Connect The Dots...

by **M Abernathy** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 8:06 pm

<a href="http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/">www.nwcn.com/statenews/</a> Seattle man held captive as 'sex slave' 09/07/2002 By GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News and Wire Services BRUSH PRAIRIE, Wash. - Police in southwest Washington say it's the most bizarre case they've ever seen. They say a conversation on an Internet chat room led to a 47-year old man being used as a sex slave. Police still don't know what to make of it: A respectable-looking rural home in Brush Prairie, Wash., was apparently the scene of rape and torture. Police in southern Washington are still collecting evidence from the crime scene with what appears to be a home-based torture chamber. A half-dozen detectives combed through the home located near Vancouver Friday night, stunned at what was inside. Inside, police say, is where a Seattle area man was held captive as a "sex slave" for eight days and repeatedly tortured. "35 years in this business, and this is probably the most bizarre scene I have ever encountered," said Gary Lucas, Clark County Sheriff. Police say the man met the two suspects online, took a bus down to Portland, and eventually ended up at a home in Brush Prairie. That's where police say he was handcuffed, injected with some kind of substance and held in what the suspects called the "playroom," a large room equipped with electronic hospital equipment, two operating tables, video cameras, sexual devices, whips and restraints including dog collars. "Probably the best way to describe it is something you would expect to find in a movie—not here in Clark County," said Sheriff's detective Sgt. Dave Trimble. "It was beyond elaborate in my opinion," said Lucas. But on Thursday night, while one of the suspects slept, the man managed to escape shackled hand and foot through an open window, running to a neighbor's house for help. The Seattle man was treated at Southwest Washington Medical Center for severe bruises, including some caused by handcuffs and shackles. Police ended up nabbing the two men: Michael Aaron Wilson, 45, and William Joseph Fritsch, 22, both of Brush Prairie, a small town northeast of Vancouver. Both were charged Friday with first-degree kidnapping, rape and assault and are being held in the Clark County jail on $250,000 bail each. According to court papers, the two men confirmed the Seattle man's account of activities in the house, but contended it was consensual sexual role-playing, saying he had agreed to be their sex slave. "It may have been consensual at some point, but it became un-consensual," Lucas said. The two men met the Seattle man in an Internet chat room and he reportedly agreed to come and have sex with them. Detectives said in court papers the men sent him a bus ticket and picked him up at the Portland bus depot on Aug. 28. They then placed a hood over his face, gagged him and handcuffed him, driving him back to Brush Prairie. And as officers continue to search the home Saturday morning, they say they cannot help but suspect there have been other victims. "You don't think something like that's going to happen next door. Not to you," said Victor Wiley, suspects' neighbor. ==== From: Mr. Mike (a02632@giant.mindlink.net) Subject: Re: Recent TC Book with Gross Pictures?? Newsgroups: alt.true-crime View: Complete Thread (4 articles) | Original Format Date: 1998/03/06 On Fri, 06 Mar 1998 06:16:47 +0000, Michael Newton wrote: >It sounds a lot like DEATH SCENES, published by Feral House, although >I've only seen the paperback. No, I've seen that book (it's a collection of old autopsy photos, right?). This was a recently published hardcover true crime book about a crime which happened in the last 10 years or so. A must-read book for fans of "blow your lunch" true crime is Rites of Burial (published by Pinnacle, of course) which details the activities of Robert Berdella. To quote from a site on serial killers: "Robert Berdella -- Another from the maniac-with-a-heart-of-gold file. Bob ran a booth in the Westport Flea Market in Kansas City where he sold earrings that sported human teeth and skulls in it. All his neighbors thought he was a strange but harmless fellow. That is, until April 2, 1988, when a man lept from the second floor window of Bob's house wearing nothing but a dog collar. That definitely caught the neighbors' attention. A subsequent police search found two dead bodies inside the house. It seems that Rob liked to pick up drifters and male prostitutes, take them home and strap them into his custom-made torture bed. There he would experiment with electroshock and injected all kinds of household cleaners into their veins. He kept a detailed log of how his victims responded and had a collection of two hundred pictures of naked men in different stages of suffering. Bob liked to extend the life of his victims for a few days before tying a plastic bag over their heads. On December 19, 1988, Berdella pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life. A few years later he died in prison of poisoning or a possible heart attack." Rites of Burial includes several pictures which Berdella took which tormenting his victims. ==== ECHOES OF EVIL AT ELEPHANT BUTTE: Small Community Grapples With Its New Notoriety May 17, 1999 By Richard Zitrin ELEPHANT BUTTE, N.M. (APBnews.com) -- Mark Taute was looking for a way out of the rat race, so he sold his drilling business in Albuquerque and two months ago moved to this small retirement and tourist community, where the nearest sidewalk and traffic light is five miles down the road in the city of Truth or Consequences. Taute, 45, quickly found himself on the fast track to his version of the good life, getting a job as a mechanic at one of the three marinas on Elephant Butte Lake. All was right with the world, or at least Elephant Butte. Or so Taute thought. He had barely arrived in Elephant Butte, though, when this desert oasis suddenly found itself embroiled in a scandal involving sex, torture and murder. It was not the welcome Taute was expecting. "I moved down here to get away from the crap, and I got right into the crap," Taute said, shaking his head as he quaffed an after-work beer recently at the Inn at the Butte. Taute need not feel alone. It would be difficult to find many people in this city of 3,000 who are thrilled with the media and police attention their town has received. Elephant Butte is the place where a small group of local residents allegedly indulged in sexual torture and, in at least one case, murder. A house of horrors Four people -- David Parker Ray; his daughter, Glenda Jean "Jesse" Ray; his girlfriend, Cynthia Hendy; and an acquaintance, Dennis Roy Yancy -- have been charged in this case. It broke March 22 when a woman escaped from Ray's home wearing only a padlocked collar and a chain around her neck after allegedly having been held captive and sexually tortured for three days. Investigators say Ray, a 59-year-old maintenance worker at a local state park, imprisoned and tortured women in his mobile home on a narrow, sandy road not far from the lake. He also created a torture chamber in a trailer, which he called The Toy Box, outside of his home. The trailer contained a large collection of leather restraints, medical instruments and sexual devices, including a gynecological examination chair with restraints and electrical wiring, according to authorities. Police say they also found, among other things, a cattle prod, a stun gun, and photographs and videotapes of women being tortured. Ray is accused of sodomizing women, as well as attaching clips to their breasts and genitals and shocking them with electric currents. He also allegedly set up a pulley system with weights to stretch victims' breasts. Investigators say they also found tapes with Ray's voice on them telling women that drugs would be used to make them susceptible to hypnosis and to erase memories. The man on the tape allegedly tells his prisoners they are "going to be kept naked and chained up like an animal and used and abused any way we want to." When asked how long Ray allegedly had been carrying on this lifestyle, FBI Special Agent Doug Beldon said, "I think it's safe to say for many years." Allegations of buried bodies Ray and Hendy are accused of kidnapping a 22-year-old woman from outside an Albuquerque bar March 20 while Ray and she discussed the cost of a sex act. The woman said in court last month that while she was being held captive, Hendy said she had "only been kidnapping, raping and murdering for the last year" but that Ray had been doing it longer. The woman also said Hendy told her they were going to train a 10-year-old to be their sex slave. Hendy, who already has pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain, allegedly told police Ray admitted killing 14 people and dumping their bodies in Elephant Butte Lake and the desert. No bodies have been found, although Yancy is accused of murdering 22-year-old Marie Parker, a Truth or Consequences woman. Yancy's wife, Christina, told reporters after Yancy was arrested April 9 that Ray forced her husband to strangle Parker in July 1997 while Ray photographed the act. Yancy is the only person charged with murder in the case, which has given rise to a number of rumors around Elephant Butte, including one that Ray was peddling snuff flicks -- movies in which people are killed -- on the Internet. Investigators stunned Prosecutor Jim Yontz, who said he has seen no evidence Ray was circulating snuff flicks via computer, calls the case "evil." "I went down there and went through the trailer, and initially I just came out shaking my head," he told APBnews.com. "I found the same thing was true with FBI agents that were down here. We had agents down there who worked in serial killings in California, that worked the Kaczynski case ... you know, the Unabomber ... and nobody said, 'Oh, yeah, I saw this before.' The FBI profilers said this is one of five or six such cases they've seen. This is in the realm of the truly unique." Beldon agrees. "It's certainly unusual," he said. "I've been an agent 23 years, and I haven't seen anything quite like this." Unwanted attention The people of Elephant Butte wish they never had seen anything like this. Some say it's taken this story to get outsiders to realize the name of the community is Elephant Butte, not Elephant Butt, said Jo McClean, manager of Earl's Shamrock, a gas station and convenience store where Ray stopped each morning to buy coffee, donuts and a burrito. "We're just totally shocked," McClean said. "This is a small community. I mean, Elephant Butte didn't want to get on the map like this. I mean, nobody knew where this place is. How sad that we had to get on the map for something like this. It just breaks my heart." The sex-torture scandal is drawing national media attention to the community for the first time since the neighboring city of Hot Springs, the Sierra County seat, changed its name to Truth or Consequences 49 years ago when game show creator Ralph Edwards conducted a national search for a community to rename itself after his radio and, later, TV game show. The 85-year-old Edwards was in Truth or Consequences, or T or C as it is known locally, last month for the 50th Fiesta festival, bringing along his children and Rusty Burrell, Judge Wapner's bailiff on the TV show The People's Court and now Animal Court. "It's too bad we didn't have lots of reporters here for that," said Susan Lafont, an owner of the Inn at the Butte. "We had a lot of fun. Good, clean fun." Concerns for a fair trial Ray's attorney, Jeff Rein of Albuquerque, is concerned with the media attention the case has received and, for that reason, has opted not to discuss his client. "There's been an extraordinary amount of media coverage, and I'm concerned this overwhelming media coverage has created a situation that may make it difficult to get a fair trial," Rein said. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to add to this atmosphere." Rein works for the state public defender's office and normally defends people charged with murder. He said he was brought in to defend Ray, even though he has not been charged with murder, because law enforcement officials made statements after his arrest that they were looking for bodies. A tourist getaway Elephant Butte is by weekday a quiet town in the shadow of the Sierra Caballo mountains that turns busy on weekends and holidays with the influx of boaters, tourists and anglers. Crowds of more than 100,000 for holiday weekends are not uncommon. The attraction is Elephant Butte Lake, a 43-mile-long, 5-mile-wide lake that is the largest in New Mexico. Small Hispanic communities of the 1800s are said to be buried beneath the lake, which some believe also may be true of victims from the sex-torture case. Elephant Butte, which was incorporated as a city last summer, got its name from a volcanic cone in the lake near the state park that, if you let your imagination run wild, is said to resemble the head and back of an elephant. This community 150 miles south of Albuquerque has one main street, State Highway 195, few businesses and probably more road runners and rabbits than residents. "To get your picture in the paper around here, you catch a big fish," said Mayor Bob Barnes, a retired business executive. "It's a very quiet, close-knit community. We have never had any trouble of any kind. Just minor things ... vandalism, break-ins, things eventually the Sheriff's Department will solve. People don't lock their houses. It's that kind of community." More arrests possible Elephant Butte also is a small community where the arrests of Ray and the others have fueled talk that Ray was peddling snuff films, that investigators were planning to dig for bodies in a local cemetery, that Navy divers were brought in to scour the lake for murder victims and that more people will be arrested. Authorities dismiss all of the rumors, except the last. More arrests "are a distinct possibility," Beldon said. "This place is such a rumor mill; it's horrible," McClean said. "People are just looking at other people like they're the ones. It's just terrible. It's just everybody's scared." Neighbors had 'no clue' McClean said she has known Ray since he moved to Elephant Butte in 1984. She characterizes him as a nice, intelligent, clean-cut man who is fastidious about his appearance. "He talked about his boat a lot," McClean said. "He loved his boat. He complained about work, like we all do. I don't think he had any close acquaintances. I guess you can't if you do this type of thing. When you hear about people like Dahmer and Bundy and you hear people who live next door say, 'We had no clue,' and I'd say, 'Yeah, right.' And now I'm here. Now I'm here." Yontz is not surprised by the perception of Ray as a normal, everyday guy. "The guys that act crazy and are nuts get stopped real quick," he said. "The ones that are successful are the John Wayne Gacys, the Ted Bundys. These people that carry on carry on because they fit, not because they stand out." Little said about Ray An acquaintance of Jesse Ray, Debra Fisk, said she was asked by Ray's family and attorneys not to talk to the news media. One of Ray's co-workers in the state parks department said the same. Beldon said he could not say much for the record about Ray, except that he had been married twice. He currently is divorced. "I understand he was a really competent fella [at his job]," Barnes said. "He did excellent repair work, excellent welding, that kind of thing. He was good with tools." Life sentences if convicted Ray has been charged with kidnapping and sexually torturing three women -- one in March, one in February and another in July 1996. His 32-year-old daughter also is charged with the 1996 kidnapping and sexual assault. Both have been ordered to stand trial in District Court in Truth or Consequences, although no dates have been set. Ray's girlfriend, Hendy, was, like him, charged with 25 counts involving the alleged kidnappings and tortures in March and February, but she agreed to a plea bargain two weeks after she was arrested. Hendy, 39, pleaded guilty April 6 to five counts in return for a promise that she will be sentenced to between 12 and 54 years in prison. Her sentence is on hold while she undergoes a presentencing evaluation. District Attorney Ron Lopez would not say whether Hendy will testify for the prosecution as part of the plea agreement, although he did say, "I think you can read between the lines." Ray faces 200 years in prison and his daughter 80 to 90 years, Yontz said. Yancy, 27, faces life in prison if convicted of murder. A determination on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty has not been made, Yontz said. Yancy is scheduled to appear in District Court May 25 for his preliminary hearing. All four defendants are being held on $1 million bond each. All except for Hendy have pleaded innocent. Involved in earlier killing? Investigators are looking into whether there is a connection between Ray and the killing of a former co-worker whose body was found floating in Elephant Butte Lake 10 years ago. Police say Ray worked at a Phoenix car repair shop in the 1980s with Billy Ray Bowers, who disappeared in September 1988 and was later found shot in the head. Police have used a backhoe to dig up the yard outside Ray's home and have searched elsewhere for bodies but have found none. "I really honestly to God hope that Marie Parker was the only person who has died as a result of this and we don't find any other bodies," Yontz said. State police Lt. Greg Richardson said investigators have followed hundreds of leads to as many as 10 states. Ray's trailer has been taken to a storage facility near Santa Fe, according to Beldon. The investigation has proceeded to a more-subdued, less-visible stage, Yontz said. "The state police are proceeding on truckloads, trailer-loads, of items that were seized from his property," Yontz said. "I assume they are done digging on his property. I can tell you this much ... we're not going to drain the lake." 'I wish this hadn't happened' Some Elephant Butte residents are anxious for the scrutiny of their community to die down. Betsy Larson, who lives down the road from Ray's home, said the traffic from curiosity-seekers and news media has "been horrible." Mayor Barnes said he was unable to take his daily 2 p.m. nap after the story broke because of the constant presence of TV news helicopters hovering overhead. Linda Hodges, who moved here six years ago with her husband to run Hodgee's Corner Restaurant, does not want people to get the wrong impression of Elephant Butte. "We have a good community," she said. "We just have a few bad apples. This is still a friendly community. We have a lot of retired people, and more families are moving in. People come down here to get away from big cities and stuff like this. I wish this hadn't happened here." Richard Zitrin is an APBnews.com national correspondent. ==== Judge in Sex-Torture Case Dies; Ray Trial Delayed Albuquerque Journal , Friday, December 01, 2000 by Rory McClannahan Journal Staff Writer , Pg. B3 State District Judge Neil P. Mertz, who was presiding over the David Parker Ray sex-torture case, died of a heart attack in Socorro early Thursday. Mertz's death will delay Ray's trial, 7th Judicial District Attorney Ron Lopez said Thursday. Jury selection began in the case Monday in Estancia, and the trial was scheduled to begin in January. Cathy McClean, court clerk in Sierra County, and Kim Padilla, court administrator in Socorro, said Mertz had the heart attack at his home Thursday morning. Padilla said he was taken to the emergency room of Socorro General Hospital. McClean said Mertz seemed fine Wednesday. Padilla said she was not aware Mertz, 55, had heart problems since he was named to the judgeship four years ago. Padilla said she received a call about the judge's death just before 8 a.m. Mertz, a Democrat, was named to the bench by Gov. Gary Johnson in February 1996 and won election to the 7th Judicial District post later that year. His six-year term would have expired in 2002. District 7 covers Torrance, Catron, Socorro and Sierra counties. Lopez said Thursday that he had known Mertz for many years and "respected him as an attorney, as a judge and as a person." Mertz was a longtime attorney in Socorro and at different times served as city attorney and as an assistant district attorney. He also had a private practice. He had been serving as Lopez's chief deputy district attorney for three years when he was appointed as a judge in February 1996. As a judge, Mertz ran his courtroom well, Lopez said. "I always knew he was going to be thorough and conscientious," Lopez said. In his short tenure as a judge, Mertz presided over two high-profile cases the Torreon cabin killings and the Ray case. Mertz earned an undergraduate degree from Phillips University in Oklahoma as well as a master's degree in political science and a law degree from Baylor University. Lopez said he had talked to Mertz on Wednesday night and the judge seemed to be in good health. The two men talked about the several delays in the Ray case. "The ironic thing was that he said, 'I wonder what else can go wrong with this case,' '' Lopez said. Lopez said he has contacted the New Mexico Supreme Court to ask for an extension on the Ray case. It could take months before the case gets back in court, he said. The Ray case gained international attention in March 1999 after a woman wearing only a padlocked collar ran to the Elephant Butte home of one of Ray's neighbors, saying she had escaped from his mobile home. An FBI search of Ray's trailer turned up torture devices and video cameras. Ray's first trial last summer ended in deadlock. He faces retrial on 12 charges: six counts of criminal sexual penetration and one each of kidnapping, assault with intent to commit a violent felony, criminal sexual contact, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit criminal sexual penetration and conspiracy to commit criminal sexual contact. Two similar cases against Ray will be tried separately. The Associated Press contributed to this report. PHOTO: b/w MERTZ: Judge died of a heart attack Copyright 2000 Albuquerque Journal ==== Accuser in sex-torture case dies Albuquerque Tribune , Tuesday, May 09, 2000 by ASSOCIATED PRESS , Pg. A3 One of three women who accused David Parker Ray of kidnapping and sexually torturing her has died, a prosecutor said. Angelicia Montano, believed to be in her mid-20s, died Sunday, said Jim Yontz, deputy district attorney. The cause of death wasn't known, Yontz said Monday. An autopsy was conducted and the results have not been released yet. Last year, Montano alleged in an affidavit that she went to Ray's trailer in Elephant Butte to pick up a cake mix for her boyfriend's birthday party, then was taken captive, chained and tortured with sexual devices and electric shock. Ray had shared the trailer with a former girlfriend, Cindy Hendy, who pleaded guilty last year to being involved in a sex-torture case. She is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in Truth or Consequences. Montano's death has not affected the sentencing hearing, said Yontz and Carmen Garza, Hendy's attorney. Montano said in the affidavit that she persuaded Ray and Hendy to release her a few days after she was taken captive, promising to keep quiet. "Our victim witness person was attempting to contact her" to ask if she wanted to testify at Hendy's sentencing, Yontz said. "While he was attempting to contact her, her mother called and said she passed away." Although Montano has died, Yontz said the District Attorney's Office plans to proceed with prosecuting her case against Ray. "We presented the matter at a preliminary hearing," Yontz said. Under certain circumstances, prior testimony can be allowed in court cases, he said. Yontz said he spoke with one of Ray's lawyers, but hasn't been informed yet whether they will challenge the prosecution's decision. A call to lead attorney Jeff Rein was not immediately returned Monday evening. Ray, 60, is accused of kidnapping and sexually torturing Montano and two other women at his home near Elephant Butte. He faced three separate trials, one with each of his accusers. His first trial is on hold while prosecutors challenge a court order limiting evidence and witnesses. The trial involving Montano had not come up yet. Last year, Hendy pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory to kidnapping, two counts of accessory to criminal sexual penetration and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping in connection with the abductions and sexual tortures of two women. She agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence than the nearly 200 years she was facing. Now Hendy faces 12 to 54 years in prison.

by **ZeroHaven** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 8:26 pm

Dammit! Pretty soon somebody's gonna outlaw play-dungeons because there's some sick over-the-hill bastards going around killing people.

Connect The Dots...

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