call one defense witness. after a short trial, the jury quickly returned a guilty verdict. now it was only a matter of whether the jury would give gray life with no parole or the death penalty. they can t smell the smells and they can t see those mangled little bodies, but with enough pictures and enough exhibits and enough autopsy work, you could bring them as close as humanly possible to that basement. if you go in that basement, you want to come out and say whoever did this needs to die. reporter: bryan cary, the man ricky gray attacked outside washington, d.c., told the jury about how he d been brutalized. he came in and was able to describe a crime of such ferocity and energy that i think it left the jurors with the impression that ricky gray can behave when he chooses to but once you get him wound up he s
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.
also confessed to the tucker-baskerville murders. reporter: police also learned that ashley baskerville was a willing participant in the robbery of her mother and stepfather. part of their own little sick plan was to play a role in the robbery of her own family. reporter: ricky gray admitted, we had a robbery in progress, and things just went wrong. ray dandridge told the story a little differently. he got tired of the girl, so he decided to kill her and take her parents car so he could get out of there. that s why they died, too. ashley is who died. she used to be my girlfriend. later that day, chief rodney monroe held a second news conference to announce charges against gray and dandridge. these counts of conspiracy to commit murder stem from the new year slaying of the harvey family. my friend came in. he rushed in.
reporter: almost immediately ricky and ray started talking about a bloody crime spree. philadelphia detective called richmond detective bill brereton to see if their story checked out. did we have four people killed earlier in the week. i told him, yeah. he said was it a white family with two young children? i said, yeah, we did. reporter: in ricky gray s confession he went in to gruesome detail about what happened at the harvey home on new year s day. it was a real nasty scene. i started cutting their throats, and they kept getting up, and they was scaring me. i remember seeing the hammer and picking it up. and then i don t know who i hit first. i was just hitting them all with the hammer. all i know is nobody was moving when i left. gray s confession fit the crime scene. two bloody hammers and a blood-stained knife were found in the harvey home. when they actually said they confessed to it, it was not shocking, but we were kind of speechless and, of course, he
in the back of my mind i was waiting to hear the verdict involving the murder either of ruby or stella harvey because i figured those were the lynchpin cases. whethergit was stella or ruby, but the second involved one of the girls, and that was death. reporter: ricky gray was sentenced to death for the murders of stella and ruby harvey. and immediately i have a sense of relief. a nanosecond later i had a sense of sorrow because although i had taken a very integral role in securing a death sentence for this monster i shouldn t say that. for this guy. i was now part of a process that was going to culminate in another death. reporter: prosecutors decided not to try ricky gray for the tucker-baskerville murders after he received a death sentence for the harvey killings. a month later, in september 2006, ray dandridge went on trial for the three tucker-baskerville murders. prosecutors held off trying him