CHAPTER 19

“Your body is the property of the Church of Satan.”
—David Parker Ray’s voice on an audiotape he recorded on July 6, 1993.

Frances Baird was five years old when the town of Truth or Consequences was terrorized by Dennis Roy Yancy and two of his high-school buddies. It was late October 1987 and down at the worried offices of the Sierra County Sentinel, Myrna Baird decided to run an urgent message on the front page of the newspaper. She had already sent an undercover reporter to infiltrate the small satanic group, but he joined forces with the other side and she had to fire him. Still, Myrna knew that cats had been strangled and historical gravestones overturned and people were frightened. Another reporter from the Sentinel had already found resistance in the form of white witchcraft graffiti painted on rocks outside of town, so it was time for an official reaction. So she ran the following public announcement in the October 21 edition of the paper.

PUBLIC HELP SOUGHT
In an effort to prevent property damage and
personal injury, the Sierra County Sheriff,
the T or C Police Department
and the Socorro District Attorney’s Office
have formed a Joint Task Force.
A telephone Hot-Line has been set up.
Any individuals having information regarding animal
cruelty, property damage, grave tampering,
drug or alcohol abuse,
trespassing at cemeteries, or any suspicious activity,
are asked to call [number given] from 4:00 P.M. to
10:00 P.M. through Halloween night.
The caller need not identify themselves.

Frances had a dim memory of those years. The woman she would later call her mother (and her trusted mentor) was actually her grandmother Myrna Baird, the owner of the Sentinel. She had only recently adopted Frances from her biological mother back in Nebraska. What went wrong between Myrna and her own daughter was a mystery to Frances and that whole period of time was very confusing for Frances. She did, however, remember Halloween, 1987.
As the December 6 trial date for Dennis Roy Yancy drew closer, Frances Baird called Jim Yontz at work to get an update on the possibility of a jury trial. They started talking about the year Halloween was canceled in T or C and Baird told him what it felt like to be a little kid that fall.
“I couldn’t even go trick-or-treating,” she said, still sad recalling the long-ago memory.
“Yeah,” said Yontz. “Dennis was already off to a bad start by the time he was sixteen years old, and two years later, after meeting David Ray, he probably went off the deep end. David pushed him over the edge—all Dennis needed was a violent coach.”
“If Dennis is convicted, how many years do you think Mertz will give him?” asked Baird.
“That’s tricky. Last summer I talked to Yancy’s public defender, Gary Mitchell, and we worked out a deal where Dennis would plead guilty to second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder. I’ll find out in the next couple of days if we still have a deal. I’ve got real mixed feelings about Dennis, though. He’s told us he kidnapped Marie and later killed her, but he claims that during their four days and nights together, he didn’t torture her. I don’t know if I believe him, but we don’t have a body to examine.”
“You’re kinda stuck, aren’t you?”
“You bet,” said Yontz. “In the state of New Mexico, you can’t prosecute someone without a body—and without any evidence. We don’t have anything other than Dennis admitting to us that he did the dirty deed.”
“What about that article in the Journal about Jeannie Astbury?” asked Baird.
“No way,” said Yontz. “I couldn’t use her because the Deserted Journal had her memory hypnotically refreshed. Juries don’t like that kind of testimony.”
“So all you’ve got is Yancy’s confession?” asked Baird.
“Not exactly,” admitted Yontz. “We’ve got another David Parker Ray audiotape that goes on and on about his nasty little group of Satanists and what they did to women, but I don’t think Mertz will ever allow us to play it. Dennis’s name is never mentioned on the tape.”
Yontz got a call on the other phone line and he told Baird what he always told reporters interested in getting the scoop.
“Call me anytime if you need more information. Call me at home, if you need to.”
 
 
Later that night, Yontz glanced over at the pile of evidence strewn out on top of the table covered by the skin of Bernie the black bear. He spotted the tape he really wanted to use if Dennis Roy Yancy forced a trial on December 6. He wanted to listen to Tape Number Five one more time because it was different in one important way from all the other audiotapes. Most of David’s tapes had a clever little introductory disqualification that started out with the words “This tape was designed to be used for entertainment purposes.”
Not Tape Number Five.
Like all six audiotapes, this one addressed what Jim Yontz imagined was a “live” captive, fresh off the streets or the dusty back roads, paralyzed with fear and probably wondering whether she would live or die. Listening to David Ray, Yontz always took him on face value for what he and his friends said they were going to do to the victims. Yontz never allowed himself to think it was all make-believe. Tape Number Five opened with the sound of David’s soft and friendly voice speaking over a background of what sounded like religious instrumental music.

Hello, bitch.
I’m sure you’re wondering why you’ve been kidnapped and what’s going to happen to you. That’s why this tape has been made. It saves a lot of talking. It’s brief, blunt and to the point.
I’m a dungeon master for a local chapter of the Church of Satan, Lucifer, or the Devil, to you. You have been abducted so that your body can be used during rituals, and for sexual purposes for the congregation after the meetings. Our membership is pretty small, about twenty people, mixed male and female. Our meetings are pretty much what most people imagine—the way it is depicted in the movies.
A hidden church, black robes, pentagrams, rituals, chanting, a lot of nakedness, animal sacrifices, chicken blood and a hell of a lot of sex afterward! The meetings get interesting and exciting, to say the least. Trying to raise the demons is important, but it is the sex that keeps the church financially afloat. The high priest likes to keep everybody fired up on sex, and for that, we like fresh meat. Every couple of months we kidnap some good-looking little bitch to use during the rituals and to be kept available for everyone to use during the orgy.
Let me tell you what happens at the meetings. The orgy room is separate from the main church. It contains several couches, many mats on the floor and a refreshment center. In the middle of the room is a large wooden table with leather straps on it. Prior to each meeting, you’ll be taken to the church in a wooden box, naked, in chains, and with your eyes taped shut—so you can’t identify anybody.
Once there, you will be strapped down on top of the table. Your arms will be chained straight out to each side and leather straps will be buckled across your upper chest, your rib cage and your belly—so you can’t move. Your legs will be spread extremely wide apart because some of our members have diversified interests in, ah . . . which hole they want to use. There is a U-shaped cutout at the top of the table and it allows your head to drop right down into it. Another leather strap will be put across your forehead so you can’t move, allowing your mouth and throat to be available for sex.
Dental jaw blocks will be installed in your mouth so that you can’t bite anybody during oral sex. When your mouth is wide open, members will just shove their dicks down your throat and hump your face until they come.
After the meeting is over in the church, everyone will move into the orgy room and take their robes off [laughs]. Now everybody is fucking naked! And they’ll surround the table. You’re definitely going to be the center of attention, especially at the first meeting when you’re the new girl. Everybody is going to want to feel you up and try you out. Anyway, the high priest will move to the bottom of the table with a large wooden box that contains the dildo—what we call “the devil’s dick.” The tip is small, so it’ll start in the vagina easy, but the thing is tapered. It widens enormously at the base to about three inches thick, and the whole thing is pretty close to twelve inches long. It’s a real pussy stretcher.
Once it starts to go in, the high priest will chant:
The Devil fucks!
The Devil fucks!
The Devil fucks!
A half a dozen people will help hold your body still while the high priest forces the dick up all the way inside you. There will be a sudden blast of pain between your legs and it’s not unusual at all for a girl to pass out while this is being done.
Next the high priest will rape you. After he gets through, your body will be available for everybody’s use. They’ll take turns using you in various ways, and during the course of the evening, most of them will come back for seconds and thirds. You’ll probably be raped forty to fifty times.
The next morning, after everybody goes home, I’ll take you back to the dungeon, wash the sperm out of your body and clean you up. I’ll give you a bath and let you build your strength up so we can do it all over again [laughs]. You’re gonna be used for three or four meetings. By then, a captive is pretty well worn out and everybody’s tired of fucking with her.
Remember, your body is the property of the Church of Satan. The church is going to have you one night every two weeks and I’ve got you the rest of the time. Now, the dungeon belongs to the church, and it’s very well equipped. They spent a ton of money buying all sorts of specialized equipment, about anything I asked for. They even gave me medical supplies to patch up girls in case the high priest tears some slut’s pussy with a big dildo, and that doesn’t happen too often. One of my duties is to prestretch a girl’s vagina so the dildo won’t tear it. There have been a few occasions when we’ve kidnapped a bitch and had to take her to a meeting that same evening. Usually when that happens, the devil’s dick tears the fuck out of her vagina. Then I have to patch her up afterward.
A few years ago, there was a certain period of time that we didn’t do that. During that time there were instances where the fellows caused so much vaginal damage that the girl hemorrhaged, and sometimes didn’t survive. And it caused some problems within the congregation. Nobody likes watching a girl bleed to death.
Well [laughs], now you know what this is all about. You’re not exactly a sacrificial virgin. I don’t imagine you’re a virgin anyway. Virgins are pretty hard to come by. During the years that I’ve been dungeon master, for variety we sometimes snatch some pretty young girls . . . thirteen, fourteen years old, and even with that, we’ve only had two virgins.
Well, so much for that. You know how you’re going to serve the church.
Now let’s talk about how you’re going to serve me.
It is within my power to make your stay in the dungeon reasonably easy, or a living hell. There are going to be some rules, and whether you like them or not, you will learn to obey them. You’re going to find that I don’t have any patience at all with pretty little girls that forget and make mistakes.
Crying is acceptable, as long as you’re not too loud about it. Most of the time I expect you to keep your mouth shut. You need to tell me, however, when you have to use the rest room, because if you make a mess, whether it be a piss or a crap, you’re going to be forced to lick it up.
Don’t bite. There are no second chances. If you bite, I cut.
As far as kicking goes, I really don’t have a set punishment for that. If you should hurt me with your feet, the punishment shall be whatever I decide. That’s not fair, but that’s life.
When the church is done with you, the high priest will advise me when you are to be released and I will initiate a process that will take about two days. You’re going to be injected with a combination of drugs and then brainwashed until you don’t remember the church, me, this place or any fucking thing about what’s happened to you. After the hypnosis has taken effect, you’ll be taken near some town and turned loose.
Everything will heal up in two or three weeks. It will probably take just a little longer for your vagina to shrink back to normal size, but, ah [laughs] . . . that too will come to pass.
Now this is the beginning of a very trying ordeal for you. This experience is going to be very traumatic. The nights when you are taken to the church are going to be the worst by far. Each time you are going to experience about ten hours of pure hell.
Satan is a harsh taskmaster. . . .

Jim Yontz had heard enough. He turned down the volume and let the tape run down. There was no way Judge Mertz would ever allow this tape in a Yancy trial. There was also no way to know how deep Dennis Roy Yancy had sunk into the cesspool that substituted for David Ray’s mind during the ten years they had known each other. The tape was made on July 6, 1993, and by that time the young man had known the old man for nearly four years—more than enough time to start a downhill slide toward becoming a violent criminal. A descent that didn’t stop until Dennis Roy Yancy admitted killing Marie Parker.
Yontz remembered what Yancy had told his wife and the interrogating police officer right after he rolled over. “I feel better,” he said, “getting this off my chest.” Yontz thought that Yancy had shown at least a flicker of remorse. That was better than nothing, which was about all the police had been able to get from the other three suspects.
Just before Yontz got ready to call it a night, he flipped Tape Number Five over on the backside and noticed the FBI had labeled it A CHRISTIAN SERMON. He figured this was probably David Ray’s idea of a joke, but he’d never listened to it, so he slipped it in the tape recorder. A soothing male voice greeted him. It was soft, but it was not the voice of David Parker Ray.

I’m not perfect. If you find a perfect person, send ’em to me. I’d like to meet ’em. There’s no one on the face of the earth that is one hundred percent perfect. The only perfect person is the man in Heaven. But each and every one of you can work harder every day at becoming perfect.
I want everyone that is listening to this recording, if you’re shy, if you’re bashful, if someone calls you stupid or says that you won’t amount to anything, if you ever feel insecure or inferior, I want that burden to be lifted from your brain right now. I want you to feel the light coming down right now from the heavens.
Accept Jesus as your savior—ask him to save you.

Three days later, Jim Yontz got a call from Gary Mitchell saying that Dennis Roy Yancy did not want a jury trial and was ready to plea bargain. Yontz and Mitchell prepared the paperwork for Dennis to sign that would spare Yancy a life term in prison plus another 46½ years in exchange for pleading guilty to murder in the second degree. Instead of a trial on December 6, Judge Neil P. Mertz would hand down the sentence on Thursday, December 2. All Jim Yontz could hope for was a fair and reasonable sentence.
The night before the sentencing, Frances Baird called Jim Yontz at home. She wanted the update on Yancy for the following Wednesday afternoon edition of the Sentinel. Yontz filled her in on the details and then told her how Marie Parker’s mother, Kate, had called and lobbied him not to let Yancy off the hook. She wanted Dennis prosecuted on charges of murder in the first degree. Yontz recalled his last conversation with Kate Parker, the grandmother now raising the two young daughters whom Marie left behind.
“Marie’s mother called the other day,” he told Baird. “She told me she wanted me to take Yancy to trial on first-degree murder because she felt like Jesus Christ would talk to the jurors.” Jim Yontz paused.
“I told her Jesus doesn’t want to mess with a jury in the state of New Mexico.”