My Story

I grew up in Albuquerque, living with my grandmother. By the age of eleven, I experienced molestation by a family member. After reporting the molestation the information was dismissed, I ran away and began living with my mother, Elizabeth Molina. My mother partied, regularly bringing me out with her including to bars. I was fifteen in 1992 when my mother turned up in a ditch... murdered. The crime was not thoroughly investigated due to my mother's ties to the drug scene and everything that surrounded it. Her death was initially written off as a drug overdose.

Having nowhere else to safely turn, I followed in my mother's footsteps. I was in and out of juvenile detention centers for drugs and other charges, in both the U.S. and Mexico. During my teen years, I experienced domestic violence with a man who assaulted me to the point of permanent facial bone structure injury. While I lived, he eventually went on to murder another woman. I went on to live in various motels along the "track" of Albuquerque.

In 1998, five years after my mother's death, I (then at age 20) lost my best friend Reymunda Baca. Reymunda was murdered while in the lifestyle and on a date with a man, Robert Bryant, that Reymunda and I had experienced problems with before. Reymunda's body eventually turned up in the man's vehicle after he was arrested on a DUI charge. He was convicted of her murder and died in prison.

Almost a year after Reymunda was found, in March 1999, I was kidnapped in Albuquerque and transported to Elephant Butte, New Mexico where I was collared, chained, and tortured for three days by David Parker Ray (known as the Toy Box Killer) and his female accomplice Cindy Hendy. Having lost both my mother and my best friend to murderers, I was determined to escape. When Ray left the home to go to work and Hendy was on the phone, I seized her opportunity to grab the key to release myself from the chain. Hendy realized what was happening and tried to stop me which led to an altercation with Hendy being hit in the head with an ice pick by me. At this point, I was able to run out of the house (naked with the metal collar still around my neck) and brought national attention to a man who is thought to have murdered 58+ people. I encountered permanent nerve damage as a result of the torture but was never compensated. Ray died in prison shortly after being convicted and sentenced to 224 years. Hendy was also convicted and then released from prison in 2019. Another of Ray's accomplices, Dennis Roy Yancy, was sentenced to thirty consecutive years but was released on probation in 2011. Yancy later received a DUI, resulting in his probation being revoked, and caused him to serve another eight years. Ray's third accomplice, Jesse Ray (David Parker Ray's daughter), was sentenced to probation but later violated her probation. She served two and a half years in prison for her crimes against the women, and five years of probation. Jesse likely received leniency because she had attempted to warn authorities about her father or because Ray made a deal for her. Yet, with all the years that passed and all the accomplices privy to the crimes... the bodies of Jill Troia and Marie Parker (no relation to David Parker Ray) along with 58+ people suspected to have been murdered still have not been found.

My life went on. I managed to get clean from drugs, married, and had four more children. I even completed both a dental assistant and a medical assistant program, although I was limited in being able to pursue either professionally due to my background. I continued to find other work including doing portrait photography professionally. Life seemed relatively normal.

Yet, my concern about similar crimes carried on for good reason. On February 2, 2009, a bone was discovered on the West Mesa. As authorities excavated, Eleven female bodies (including a woman who was pregnant) which had been murdered were unearthed, now known as the West Mesa Murders. Almost all of the victims had ties to the sex trade (from dancing to doing dates on the streets), and I had crossed paths with numerous of the women. In 2010 I was volunteering with Healthcare For the Homeless, when news reporter and author Christine Barber (a new volunteer with Healthcare For the Homeless), reached out to me. I mentioned to Christine that "All I want is for there to be a group that pays attention to the women on the street." Together in 2010, we formed the non-profit Safe Sex Work that was later renamed Street Safe New Mexico.

In 2016 I was pregnant, and my life drastically changed once again when a fire burned down the motel my family and I were living in. The day after the fire (May 26th) I lost my oldest son, Ruben Ruelas at age 15, in a tragic firearm incident in which he was shot in the head. The same day my second to oldest son was coerced into giving a false confession on an unrelated high profile crime and entered the juvenile justice system. Two weeks later, the day after Ruben's funeral (which was stress inducing), I gave birth to my fourth son... now Street Safe New Mexico's youngest volunteer.

In 2020 law enforcement reached out to me about my mother's murder. Samuel Little, a known serial killer who authorities had been warned about numerous times and had run-ins with, had confessed to murdering a woman in Albuquerque many years prior. After combing through various crime files the authorities had concluded that my mother's incident was the only match to the crime details. They showed Little my mother's photo and he confirmed that she was the woman he killed in Albuquerque, Samuel Little died in prison on December 30, 2020, before I was able to speak to him directly about my mother's murder.

My life has crossed paths with two serial killers, both of which authorities had been warned about. In both instances, the men went on to murder numerous more people creating intergenerational trauma. I have been fortunate to have another woman (my stepmother) enter my life later as a loving mother figure, but I realize that the pain caused by these murders can never be undone for my family and others.

Currently, my life is improving. I am separated from my husband, but we remain good friends. I am raising my three boys (plus a few foster children), have three grandchildren, and two pseudo-grandchildren. I have reached the final stage of my substance treatment program. In the winter of 2020, I became one of the first New Mexicans to begin the process for a pardon. In the winter of 2021, I started Ritz World Novelties & Toys LLC with my sons, in honor of my son Rueben, and will be selling LED glow toys at state fairs. I eventually want to venture into doing a drink business and leave Ritz World Novelties & Toys LLC for my boys as they begin their own journey into business and the world. As Co-Founder and Board Member, I currently run Street Safe New Mexico along with the other board members and am in the process of studying for the LSAT exam to enter law school with plans to improve the justice system.