Chapter 2 - Cynthia Hendy
The Dark World of Cynthia Hendy, Accomplice of The Toy Box Killer
SYNOPSIS
Hendy was the girlfriend and accomplice of David Parker Ray, also known as The Toy Box killer. Ray was an American kidnapper, torturer, rapist and suspected serial killer. Though no bodies were fCynthiaound, Ray was accused by his accomplices of killing several women, and was suspected by the police to have murdered as many as sixty women from Arizona and New Mexico while living in Elephant Butte, approximately seven miles north of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. He would kidnap between five and six women a year, holding each of them captive for around three to four months. During this period he would sexually abuse his victims, sometimes involving his dog or his girlfriend (who participated willingly in Ray’s crimes), and often torture them with surgical instruments. Then Ray would drug them with barbiturates in an attempt to erase their memories of what had happened before abandoning them by the side of the road once he was done with them. Ray was convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001, for which he received a lengthy sentence, but he was never convicted of murder.RAY'S BACKGROUND
Although my channel is mainly about female killers, I simply can’t do this video without going into detail on one of the worst male predators ever as my subject in this video was his accomplice for about 3 years. Between the 1950s and March 22nd 1999, David Parker Ray sexually tortured and presumably killed his victims using all kinds of devices and objects. Ray was born on November 6, 1939 in Belen, New Mexico. Abandoned by his mother and father at the age of 10, he was raised by his grandfather, though his father maintained an abusive relationship with him (and even exposed him to pornography). He had a younger sister, but they were split up when their grandmother died. In school, Ray did poorly and was teased for being unusually shy around girls. As a teenager, he abused alcohol and drugs. When he was an adult, he served in the U.S. Army and later became a mechanic. He worked as a mechanic and park ranger for nearby Elephant Butte State Park. He also married four times, each of them ending in divorce. He had two daughters, one of whom also became an accomplice to his sick fantasies. At some point, he started abducting, raping and torturing women, presumably killing them as well. Exactly how many victims he claimed over the years is uncertain, though he may have started as early as in 1950 when he was still a kid.
Although my channel is mainly about female killers, I simply can’t do this video without going into detail on one of the worst male predators ever as my subject in this video was his accomplice for about 3 years. Between the 1950s and March 22nd 1999, David Parker Ray sexually tortured and presumably killed his victims using all kinds of devices and objects. Ray was born on November 6, 1939 in Belen, New Mexico. Abandoned by his mother and father at the age of 10, he was raised by his grandfather, though his father maintained an abusive relationship with him (and even exposed him to pornography). He had a younger sister, but they were split up when their grandmother died. In school, Ray did poorly and was teased for being unusually shy around girls. As a teenager, he abused alcohol and drugs. When he was an adult, he served in the U.S. Army and later became a mechanic. He worked as a mechanic and park ranger for nearby Elephant Butte State Park. He also married four times, each of them ending in divorce. He had two daughters, one of whom also became an accomplice to his sick fantasies. At some point, he started abducting, raping and torturing women, presumably killing them as well. Exactly how many victims he claimed over the years is uncertain, though he may have started as early as in 1950 when he was still a kid.
hendy's background
Born Cynthia Lea Hendy on February 6, 1960, in Seattle’s University District, the future kidnapper and sexual criminal had a troubled childhood. Raised in an impoverished neighbourhood on the outskirts of Everett, Washington, Hendy grew up with an alcoholic mother, a bartender who would routinely let her daughter go hungry. “She would never give the kids a dime,” a childhood friend recalled. “All of us were hungry. We’d be lucky to get a can of tuna fish out of her. We’d go over after school, and Cindy would have to beg like hell till her mother threw out a can of tuna fish just to get rid of us.”
Cindy’s father was in the US Navy and was frequently away from home at sea. Her mother, an aspiring model and local Seattle beauty queen, regularly entered pageants around the Seattle area. Precocious and headstrong, Cindy had little interest in school and was always near the bottom of her class, often playing hooky with her friends. By her early teens, she had developed a fondness for drugs and alcohol, disappearing for days at a time as she partied with her friends all over Seattle.
As a child, Hendy saw her mother get beaten by an abusive boyfriend named Dick. Hendy’s mother eventually married another man when her daughter was eight. Hendy was around 11 when he crawled into her bed and attempted to rape her. He convinced his wife he drunkenly mistook one bed for another. Hendy’s mother took her new husband’s side and the two kicked Cindy out of the house around age 12. Left on her own, Hendy dated drug dealers, prostituted herself, and became dependent on alcohol and cocaine. She enjoyed aggressive, near-violent sex that included rape fantasies. One partner recalled she once said they should “rape somebody, maybe a prostitute.” When her youngest child turned 10, Hendy gave up on raising them and sent them off to their grandparents.
After dropping out of school in the 8th grade, Cindy became pregnant at sixteen, giving birth to a son named Shane. But after his father left, Shane would mostly be brought up by his grandmother and assorted foster parents. In the years to come, Cindy would have 2 more children, Heather and Muffy, both by different fathers. Cindy’s dysfunctional childhood had done little to prepare her for adult relationships. She was immature and always turned to drink and drugs to avoid reality. But even more dangerous was her attraction to a long line of abusive men who often beat her up. Court papers show that one of her reported three former husbands was a convict who later served jail time for assaulting her. Another ex-boyfriend pushed cocaine.
In the late 1980s, Cindy was briefly married to Robert Hendy, even having his initials tattooed between her thumb and forefinger to go with a formation of shooting stars on her left breast. And in 1992 another husband was sentenced to more than 2 years’ jail time for choking and threatening to kill her. “She made some real poor choices in men,” said her Washington attorney Harvey Chamberlin, who defended Cindy during her numerous court appearances over the years. “She struck me as a person who was prone to be victimised by violence.”
Friends remember Cindy as having a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. When she was sober she was a kind, considerate woman, who loved reading romance novels and watching her favourite television soap operas. But once she started drinking and drugging she became obnoxious, foul-mouthed and so aggressive that she would pick fights with strangers in bars. Her first arrest came in 1979 for forgery and possession of stolen property. Soon she had racked up a string of felony convictions involving alcohol, drugs and theft. Later she would boast of her criminal career, which included 5 court appearances for incidents involving domestic violence with various husbands and boyfriends. In 1990 she was charged with a felony, receiving 14 days in jail and a year’s probation. 3 years later, Cindy was arrested for trying to sell cocaine to an undercover sheriff’s deputy in Monroe, Washington, and, after admitting to a lesser charge of cocaine possession, was jailed for 30 days.
Her son Shane Larson would later tell the Seattle Post Intelligencer how his mother’s life had been ruined by “abusive men, alcohol and drugs.” Talking about his own tragic childhood, he explained how he and his 2 sisters only saw their mother “on and off” as they had lived in so many different homes. “Most of her boyfriends liked to drink a lot, pick fights, punch her and beat her up,” said Shane, who, from the age of 13, was constantly in trouble with the police. According to Shane, some of Cindy’s boyfriends would get high and beat him on occasion. “She’d always try to make sure we didn’t get hurt,” he said, “We’ve seen that our whole life growing up.” And although his mother hid her heavy drinking and drug-taking from the children, “as the oldest, I knew what was going on.” Larson said he often begged his mother to leave her abusive boyfriends when they treated her badly. But she’d refuse, saying that they paid the bills and she didn’t like to be alone.
By the early 1990s Cindy was officially classified as mentally disabled and began living off her Social Security payments. She had now moved in with a 39-year-old construction worker, in what was to prove a particularly stormy relationship. On at least 2 occasions she filed domestic abuse charges against him, resulting in several court appearances. On July 4, 1995, the couple was arrested in Kirkland, Washington, for stealing $3,300 worth of aluminium pipes from a Department of Transportation storage shed, and Cindy was sent back to jail. On her booking slip she was described as a 5-foot, four-inch blue-eyed blonde, weighing just one hundred pounds.
Upon her release, she found it impossible to abstain from cocaine, consistently failing court-ordered random drug tests and being sent back to prison again and again. In 1996, Cindy fell for a rough-and-ready biker named John Edward Youngblood. A giant of a man, standing almost seven feet tall, Youngblood, who always wore the same battered leather jacket, often beat her mercilessly. A few weeks after they moved in together in Everett, Washington, Hendy swore out a police complaint, accusing Youngblood of assaulting her and then kicking her out in the street. She spent the night in a pick-up truck, wearing only her pyjamas. But Hendy soon returned to Youngblood and the couple continued their turbulent relationship.
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
In the summer of 1997, now 37 years old, Cindy Hendy was partying even harder than usual and faced hard jail time for refusing to undergo a court-ordered drug counselling course. Desperate to remain free, she went on the run, heading east to Truth or Consequences just days before Marie Parker was murdered in the Toy Box. John Youngblood, whose father lived in T or C, had told her to go there and hide out. He promised to join her as soon as she found a place to live.
On arriving in Truth or Consequences, Cindy Hendy put on her best suit and went straight to the social services department, asking for help. The staff was impressed by the smartly dressed, well-groomed thirty-something woman, telephoning the Marina Suites Motel in Elephant Butte, which provided temporary accommodation, to see if there was a vacancy. “Social services said they had a lady who was new to the area and asked if she could stay at the motel,” said its English-born manager, Jean Clarke. “We said yes.” That afternoon Clarke personally helped Hendy move her meagre belongings into her 2-room suite and mini-kitchen at the Marina, which bills itself as a “Home Away From Home.” She was impressed with the attractive young woman and took her under her wing. “She was a very smart young lady,” remembered Clarke. “Make-up, nice clothes, hair always immaculate. She didn’t know many people, and she’d come here for a new start to get away from past drug use, etc.” (ummm…. No….. she had come there to escape imprisonment for drug use - SHE WAS ON THE RUN!! There is a difference!!).
As Clarke, who was in her late forties, had experience counselling HIV patients who were also drug addicts, she sympathised with Hendy, deciding to help her straighten up her life. “It was just like a support thing,” said Jean, who had herself arrived in Elephant Butte only 2 months earlier. “I was new to the area and I didn’t know any other girls in town. But I’m also one of those people who always helps somebody that's down on their luck.” About 2 weeks after Hendy arrived, she was joined by John Youngblood. They had to leave Marina Suites, as social services would not accommodate a couple. So Hendy and Youngblood moved into a small bubble tent by the lake at Elephant Butte, with a new kitten that Cindy had been given.
On August 2, 1997, Jean married her boyfriend, John Branaugh and Hendy and Youngblood were witnesses. Over the next few weeks the couples frequently socialised together, but Jean began to notice a change in her friend, who seemed to be under Youngblood’s control. “She went back to alcohol pretty badly,” said Jean. “She would get any pills or any drugs she could. I knew she used to do the crank or coke. When she was in a real distressed state, she would never admit to me that she was back into it. But I strongly suspected.”
That September, Hendy filed a domestic abuse complaint against Youngblood. She later withdrew it, admitting that she had deliberately smashed a teapot over her head and told police he had done it. Jean Branaugh, who lived within hearing range of the tent, was often kept awake at night. “They had some really bad fights,” she said. “It was pretty volatile. We’d often hear a lot of arguing, shouting and banging coming from the tent. It seemed that once that relationship flared up, everything went from bad to worse.” Soon afterward, police were called to the tent by neighbours to break up a fight between John and Cindy. Then Youngblood left town, moving to Arizona, where he was soon living with a new girlfriend.
Now on her own, Cindy Hendy began frequenting the local bar scene, quickly establishing a reputation for herself as a hardcore partier, extreme even by T or C standards. She openly boasted of being an ex-con, delighting in comparing her criminal record with strangers in bars. Wanting to be closer to the action, Cindy moved out of the tent and into a battered old trailer which had no electricity or hot water, at 1603 Corzine Street , off Morgan Street, T or C., and dived headfirst into the town’s party scene. “We called her ‘six-pack Cindy,’” said one of her friends, George Padilla. “She would go with any guy in a heartbeat if he’d buy her a drink or give her some crank.” During early 1998, Padilla got to know Cindy well as they regularly hung out together with the town’s fast crowd. “I heard she’d been in jail,” he said. “She was always on drugs and she had a crazy thing about cigarettes. She chain-smoked and always had to have one, otherwise she’d go wacko.”
Hendy was rumoured to support herself by trading sexual favours with local businessmen for money. One prominent storeowner even took her on a gambling weekend to Las Vegas, but threw her out of their hotel room half-naked, after she got drunk and lost control. She later complained that he had given her a sexually transmitted disease and threatened legal action. “She once told me that she didn’t ever have to worry about getting arrested, as she had something on most of the police and business people in this town,” remembered Jean Branaugh. “I never took it seriously at the time, but now I wonder.” Branaugh could only watch helplessly as she saw her friend spiral out of control, into an abyss of alcohol, sex and drugs. “She was on the downhill road,” said Jean. “It got to the point where I didn’t want to give her 5 dollars or 10 dollars or gas money, because I knew what she was doing with it. Drugs.”
As Branaugh got to know her better, she realised that Cindy had serious mental problems. “It came out with the strange sexual behaviour,” she said. “The S & M and nymphomania. She had told me about her sexual abuse as a child by family members and what a tough childhood she’d had.” And Jean even began to suspect that Cindy was having an affair with her husband John Branaugh. “One night she was partying in a trailer south of Broadway here on the main drag,” said Jean. “My husband never came home that night. I had to pick him up at 9:30 a.m. the next morning because he’s stayed all night with her.” But at the time she never confronted Cindy about her suspicions and the two remained friends.
In the summer of 1997, now 37 years old, Cindy Hendy was partying even harder than usual and faced hard jail time for refusing to undergo a court-ordered drug counselling course. Desperate to remain free, she went on the run, heading east to Truth or Consequences just days before Marie Parker was murdered in the Toy Box. John Youngblood, whose father lived in T or C, had told her to go there and hide out. He promised to join her as soon as she found a place to live.
On arriving in Truth or Consequences, Cindy Hendy put on her best suit and went straight to the social services department, asking for help. The staff was impressed by the smartly dressed, well-groomed thirty-something woman, telephoning the Marina Suites Motel in Elephant Butte, which provided temporary accommodation, to see if there was a vacancy. “Social services said they had a lady who was new to the area and asked if she could stay at the motel,” said its English-born manager, Jean Clarke. “We said yes.” That afternoon Clarke personally helped Hendy move her meagre belongings into her 2-room suite and mini-kitchen at the Marina, which bills itself as a “Home Away From Home.” She was impressed with the attractive young woman and took her under her wing. “She was a very smart young lady,” remembered Clarke. “Make-up, nice clothes, hair always immaculate. She didn’t know many people, and she’d come here for a new start to get away from past drug use, etc.” (ummm…. No….. she had come there to escape imprisonment for drug use - SHE WAS ON THE RUN!! There is a difference!!).
As Clarke, who was in her late forties, had experience counselling HIV patients who were also drug addicts, she sympathised with Hendy, deciding to help her straighten up her life. “It was just like a support thing,” said Jean, who had herself arrived in Elephant Butte only 2 months earlier. “I was new to the area and I didn’t know any other girls in town. But I’m also one of those people who always helps somebody that's down on their luck.” About 2 weeks after Hendy arrived, she was joined by John Youngblood. They had to leave Marina Suites, as social services would not accommodate a couple. So Hendy and Youngblood moved into a small bubble tent by the lake at Elephant Butte, with a new kitten that Cindy had been given.
On August 2, 1997, Jean married her boyfriend, John Branaugh and Hendy and Youngblood were witnesses. Over the next few weeks the couples frequently socialised together, but Jean began to notice a change in her friend, who seemed to be under Youngblood’s control. “She went back to alcohol pretty badly,” said Jean. “She would get any pills or any drugs she could. I knew she used to do the crank or coke. When she was in a real distressed state, she would never admit to me that she was back into it. But I strongly suspected.”
That September, Hendy filed a domestic abuse complaint against Youngblood. She later withdrew it, admitting that she had deliberately smashed a teapot over her head and told police he had done it. Jean Branaugh, who lived within hearing range of the tent, was often kept awake at night. “They had some really bad fights,” she said. “It was pretty volatile. We’d often hear a lot of arguing, shouting and banging coming from the tent. It seemed that once that relationship flared up, everything went from bad to worse.” Soon afterward, police were called to the tent by neighbours to break up a fight between John and Cindy. Then Youngblood left town, moving to Arizona, where he was soon living with a new girlfriend.
Now on her own, Cindy Hendy began frequenting the local bar scene, quickly establishing a reputation for herself as a hardcore partier, extreme even by T or C standards. She openly boasted of being an ex-con, delighting in comparing her criminal record with strangers in bars. Wanting to be closer to the action, Cindy moved out of the tent and into a battered old trailer which had no electricity or hot water, at 1603 Corzine Street , off Morgan Street, T or C., and dived headfirst into the town’s party scene. “We called her ‘six-pack Cindy,’” said one of her friends, George Padilla. “She would go with any guy in a heartbeat if he’d buy her a drink or give her some crank.” During early 1998, Padilla got to know Cindy well as they regularly hung out together with the town’s fast crowd. “I heard she’d been in jail,” he said. “She was always on drugs and she had a crazy thing about cigarettes. She chain-smoked and always had to have one, otherwise she’d go wacko.”
Hendy was rumoured to support herself by trading sexual favours with local businessmen for money. One prominent storeowner even took her on a gambling weekend to Las Vegas, but threw her out of their hotel room half-naked, after she got drunk and lost control. She later complained that he had given her a sexually transmitted disease and threatened legal action. “She once told me that she didn’t ever have to worry about getting arrested, as she had something on most of the police and business people in this town,” remembered Jean Branaugh. “I never took it seriously at the time, but now I wonder.” Branaugh could only watch helplessly as she saw her friend spiral out of control, into an abyss of alcohol, sex and drugs. “She was on the downhill road,” said Jean. “It got to the point where I didn’t want to give her 5 dollars or 10 dollars or gas money, because I knew what she was doing with it. Drugs.”
As Branaugh got to know her better, she realised that Cindy had serious mental problems. “It came out with the strange sexual behaviour,” she said. “The S & M and nymphomania. She had told me about her sexual abuse as a child by family members and what a tough childhood she’d had.” And Jean even began to suspect that Cindy was having an affair with her husband John Branaugh. “One night she was partying in a trailer south of Broadway here on the main drag,” said Jean. “My husband never came home that night. I had to pick him up at 9:30 a.m. the next morning because he’s stayed all night with her.” But at the time she never confronted Cindy about her suspicions and the two remained friends.
meeting
Hendy met David Parker Ray in 1997 at state park where they both worked. The two quickly bonded over their shared violent sexual fantasies and S&M. Though Ray was 20 years her senior, 37-year-old Hendy began living with him soon after she moved to New Mexico. “When I moved in, he started to tell me all the women he had murdered. He said at least one a year for about forty years,” Cindy later recalled. She wasn’t sure if she believed Ray’s story at first, and she said she was both nervous and intrigued after hearing it. Hendy would later state that Ray had bragged that he knew how to kill someone and bury them in a lake. “They seemed to feed off of each other, and Cindy got an opportunity to let go of all of her inhibitions,” said reporter Yvette Martinez. Soon, Hendy found herself routinely helping Ray pick targets to fulfil his depraved sexual desires, starting with an acquaintance.
THE sex chamber
So why was David Parker Ray also called The Toy Box killer? Well, he spent $100,000 on a trailer, sound-proofing it and fitting it with sex toys and torture devices. He nicknamed it "the Toy Box". On one of the walls of this trailer he had also written in bold letters “Satan’s Den”. The trailer, which one officer described as a demented "toy box," was full of sinister sexual devices and sadomasochistic equipment, some of which had been handcrafted by Ray himself with clearly one purpose in mind - torture and pain. One disturbing item was the centrepiece of the toy box: a modified gynaecological chair with electrodes to administer electric shocks which was used to strap the victim in. A mirror had been mounted on the ceiling above the chair so that his victims could see themselves be raped and tortured. There were modified drills with sexual devices attached to them. Diagrams all over the walls illustrating ways of inflicting pain. Wooden contraptions that bent the victims over and immobilized them while Ray had his dogs and sometimes other friends rape them. He has been said to have wanted his victims to see everything he was doing to them. There were boxes full of surgical instruments, syringes, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, shock machines, saws, leg spreader bars and ankle spreader bars all labelled by Ray to indicate the measurement of spread. Dildos made from plastic with nails soldered into it that would rip the victim’s thighs to shreds.
Ray and his accomplices targeted sex workers, luring them with some kind of ruse such as soliciting them or pretending to be a police officer. He would then take them to this homemade torture chamber, the "Toy Box", where they would wake up already strapped into the chair. Delirious, restrained and immobilised, they would be forced to listen to an audio tape recording that Ray had prepared. On this recording, Ray would tell his victim what had happened to them, what he was going to do with them and for how long.
On another recording, Ray told his victims “We both know what you’ve been brought here for. I’m going to use you for a sex slave. And it’s going to be painful as hell. That’s the way I want it to be."
Ray would record the torture, either by audio or with a video camera that he had set up in the trailer, and take trophies such as clothing and jewelry. At least some of the victims were let go after a few days. Ray claimed to have drugged them to make them forget about what happened. According to Cindy Hendy, the fatal victims were dismembered and buried, dumped in the Elephant Butte Lake or dumped in ravines. It is thought that he terrorized many women with these tools for many years with the help of accomplices, some of whom are alleged to have been several of the women he was dating.
The couple's first victim was Angela, whom Hendy admits knowing beforehand. “I felt for Angela because her and I were friends (sic),” Hendy said. She said they used to party together sometimes, so she felt she could relate to her.
Soon, the couple shared their first victim and released her after promising not to disclose her abduction. Hendy also said that most of their time with the victims, Ray would torture them more while she would stand by and watch him. Hendy recalled she had no remorse at that time and no feelings of any sort. She described her state as slow motion.
ARREST & INVESTIGATION
On March 22, 1999, 911 dispatchers received a series of calls reporting a woman frantically trying to stop cars on a street for help in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. The woman, Cynthia Vigil, was naked except for a METAL dog collar attached to a 6 foot chain. She had been kidnapped 3 days earlier by Ray. Parker's girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, had served as an accomplice. Describing her harrowing ordeal, Vigil, who had been a sex worker from Albuquerque, explained that she had gone to Ray's RV for a date. Once the door was shut, he took out a badge and said he was an undercover police officer. "He told me I was under arrest and put a handcuff on my wrist," said Vigil. "I knew something was wrong." Vigil was then tasered, drugged, blindfolded and chained to a bed. She heard the click of a tape recorder, and then Ray's "instruction tape" played.
"Unmentionable things were done to her," John Glatt, author of "Cries in the Desert," said. Vigil passed out from the pain, but managed to later escape after Hendy had accidentally left a key ring on a nightstand. Hendy noticed Vigil's attempt to escape and a fight ensued. During the struggle, Hendy broke a lamp on the survivor's head, but Vigil unlocked her chains and stabbed Hendy in the neck with an icepick. Vigil fled while wearing only an iron slave collar and padlocked chains. She ran down the road seeking help, which she got from a nearby homeowner who took her in, comforted her, and called the police. Her escape led officials to the trailer and instigated the capture of Ray and his accomplices. Police detained Ray and Hendy.
Hendy later claimed that she had only whipped Vigil while Ray did the rest. According to Hendy, Ray was the mastermind behind their depraved spree. Her role consisted of helping him track down victims, watching as he brutalised them, and occasionally helping him torment them.
When Ray’s property was searched, investigators discovered more than equipment, they found evidence as well. “There were videotapes that he took of the victims,” said FBI agent Frank Fisher. “There were audiotapes that he would play to the victims telling them what he was going to do to them.” Ray’s tape instructed Vigil to address Ray as “master” and Hendy as “mistress,” and to only speak when spoken to. Fisher said authorities later found Ray’s journal, with “meticulous records detailing the victims that he abducted and what he did to them.” “The way he talked, I didn’t feel like this was his first time,” said Vigil. “It was like he knew what he was doing. He told me I was never going to see my family again. He told me he would kill me like the others.” In the face of certain death, Vigil saw her opening on March 22, 1999. Hendy had left the keys to Vigil’s restraints on a nearby table while she left the room. Vigil released herself, stabbed Hendy in the neck with an icepick, and bolted out of the trailer. Authorities saved Vigil and arrested Ray and Hendy immediately. When a reporter asked Hendy if she was in any way involved, she replied: “No…kind of.”
Fisher also said a key piece of evidence recovered was David Parker Ray's journal. The journal contained dozens of entries. There were no names, only dates, and the number of times he tortured each victim. In total, investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, according to The New York Times.
After their arrest, Ray and Hendy initially claimed Vigil was a heroin addict that they were trying to detox. Authorities quickly saw through the story after searching the trailer. They found the audiotape which backed up Vigil’s claims, and a slew of torture instruments ranging from pulleys, whips, and sexual devices inside the “Toy Box.” Police also found footage of them torturing another woman, leading them to suspect that more than one crime had occurred.
A full month before Vigil’s abduction, Angelica Montano had been dumped by the side of the road after three days of torture. Montano alerted police to the couple’s crimes against her, but authorities never investigated her claims until after Vigil’s escape. She was picked up by an off-duty law enforcement officer and told him what happened, but he did not believe her and left her at a bus stop. She also later called police about the incident, but there had been no follow-up. Not two months after Ray and Hendy’s arrests, Montano died of heart failure brought on by pneumonia at the age of 28.
Police identified another victim, Kelli Garrett (also called Kelli Van Cleave), from a videotape which dated from 1996. Garrett was found alive in Colorado after police identified her from a tattoo on her ankle. She testified that she had gotten in a fight with her husband and decided to spend the night playing pool with friends. Ray's daughter, Jesse, who knew Garrett, took her to the Blu-Water Saloon in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, and may have drugged the beer she was drinking. She offered Garrett a ride home but instead took Garrett to her father’s house. Garrett said that she endured two days of torture before Ray drove her back to her home. Ray told her husband that he had found the woman incoherent on a beach. Her husband did not believe that she could not remember where she had been and Garrett said she did not know what to tell police, so did not contact them. Her husband sued for divorce and Garrett moved to Colorado. She was later interviewed on Cold Case Files about her ordeal.
When no additional victims came forward, investigators came to believe Ray may have killed the rest. But to this day, there is no evidence to prove a single murder. "No matter how many places they checked, they were never able to find any bodies," reporter Yvette Martinez said. Regardless, with the three women who had come forward, there was enough evidence to convict the couple on more than 25 counts of kidnapping and rape.
The FBI sent 100 agents to examine Ray's property and surroundings, but no identifiable human remains were found. To prevent women from reporting the assaults, Ray drugged them in an attempt to induce amnesia. He made a tape recording of himself telling one woman that the drugs were " and phenobarbital [sic]" These drugs are known for numbing pain and inducing amnesia. While awaiting trial, Ray spoke to FBI profilers and said that he was fascinated by the kidnapping of Colleen Stan and other sexually motivated kidnappings. The FBI had spoken to Ray as early as 1989 in connection with his business manufacturing and selling bondage-related sexual devices. Other possible victims include Jesse Ray’s former girlfriend Jill Troia, who disappeared in 1995; and Billy Ray Bowers, who was found shot to death and floating in Elephant Butte Lake in 1989.
Now in custody, the repercussions of her actions hit Hendy like a ton of bricks. Facing 197 years in prison if convicted of 25 felony counts of kidnapping and criminal sexual penetration, she turned on Ray and agreed to a plea deal on April 6, 1999. Her cooperation revealed even more of the couple’s sadistic methods: forcing victims to look at themselves being mutilated and shoving them into a wooden contraption so dogs and acquaintances could rape them. Hendy also revealed that Ray previously had another accomplice. “David confided in her that he had a friend by the name of Roy Yancy who he forced to kill a woman,” said Martinez. “He strangled her and then buried her body out in the desert.” In return for testimony against Ray and Yancy, Hendy still faced a maximum of 54 years and a minimum of 12. She told investigators about 14 murders Ray committed and pointed out some of the potential burial sites. "She knew of at least 14 girls that he’d murdered," Glatt said. Added prosecutor Jim Yontz, "David had told her of a body that he had disposed of in the lake and that he had learned from that, that when you put a body into the lake, even if you weight the body down, you have to eviscerate the body cavity so that the air does not bring the body back up to the surface." But a search of the lake in Elephant Butte failed to turn up any bodies. The lake is 23 miles long and about three or four miles wide with a depth of 90 to 100 feet in parts.
Breaking down under questioning, Roy Yancy said he was "ordered by David Parker Ray to kill a woman by the name of Marie Parker and then to dispose of her body," according to the FBI. Yancy said Ray had given him no choice, and had held a gun to his head. But even with Roy Yancy's help investigators couldn't find a body. It's believed Ray moved Parker's body after Yancy had initially buried her.
THE TRIALS
A judge ruled that the cases for crimes against Cynthia Vigil, Angelica Montano, and Kelli Garrett would be tried separately. Prosecutors said that this damaged their case as each woman’s story would otherwise have corroborated the others. The judge also ruled much of the evidence found in the trailer during the 1999 raid could not be admitted in the Garrett or Montano cases. District Judge Neil Mertz said the evidence was sufficient to show Ray may have committed the crimes outlined in the 25-count indictment against him. The charges included kidnapping, aggravated battery and sexual assault. District Attorney Ron Lopez said he was pleased with the outcome of the two-day preliminary hearing, but is sure there are other victims who have not yet been identified. "I don't think he was after somebody who was willing. He likes to see the pain and the torture," Lopez said. Ray's attorney, Jeff Rein, had argued that some of the charges should be dismissed since his client did not hold the gun used to threaten the women and the victims' injuries were not sufficient to prove great bodily harm. YES; THAT’S BECAUSE THE DAMAGE RAY AFFLICTED WAS MOSTLY DONE INTERNALLY YOU EEJIT!!! The introductory tape message that Ray played to his victims was also not allowed to be presented in Cynthia Vigil’s trial because she could not remember if he had played it therefore it was irrelevant to the case.
Cynthia Vigil screamed at Ray and wept on the witness stand as she described how she broke free after three days of being held against her will. The 22-year-old said she fought back with an ice pick and fled Ray's lakeside mobile home naked with a padlocked metal collar and chain on her neck. "I ran and ran and ran," she said. "It seemed like I ran forever. I seen some door open in some trailer some lady was in some trailer. I just grabbed her and told her to help me." Ray also is accused of abducting and torturing another woman a month earlier, she also testified against him at the pre-trial hearing. Hendy waived a preliminary hearing, and the charges against her were reduced from 25 counts to five. Under a plea bargain, Hendy is to plead guilty to the five charges, testify against Ray, and serve a sentence of at least 12 years in prison but not more than 54.
The first trial, for crimes against Kelli Garrett, began on March 28, 2000. Just after the jury selection was done, Ray suffered a heart attack and the trial was postponed. Additional obstacles were encountered by prosecutors when both Roy Yancy and Cindy Hendy, who were both in jail, changed their minds and refused to cooperate. Yancy had received a note that said, "Rats die in jail." Hendy also received mail, but they were love letters. "They were pretty much appealing to Cindy saying, 'I love you. I want to marry you'," explained Glatt. "[Ray] even had a tattoo of Cindy put on his arm." Still having deep feelings for Ray, Hendy recanted her confession and said she'd made it all up.
For some reason, the judge postponed the trial further in order to try Ray for a 1996 murder in Colorado, even though the evidence wasn't very strong; a sheet found by the FBI when searching his trailer listing routines for keeping prisoners was excluded along with the torture devices in the Toy Box since it couldn't be proven that they were in Ray's possession in 1996.
On May 7, 2000, during Ray's trial for the Colorado murder, Angelica Montano died of a drug overdose, taking her testimony to the grave. On May 23, the jury selection for Ray's new trial was finally done and he was charged with 12 counts of kidnapping, sexual abuse, and conspiracy. In July, the judge declared a mistrial because the jury couldn't agree on a verdict; not all of them were persuaded that the testifying victims had been held against their will. Ray’s defense was that the sex trailer was part of Ray’s fantasy life and any sex was consensual. In November 2000, a retrial began. A few days into it, the judge passed away. The proceedings couldn't resume until next year in April 2001. This time, Ray was not as fortunate and was found guilty on all twelve charges. The new judge assigned to the trial also allowed Ray’s introductory tape recording so the jury got to hear it.
In June 2001, his second trial against Cynthia Vigil began. A week into his trial for crimes against Vigil, Ray agreed to a plea bargain. The plea deal was in exchange of leniency for his daughter. Prosecutors said that the surviving victims had approved of the deal. Ray's daughter, Glenda Jean "Jesse" Ray, pled guilty to kidnapping. Dennis Roy Yancy (27) pled guilty to the 1997 murder of 22-year-old Marie Parker in Elephant Butte. Yancy confessed to helping Jesse Ray lure Parker into captivity in her father’s trailer. Yancy said that Parker was tortured and that Ray forced him to strangle the woman to death. Parker’s body was never found and prosecutors said that no forensic evidence was found to tie Parker to the Rays. The murder was recorded by Ray on video. Yancy was also charged with kidnapping, two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, and tampering with evidence. Hendy testified against David Parker's crime and pleaded guilty thus reducing her sentence.
Ray has allegedly admitted to having had an accomplice named Billy Bowers, a previous business partner, whom Ray also murdered. On May 28, 2002, Ray was transported to the Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs, New Mexico, to be questioned by state police. He died of a heart attack before the scheduled interrogation took place. He was 62. With him dead, the case became a dead end; no bodies were found, no possible victims were identified and no old suspicious deaths related to Ray were ever officially linked to him. In November of 2002, the Toy Box was opened to the public with the hope that it would lead to more surviving victims coming forward. In October of 2011, the FBI performed a search of McRae Canyon near Elephant Butte Lake looking for potential victims but found none. In February of 2012, the Australian Federal Police contacted the FBI about a potential victim known only as Connie, who had been mentioned in a letter from a man named Mark that was postmarked in Sydney and was found in Ray's residence after his arrest.
VERDICTS
Hendy was sentenced in 2000 for her roles in the abduction and torture of Cynthia Vigil and Angelica Montano and received a sentence of 36 years in prison.
With his daughter Jesse Ray about to stand trial for helping her father kidnap Kelli Garrett, Ray offered to plead guilty to all of the remaining charges in exchange for his daughter’s release. Ray was sentenced in 2001 to "224 years in connection with kidnapping and other charges involving two women who said he sexually tortured them at his residence," according to the FBI. Although Ray had never admitted to murder, he contacted authorities in May of 2002 to let them know he was willing to talk. Ray claimed to have abducted about 40 victims, according to the FBI. A meeting was quickly scheduled, but David Parker Ray died of a heart attack before it took place.
Ray’s daughter was sentenced to time served with an additional five years to be served on probation.
Though Roy Yancy refused to testify, he pled guilty to and was convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. In 1999 he was sentenced to two 15-year terms in prison. The Rays were never charged with Marie Parker’s murder.
THE ACCOMPLICES
Aside from the possibility of Ray’s previous girlfriends being accomplices throughout the years, the 4 known accomplices were Cynthia Hendy, his current girlfriend, Dennis Roy Yancy, an acquaintance of Roy’s, his daughter, Glenda Jean Ray, also known as Jesse Ray and, according to Ray, a previous business partner Billy Bowers who Ray had allegedly killed.
Billy Bowers
- A previous business partner
- Was killed by Ray, although there was no evidence to convict him
- Ray’s current girlfriend
- Aided Ray in abducting his victims
- Participated in the torture
- Sentenced to 36 years in prison for first-degree kidnapping and criminal sexual penetration
- Ray's daughter
- Drugged Kelly Garrett's beer as part of her kidnapping
- Aided Ray in killing Marie Parker together with Yancy
- Sentenced to time served and five years of probation for a second-degree kidnapping
- An acquaintance of Ray’s
- Aided Ray and Glenda Ray in killing Marie Parker
- Sentenced to two consecutive 15-year sentences for kidnapping and second-degree murder
Being eligible for parole after serving half her sentence, Hendy was released in 2019. She was scheduled to receive parole in 2017. She was released on July 15, 2019, after serving the two years of her parole in prison. It is not clear where Hendy now lives. On release, she did move to Hamilton, Montana. However, the Hamilton community members expressed frustration and worry on social media about having Hendy live close to a local school and according to one Reddit post, she may have moved back to Washington State.
In 2010, Yancy was paroled after serving 11 years in prison - out of 30, but the release was delayed by difficulties in negotiating a plan for residence. Three months after his release in 2011, Yancy was charged with violating his parole. He was remanded in custody, where he remained until 2021, serving the rest of his original sentence. He is now paroled.
As such, the Toy Box Killer’s accomplices all now walk amongst us. These are the people who willingly assisted a cruel sadomasochistic serial rapist who more than likely is a serial killer. It was just never proven. These people are all walking freely.
In 2011, the FBI released hundreds of images of items that were collected during the investigation, including jewellery and women's clothing. “We are asking family and friends of missing people to look over these photographs and contact us if they recognize any of these items," an FBI statement read.
ENDSCREEN NOTES
The toy box itself remains on the lot of the FBI field office in Albuquerque to this day.
Police believe David Parker Ray killed more than 30 women.
No bodies have ever been found.
The number of the Toy Box victims, dead or even alive, is still unknown.
David Parker Ray died of heart failure soon after the trial.
He had served 8 months of his sentence.
Ray's daughter, Jesse, had only served two and a half years and has been a free woman since 2002.
Cynthia Hendy is now a free woman, even though she believes that what they did was "not horrifying".
Cynthia Vigil later founded "Street Safe", New Mexico, a volunteer harm reduction nonprofit that works with sex workers and other vulnerable people living on the street.
ALL OF PARKER RAY’S ACCOMPLICES ARE WALKING AMONG US!
IN MEMORY OF
Pattie E Rust
an FBI agent, who tragically ended her life just after spending 5 days in the torture chamber documenting every single item
Angelica Montaño
who survived the toy box but sadly died before she got the chance to testify against Ray
and, of course, all the other unknown and unnamed victims.
LINKS & SOURCES
https://www.reddit.com/r/LPOTL/comments/toff66/cynthia_hendy_convicted_accomplice_to_david/
https://showbizcast.com/cindy-hendy-now-toy-box-killer-wife-david-parker-ray
https://eu.lcsun-news.com/story/news/local/new-mexico/2019/07/10/david-parker-ray-toy-box-torture-cynthia-lea-hendy-elephant-butte-new-mexico/1694194001/
https://www.kpax.com/news/montana-news/hamilton-resident-with-ties-to-toy-box-killer-raises-concern-in-community
https://allthatsinteresting.com/cindy-hendy
Amazon book https://tinyurl.com/4w45hdss
Search results https://tinyurl.com/dyb3nxtc
https://thoughtnova.com/cindy-hendy-toy-box-killers-girlfriend-who-helped-him-with-despicable-crimes
https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/David_Parker_Ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parker_Ray
The Sex Chamber (Documentary) https://youtu.be/kQouL8NnyVQ
https://www.oxygen.com/killer-couples/crime-news/how-toy-box-killer-david-parker-ray-and-cindy-hendy-tortured-women
https://youtu.be/nwwhd7VzFLI
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/torture-suspect-must-stand-trial/
http://thinkingaboutphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/david-parker-rays-audio-tape-transcript.html
Full re-created recording (original recording is not available publicly) https://youtu.be/NUiL4mv7mBI
Interview with Cindy Hendy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPlHpBRln2s
Items collected by FBI https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/albuquerque/items-david-parker-ray https://web.archive.org/web/20171201030738/https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-serial-rapist-david-parker-ray-973147