In the cold of January 2006, the life of Mary Baskerville-Tucker, a 46-year-old African-American woman, came to a brutal and tragic end in her Richmond, Virginia home. On January 6th, she was discovered deceased alongside her husband, 55-year-old Percyell Tucker, and her 21-year-old daughter, Ashley Baskerville. The scene that greeted authorities was one of profound violence; the house on East Broad Rock Road had been ransacked, and all three victims were found bound and gagged.
Mary and her husband had suffered slash wounds to their throats, and all three had their heads tightly wrapped in layers of duct tape, which ultimately caused their suffocation. In her daughter Ashley's case, a plastic bag had also been placed over her head.
The investigation into the triple homicide quickly revealed it was not an isolated event but the culmination of a horrifying, week-long crime spree that had terrorized the Richmond area. The perpetrators were identified as Ricky Javon Gray and his nephew, Ray Joseph Dandridge. In a shocking twist, investigators discovered that Mary's own daughter, Ashley, had initially been an accomplice to the duo, acting as a lookout during the murders of another local family, the Harveys, just days earlier. It was established that Ashley had participated in the robbery of her own home, allowing herself to be bound to divert suspicion, but the situation escalated, and she too was killed by her accomplices.
The reign of terror came to an end on January 7, 2006, when both Gray and Dandridge were apprehended in Philadelphia. The resolution to the case came swiftly, as Ray Dandridge confessed within an hour of his arrest to the murders of Mary Baskerville-Tucker, her husband, and her daughter. Ricky Gray provided a detailed, three-page confession twelve hours later, describing his involvement in the killings.
In the subsequent legal proceedings, Ray Joseph Dandridge pleaded guilty to three counts of capital murder for the killings of the Baskerville-Tucker family. As part of a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Ricky Gray faced trial for the murders of the Harvey family and was convicted of capital murder. While he confessed to his role in Mary Baskerville-Tucker's death, he was not separately tried for it. Ricky Gray was executed by the state of Virginia in January 2017 for his crimes.
