Authorities Wonder Whether Suspect's Wife Was The First Victim, Jan. 9, 2006

By  Seamus McGraw

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RICHMOND, VA (Crime Library)   Authorities are trying to determine whether the two men charged with conspiracy to commit seven murders including the New Year's Day massacre of the rocker Bryan Harvey, his wife and their two young children may have been behind other crimes.

Among other things, authorities are said to be eyeing Ricky Gray, 28, in the unsolved slaying of Gray's 35-year-old wife, Treva.

Ricky Gray

Treva Gray's body was discovered Nov. 5 not far from her home in Washington County, PA. She had been beaten and strangled.

Treva Gray

Washington County District Attorney John C. Pettit told Crime Library that Gray is considered "a person of interest" in his wife's slaying. So far, however, authorities have not developed enough evidence to charge him, and the case remains under investigation, Pettit said.

The slaying occurred just five days after Ray Joseph Dandridge, Gray's co-defendant in the Richmond cases, was released from prison after serving time for robbery and weapons charges, but Dandridge is not a suspect in the Treva Gray slaying, Pettit said.

Gray and Dandridge were arrested Saturday in Philadelphia, reportedly after a brief scuffle with police. Both were expected to be extradited today to Richmond to face charges in connection with the slaying of the Harvey family and with the equally brutal slayings of three members of another Richmond family.

In addition, authorities have linked the pair to a home invasion in Chesterfield County, VA, a police spokeswoman said. That occurred three days after the Harvey family was found in their burning basement, bound with duct tape, beaten, with their throats slit. According to authorities, Gray and Dandridge forced their way into the Chesterfield County home, terrorized the family, and left with a bag full of items, among them electronics that were found when the two men were arrested after a brief struggle at the home of relatives in Philadelphia.

Investigators are coordinating with authorities elsewhere in Virginia, and in Maryland and Pennsylvania to determine whether the men might have been behind any other crimes.

But a police spokeswoman stopped short of confirming reports that Ashley Baskerville, one of the seven people the pair allegedly slaughtered during their weeklong Richmond crime spree, may have been an accomplice to the Harvey slayings and the Chesterfield County home invasion.

Authorities Remain Mum on Link Between Suspects and Baskerville

A report published in the Richmond Times Dispatch quotes authorities and witnesses who allege that a woman matching Baskerville's description was seen outside both the Harvey and Chesterfield County homes at the times the crimes are believed to have occurred.

On Friday, Baskerville was found slain in her Richmond home along with her mother, Mary Baskerville Tucker and Tucker's husband, Percyell Tucker. As in the Harvey slayings, the victims had all been bound, reportedly with duct tape. Authorities have said that a van believed to have been used in the earlier crimes was found near the Tucker-Baskerville home on Broad Rock Road, and Gray and Dandridge are accused of stealing the family's SUV to flee north to Philadelphia. Gray and Dandridge have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in both cases.

Police have said that robbery appears to have been the motive in both the Broad Rock Road and Harvey slayings. In fact, it was evidence and accounts from witnesses in the Tucker-Baskerville and Chesterfield County cases that led authorities to link Dandridge and Gray to the Harvey slaying.

At first, authorities had said that there did not appear to be any evidence of robbery at the Harvey's 31^st Street home, and investigators aggressively pursued the theory that because of that, and because of the brutality of the slayings, that Bryan Harvey, who traded national notoriety a decade ago with the band House of Freaks for a quieter life with his wife Kathryn and their two young daughters, Stella 9, and Ruby 4, were targeted by someone they knew.

  Police interviewed business associates, family members and even fellow musicians. At one point, authorities collected DNA evidence from relatives as they explored tips that a strained relationship between the Harveys and a paramour of one of their relatives might have been a factor. In another instance, investigators grilled one of Bryan Harvey's musical partners about a song the slain rocker had written more than a decade ago in which he seems to refer to a woman slain in her basement. Friends later described the lyric as an example of Harvey's penchant for "Southern Gothic" imagery.

Authorities were still exploring those and other options when the information leading to Gray and Dandridge surfaced. "I think I can honestly say in a case this brutal and bizarre, we wouldn't have been surprised by anything," said Richmond Police spokeswoman Kirsten Nelson, but, "we literally were exploring every possibility, nothing had been closed off at the time this happened."

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