CHAPTER 4
We found a videotape of another naked woman with a swan tattoo on her right ankle.
—FBI Agent Tony Maxwell, 3/31/1999
By April 1, the mainstream-media types were beginning to lose interest in the “next big story.” Both victims were girls who turned tricks to support their drug habits—not exactly the kind of heroes the media yearned for in their desire for more copy. People magazine reporter Carlton Stowers complained of being stuck in “this godforsaken country” and was especially critical of Angelique Montano.
“If she can snort it, drink it or smoke it—or do all three at the same time—she’ll do it.”
One night he was at Rocky’s Lounge relaxing and talking to a small group of reporters. Everyone was disappointed that the cops had been unable to unearth any bodies. Stowers told everyone that People was sending him back home to Dallas, Texas, and he commented, “This is the first pornographic report I’ve ever sent in.”
By Monday, March 29, the FBI took over the investigation and immediately sent in three crack teams of eight agents each to help the NMSP collect evidence. Right away they found what they said was a six-minute videotape of David Ray playing doctor and examining a naked young woman who’d been strapped down to a black bench press and made blind and speechless with duct tape. The FBI was hoping she was still alive. In the video, there was only one way the police might be able to identify her.
She had a small swan tattoo on her ankle.
The NMSP immediately took a blowup of the tattoo and pumped it into the National FBI Rapid Start System, hoping a computer search would allow them to match a description of a woman with the same kind of tattoo. It wasn’t long before they hit pay dirt. A woman from Arizona had called the FBI right after she saw David Ray on TV and reported that her daughter-in-law had disappeared for three days and nights way back in 1996.
Janet Murphy told the FBI the following story about the twenty-two-year-old girl with the swan tattoo, Kelli Van Cleave.
“In July of 1996, my twenty-year-old son, Patrick, married a young girl from Truth or Consequences he’d only known for six weeks. He was in the navy in San Diego and home on leave when he met her. It was kind of a quick thing when they got married. I wanted him to take it a little bit slower. I just figured she latched on to Patrick because she wanted some financial security.
“Right after they got married, they were staying at my house and he was catering to her all the time. I guess they were having sexual problems, just like a lot of newlywed couples do. They fought one night, and the next morning, Kelli came to me and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to go see some friends and I’ll be back later.’
“She didn’t come back for three days.
“I was really upset and so was Patrick. He reported her missing and he looked for her night and day. He was really worried that she was hanging out with some really bad people. By the end of the second day, we talked and he decided to divorce her. We thought she just up and left him and was out fooling around with her friends.
“On the third morning, we were out doing yard work when this state vehicle pulls up. David Parker Ray was behind the wheel. Kelli gets out of the truck, and right away I noticed that she looked all messed up—dirty—and that wasn’t like Kelli at all, she was a very clean person. It looked like she had a hangover, but I knew for a fact she hardly ever drank. She didn’t do drugs, either. Her eyes were wandering. She was barefoot and missing her wedding ring. Her hair was all messed up. She came over and sat on the porch and I tried to talk with her, and she said mostly she couldn’t remember.
“Mr. Ray told us he’d found her wandering on the beach down at Hot Springs Cove, and then he smiled and said, ‘I thought I’d better bring her home. She was dehydrated, and we stopped at Earl’s Diamond gas station and I bought her a cup of coffee.’
“My son came walking out of the house and told Kelli he wanted a divorce, and we told her she couldn’t come in the house unless she signed the divorce papers. She left with David Ray and came back two days later and got all her belongings.
“Patrick divorced her at the end of July and he didn’t see Kelli until the following April when the two kids talked about the possibility of getting married one more time. She moved in to stay with me for a few days. He didn’t trust her and neither did I. After a few days, I asked her to leave my house and I didn’t think about her too much until I saw all the TV news about David Ray kidnapping and torturing those other two girls.
“I feel so darn guilty,” she told the FBI, sobbing uncontrollably.
“I didn’t believe her and now I think that David had her all three of those nights. I don’t know what he did to her memory, but I think he probably did some wicked things to her body.
“My son and Kelli Van Cleave had only been married two weeks . . .”
Two weeks later, the New Mexico State Police called Kelli Van Cleave in Craig, Colorado, where she moved in 1998. She confirmed that she had a swan tattoo on her right ankle. Agent Carrie Parbs of the NMSP made arrangements to drive up to Colorado to interview Van Cleave. She told Kelli she would be accompanied by Agent Larry Houpt of the FBI, a specialist in violent crimes as well as, coincidentally, an ordained minister in the Mormon Church.
Kelli Van Cleave, now twenty-five, sat down nervously for her interview with the two investigators. Parbs showed her a picture taken from the video and asked if that was her leg and her tattoo. Kelli shook all over and said, “Yes, that’s me.” She told the pair she’d been having nightmares for three years and now the memories were slowly coming back. Parbs asked her to start at the beginning.
“I was friends with Roy Yancy,” she said. “He’s a good friend of David Parker Ray. Roy used to tell me he was in a satanic group for years and he said David Ray had always been the leader. I knew Roy Yancy was very violent. I seen him beat people up, both men and women. Everybody in town was so scared of him—nobody would turn him in. One time Roy told me that he could kill someone and not even blink an eye.
“I’d never met David, but I knew his daughter Glenda Ray. We called her Jesse. I’d known her for three years and I knew a lot of people in Truth or Consequences who got their drugs from her. She was a major-league drug runner—coke, meth, grass—the whole bag. I’d never done drugs before, but I liked to hang out and party with Jesse, Roy and her friends.
“T or C is a real party town.
“The night I got in trouble was July 25, 1996. It was hotter than hell, so I went out barhopping with a bunch of my friends and we ended up out at the Blue Waters Saloon. They drank all day but I only had one beer. I was the designated driver. Later that night, Jesse said she would take me home. She drives a big motorcycle and she’s always letting people hitch a ride with her. She said she wanted to drink some coffee first, so we got on her big ole motorcycle and, instead of taking me home, she drove me over to her dad’s trailer.
“Inside, I sat down on the couch while Jesse and her dad went into the back room. When they came out, one sat beside me and the other one knelt at my feet. I can’t remember which one did what, but I do remember that one held a knife to my throat and the other used duct tape to cover my eyes and my mouth,
“At first I thought they were playin’ a joke on me.
“When I realized they were serious, I guess I kinda froze up and I went along with them because I didn’t want them to hurt me. They took off my clothes and put a dog collar around my neck. Then they took me out to the toy box.
“I still don’t remember too much; I just remember being tied up. And I remember David poking me with a metal dildo—you know, right between the legs.
“I remember going to the bathroom twice in a little potty. I know that David was the only other person in there with me. One time he got mad because I kept licking the tape around my mouth so it wouldn’t stick. One time I pleaded with him, ‘I want to go home; I want to go home.’ Another time he was using those huge rubber spiked dildos on me and it hurt real bad. I told him, ‘It hurts, David,’ and he quit. Another time he was playing gynecologist and it really hurt, and he quit that time, too.
“He told me that his satanic group had been watching me for a long time because they wanted me as a sex slave, but he finally decided I was too tight between the legs for good sex and eventually he let me go.
“The day he drove me home, I asked Janet Murphy if I could go inside her house and pick up my clothes. She told me she wouldn’t let me in the door, not even to get my toothbrush.
“She sent me off with David Ray. He took me to the south end of the lake and my friend ‘Damsite Dave’ Connolly took care of me. I stayed at his house for a few days.”
Carrie Parbs interrupted and asked Van Cleave how it felt to finally tell her side of the story. Kelli paused and looked down at the floor for the longest time. Then she wept softly.
“I feel so guilty,” she said. “I can’t tell you how dirty I feel.”
“You’re doing a brave thing,” Parbs told her.
“What if I’d come out sooner—maybe the two other girls wouldn’t have been kidnapped.”
Agent Houpt asked her if she ever told people in T or C any of the details she was now telling them.
“No,” she said. “I knew nobody would believe me.”
“Why not?” he asked her.
“They all thought I was out there screwing around.”
“Your friends told you that?” asked Houpt.
“I guess I’ve got lousy friends,” she told him.
“Not anymore,” the FBI man told her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.”
“One thing still freaks me out,” Van Cleave said.
“What’s that?” he asked her.
“I’m afraid of duct tape.”