Speaker 1: There was a nine one ball that came in indicating
Speaker 1: that there was a woman running with no clothes on
Speaker 1: and had a chain wrapped around her nick.
Speaker 2: It was a nine to one one call that made
Speaker 2: the New Mexico State Police think they were listening to
Speaker 2: some kind of prank.
Speaker 1: The victim had been kidnapped and tortured for several days.
Speaker 1: They found what essentially was a torture chamber with a
Speaker 1: placard on it that indicated Satan's Den.
Speaker 3: You know right away everything that happened in there was awful.
Speaker 2: It was just got awful, and surprisingly it all happened
Speaker 2: in the tiny tourist town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico.
Speaker 3: This is something we never would have expected.
Speaker 2: It was something they never would have suspected because it
Speaker 2: went from a case about sexual assault to something even darker.
Speaker 4: The FBI has estimated is responsible for between forty five
Speaker 4: and sixty hors arms.
Speaker 5: It would be the most sick and twisted chase that
Speaker 5: any of us would be involved in.
Speaker 2: My name is Sloaneglass and this is American Homicide, a
Speaker 2: show where we take you across the country to investigate
Speaker 2: some of America's deadliest crimes. We'll explore how these murders
Speaker 2: are shaped by their unique landscapes, and in turn, how
Speaker 2: these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. Today,
Speaker 2: We're an Elephant but New Mexico for Part one of
Speaker 2: The Toy Box Killer. A note for our listeners. This
Speaker 2: episode includes detailed accounts of sexual violence and contain subject
Speaker 2: matter which may not be suitable for all audiences. Discretion
Speaker 2: is advised. From the towering peaks of the Rocky Mountains
Speaker 2: to the wide open desert, New Mexico is a combination
Speaker 2: of natural beauty and man made wonders. Ironically for a
Speaker 2: state known for its wide open desert landscape. One of
Speaker 2: New Mexico's top tourist destinations is a lake located in
Speaker 2: Elephant Butte.
Speaker 5: Elephant Butte is a state park and there is this
Speaker 5: man made lake that's about twenty three miles long.
Speaker 2: Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety.
Speaker 5: Well, New Mexico is the desert, and it does get hot,
Speaker 5: and so people like to cool off, and there's not
Speaker 5: many places to do that, and Elephant Butte is one
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 2: Known as the Diamond in the Desert. The crown jewel
Speaker 2: of Elephant Butte is Elefantpute Dam. That huge man made
Speaker 2: lake is a result of the dam's construction in the
Speaker 2: early nineteen hundreds. Locals one joke that the rock formation
Speaker 2: in the area resembled an elephant lying down, which led
Speaker 2: to the name Elephant Butte.
Speaker 3: It's the playground for New Mexico in the summer.
Speaker 2: Every year, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the sleepy
Speaker 2: town of Elephant Butte transforms into one of the state's
Speaker 2: biggest tourist attractions.
Speaker 5: This tiny little town, maybe a few thousand people, grows
Speaker 5: to over one hundred thousand people that come down every
Speaker 5: year to use the lake, to fish, to camp.
Speaker 2: But outside of tours season, the area is fairly desolate.
Speaker 2: The thousand or so full time residents are mainly for tyres.
Speaker 5: They love the area, they love the lake year round,
Speaker 5: but many of them will tell you too that they
Speaker 5: just want to be left to themselves and enjoy their
Speaker 5: quiet little piece of the state.
Speaker 2: The state park is part of the city of Elephant Butte,
Speaker 2: a tiny desert community with one stoplight. It didn't even
Speaker 2: become an incorporated city until nineteen ninety eight. Part of
Speaker 2: that it was considered part of the neighboring community of
Speaker 2: Truth or Consequences. Strange name for a town, truth or Consequences.
Speaker 2: It conjures up images of the Old West and lawlessness,
Speaker 2: but that wasn't the case. They came by the name
Speaker 2: in a very whimsical way. The town got its name
Speaker 2: from a popular radio game show in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 2: called You Guessed It, Truth or Consequences. They had a contest.
Speaker 2: Name your city after the show, and you'd win a
Speaker 2: parade and a visit from the show's host.
Speaker 3: Mister Senator.
Speaker 1: I hereby Christmas City up some eight thousand people.
Speaker 3: Truth or Consequences of you like to go.
Speaker 2: Le sounds kind of crazy, but I guess in those
Speaker 2: days that's what you had to do to have a
Speaker 2: great parade. Outside of that, the town was pretty quiet.
Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty miles north of Elephant Butte is Albuquerque,
Speaker 2: and that's where a twenty two year old sex worker
Speaker 2: named Cynthia V. Hill lived in the nineteen nineties. Here's Cynthia.
Speaker 6: I didn't have the best childhood.
Speaker 2: Cynthia was abused and molested as a child and later
Speaker 2: turned to the streets, where she used drugs and sold
Speaker 2: her body.
Speaker 6: When I was out there, the homeless nas, the in
Speaker 6: and out of hotels, the prostitution, being on drugs. I've
Speaker 6: been there, and I've done that.
Speaker 2: Central Avenue, which is part of the famous Old Root
Speaker 2: sixty six cuts through downtown Albuquerque. But there's a dangerous
Speaker 2: stretch of Central Avenue known for high levels of crime,
Speaker 2: and that's where Cynthia was working on March twentieth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine. That day, she learned that a man wanted
Speaker 2: to meet her in his RV. That was a no
Speaker 2: no for Cynthia. She made it a rule to never
Speaker 2: meet customers in their RVs. That day, she'd break that
Speaker 2: rule and it would change Cynthia's life forever. As Cynthia
Speaker 2: opened the front door and entered the RV, she found
Speaker 2: herself standing in front of a tall, thin man with
Speaker 2: a mustache and slick back hair. He offered her thirty
Speaker 2: dollars for oral sex, but in her gut, she had
Speaker 2: a very bad feeling.
Speaker 6: I just knew something wasn't right at that moment.
Speaker 2: The man then flashed a silver badge and told Cynthia
Speaker 2: she was under arrest for solicitation.
Speaker 6: I was a little in shocked. I had never seen
Speaker 6: a badge like his.
Speaker 2: The badge seemed small and didn't look legit.
Speaker 6: But then I was like, I've never known the cops
Speaker 6: to do that kind of undercover work.
Speaker 2: The man started to handcuff her, and that's when Cynthia
Speaker 2: decided to run away.
Speaker 6: So after one handcuff was on my wrist, I tried
Speaker 6: getting away.
Speaker 2: Cynthia spun around and used her free hand to reach
Speaker 2: for the door.
Speaker 6: And I was almost at the door when he yelled Cindy,
Speaker 6: and I stopped.
Speaker 2: And then out of nowhere, another woman named Cindy emerged
Speaker 2: from a door in the back of the RV.
Speaker 6: She came out of the closet and shocked me at
Speaker 6: the cattle product. It knocked me over and they pulled
Speaker 6: me back and hand cucked me to the cabinets.
Speaker 2: That's right, he used a cattle pod. Literally shocked and stunned.
Speaker 2: Cynthia's handcuffed to a cabinet in the back of the
Speaker 2: RV that's now headed to god knows where. The man
Speaker 2: with the band drove while he's a compless Cindy sat
Speaker 2: in the passenger seat. Cindy appeared much younger than the man.
Speaker 2: She was thin, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.
Speaker 2: What did these two want from Cynthia? And where were
Speaker 2: they taking her?
Speaker 6: I never had a chance to date like what was
Speaker 6: going to happen long term?
Speaker 2: And Cynthia decided she was not going to stick around
Speaker 2: to find out. She knew if she could free herself
Speaker 2: from the cabinet, she had a chance to escape. After
Speaker 2: ten minutes of trying, Cynthia managed to unscroll bolt on
Speaker 2: the cabinet and get her hands free. They were still handcuffed,
Speaker 2: but she was no longer bounced to the.
Speaker 6: Cabinet and I knew I had to get away now.
Speaker 2: She waited for the RV to slow down so she
Speaker 2: could jump out, but things didn't go as planned.
Speaker 6: At one point, he had to slam on the brakes
Speaker 6: and I tumbled forward.
Speaker 2: The driver and his accomplice noticed that Cynthia was loose.
Speaker 2: They jumped to the back of the RV. Cindy point
Speaker 2: did a gun at Cynthia while the driver removed her clothes,
Speaker 2: placed a leather mask over her head, and tied her up.
Speaker 6: And I couldn't seem that thing.
Speaker 2: Desperate and afraid, Cynthia tried her luck with Cindy.
Speaker 6: I was begging her to let me go. I was
Speaker 6: using every excuse that I could think of.
Speaker 2: She was trying to talk to her, woman to woman.
Speaker 2: So she was shocked by Cindy's response.
Speaker 6: All she told me was that they were going to
Speaker 6: take me and rap me and let me go.
Speaker 2: I should warn you that things from here get more graphic.
Speaker 2: Naked and tied up in the back of an RV,
Speaker 2: Cynthia had nothing but time to think about what awaited her.
Speaker 6: The drive seemed like forever.
Speaker 2: Two hours would pass before the RV pulled into an
Speaker 2: unpaved road and came to a stop. Seconds later, the
Speaker 2: door to the RV opened. That's when panic rushed over
Speaker 2: her body.
Speaker 6: When they finally took me out of the RV, I
Speaker 6: had no clothes on, I had had cuff and shackled.
Speaker 2: It was eerily quiet, but.
Speaker 6: Didn't they put duct tape around my face?
Speaker 2: Cynthia couldn't see a thing as the two led her
Speaker 2: to a twenty two foot cargo trailer that sat beside
Speaker 2: a small white house in the middle of the desert.
Speaker 6: And I couldn't figure out why nobody was seeing me naked.
Speaker 6: Walking from the RV into the trailer.
Speaker 2: A handful of prefabricated homes dotted the area, surrounded by
Speaker 2: Elephant Butte Lake in the distance.
Speaker 6: They took me inside and they sat me on the bed,
Speaker 6: and they put a metal collar around my neck that
Speaker 6: head locked and shackled my feet to the bed and
Speaker 6: my hands to the bed.
Speaker 2: Cynthia didn't know it at the time, but she sat
Speaker 2: inside a room that the man with the badge called
Speaker 2: the toy box. But don't let that innocent name f
Speaker 2: The toy box was actually a torture chamber that belonged
Speaker 2: to the man who kidnapped her, David Parker Ray. During
Speaker 2: the day, the fifty nine year old was a maintenance
Speaker 2: man with the New Mexico Parks Department. At night, he
Speaker 2: lived out his dark sexual fantasies in an old, white
Speaker 2: metal storage container that he converted into a sound proof
Speaker 2: torture chamber. An old video camera fixed to the wall
Speaker 2: pointed right at the chair that sat in the middle
Speaker 2: of the room. His partner in crime, Cindy Hendy, wasn't
Speaker 2: just his accomplice in the kidnappings and sexual assault, but
Speaker 2: was his girlfriend.
Speaker 6: They went about their business like it was a normal life.
Speaker 2: Incredibly, the two watched movies and carried on as though
Speaker 2: there wasn't a naked woman strapped to a chair in
Speaker 2: their house. At some point, Cynthia believed she was drugged
Speaker 2: and and when she woke up there was a cassette
Speaker 2: tape player next to her playing a tape. It was
Speaker 2: the voice of the man from the RV explaining what
Speaker 2: would happen in his toy box.
Speaker 6: It started off saying, hello, bitch.
Speaker 7: Okay, bitch, we both know what You've been brought here
Speaker 7: far a.
Speaker 6: Lot of telling me why I was there.
Speaker 7: I'm in the bondage and S and M. It's kind
Speaker 7: of hard to find a bullet and partners. It goes
Speaker 7: to that SEP. So when I get urged, I go
Speaker 7: out proby some good looking little It turns me on,
Speaker 7: kidnapp her and keep her in my playroom for a while,
Speaker 7: and this time it's your turn.
Speaker 2: That's really hard to listen to. In the recordings, David
Speaker 2: calmly and matter of factly outlined all the disturbing things
Speaker 2: he intended to do to Cynthia.
Speaker 7: I'm going to experiment on you have dinner to a
Speaker 7: lot of women over the years.
Speaker 2: The voice said that once he got tired of his victims.
Speaker 2: He drugged them and they wouldn't remember a thing about
Speaker 2: what happened.
Speaker 7: You knew enough to cause serious problems. You would not
Speaker 7: be turned loose. You would simply disappear.
Speaker 2: Just before the forty five minute long, terrifying tape ended,
Speaker 2: David Parker Ray presented an offer.
Speaker 7: As soon as I turned this tape off, you will
Speaker 7: have an excellent opportunity to try to bag for me
Speaker 7: to turn you loose. I may or may not be
Speaker 7: able to understand you see the gag, but if you
Speaker 7: want to feel free to try. I love to listen
Speaker 7: to a bag and plead. And this is the end
Speaker 7: of the tape.
Speaker 2: But not surprisingly, Cynthia was unable to persuade her captors
Speaker 2: to free her. Instead, she was subjected to three days
Speaker 2: of unthinkable abuse.
Speaker 6: Hey shocked me, but the device he made, he connected
Speaker 6: it to my breast and shocked me for hours, and
Speaker 6: then he watched a movie, went to bed. The next morning,
Speaker 6: they ate breakfast, and then they took me into another
Speaker 6: room and they put me on massage table and she
Speaker 6: shocked me.
Speaker 2: The pain was excruciating.
Speaker 6: That went on for about an hour, hour and a half.
Speaker 2: Eventually the pain became too much and Cynthia passed out.
Speaker 6: I kind of realized I might not go home.
Speaker 3: I might die.
Speaker 2: Cynthia woke up shackled to a chair, and across from
Speaker 2: her was a long, wooden coffin. Can you imagine waking
Speaker 2: up and seeing a coffin. The top was open and
Speaker 2: a pillow and white sheet sat inside. And on the
Speaker 2: walls of his toy box were graphic pictures of women
Speaker 2: being tortured, along with some rules, rules like never trust
Speaker 2: a chain captive.
Speaker 6: When they had me laying on the bed and they
Speaker 6: were going about their business, they were talking about a
Speaker 6: little girl that they were going to make their sex slave,
Speaker 6: and they already knew who she was, They already had
Speaker 6: it climbed out.
Speaker 2: For Cynthia, that was confirmation of the enormity of the
Speaker 2: crimes that took place in that trailer.
Speaker 6: I never thought for one minute that I was the
Speaker 6: only girl that that ever happened to.
Speaker 2: By this point, Cynthia's body was covered with bruises and burns.
Speaker 2: Cynthia was smarted. She had a strategy she tried her
Speaker 2: best to play by. David Parker raised rules in the
Speaker 2: hopes that he'd eventually get tired of her and let
Speaker 2: her go.
Speaker 6: The next day he comes and he sits on the
Speaker 6: bed and he takes the hair cuffs and shackles off me,
Speaker 6: and he went to work.
Speaker 2: It was now Monday morning, and David left the trailer
Speaker 2: wearing his Green Parks Department uniform. Before he returned from
Speaker 2: work that day, everything would change. In March nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: Cynthia v. Hill was abducted by a man soliciting sex
Speaker 2: from her. David Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Hendy
Speaker 2: took Cynthia to their sound proof trailer in the desert
Speaker 2: town of Elephant Butte, New Mexico. There they sexually assaulted
Speaker 2: and tortured her.
Speaker 6: It was something totally different than any other situation I
Speaker 6: had been in.
Speaker 2: Cynthia had lost track of time, but it was now Monday,
Speaker 2: March twenty second, nineteen ninety nine, the third day she
Speaker 2: was held captive. That morning, David Parker Ray chained Cynthia
Speaker 2: to a pole and then he went to work. This
Speaker 2: meant his girlfriend Cindy Hendy was in charge.
Speaker 6: She got left with me during the day.
Speaker 2: That afternoon, Cynthia noticed her key to freedom, sat on
Speaker 2: a coffee table just a few feet away where David
Speaker 2: Parker Ray left his key ring. She'd seen her ab
Speaker 2: doctor use one of those keys to unlock the padlock
Speaker 2: that currently connected the chain around her neck to the pole.
Speaker 2: Cynthia was determined to get those keys, but with Cindy
Speaker 2: Hendy's standing guard, she couldn't make her move. Instead, she
Speaker 2: waited as Cindy spent the day cooking and watching soap
Speaker 2: operas on an old TV. Never once did she speak
Speaker 2: until that afternoon when she got a phone call.
Speaker 6: She went to the back of the trailer and I
Speaker 6: had the opportunity to get the keys.
Speaker 2: The collar around Cynthia's neck had her chain to a pole,
Speaker 2: but her hands and feet were free, so she stretched
Speaker 2: her legs as far as they would go, and then
Speaker 2: wrapped her feet around the base of the table. She
Speaker 2: slowly and carefully pulled the coffee table closer to her
Speaker 2: while trying to not make any noise. With the keys
Speaker 2: within reach, Cynthia scooped them up with her right hand.
Speaker 2: She tried the first key, it didn't fit. By the
Speaker 2: time she put the second key in, Cindy Hendy was
Speaker 2: standing in front of her.
Speaker 6: When she came back in the living room, and seeing
Speaker 6: I had the keys, she started beating me with a
Speaker 6: glass lamp.
Speaker 2: The glass broke into a million tiny pieces. As Cynthia
Speaker 2: defensively curled her body into a.
Speaker 6: Ball, I finally got the lock open.
Speaker 2: In a fight for her life. Cynthia ran towards a
Speaker 2: nearby ice pick.
Speaker 6: And I got the ice pick and I stabbed her
Speaker 6: with him.
Speaker 2: The ice pick slashed Cindy Hendy's face, causing her to
Speaker 2: fall back in pain, and that's when Cynthia grabbed the
Speaker 2: landline phone.
Speaker 6: I dialed nine one one.
Speaker 2: But Cindy Hendy snatched the phone back from her. Blood
Speaker 2: was running down her face as Cindy quickly told the
Speaker 2: nine one one operator that everything was fine and hung
Speaker 2: up the phone. When she turned around, Cynthia was gone.
Speaker 2: Cynthia had jumped through a window and was now running
Speaker 2: as fast as she could to get away from David
Speaker 2: Parker Ray's house.
Speaker 6: I had no clothes on, I had a metal color
Speaker 6: on my neck, and I was bleeding from head to toe.
Speaker 2: Her eyes burned from the sunlight as she tried to
Speaker 2: find somebody, anybody, but there was no one around. As
Speaker 2: she ran down the dirt road, all she saw were
Speaker 2: a handful of prefabricated homes in our v's. The collar
Speaker 2: was still around her neck and the chain clanked as
Speaker 2: it dragged on the dirt road. After two blocks of
Speaker 2: running in a dead sprint, Cynthia got to an intersection.
Speaker 2: She stopped. The street was paved, and a blue car
Speaker 2: was headed right towards her. The driver saw her and
Speaker 2: slowed down.
Speaker 6: I tried getting in a car to the lady that
Speaker 6: was driving by me.
Speaker 2: When the driver saw the bloodied and wild eyed Cynthia,
Speaker 2: they screamed, rolled up their windows, and sped off. Remember
Speaker 2: this is a small town. There were no other cars
Speaker 2: in sight. Cynthia continued running down the road. She passed
Speaker 2: an intersection and noticed a street sign. It read Bass Road.
Speaker 2: I head was a double wide mobile home and Cynthia
Speaker 2: ran straight towards the front door. Watched her surprise. It
Speaker 2: was unlocked, so she went inside and double locked the
Speaker 2: door behind her.
Speaker 6: I ran into some lady's house as she was doing
Speaker 6: dishes and asked her for how Her husband came in
Speaker 6: and it was a shock. It's like stopped in his
Speaker 6: tracks and couldn't talk. He's just looking at me. And
Speaker 6: she caught nine one one and they put a robe
Speaker 6: on me.
Speaker 1: I was at the Sheriff's office and a one call
Speaker 1: came into the dispatch center.
Speaker 2: Dave Elston was a sergeant with the Sierra County Police Department.
Speaker 1: At first I thought it could have been a joke.
Speaker 1: A short time after that, there was another nine to
Speaker 1: one one call that came in indicating that there was
Speaker 1: a woman running down Bass Road with no clothes on
Speaker 1: and had a chain wrapped around her neck. And then
Speaker 1: moments later, another nine one one call came and that
Speaker 1: there was a woman with no clothes on or the
Speaker 1: chain around her neck inside a woman's living room asking
Speaker 1: for hilp as.
Speaker 2: Two deputies responded to the home where Cynthia Viha was.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Elston went to the origin of the first nine
Speaker 2: on one call, David Parker Ray's home. But David Parker
Speaker 2: Ray wasn't just some ordinary suspect to start in Elston.
Speaker 1: I knew David Parker Ray personally. He was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine.
Speaker 2: Imagine knowing this horrible crime had occurred in this small
Speaker 2: town you were sworn to protect, only to show up
Speaker 2: to the house and it's someone you know, a person
Speaker 2: you call a friend. In this small town. David Parker
Speaker 2: Ray was well known and likable.
Speaker 1: He was a mechanic at the New Mexico State Parks
Speaker 1: at Elephant. But that's how I got to know him.
Speaker 1: I worked a case once where there was individuals that's
Speaker 1: broke into their police cards, that stole their police radios
Speaker 1: and ended up catching that individual and I had David
Speaker 1: Parker Ray testify in my case, and he testified and
Speaker 1: he presented himself very well during his testimony on the stand.
Speaker 2: Now, Sergeant Elston and two other officers were standing outside
Speaker 2: Perker Race home in Elephant Butte.
Speaker 1: It was a mobile home. I've never been inside of it,
Speaker 1: but I've been there before and knew where he lived.
Speaker 2: When no one answered the door, the three officers came
Speaker 2: entry through a sliding glass door on the side of
Speaker 2: the home, and when.
Speaker 1: I walked in, I noticed that there was what appeared
Speaker 1: to be a hospital bed in the center of the
Speaker 1: room with a system of chains attached to the ceiling.
Speaker 2: As Sergeant Elston navigated through the room, he heard charts
Speaker 2: of glass breaking under his shoes.
Speaker 1: There was a nineteen seventies style lamp that had the
Speaker 1: green glass bulb on the bottom and it was broken
Speaker 1: all over the ground.
Speaker 2: He continued and took inventory of all the bizarre things
Speaker 2: that surrounded him in his friend's home.
Speaker 1: I entered into a room that had a coffee inside
Speaker 1: of it, and then there was a dresser drawer style
Speaker 1: with a mirror in there that had various types of
Speaker 1: tools and had a scalpel, ice pick, small torch. There
Speaker 1: was also a like a candelabra that was in there
Speaker 1: that was approximately three feet high maybe which had a
Speaker 1: sexual device on top, and then it also had spikes
Speaker 1: sticking out from the bottom of it upwards. And then
Speaker 1: I also noticed on the walls that there were drawings
Speaker 1: of bondage type situations. Essentially was a torture chamber with
Speaker 1: a placard on it that indicated Satan's Den.
Speaker 2: Satan's Den was the place that David Parker Ray referred
Speaker 2: to as the toy Box.
Speaker 1: So we determined that we actually had a crime scene,
Speaker 1: but we didn't know exactly what we had at the time.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Alston then got in touch with the deputies who
Speaker 2: were with Cynthia v.
Speaker 7: Hill.
Speaker 1: While talking with him on the telephone, he was telling
Speaker 1: me that the victim there, who was Cynthia Vehle had
Speaker 1: been kidnapped and had been tortured for several days at
Speaker 1: David Parker's residence. He took a pair of bolt cutters
Speaker 1: and remove a metal collar.
Speaker 7: That was on there.
Speaker 2: As deputies transported Cynthia to a local hospital, Sergeant Elston
Speaker 2: began his hunt for the man. No one in Elephant
Speaker 2: Bute suspected would have a torture chamber.
Speaker 1: David Parker Ray was always friendly with me. It was
Speaker 1: kind of shocking just knowing that this individual that I'd
Speaker 1: known for that long was into what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Later that afternoon, Sergeant Elston was in a squad car
Speaker 2: headed back to the police station when he drove past
Speaker 2: a familiar vehicle.
Speaker 1: I noticed David Parker Ray's Harve with him driving it,
Speaker 1: so I turned around did a traffic stop with him.
Speaker 2: Neighbors looked on as police drew their weapons and ordered
Speaker 2: David Parker Ray and Cindy Hendy to exit. The vehicle.
Speaker 1: Is very calm. He was wearing the State Park's uniform.
Speaker 2: The two then walked backwards towards the police with their
Speaker 2: hands in.
Speaker 1: The air, and he asked if he could pick the
Speaker 1: uniform off, and I told him no, that just that
Speaker 1: was taken him into investigative custody.
Speaker 2: With David Parker Ray and Cyndy Hendy now in custody
Speaker 2: for the kidnapping and torture of Cynthia V.
Speaker 4: Hill.
Speaker 2: What happened next would shake the quiet town of Elephant
Speaker 2: Butte to its roots. Police charged David Parker Ray and
Speaker 2: Cindy Hendy with twenty five counts, including kidnapping, sexual assault,
Speaker 2: and aggravated battery of Cynthia V.
Speaker 6: Hill.
Speaker 2: What they didn't know yet was that Cynthia would also
Speaker 2: be the key in unlocking even more crimes. This was
Speaker 2: just the beginning, and Cynthia was lucky to make it
Speaker 2: out alive.
Speaker 3: People were shocked.
Speaker 2: Darren White was the public safety director for the new
Speaker 2: Mexico State Police.
Speaker 5: The chief who was this very large, very stoic, and
Speaker 5: very serious man.
Speaker 3: I could see the look in his eye before he
Speaker 3: even uttered a word. What he was about to tell
Speaker 3: me was dark and disturbing.
Speaker 5: And he started to tell me about a woman who
Speaker 5: escaped in.
Speaker 3: Elephant Butte from a trailer.
Speaker 5: That the reports were that she was running down the
Speaker 5: street and that she was naked, and that she had
Speaker 5: a dog collar around her neck, and that there were
Speaker 5: two people accustody. It's a hundred times worse when you
Speaker 5: actually go to the scene of where everything happened, and
Speaker 5: especially once you open the door to the toy box
Speaker 5: and you see what's in there, and you know right
Speaker 5: away that everything that happened in there was awful, was
Speaker 5: just got off and designed.
Speaker 3: With pure evil.
Speaker 5: It didn't take much more to realize it would be
Speaker 5: the most sick and twisted case that any of us
Speaker 5: would be involved in.
Speaker 2: Talking to Cynthia V. Hill, the police admired her heroism.
Speaker 3: This was a woman that was.
Speaker 5: Unthinkably tortured, terrorized, and obviously incredibly shaken, but she was
Speaker 5: able to tell them exactly what happened to her and.
Speaker 3: Who was responsible for and where where did it happened.
Speaker 5: The detectives that were working that case knew right away
Speaker 5: that that was not the first case.
Speaker 3: He didn't wake up two days.
Speaker 5: Prior and decide, oh my god, I'm an adoptive torture
Speaker 5: this woman.
Speaker 2: David Parker Ray and Cindy Hendy sat and jail awaiting trial.
Speaker 2: Did two maintain their innocence and said they weren't torturing Cynthia.
Speaker 2: They were helping her. Helping her to talks from Heroin,
Speaker 2: and they maintained any sex between David and Cynthia b
Speaker 2: Hill was consensual. As she was being transported to jail,
Speaker 2: TV cameras captured Cindy Hendy.
Speaker 3: Were you involved in any way.
Speaker 2: Kind of did you just hear that? Cindy Hendy said no,
Speaker 2: kind of? What does kind of mean?
Speaker 5: She was involved in the abductions?
Speaker 3: She was involved in the torture.
Speaker 2: Police learned that Cindy Hendy had been convicted of theft
Speaker 2: and drug possession in Washington, but fled to New Mexico.
Speaker 2: She took up residence near Elephant Butte and landed a
Speaker 2: job with the State park Department. That's where she met
Speaker 2: David Parker Ready.
Speaker 5: Cindy had said that they both had a preference for
Speaker 5: this kind of violent sexual activity, and.
Speaker 3: So that's what brought them together.
Speaker 5: It's hard to imagine that a human being is capable
Speaker 5: of treating someone like that and inflicting that type of
Speaker 5: pain on them and doing it for their pleasure.
Speaker 2: David Parker Ray was the man known for fixing things.
Speaker 2: He worked at the New Mexico Parks Department and was
Speaker 2: well known and well liked by those in town.
Speaker 5: There was not an ill word. People didn't say bad
Speaker 5: things about him.
Speaker 2: People described him as quiet, neat, and somebody who would
Speaker 2: never raise his voice. One co worker said David Parker
Speaker 2: Ray was the nicest, cleanest, politest person and called his
Speaker 2: arrest mind boggling. And if you think about it, if
Speaker 2: that is really how people thought of him, it certainly
Speaker 2: was mind boggling.
Speaker 5: He just seemed like a almost like a grandfatherly figure
Speaker 5: that you would go fishing with on the weekend.
Speaker 2: He even won an award at work for his efforts
Speaker 2: in a cost savings program. Along with a cash prize,
Speaker 2: he received a certificate of appreciation for his quote exemplary
Speaker 2: work and dedication.
Speaker 5: The thing that I remember the most is just people
Speaker 5: saying is that this is something we never would have
Speaker 5: expected of David parker Ray.
Speaker 2: But his reputation didn't cloud police judgment. It became obvious
Speaker 2: that David Parker Ray led two very different lives.
Speaker 5: The one thing about David Parker Ray kept journals, videos, recordings.
Speaker 2: Parker Ray kept meticulous records of what he did to
Speaker 2: his victims. He even had dozens of videotapes that showed
Speaker 2: him torturin women, including Cynthia V.
Speaker 7: Hill.
Speaker 2: With all this new information, police took another look at
Speaker 2: previous missing persons cases in the area. The FBI sent
Speaker 2: a pair of psychological profilers to try to get into
Speaker 2: the mind of David Parker Ray. And then there was
Speaker 2: the toy box. The FBI towed it to their Albuquerque office,
Speaker 2: where one FBI agent had the unfortunate task of sketching
Speaker 2: and making detailed dwellings of its contents.
Speaker 5: You're talking about dozens of criminal investigators that were there
Speaker 5: trying to investigate every aspect of David Parker Right.
Speaker 2: All of this was going down weeks before Elephant Butte's
Speaker 2: high season began. Sleepy hotels suddenly turned on their no
Speaker 2: vacancy signs, Journalists and law enforcement flooded into town.
Speaker 3: Here you have this quiet little town that likes to
Speaker 3: keep to themselves. That wasn't going to be the case.
Speaker 2: Anymore, especially after this news became public. One of Cindy
Speaker 2: Hendy's friends told a local TV station David Parker Ray
Speaker 2: was more than a rapist, he was a murderer. This
Speaker 2: friend claimed he dumped four to six victims in Elephant
Speaker 2: Butte Lake and that more bodies were bare in the desert, and.
Speaker 5: There was immediately rumors that the lake was probably a
Speaker 5: graveyard to dozens of his victims.
Speaker 2: The two were no longer just being looked at as
Speaker 2: sexual predators, but serial killers. Sergeant Dave Elston was one
Speaker 2: of the investigators.
Speaker 1: When I was inside of the residents, I saw a
Speaker 1: map of Elephabute Lake that had several red exes on
Speaker 1: it in the center of the lake.
Speaker 2: What could that mean? Xes on a lake. It's an
Speaker 2: ominous discovery, and you would think that somebody hiding such
Speaker 2: a huge secret would be more discreet.
Speaker 1: Was speculated that David Parker Ray would take them out
Speaker 1: on a boat and cut their bodies open, remove the
Speaker 1: internal organs, fill the cavity with rocks, bricks, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, wrap them in chicken wire, and dump them
Speaker 1: into Elophabute Lake and the fish and other creatures would
Speaker 1: take care of the decomposition of the body. So elfan
Speaker 1: Bute Lake is approximately forty miles long.
Speaker 2: Police and news helicopters took to the sky over Elephant
Speaker 2: Butte looking for bodies, but none turned up.
Speaker 5: I did a town hall meeting with the commune to
Speaker 5: try to give as much information as I could.
Speaker 2: That evening, residents of Elephant Butte filled a local school
Speaker 2: gymnasium as Darren White of the New Mexico State Police
Speaker 2: tried to ease their.
Speaker 5: Concerns speculation was running whatt in this tiny little community.
Speaker 2: Officer White told them that the state was pouring all
Speaker 2: of its resources into the investigation. He also expressed concern
Speaker 2: for investigators' mental health given the chilling evidence they encountered,
Speaker 2: and in the coming weeks, police would learn about two
Speaker 2: more victims.
Speaker 1: Angelica Montano was a victim of David Parker Ray.
Speaker 2: Angelica lived in Albuquerque and claimed that David Parker Ray
Speaker 2: held her in the toy box a few weeks before Cynthia.
Speaker 2: Then he dropped her off on the interstate.
Speaker 1: She was picked up by an off duty deputy sheriff.
Speaker 1: She explained to him that she had been kidnapped, raped
Speaker 1: and tortured, and then she didn't even know how she
Speaker 1: even got out of the interstate.
Speaker 2: But at the time the police didn't believe her story
Speaker 2: and they let her go.
Speaker 1: He just dropped her off at a gas station in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and continued on with this information.
Speaker 2: Police added additional charges to David Parker Ray and Cindy Hendy.
Speaker 2: That's now two victims that came forward, and Deputy District
Speaker 2: Attorney Jim Yance would soon locate a third. But there's
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 4: She was able to remember bits and pieces on not
Speaker 4: the entire experience.
Speaker 2: With three victims. Prosecutors worked to make sure they kept
Speaker 2: these monsters behind bars.
Speaker 3: The victims, what they encountered and what they endured is
Speaker 3: just it's unbelievable and.
Speaker 5: So unbelievable that there were so many people when they
Speaker 5: were first told, didn't believe it was true.
Speaker 2: Now it was up to prosecutors to convince a jury.
Speaker 4: We had chores that were just shaking their head Snow
Speaker 4: we actually had yours sobbing.
Speaker 2: But would those jurors believe what happened?
Speaker 7: Some people like it rough.
Speaker 6: It was one of the.
Speaker 7: Jurors that said that.
Speaker 2: Even with three witnesses, a pile of tapes, detailed recordings,
Speaker 2: and physical evidence, prosecutors would struggle to keep David Parker
Speaker 2: Ray behind bars. And we didn't tell you hear why.
Speaker 2: That's on part two of The Toy Box Killer. Next
Speaker 2: time on American Homicide, you can contact the American Homicide
Speaker 2: Team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloane Glass
Speaker 2: and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
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Speaker 2: is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The
Speaker 2: series is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with
Speaker 2: additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate
Speaker 2: producer is Kristin Melcurry. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
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