CHAPTER 33
“As long as his parents are alive, he’ll never confess.”
Jim Yontz, March 24th, 2002
Two months later, Jim Yontz decided to give Frances Baird one last call. It had been a long and tiring two years and he suspected she didn’t feel the same way about living in Truth or Consequences. In addition, he had one last tidbit of news for her. He called her at home on a Thursday night because he knew it was her “down day” after putting out the Wednesday paper each week.
“Frances, this is Jim—I wanted to let you know that Lee McMillian and I are discussing a possible plea deal for David.”
“Just toss him to the general population like a piece of meat,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” said Yontz. “He’s almost sixty-two years old now. He’ll never breathe free air again.”
“How are you going to swing the deal?” asked Baird.
“Let Jesse go.”
“Isn’t she just as guilty as he is?” asked Baird.
“Yeah—but if I try Jesse, that means Kelli Garrett has to testify at a third trial. She’s got a job and a new boyfriend and she seems to be getting on with her life for the first time.”
“Boy, Jim, this whole thing sure has been a nightmare.”
“Heck, when it all first broke, I avoided it from day one.”
“I wish I’d never heard of David Parker Ray,” grumbled Baird.
“I don’t blame you,” said Yontz. “David’s been kidnapping girls ever since they put pictures of little kids on milk cartons.”
“You know, I used to go walking around Truth or Consequences all the time by myself and now I don’t go walking alone—not even in the daylight.”
“Law and order hangs by a thin thread in T or C,” Yontz added.
“So what are your plans, Jim?” asked Baird. “Going hunting?”
“No—you know, we call it hunting because we do a lot more hunting than killing. I learned a long time ago the fun ends when you pull the trigger.”
“So where to?”
“I figure Lee and I oughtta be able to nail down some kind of plea agreement with old David in the next couple of weeks. If it happens, I’m going to take a vacation for the first time in two and a half years. I’m going to drive up to the cliff dwellings at Acoma with my wife and tour the town—now, there’s a town that knew what to do with the bad guys.”
“What do you mean?” asked Baird.
“It’s the oldest inhabited town in North America—I think the Indians have been living there for over eight hundred years. The houses are perched on top of a four-hundred-foot island of rocks. When the Acoma tribe had problems with anyone acting antisocial, they would just haul the criminal over to the edge of the cliffs and toss them down on the rocks below. A couple of hundred years ago, they had problems with a Catholic priest and they threw him off the cliff, too. They don’t mess around. They don’t tolerate people who screw with the social order.”
“Law and order,” chuckled Baird. “New Mexico style.”
“So what are your plans for the year?” asked Yontz.
“Well, I’m getting married in September.”
“Tying the knot, huh—you going to marry a cop?” asked Yontz with a laugh.
“No way,” answered Baird. “I’m going to marry Manny Sanchez—he works down at the lumber store in T or C, and we’re going to have a Western wedding out at his parents’ ranch on the edge of town. You’re invited, too. It’s September fifteenth.”
“Thanks, Frances—I’ll make plans to be there.”
On Monday, July 1, 2001, Jim Yontz showed up in court wearing black cowboy boots, blue Levi’s jeans and a white cowboy shirt with no tie. He was laughing and smiling. An hour later, he and Lee McMillian approached the bench and the two men walked David Ray through a Plea and Disposition Agreement that Ray signed in front of Judge Sweazea just before high noon. Afterward, Yontz told Sweazea that if David Ray ever got free “he’d commit another crime before he reached his front porch.” Ray had pleaded guilty to the charges brought by Jim Yontz in the cases of Cynthia Vigil, Angelique Montano and Kelli Garrett. Yontz had contacted the two living victims and the mother of Angie Montano and everyone agreed to the plea deal fashioned by Yontz and McMillian.
Later that day, Yontz called down to Socorro to report the good news. The secretary on the phone informed him that just before noon they had experienced tremors and a small earthquake. Jim Yontz laughed and said: “That’s Judge Mertz rolling over in his grave.”
On Thursday, September 20, 2001, Judge Sweazea gave David Parker Ray the maximum sentence—224 years in prison. As part of the deal engineered by the prosecutor and the defense attorney, Sweazea gave Jesse Ray 9 years and suspended 6½—setting her free after serving 2½ years.
On Monday, October 1, Jim Yontz finally took a well-deserved vacation and got out of town. He and his wife, Karen, drove west from Albuquerque to the valley of the stone monoliths, where the Acoma Indians still lived. As they drove down into the islands of sandstone, Karen asked Jim: “Are you glad it’s over?”
“I’m happy that Kelli Garrett is expecting her first child next summer.”
“What about the case?”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Why not?”
“The Mexicans have a saying that describes a dangerous guy like David—Los ojos del matar.”
“What does it mean?” asked Karen.
“It means he has the eyes of a killer,” answered Yontz.
“He was a whole lot more than just a garden-variety killer,” commented Karen.
“Oh, he sure was,” said Yontz. “John Schum of the FBI told me they figured Ray had killed between sixty and ninety women.”
“He was just plain evil.”
“I used to tell my friends to try and imagine the very worst things that another human being could do to them and I told them that when it came to David—they weren’t even close.”
“That’s all over now, Jim,” his wife said, putting her arm around his shoulder.
“I know, but certain things still bug me.”
“Like what?”
“We found those eight driver’s licenses with pictures of girls we couldn’t identify. . . .”
“You think David killed those girls?” asked Karen.
“I’m pretty sure he did—and that’s the problem.”
“Loose ends, huh?”
“Yeah—like no bodies.”
“Maybe someday.”
Jim Yontz sighed.
“I will always feel like the worst thing about the David Ray case isn’t knowing what I did prove in a court of law—it’s that sickening feeling of knowing what I couldn’t prove in a court of law.”
Yontz turned to his wife with a weary look on his face.
“That’s what bothers me.”