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One victim a partner in crime?
21-year-old Baskerville knew the two men accused of killing her and six others

BY JIM NOLAN AND MARK HOLMBERG
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS
Monday, January 9, 2006

Ashley Baskerville, one of the seven victims bound and slain in South Richmond last week, was more than a casual acquaintance of the two men charged in the killings.

It appears that the 21-year-old Baskerville, who was killed Friday with her mother and stepfather in their East Broad Rock Road home, may have been an accomplice in at least one of the crimes that police say were committed by Ray Joseph Dandridge and Ricky Gevon "Cooley" Gray.

Dandridge and Gray, who are in cus- tody in Philadelphia, are awaiting charges in Richmond on seven counts of conspiracy to commit murder. Both are scheduled for bond hearings this morning in Philadelphia, where Richmond prosecutors are waiting to seek their extradition to Virginia.

Police are investigating witness statements that Baskerville was with Dandridge and Gray when they drove a van into the Woodland Heights neighborhood on the morning of New Year's Day looking for a house to enter for a home-invasion robbery.

According to the witness statements, Baskerville sat in the van that morning keeping an eye on the neighborhood while, police said, Dandridge and Gray entered the Harvey home at 812 W. 31st St. with the intention of robbing the occupants.

Hours later, just before 2 p.m., the Harveys -- Bryan, 49, Kathryn, 39, Stella, 9, and Ruby 4 -- were found slain in the basement of the house. Police said they were bound with tape, severely beaten and had their throats cut.

Just two days later, Baskerville also accompanied Dandridge and Gray to a home invasion in Chesterfield County, witnesses told police.

Then on Friday, Baskerville was found slain in her home on Broad Rock Road along with her mother, Mary Baskerville Tucker, 47, and Tucker's husband, Percyell Tucker, 55.

Richmond police were alerted to the scene after interviewing an acquaintance of Baskerville, who notified Chesterfield County police that Baskerville was missing from a residence in the area of Hollywood Drive where Baskerville had stayed with Dandridge and Gray.

Subsequent interviews of the acquaintance by Chesterfield and Richmond detectives led police to the bodies on Broad Rock Road and enabled them to track the two men to Philadelphia.

After the arrests in Philadelphia on Saturday morning of Dandridge and Gray, both 28, Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe said the motive for the slayings of the Harveys, the Tuckers and Baskerville appeared to be robbery.

Investigators believe the killings of the Tuckers and Baskerville were a crime of convenience. The slayings of the Harvey family, according to sources close to the case, appear to be a random crime of opportunity, facilitated in part by what police said was an unlocked door.

Police declined to specify what items were taken from the Harveys' house. Investigators previously indicated that the house had not been ransacked and that there was no evidence pointing to a robbery.

The information, coupled with the brutality of the slayings, led some neighbors and friends to conclude that the Harveys likely knew their killers.

Richmond police never officially confirmed the reports but had strongly pursued the likelihood of a killer known to the Harveys until they got the break in the Broad Rock Road slayings.

Dandridge's family said Dandridge and Gray showed up at the west Philadelphia home of Dandridge's father Friday afternoon, bringing with them bags of things that Gray said were from a house he had just sold.

They arrived in a green Chevrolet Blazer that police said had been taken from the Broad Rock Road home where the Tuckers and Baskerville had been slain. A van believed to have been used in the Harvey slayings was left at the Broad Rock address.

Family members and law-enforcement sources indicated that Dandridge had given a statement to Richmond police in Philadelphia.

Monroe said Saturday that police were in contact with other law-enforcement agencies in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, investigating whether Dandridge and Gray might be connected to similar violent crimes in those areas.

The Chesterfield home invasion on Tuesday took place on Hollywood Drive. One of the victims of that robbery has seen Baskerville's photograph and recognized her as the woman who accompanied two men, said a relative speaking for the family.

"That's her," said Bonnie Goolsby, whose brother-in-law and disabled sister live at the Hollywood Drive residence. Her brother-in-law "said the girl was one of them."

The victimized couple remain too shaken to talk to reporters and have been staying with relatives since the invasion. The family is also recovering from the September deaths of Goolsby's two teenage daughters, who were hit by an alleged drunken driver.

One of those girls, Brandy Cave, lived at the Hollywood Drive home.

Most of the items taken during the robbery, including a computer, television, DVD player and some money, came from Brandy's room.

Family members say the robbers, who forced their way in after knocking at the door and asking for directions, were going to tie up the couple, but the husband managed to talk his way out of it because his wife needed his help.

Goolsby said the robbers told her brother-in-law they'd be far away by the time police arrived.

"They said, 'By the time you call someone, we'll be out of the area,'" Goolsby said.

The connection the men and Baskerville had to that area of Chesterfield proved to be a key in breaking open the case, police said.

A Chesterfield police official said yesterday that police were able to gather and pass along information to Richmond police that "got the ball rolling."

That information led city police to the home on Broad Rock Road and aided in the subsequent search for Dandridge and Gray.

The news of Baskerville's apparent involvement in the crimes brings new shock and sorrow to her relatives.

"She never really had a life," said JoAnn Barnes, Ashley's aunt and a sister of Mary Baskerville Tucker. Tucker and her husband, Percyell Tucker, were found slain with Ashley.

By the time she was 10, Ashley "was hooked up with the wrong people," Barnes said. "Somebody gave her some drugs. She just got out of control, and her mother couldn't handle her and turned her over to the welfare [department]."

Ever since then, she's been in and out of detention homes and jails, Barnes said. "She never lived to enjoy her life. That's what's sad about it."

But as a youngster, Ashley was "a jolly, smiling little girl. She always came and visited in the country [in Mecklenburg County], before she got older and got in trouble.

"She played games. We'd play cards . . . I had a dog, Sarafina, a dachshund. [Ashley] loved her. She loved animals. She had a happy childhood."

Citizens Against Crime is holding a vigil for the Tuckers and Baskerville on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in front of their house at 3408 E. Broad Rock Road.

Alicia Rasin, crime-victim advocate and founder of Citizens Against Crime, said the police response to the crimes has been heroic.

"They're working their tails off," Rasin said. "Richmonders need to thank God for sending us a police chief like Rodney Monroe."

She also praised the leadership of Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, as well as the involvement of citizens in the fight against crime.

"People are giving tips like they've never given before."