Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

David Parker Ray: The Toy Box Killer

Another Victim

Photos and videos found among the items in the Toy Box showed a victim, bound and subjected to torture. This corroborated Cynthia's story about similar things done to her, but did not yet prove it had been against her will. That she had worked as a prostitute would diminish her credibility, the prosecutors knew. They hoped they could find this other woman and get her story if she was still alive.

Soon the case against Ray gained additional strength. When the incident was reported in newspapers, Angelica M. from nearby Truth or Consequences (T or C) came forward to say that she'd suffered a similar ordeal at the hands of this couple just the month before. She was not the woman in the video, so she was yet a third possible victim. She was an acquaintance of the defendants, she said, and she had entered their home on February 17 looking for cake mix. Ray had left and come back with a knife, informing her that she was being kidnapped. She had looked over at Hendy and had seen her holding a gun. She knew then that they were serious.

They grabbed her, bound her, and stripped her. Harnessing her onto a table, they then placed a metal collar on her, attached electrodes to her breasts, and jolted her with severe electrical shocks and abused her with various sexual implements. Then Ray forced her to give him oral sex. This ordeal went on for three days, she claimed, at which point, she was taken from the main trailer to a smaller one and strapped to a chair. They ran electrical currents through her body, shocking her repeatedly in her most sensitive areas. She begged the couple to release her.

Finally on the fourth day of her ordeal, she managed to persuade them to let her go. They had taken her miles away and dumped her out on a local highway, out in the desert, where a police officer picked her up. She'd reported what had happened to her, but the report was apparently filed without follow-up. Now that Ray and Hendy had been charged with criminal behavior in a similar incident, she had decided to pursue her case. They received more charges, now totaling 25. When reporters pressed, officials were unable to provide details about why Hendy and Ray had not been investigated or arrested in February. But investigators from many jurisdictions were taking it seriously now.

After searching the double-wide trailer, the police turned their attention to the half-acre lot on which the trailer stood. They found bone fragments, but they proved to be from animals, not humans. By April 1, the FBI had 100 agents on the job, fanning out into Arizona and Texas searching for potential victims and witnesses. Leads took agents to Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso and even into Juarez, Mexico. The tourist town of Truth or Consequences, about seven miles from Ray's trailer, became the headquarters for law enforcement and media alike.

"There's much more to this case than is publicly known," Special Agent Doug Beldon said to The Washington Post, "or otherwise they wouldn't have this kind of manpower invested in it." The FBI had given the case the highest priority, even sending profilers from the Behavioral Analysis Unit. The assumption was that Ray had a lengthy history of abuse and was practiced at it, and that the case could very well be worse than anyone yet knew. In addition, he had an accomplice with her own strange past.

Categories
We're Following
Slender Man stabbing, Waukesha, Wisconsin
Gilberto Valle 'Cannibal Cop'
Advertisement