Richard Davis and Dena Riley were two serial killers who were drug-crazed and willing to do the unthinkable. The pair was a classic killer couple, feeding off each other’s depravity and, in the case of Dena, willing to do anything to please her partner. By the time they were caught, there were few lines they had not crossed, despite the brevity and relatively few victims of their violent spree. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened, had their spree continued.
Richard “Ricky” Davis was a repeat sex offender and general lawbreaker who was raised in Kansas City. He was institutionalized as a teenager. Later, he was imprisoned for stealing. Within months of his release, he was back in prison for raping a woman at knifepoint. He was sentence to 25 years, but was released after roughly 18 years — in May of 2005.
For nine months after his release, Ricky Davis catered to a bondage, strangulation and sexual murder fetish by utilizing pornography. At the same time, he attended sex counseling, drug counseling and kept in touch with his parole officer religiously. It did not take him long to decide the straight and narrow was not the life for him, if he ever thought that at all. His compliance with his parole was probably an attempt to stay out of jail. What he really wanted to do was make snuff films. In other words, he wanted to film himself raping and killing women. It was just a fantasy until Ricky met the perfect accomplice — Dena Riley.
Dena Riley was 38-years-old when she met the 40-year-old Richard Davis. She was also a Missourian who lived in and around Kansas City. Her methamphetamine addiction gave her a working knowledge of the seedy underbelly of meth circles in the area. Ricky had been away for a while and needed help finding his victims. Dena, apart from short stints in jail, had been active in the scene for a long time. She had lost her four children, allegedly sold her body for drugs and nothing left to lose, apart from her humanity.
The couple met in a metal factory in Kansas City just a few months after Ricky’s release from prison. They began dating each other and living together in Independence, MO shortly thereafter. Authorities believe that Dena helped find willing participants for Ricky’s violent sex fantasies by seeking meth addicts who needed money or drugs. He allegedly asked one of these women to kill with him, but she refused and distanced herself from Ricky and Dena. Dena, on the other hand, was not repulsed by Ricky’s fantasies or, if she was, she did not let it stop her.
On May 15, 2006, police found the body of Marsha Spicer, who was choked to death and violently raped. On May 16, one of the women whom Dena had lured in for Ricky tipped off the police about his violent behavior and use of meth addicts as victims, of which Marsha was one. The next day, the police showed up at Dena Riley and Ricky Davis’ apartment without a warrant. Because they did not have a warrant, they were unable to search the premises. They asked Ricky and Dena to leave until they could obtain one and conduct the search. They complied, knowing that they were now on the run. They knew what police would find in the apartment and this legal glitch gave them the time they needed to get a head start.
After obtaining the warrant, police found video of Dena and Ricky raping and killing Marsha in the apartment. They also found video of them doing the same to another woman who was later identified as 38-year-old Michelle Ricci — another meth addict. Dena and Ricky were long gone before police even had an idea of where to look for them. They went and picked up Ricky’s niece with the pretense that they would return the five-year-old girl to her parents after taking her out. When the child did not come home, Ricky’s sister called police. It was only then that she learned the danger her daughter was in. By the time she was found, the little girl needed surgery to fix the damage done by Ricky and Dena when they sexually assaulted her.
According to David Krajicek’s Trutv report on the couple, Dena accidentally turned herself in when she called 911, high out of her mind, and asked the operator for directions. Police went to the location Dena had given and found Ricky unconscious in their vehicle and Dena trying to push it out of a ditch. A helpful passerby had the little girl in his car. It is unclear whether the injuries inflicted on her were obvious or if the man simply thought they had been inflicted in the apparent car accident. The two were arrested on the spot and are incarcerated today. It was not learned until later that they kept Ricci and sexually tortured her for three days before murdering her. Thanks to the fact that both Dena and Ricky’s minds were destroyed by drugs, no one else has to suffer the same fate at their hands, if their prosecution goes as planned.
Sources
Krajicek, David, Ricky and Dena, retrieved 11/12/11, trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/richard_dean_davis