A man convicted of killing a family of four, slashing their throats and setting their home ablaze after they left their front door open while preparing for a New Year’s Day party in 2006 was executed on Wednesday.
Ricky Gray was pronounced dead at 9:42pm following a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. The 39-year-old inmate was put to death with the sedative midazolam, followed by rocuronium bromide to halt breathing and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
Gray showed no emotion as he was walked into the execution chamber wearing blue jeans and handcuffs.
Photo: AP
Asked if he had any final words, Gray responded: “Nope.”
Gray was condemned to death in 2006 for the murders of nine-year-old Stella Harvey and her four-year-old sister, Ruby, and sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of their parents, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey.
The family was getting ready to host friends for a chili dinner when Gray and his nephew, Ray Dandridge, were looking for a home to rob when they spotted the open door.
Court records showed they tied up the family in the basement and Gray slashed their throats and bashed their heads with a hammer before setting their home on fire and fleeing with a wedding ring, a computer and a basket of cookies.
The well-known family’s slaying rocked Virginia’s capital, Richmond, and was followed by the killing of another family less than a week later.
Kathryn Harvey was co-owner of a popular Richmond toy store, the World of Mirth, and Bryan Harvey was a guitarist and singer for a rock duo, House of Freaks.
Gray also confessed to participating in the slaying of 21-year-old Ashley Baskerville; her mother, Mary Baskerville-Tucker; and stepfather, Percyell Tucker, days after the Harvey deaths, but was not tried in that case.
Gray and Dandridge said Baskerville had served as a lookout for them during the Harvey slayings.
Dandridge pleaded guilty to the Tucker-Baskerville murders and is serving a life sentence.
Elizabeth Peiffer, an attorney for Gray, said that while his death might provide a measure of retribution for some, it also took “from the world a man trying to make amends and make life better for others.”
Prison officials closed a blue curtain at 8:54pm, shielding Gray from view. That is typically when officials insert an intravenous line and place heart monitors before starting the injection.
The curtain remained closed for more than 30 minutes before it was opened and the lethal injection process began, which Pfeiffer said was significantly longer than usual and concerning.
Virginia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Kinney said she could not explain why the curtain was closed that long.
The lethal injection began at about 9:28pm. Gray appeared to be breathing heavily and snored loudly several times. At 9:33pm he stopped moving.
Gray was the first Virginia inmate executed since convicted serial killer Alfredo Prieto received a lethal injection in October 2015.
Six inmates remain on Virginia’s death row. No other execution dates have been set.
Virginia obtained the midazolam and potassium chloride from a compounding pharmacy whose identity is secret under a new state law.
Midazolam has come under fire after several problematic executions in other states, with critics arguing it causes inmates to suffer a painful death, because it cannot reliably render them unconscious.
Several death penalty opponents and some relatives of Gray held a vigil outside the prison, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
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