner, Robbins, brit Robashow, Dave Seya,
and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide theme song was composed by
Oliver Bains of Noisier Music Library provided by my Music.
(34:28):
Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts 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 wherever
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