UPDATE: Elephant Butte Search Yields No Human Remains

Teams finished their search of the Elephant Butte Reservoir around 3:30 Tuesday afternoon without finding any human remains. An Albuquerque FBI spokesman said they were looking for victims of a sadomasochistic torture killer, who once boasted of killing as many as 40 women.

“We did not find any human remains …(but) we were able to do a survey of the area, and we feel we’ve got a good handle on the area,” said Albuquerque FBI spokesman Frank Fisher in a phone interview. “We’ve identified a few areas that we want to investigate further now.”

The crews, who searched the reservoir for the entire afternoon, fanned out on the southern end of the reservoir in order to search nearby caves for any remains.

David Parker Ray was arrested 1999 after a naked woman wearing only a dog collar and chain fled his home. The woman told police she has been tortured by Ray. Investigators found surgical tools, a gynecological chair and video cameras inside his 20-foot-long trailer, a place he called his toy box.

Ray was initially charged with 37 counts involving three women — the woman who fled naked, a Colorado woman who was tortured in 1996 and another woman.

He was convicted in 2001 of kidnapping and torturing the Colorado woman, and he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape charges in the case of the woman who fled naked. The third case was dismissed as part of a plea bargain.

Ray said he killed and buried his victims in various locations, but none have ever been located. Ray was sentenced to more than 223 years in prison. He died in 2002 while serving out his sentence.

Fisher said they weren’t looking for a specific victim Tuesday afternoon but were acting on a new and tip.

“We really can’t say yet (if the tip was good). Like I said, we plan on coming back out here in the near future with a few folks, (and) a smaller team to check a few areas a bit further than we were able to do today. So we’ll know in the future (if the tip was good),” said Fisher in a phone interview.

Fisher said the FBI plans to return to Elephant Butte in the future to do a more detailed search of specific areas that they identified as promising.

If you have any information that could aid the investigation call the FBI at (505) 889 1300