David Parker Ray

David Parker Ray (November 6, 1939 – May 28, 2002), also known as the Toy-Box Killer, was an American kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer.

Though no bodies were found, 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, New Mexico.

David Parker Ray was born on November 6, 1939, in Belen, New Mexico to father Cecil Leland Ray (August 14, 1913 – September 23, 2009), a mechanic and native of Oregon, and mother Nettie Opal Parker (November 12, 1920 – March 19, 2002), who had been born in Texas.

During his childhood, Ray and his younger sister, Peggie Pearl Ray (March 18, 1942 – December 13, 2009), lived with his mother's disciplinarian parents, Russell and Dolly Parker, on a small ranch due to their poor financial condition.

He was sporadically visited by his violent, alcoholic father, who would supply him with magazines depicting sadomasochistic pornography.

At Mountainair High School, in Mountainair, New Mexico, he was bullied by his peers for his shyness around girls, which resulted in his abusing alcohol and other drugs.

Ray's sexual fantasies of raping, torturing, and even murdering women developed during his teenage years.

When Ray was 14 years old, his sister saw his sadomasochistic drawings and pornographic pictures of bondage practices.

As a result, Ray and his sister became estranged.

Based on statements made by Ray, he is believed to have begun assaulting women as an adolescent.

He even alleged to his first wife that he had committed his first homicide sometime in 1957 when he kidnapped a woman, tied her to a tree, and tortured and murdered her.

However, authorities were unable to verify his account.

After completing high school, Ray received an honorable discharge from the United States Army, where his service included work as a general mechanic.

Ray then worked as a maintenance man for the New Mexico Parks Department in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico for the entirety of his adulthood until his arrest.

The resort town, located approximately 5 miles from Elephant Butte, New Mexico, contained several local bars, which Ray frequented for victims.

Ray met 37-year-old Cindy Hendy who worked at a state park in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and who was fleeing convictions on grand theft and drug charges in Washington State.

They became romantically involved and bonded over their shared violent sexual fantasies.

Glenda had tried to warn the FBI about her father's criminal activity in 1986.

FBI Agent Doug Beldon recalled Jesse Ray's claims: "She alleged that David Parker Ray was abducting and torturing women and selling them to buyers in Mexico."

However, the allegations were so non-specific that the FBI were unable to arrest Ray.

Ray sexually tortured and presumably killed his victims using whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades, electric shock machines, and saws.

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.

Ray's torture room was a re-purposed, soundproofed cargo trailer located immediately outside his Elephant Butte, New Mexico property and was called the "Toy Box" by Ray, along with numerous sex toys, torture implements, syringes, and detailed diagrams showing ways of inflicting pain, there was a homemade electrical generator to electrocute his victims.

In total, Ray is believed to have spent $100,000 on the trailer, fitting it with sex toys and torture devices.

Reportedly, Ray constructed elaborate contraptions to confine his victims, such as a fur-lined coffin and a makeshift pillory.

In addition, there were also elaborate locks and pulleys to prevent his captives from escaping.

A mirror was mounted in the ceiling, above the obstetric table to which he strapped his victims, so that they would be able to see themselves be raped and tortured.

He has been said to have wanted his victims to see everything he was doing to them.

Ray also put his victims in wooden contraptions that bent them over and immobilized them while he had his dogs and sometimes other friends rape them.

Ray often had an audio tape recording of his voice played for his victims whenever they regained consciousness.

In the transcripts of his tapes, Ray detailed how he would occasionally release his captives, abandoning them by the side of a country road after severely drugging them with barbiturates to induce amnesia, which would prevent them from reporting the assaults:

In an advisory message that was tape recorded by Ray on July 23, 1993, he claimed: "I've been rapin' bitches ever since I was old enough to jerk off, and tie little girls' hands behind their back."

In a 1993 recorded message, Ray told his captives that they would be forced to sexually service Hendy as well.

Ray was divorced four times and had two children, including his accomplice, daughter Glenda "Jesse" Jean Ray.

Ray was convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001, for which he received a lengthy sentence, but he was never convicted of murder.

He died of a heart attack about one year after his convictions in two cases, the second of which resulted in a plea deal.

Ray used soundproofing methods on a semi-trailer, which he called his "Toy Box", and equipped it with items used for sexual torture.

He would kidnap about four or five women a year, holding each of them captive for around two to three months.

During this period he would sexually abuse his victims and often torture them with surgical instruments, sometimes involving his friends, wife or even his dog.

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.