S1: E8 – The Toy Box Killer, Part 3

I was David Parker Ray's second lawyer. I stepped in after the first trial in two thousand. I spent dozens or hundreds of hours with David Parker Ray. What I expected was somebody that was visibly evil. What I got was a guy that if you met him in a bar, you'd have a beer with him and maybe go fishing with him. I think the fact that he was so amiable makes the whole thing scarier.

My name is Slung Glass and this is the conclusion of The Toy Box Killer on American Homicide And just a quick note that this episode contained some graphic and disturbing content. Please take care while listening. The case of David Parker Ray caught the attention of the world after one of his victims escaped from his torture chamber known as the Toy Box. His toy box was a soundproof trailer attached to his home in the middle of the

There was a mistrial, they had a hung jury.

Lee McMillan was David Parker Ray's lawyer and represented him in the retrial.

Was one of the best behaved criminal clients I'd ever had. He never criticized, He never complained, you never whined.

We heard in earlier episodes how locals described David Parker Ray as charming, polite, and even helpful. But the likable mechanic from Elephant Bute, New Mexico had some dark secrets. The FBI believed he could be responsible for the murders of more than forty five people, that would make him one of the most prolific killers in American history, but they never charged him.

It was difficult to convict David Parker Ray of murder because they didn't have any corpses.

Without anybodies, prosecutors charged Parker Ray with what they could get him on, kidnapping, torturing, and sexually assaulting three women.

David Parker Ray was a man who believed himself to be Satan himself, or at least a demonic presence on earth. To advance the Satanic agenda, he makes that very clear in the orientation tape that he played for his victims, and in the sketches that he made of the procedures that he performed in his den, which he called Satan's Den.

You may remember that he tied up his victims and then played a recording of him methodically listing off all the sick and disgusting things he intended to do to them.

I have no idea how to defend somebody like that.

Nevertheless, this was the job Lee McMillan had to do. Each case against David Parker Ray was tried separately. The first trial was for crimes against Kelly Garrett, who was kidnapped by David's daughter, Jesse Ray in nineteen ninety six.

Kelly Garrett, who was uncovered by one of the pictures that the FBI took and the toy box showed a victim with a tattoo on her lower leg, and they identified her through that tattoo.

Kelly's exit in laws saw a picture of her tattoo on the news and immediately phoned the FBI to identify their ex daughter in law. They remembered how three years earlier Kelly turned up disoriented but having no memory of where she had been over the course of a weekend. At the time, they all assumed Kelly was out partying and messing around with another man.

I thank you for Kelly Garrett.

She has gone through some stuff and went to the bars, and I believe that's how she came into contact with Jesse Ray and David Ray.

But the reality is that Kelly was kidnapped and drugged, which destroyed her memory from that weekend. So Kelly never told the police about what happened. It was the FBI who approached her. A fact David Parker Ray's defense team jumped on.

Well, normally you would go after that witness and ask him why they never came forward and ask him why they didn't participate in the prosecution until they were found. Considering that the case was all over the news, why didn't you pick up the phone and call somebody?

Questioning Kelly Garrett's credibility was one part of the defense. The other was to argue what the jury saw on the tapes happening between David Parker Ray and Kelly Garrett was consensual. When the trial kicked off in the spring of two thousand and one, it featured a new judge named Kevin Swayzee. He replaced the original judge after he died of a heart attack just hours after warning some

And to that end, I actually hired an expert witness who is a local dominatrix, to explain that concept to what turned out to be a jury of farmers and ranchers.

That dominatrix, by the way, was the only witness that the defense would call. Instead, the defense would chip away at the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses, and once again, one of the witnesses was the victim, Kelly Garrett.

Well, the normal situation in a sexual assault trial for a defense lawyer is to find fault with the victim as much as possible.

Unlike the first trial, when prosecutors called a string of law enforcement and FBI investigators to testify, prosecutors immediately put Kelly Garrett on the witness stand once again. Kelly shared her painful memories of what happened in David Parker raised toy box. She explained that David Parker raised daughter Jesse Ray, a former friend, offered her a ride home, but instead took Kelly to her father's torture chamber. That's where he physically and sexually abused her over the course of that

It was pretty convincing, and I think everybody in the room knew it. I knew it, the judge knew it.

And then came a ruling by Judge Swayze that changed everything. In the first trial, prosecutors could not play David Parker Ray's orientation tape. The judge had ruled the audio recording in admissible since Kelly couldn't remember hearing it.

Basically, it's an introduction for the victim of what is going to happen to them over the next few days or weeks in the trailer and graphically describes how they'll be raped and tortured.

And tormented.

In the retrial, Judge Swayzee allowed the jury to hear an edited version of that tape.

Okay, we'll both know what you've been brought here far. I'm going to use you. You're not going to like the way I do it, and in a week or two, when I'm through with you, you can be turned loose.

Most importantly for the prosecution, the tape described all the graphic details that Kelly Garrett could not remember.

As soon as I turned this type off, you will have an excellent opportunity to try to bag for me to turn you loose. I loved to listen to a bag and play. And this is the end of the tape.

After listening to twenty five minutes of David Parker Ray rattling off his twisted fantasies, only one word could describe the look on each of the jurors faces.

Horrified.

During a cigarette break, David Parker Ray was overheard saying the new judge was a blow to his case. When the trial resumed, the jury also heard from Kelly Garrett's ex's husband Patrick. He was married to Kelly in July nineteen ninety six. When David Parker Ray kidnapped her. Patrick testified while dressed in his navy uniform. He explained that the day David Parker Ray dropped Kelly off, she wasn't herself.

Being a doesn't mean you're a murderer.

To underscore his point, McMillan took it one step further. He gramped every picture prosecutor showed from the toy box, and one by one he held them up and threw them on the floor. He again reminded the jury that those pictures were taken in nineteen ninety nine, three years after Kelly Garrett was allegedly held in the toy box. McMillan explained that there was no way to know if any of the items were present when Kelly was there. Once again, David parker Ray's fate was in the hands

He sat there and stared at people and looked at me, and he would make notes and pass them to me, and elbowed me a little bit when he wanted me to say something.

His attorney, Lee McMillan, now stood next to his client as the jury returned with a verdict. The group had deliberated for just over five hours.

The atmosphere was one of foreboding and darkness.

On the twelve counts of abducting and sexually torturing Kelly Garrett, the jury found David Parker Ray guilty. In an interview with the reporter afterwards, David Parker Ray claimed the sex between he and Kelly Garrett was consensual. He vowed to appeal and listened to what he told a local TV reporter. I feel right, David Parker Ray said, he feels like the one that was raped.

I get my excitement from making a moment happy. My trailer had numerous sex toys in it, of different types, all different fetishes. I got pleasure out of the woman getting pleasure. I did what they wanted me to do.

You could credit that infamous cassette tape for helping jurors in the second trial convict David parker Ray, but he told reporters that it wasn't at all what it sounded like. Parker Ray explained that the tape was recorded for entertainment purposes and that there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the tape that said so. With one trial down and two to go, Judge Swayzee held off on sentencing

Hill.

Cynthia V.

Hill was another victim that David snatched off the street in Albuquerque and took to his trailer. She had been in the house for three days to restrain and being mistreated, and somehow got away from Sandy Handy and David ran down Bass Road with the collar around her neck, trailing a chain, going from house to half looking for help.

But just after that trial began, Cynthia V. Hill received some unexpected news.

The DA contacted me and told me that David wanted to plead out and plead guilty for what he did to me.

David Parker Ray wanted to strike a deal, but it came with one giant cat.

Which the only way he would plead guilty was if his daughter got no time.

In exchange for pleading guilty, prosecutors would have to drop their case against his daughter Jesse Ray. Remember, Jesse worked as her father's accomplice and helped to lure victims into the toy.

Box, knowing that he wanted to plead out on my case. I was happy that I didn't have to testify.

It's good that she didn't have to relive what happened to her by testifying at the trial, But the fact that Jesse Ray got off scot free seems like a miscarriage of justice. In the summer of two thousand and one, David Parker Ray and prosecutors struck a deal. In exchange for Jesse Ray not serving any additional prison time, David pleaded guilty to more than twenty charges, including kidnapping, raping, and conspiracy to knap Cynthia V. Hill.

I think his daughter should have gotten more time, but then I had to realize taking it to trial, anything could have wit and then he could have been let go.

As part of the deal, Jesse Ray was sentenced to time served and five years of probation, and there was more. The deal also meant dropping the other pending case against David Parker Ray. That trial was for the third victim, Angela Montano, who sadly passed before her trial was set to begin. Angela never got the justice she deserved.

I think David was protective of his daughter because she represented his legacy.

All that was left was to formally sentence David parker Ray. Kelly Garrett arrived at the sentencing hearing to read her victim impact statement. Kelly said that she hopes David Parker Ray lives long enough to serve out his full sentence. David stared at the floor as Kelly said she hoped he would burn in hell. When the judge asked David Parker Ray if he had anything to say, he said he did. He explained that this whole process has allowed him to get closer to God, and then stoically said,

I do not think David Parker Ray ever expressed any remorse. I don't think that he was capable of remorse. He fully believed that he would never be in prison.

And told me so, but Judge Swayzee was about to change that.

David Parker Ray was sent us to two hundred and twenty four years of confinement.

It was the maximum sentence.

No human being would ever survive. That.

Cynthia V.

Hill was thrilled knowing nobody would ever go through what I went. Dude, I think that's what was satisfying about him being locked up.

David Parker Ray was head to prison on a list of charges, but murder wasn't one of them. Even though he bragged about killing dozens of people in his journals, investigators never located anybodies. But then in May of two thousand and two, David Parker Ray told the FBI that he was ready to talk. It was the first time he ever agreed to cooperate, and authorities believed he had information to finally share about those missing women. The two sides set a meeting, but that meeting never happened.

Well, I was at home with my children helping them with their homework, and it came on the news in Albuquerque.

David parker Ray has died.

Just before David parker Ray's meeting with the FBI. He suffered a fatal heart attack. He was sixty two years old. This meant that David Parker Ray took his secrets with him. His attorney couldn't believe it.

Well, I wanted to see his body dead, and I made the determination that I would make every effort I could to attend his autopsy. I wanted to be sure that they made the wye In decision and removed his organs because I did not trust that he would not start

So let's connect the dots here. His lawyer said that David Parker Ray didn't want to take the original plea deal because he didn't believe he'd serve time in prison. So he goes to trial, is found guilty, gets sentenced, and then dies weeks later. In other words, he gets off easy.

This is my first and probably only contact me in my life with pure evil, and it made me believe in the incarnation of pure evil.

David Parker raised Bonnie was buried at the New Mexico State Prison Cemetery in Santa Fe. Nearly a decade later, local TV reporter Alex Tomlin did a story about Elephant Butte Lake drying up.

We had kind of a severe drought and the levels of the lake really started dropping and they were finding things. And I got a call from a guy and he says, look, I haven't said anything for years, but with lake training, they keep finding these tires. And I used to be a neighbor of David Parker raised, and I see him out there filling these really large tires with cement and dumping them in the lake. And I asked him, I said, well, what do you think was in the tires? And his

But once again, no body's turned up. Then, in twenty eleven, the FBI reopened the case of a missing Albuquerque woman who was alleged to have been killed by David Parker Ray, and doing so, investigators again searched in and around Elephant Butte Lake. The FBI then turned to the public for help and opened the toy box to the media. They created a website and posted photos of women's shoes, underwear, and clothing, along with dozens of necklaces, rings, and earrings

But this is one of those cases it's like until you get that last piece of the puzzle, there's really nothing else to do with it. I mean, the toy box has been opened, people have seen it, his tape is well known, but there's still women who are missing, and until somebody says something, you know, if it's true that he had these other people that he can fight it in, somebody has to know something.

No bodies were ever found. Instead, the seemingly never ending story has remained into the area like a scarlet letter.

I think it hurt the local bars. I think it hurt the vocal restaurants, and I think the notoriety hurt in a way that the UFO controversy hurt rosal.

In New Mexico, a.

Local newspaper printed a letter to the editor from an eighteen year old earl who is upset at the media's portrayal of the towns of Elephant Butte and truth consequences. She wrote that one bad apple shouldn't spoil the rest of the bunch, but the damage was done.

I think it hurt the tourism aspect of the lake. I think that for a time there was an attitude that people did not want to go in the lake because there might be bodies in there. And I had people around the state tell me.

That Elephant Butte will forever be linked to David Parker Ray and the unthinkable crimes that he committed.

Darren White, who works with New Mexico's Department of Public Safety, still lives in the area.

It's hard to move on when you don't know what happened. It's hard to move on when you know there are victims out there that haven't been found. But nobody, including myself, thanks for a second that David Parker Ray did not abduct women, torture them and kill them.

He did.

But that is the really bizarre thing about this is that David Parker Ray is the most notorious serial killer in New Mexico's history, and we've never found a single body.

Today, two key accomplices in the David Parker Ray story are free, his daughter Jesse Ray and girlfriend Cindy Hendy.

It's probably the one thing that irritates the hell out of me about this case is that those two today are walking the streets free.

Darren White worked for New Mexico's Department of Public Safety.

Because they're just as responsible as David Parker Ray, and they're equally as evil as David Parker Ray. But that was part of the deal that was cut. I get that. I've been at this a long time. David Parker Ray he wanted Jesse to be free, and so that was part of the player agreement.

In twenty nineteen, Cindy Hendy was released after serving twenty of her thirty six year sentence. New Mexico state law, which has since been changed, only required Cindy to serve half of her sentence.

And so in twenty nineteen she was released. She served all of her time, and as I recall, she moved out of the state.

Cindy Hendy moved to Montana. When locals found out, they were furious because Cindy, a registered sex offender, reportedly moved near a public school, and for defense attorney Lee McMillan, he fears for his own safety.

I think that anybody that has anything to do with this case has something to fear from Cindy Handy or Jesse Ray or anybody associated with that group. I know that if I see I'll defend myself.

As you can imagine, being the man responsible for defending David Parker Ray comes at a price.

My career was never the same after this case.

I realized how it changed my relationship to people around me, to the practice of law, and to society in general. And this case turned me into a Christian because you cannot understand this case if you're not a feist. I'm very careful about who I take on as a client

To take them.

If they're not willing to do it, I'm not willing to take them anymore. I think that this case had a negative impact on everybody that was associated with it. Everybody that's associated with it has died.

In the interim.

I got cancer and I've had a stroke since then. I'm surviving that.

In the end, Lee credits David Parker Ray's victim, Cynthia V.

Hill.

If it had not been for Cynthia V.

Hill escaping, he would have continued until he died of other causes. He would have continued, and I think he would have continued to recruit people to continue the same activity.

And I think he did that right up to his dead Cynthia V.

Hill managed to escape from David Parker Ray's toy box and in doing so, helped to bring an end to his crimes.

For somebody like Cynthia to stand up there with the FBI, and that was incredibly courageous and important because for many of us, we see it, we see firsthand. Those agents that worked that case, they saw it firsthand and for the public who just read about it.

There was a naked.

Woman with a dog collar. There's a face to that. It's a human being. She stood up at a podium and said, we need to uncover as much as we can. We need to learn more, we need to find the women who were killed by David Parker ray. And now she's become the voice for the women who don't have one. And that's incredible. That's so courageous, and I admire her

I don't think I'm a hero. It just happened to get away from David Parkery.

Cynthia has found a way to find light in all darkness. Today she uses her experience to help others.

I run a nonprofit, coss Straight Safe, and that's what helps me get through all the darkness. That's here helping the women that were in my situation.

Safe Street, New Mexico serves victims of sex trafficking and those struggling with homelessness and addiction.

Letting them know that they're not victims, they're survivors, I think is a big message to give the women and let them know you're not anybody's a victim. Take that power back from everybody. Once you take that power back, you're not You're not a victim, You're a survivor. And I think letting them know that is it's the first step of getting them on the right track.

Well, Cynthia still lives with the physical and mental scars of her past. She does have surprising message for Cindy Hendy.

How do you want her to know that I forgive her. I have no hard feelings anymore. I also understand she served her time. I'm not mad that she's released. I'm glad she's with her kids. I hope she's making the best of her life.

But she does have one question for Cindy.

The only thing I want to revisit is if David ever told her where any of the bodies are at.

As for the other living survivor, Kelly Garrett.

I'm just existing. I'm not living. Some days are just harder than others, but I have mostly good days now.

Like Cynthia, she's also working for a nonprofit.

I am a coordinator for a little program called Heartfelt Destinations, and we take people to doctor's appointments. We are nonprofit. We get our money from grants. Our clients don't have to pay anything. It's a free ride.

Kelly has turned her experience into her purpose.

Sometimes we're counselors. Sometimes they don't get good results. You have to be compassionate. An understanding feels good. I like helping people, especially on the days I can't get out of bed.

There's links in the show notes to the nonprofits we talked about in this episode.

I mean, women are amazing, right. We bring life into this world. We are strong, and those two women embody that they stood up to a monster.

For TV reporter Alex Tomlin. Kelly and Cynthia are heroes.

They survived him, They faced him head on and they put his ass away, and that has to at least be some type of justice for them.

Prosecutor Jim Yons helped put David Parker Ray behind bars. He uses this case as a.

Warning if anything comes out of the case for the good. I hope it's that people realize that there are monsters out there.

More than a quarter century has passed since Cynthia Vihill escaped the toy box, running towards freedom naked with a metal dog collar around her neck, and twenty two years since David Parker Ray died in jail of a heart attack. Nevertheless, the story continues to haunt the towns of Truther Consequences and Elephant Butte even to this day. Sitting in the parking lot of the Albuquerque FBI office is David Parker Ray's toy box.

The town has changed. It's just not as close knitted community as it used to be, simply because they had a monster in their midst and they didn't know it.

Next time on American Homicide, when the wife of a prominent religious leader is murdered. The search for the killer will uncover layers of secrets that would shake a town to its soul. I'm Sloane Glass. Join me as we head to Cherry Hill, New Jersey for the story of Carol Newlander. That's 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