- The Toy Box Killer, David Parker Ray and his accomplice Cindy Hendy kidnapped Cynthia Vigil in 1992
- They took her to Ray’s ‘toy box’ – a soundproof space where he took victims to assault and violently attack them
- Amazingly, Cynthia broke free and raised the alarm over his despicable crimes
For years, a small town nestled in the desert of a New Mexico hid a chilling secret.
No-one knew that behind the doors of a quiet trailer lived a monster.
But on one fateful day in 1999, the courage of a young woman ripped that secret wide open.
On March 19 that year, Cynthia Vigil, then 22, was in a car park when she was approached by man flashing what appeared to be a police badge.
He said she was under arrest for solicitation.
The badge looked odd to her but, before she had time to question him, he had her in handcuffs.
‘I kept trying to get away,’ she later said, ‘but I had one handcuff on my arm and he had the other end, and I was trying to run.’
A woman appeared, and helped him shock Cynthia with a cattle prod and force her into a small campervan.
The man was David Parker Ray, an unassuming mechanic with a quiet demeanour, but who hid unfathomable darkness.
He and his accomplice, his girlfriend Cindy Hendy, drove Cynthia nearly 240 kilometres to his home in the town of Elephant Butte.
There, twisted Ray had built a soundproof space he called the ‘toy box’.
It was there that he took victims to assault and violently attack them.
For three days, Ray carried out his evil plan.
Hendy helped him and joined in the abuse, and Cynthia overheard them talking about kidnapping more victims.
Ray told Cynthia that she’d never see her family again, as he now planned to kill her like he had ‘killed the others’.
What the sick couple didn’t count on was Cynthia’s unbreakable will to survive.
‘I just had this feeling come across me,’ she later said. ‘Something inside me told me, “You’re going to get away. When it’s time, you’re going to get away”.’
On the third day, Cynthia had a glimmer of hope.
Ray left her alone with Hendy. And when Hendy’s phone rang, she too left to take the call.
Cynthia saw her chance.
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Incredibly, she managed to reach the keys to her restraints which were sitting on a coffee table.
But as she was trying the keys in the locks, Hendy returned. Grabbing a lamp, she bashed Cynthia and then used an ice pick to stab her.
While under attack, Cynthia kept trying the keys until she finally broke free, still fighting for her life.
Grabbing the phone, she called police and managed to get hold of the ice pick and strike Hendy in the head.
Fleeing, a bleeding and naked Cynthia sought refuge in a neighbouring home owned by an elderly couple. Screaming for help, she locked herself in.
The stunned couple gave her a bathrobe, and the man told Cynthia he had a gun and wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
When officers arrived at David Parker Ray’s trailer, they were confronted with the ‘toy box’. A dungeon-like room disguised as a mechanic’s workshop, it was filled with weapons and restraints.
Police took Cynthia to hospital. There, she heard over the police radio that Hendy had survived and was being taken to hospital as well.
Ray and Hendy were arrested, and police began to uncover the true extent of their heinous crimes. As the investigation unfolded, more women came forward.
One, Kelli Garrett, reported being abducted in 1996, and later remembered being drugged and waking up in Ray’s trailer.
After being assaulted, she’d be dumped on the street, disorientated and traumatised.
Another woman, Angelica Montano, said that Ray had picked her up, drugged her, and left her dazed and sick days later.
Authorities began to piece together a horrifying pattern.
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Ray had been doing this for decades – abducting women, torturing them, then erasing their memories with drugs or simply letting them go, broken and afraid.
Others he had likely killed. He kept diaries and photos of his attacks, and wrote of disposing bodies in nearby lakes and deserts.
While no remains were ever found, police believe he could have had as many as 60 victims.
Charged with kidnapping, sexual torture, and other offences, in 2001 David Parker Ray was sentenced to 224 years in jail. He died of a heart attack in his cell just one year later.
Cynthia ‘Cindy’ Hendy turned on Ray, telling authorities she knew of at least 14 murders he’d committed. Hendy testified against him in exchange for a reduced sentence of 36 years for participating in abductions and sexual assaults. She was released on parole in 2019.
Through it all, Cynthia Vigil’s voice cut through the horror. She had not only saved herself but brought a predator’s hideous world crashing down.
Today, Cynthia Vigil Jaramillo remains an advocate for survivors of abuse. She founded Street Safe New Mexico, an organisation supporting survivors of sexual abuse, sex workers and marginalised groups .
‘To any strangers out there, just be really careful,’ she said on podcast Survivor Story.
‘If you get an uncomfortable feeling, go with your first gut instinct. Don’t go against, you know, if you have certain rules, don’t go against your rules.’
In the face of pure horror, Cynthia found the strength to break free, and bring the nightmarish darkness of the Toy Box Killer to light.
