Serial killers and true crime

David Parker Ray‘s toy box is infamous; his Butte trailer home was a little slice of hell, filled with sinister devices he used to rape and torture women. But there may be another place ray used to keep his victims.

FBI agents will search Elephant Butte Lake again next week, all on a new tip that Ray’s forgotten victims will be found. The FBI isn’t talking except to say it has new information, and a chance now with the drought to search caves and ravines once covered by water.

Ray was arrested in 1999 after a woman wearing just a dog collar and padlocked chains escaped his house of horrors he called his toy box, full of torture devices he called his friends.

He was convicted of kidnapping and sexually torturing three women, all of whom lived to tell their stories. From the start investigators have suspected he was a serial killer.

In 2002, shortly after Ray was sentenced to life, he dropped dead of a heart attack in prison. After his death police released audio tapes he played for his captives, where he hinted he was a serial killer.

“I’ve tortured girls in ways that I’m not very proud of. When I’m p***ed off, I don’t mind having blood all over the place, and sometimes they didn’t survive,” Ray says on the audiotape.

Investigators also found Ray’s diary in his home with a timeline of his abductions dating back to 1955, when he was just a teenager.

Investigators believe Ray may have killed up to 60 people. Ray’s girlfriend Cindy Hendy helped kidnap and torture the women. She accidentally left a set of keys out, that’s how the woman escaped, bringing Ray’s reign of terror to an end. Cindy Hendy is serving 36 years in prison.

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I do wonder if Hendy is trying to cut some new deals or get privileges. I doubt the police are just now acting on her previous statements. It does sound as if the leads that they were following fell through though.

No bodies were found during a search of a reservoir for possible victims of a man known as the Toy Box Killer, convicted a decade ago of kidnapping and sexually torturing women.

FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said federal and local law enforcement agents searched a canyon in New Mexico for three hours on Tuesday but found only animal bones.

“We plan to come back in the near future to do a more thorough search of a few points there,” Fisher told The Times. “There are some areas we want to take our time with.”

About 30 people fanned out on the southern end of Elephant Butte Reservoir on Tuesday after authorities received information about possible remains of the missing victims of David Parker Ray.

Authorities have long believed that Ray, who died behind bars in 2002 while serving a life sentence, chose the reservoir as a burial site for some of the 40 people he claimed to have killed.

None of the bodies have been found there, however.

New Mexico police suspect that the remains of 22-year-old Jill Troia, who disappeared in 1995, may be buried near the reservoir in southern New Mexico, about 150 miles south of Albuquerque.

Ray wrote that he sexually tortured his victims in the trailer he dubbed his “toy box” in the New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences, within view of the reservoir, Fisher said. Ray said he then buried his victims, including an Asian woman investigators believe may have been Troia.

Ray was arrested in 1999 after a naked woman fled from his home wearing only a dog collar and chain.

The woman told police Ray had tortured her. Investigators who searched his home found a “Satan’s Den” sign on the wall, skull-shaped candelabra, surgical tools, video cameras, a makeshift coffin and a black box he apparently used to cover victims’ heads when he tortured them, the Daily Mailreported.

In 2001, Ray pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape charges in the case of the woman who had fled his home; he was also convicted of kidnapping and torturing a Colorado woman.

Ray’s girlfriend at the time of his arrest, Cynthia Lea Hendy, told police that Ray disposed of bodies in Elephant Butte Reservoir. Hendy was sentenced 11 years ago to 36 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to accessory and kidnapping charges, and agreed to cooperate with investigators to avoid a life sentence. She remains in prison, Fisher said.

Troia was last seen in October 1995 at a restaurant in Albuquerque with Ray’s daughter, Glenda Jean Ray, whom she had dated. Albuquerque police have long believed Ray and his daughter were connected to Troia’s disappearance, which remains the Albuquerque Police Department’s only known cold case related to Ray. But neither was ever charged in connection with the case.

In 2001, Glenda Jean Ray pleaded no contest to kidnapping charges and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, plus five years of probation in connection with her father’s sex torture case. She was later released, Fisher said.

Fisher said authorities are reopening other missing persons cases from the same time period to see if they might be connected to Ray. A new missing persons DNA database could help identify remains, he said.

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I would think that decomposition in that type of condition (lake in the desert) would be quick and pretty complete. I wonder what would / could be left after all this time?

Investigation Discovery on Hendy