now back to nightmare on 31st street. reporter: new year s day 2006. a richmond, virginia family is slashed and beaten to death in her own home. the murders leave the community reeling. so far police have only one person of interest family friend johnny hott. we extremely frustrated. we were getting to the point where we were concerned about solving it early. reporter: police asked hott to come back for a fourth time to be fingerprinted, to give a dna sample, and to take a polygraph. the question is why were they looking so hard at him? we were having a tremendous difficulty helping him get his alibi. and in police work if we can t alibi you then we re always going to keep you in one category or the other. there were no other persons known at the time. reporter: on a friend s advice hott hired a lawyer, stephen benjamin, which he says immediately raised the hackles of investigators. why did i get a lawyer?
her mother mary and stepfather. still in night clothes and stuff. and what y all do? can t say that on the phone, boo. but it wasn t nice. most likely it will be on the news. reporter: ray goes on to say they d stolen the tuckers chevy blazer and drove it to philadelphia, abandoning the van they d been driving in richmond. where did you say you left the van at? you know how you walk straight out the front door, turn, you turn left to go to the end of that, go right and go down three blocks and then turn right again. i drove the neighborhood, discovered a van, pennsylvania plates, parked about two blocks away. reporter: a team of detectives had latoya direct them to ashley baskerville s house. it was dark. all the shades were closed. it didn t look like anybody was home. reporter: detective bremerton was one of the first through the door. as soon as we got in we saw the first body in the living room.
reporter: early on the morning of saturday, january 7th, philadelphia s police s.w.a.t. team moved in, raiding the house and arresting ray dandridge and his uncle, ricky gray. richmond police chief rocky monroe held a new conference that morning to help calm the city s fears, but he only addressed the tucker-baskerville murders. the house has been ransacked, and numerous items appear to have been taken. at this time we are classifying the motive as robbery. we have good forensic evidence. we also have possible suspects who are now in custody in the state of pennsylvania. when we have more details, we will release the identities and information on the suspects. we were pretty happy they had them. a lot of people yelling and cheering and, you know, we felt good. felt like a lot of pressure was off.
city of richmond we, i guess, you could say are used to. but that, the morning of january 1st, a family of four followed by a father and his daughter later on that evening, is very bad by anyone s count. reporter: ironically, journalist jim nolan says he started new year s day in the office writing a report that richmond, recently declared the fifth most dangerous city in the u.s., was enjoying a turnaround i was actually in the office writing a story to run on january 2nd about how the city was starting to turn around in its fight against violent crime. since the new chief arrived there was a 10% reduction in homicides. as i was about to leave, i got a phone call, and the person on the other end of the line said, you may want to hold off on that story. in the midst of tragedy and tears, we pray for hope. reporter: in the days after the murder of the harvey family, a constant stream of neighbors and friends from the grief-stricken community came to
reporter: johnny hott was at a friend s house when he got the news. and kind of shook me. and said, they found them. they ve arrested them. they got them. they ve caught them. really, though, it wasn t until i watched it on tv and i saw that they apprehended someone that i felt like possibly it was over. reporter: it all left those grieving for the harveys with a different kind of sorrow. the murders of two parents and two little girls hadn t been personal at all but rather monstrously impersonal, allegedly committed by two career criminals from out of town. the anger that goes along with this, that we actually had someone that invaded our city to prey upon the citizens of richmond. reporter: someone who happened onto 31st street. as far as we could tell, it was a crime of opportunity. a nice two-story brick house in a nice neighborhood on a nice day, with the front door open.