The "Toybox Killer"

 

As this is the first true crime post, we wanted to start off strong with Mr. David Parker Ray also known as the infamous "Toybox Killer." 

BIOGRAPHY

Ray was born on November 6, 1939 in Belen, New Mexico, to father Cecil Leland Tay ( a mechanic and native of Oregon), and mother Nettie Opal Parker, who had been born in Texas. During his childhood Ray and his younger sibling, Miss Peggie Pearl Ray, lived with his mothers disciplinary parents, Russell and Dolly Parker, on a small ranch due to their poor financial condition. He was visited often by his violent and alcoholic father who would gift David with magazines depicting sadomasochistic pornography (can be defined as the taking of pleasure, often sexual in nature, from the inflicting or suffering of pain, hardship, or humiliation). 

Mountainar High School in Mountainar New Mexico is where David went to school and was frequently bullied by his peers for his "shyness" around girls, which resulted in him abusing alcohol and other various drugs. Because of Rays childhood abuse, absence of nourishment and physical abuse from his father David began having sexual fantasies of raping, torturing and even murdering women, that developed early during his teenage years. When Ray was only 14 years old his sister had caught him with his sadomasochistic drawings and pornographic pictures of bondage practices. Based on later documented statements, David himself began assaulting women as an adolescent. A messaged that was tape recorded by Ray on July 23,1993,  "Ive been rapin' bitches ever since I was old enough to jerk off, and tie little girls' hands behind their back." His first wife claimed that Ray had kidnapped a women, tied her to a tree, and tortured and murdered her. However authorities were unable to be able to "glue" him to this first "alleged" homicide. 

After surprisingly finishing High School, David received an "honorable discharge from the United States Army, where his service included work as a general mechanic. Later on David worked as a maintenance man for the New Mexico Parks Department in Truth or Consequences, New mexico, for the entirety of his adult years, until upon his arrest. The resort town, approximately located 5 miles from his jobsite, contained several local bars, which David often visited for victims. Ray met 37 year old Cindy Hendy who worked at a state park in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, whom faced fleeing convictions on grand theft and multiple drug charges in Washington state. After meeting they became romantically involved and bonded over their shares of violet sexual fantasies. In 1993 their was a recorded statement that David told his hostages that they would be forced to sexually service "Hendy" as well. 

Shortly after David has a daughter (mother not specified) named Glenda "Jesse" Jean Ray and another child who isn't specified in any biographies of David. "Jesse" follows into her fathers path making her his accomplice in some of his disturbing acts. "Jesse" in 1986 attempted to report her fathers criminal activities. FBI agent Doug Beldon that took in Jesse's claims documents: " She allegedly reported that her father was abducting and torturing women and selling them to human trafficking buyers in Mexico." Unfortunately, the allegations and "assumptions" were too vague at the time for the FBI to initiate an arrest on the "Toybox Killer".

CRIMINAL HISTORY

David sexually tortured and murdered his victims using whips, chains, pulleys, clamps, straps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades, electric shock machines and saws. He terrorized many women with these tools and objects for many years proven to have help from accomplices, who are alleged to be some of the women he was dating at the time. Rays "ToyBox" or torture room was a repurposed, soundproof cargo trailer located outside of his at home residence. David stocked the trailed with excessive amounts of various sex toys, torture implemented objects, syringes, and detailed diagrams showing ways of inflicting pain, as well as a homemade electrical generator. This machine was intended and used to deliver electrical shocks to his victims. Ray is believed to have spent over 100,000 dollars on making this trailer his specialty. 

Ray constructed multiple contraptions to capture his victims, including a fur-lined coffin and a personalized human pillory. Intensifying a difficult escape David added various locks and pulleys to prevent elopement from his captives. He wanted his victims to see themselves tortured and in despair so he mounted a mirror above his obstetric table to which he strapped his victims on to. Another way Ray disgustingly tortured his victims was placing them in wooden contraptions that bent them over and immobilized them while he had his dogs and sometimes other friends rape them. David often had a recorded tape he played for victims after they regained consciousness. In the transcripts of his tapes, Ray detailed how he would occasionally release his captives, abandoning them of the side of the street on a country road after severely drugging them with barbiturates to induce amnesia, which would prevent them from reporting the assaults: 

" I get off on mind games. After we get completely through with you, you're gonna be drugged up real heavy, with a combination of sodium pentathlon and phenobarbital. They are both hypnotic drugs that will make you extremely blinded to hypnosis, hypnotic suggestion and auto hypnosis. You're gonna be kept drugged for a couple of days, while I play with your mind. By the time I get through brainwashing you, you're not gonna remember a fuckin' thing about this little adventure. "

Documents report that he would kidnap four or five women a year, holding them captive around 3 months. The exact number over the years is uncertain, and none of the bodies were able to have been located. Ray kept a diary of his victims individually detailing every crime, however the diary did not disclose any information on where he buried their bodies. According to one of his "many" accomplices "Cindy Henry", Rays fatal victims were dismembered and buried, and or dumped in the Elephant Butte Lake nearby. After his arrest, Ray agreed to show authorities where he had buried his victims, but he died before so while he was imprisoned and in custody. No other accomplices had any help in assisting the investigating team discovering any bodies. 

Later on in 2011 the FBI released hundreds of photos that were collected during the investigation of David. Many of the photos consist of a variety of different kinds of jewelry most assumed to be owned by the victims allegedly said from the FBI.

THE END OF THE "TOYBOX KILLER"

On May 28, 2002, David was take to the Lea County Correctional Facility, in Hobbs, New Mexico, to be questioned by the states police. He died of a heart attack before the interrogation could've taken place.

NON-FICTION BOOK "SLOW DEATH" by JIM FIELDER details Ray's sadistic, violent, and disturbing crimes.