2006 Richmond Spree Murders - Prelude

Prelude

On November 5, 2005, the badly beaten body of 35-year-old Treva Terrell Gray was found in a shallow grave by Brookside Avenue in Washington, Pennsylvania by passersby. She had married Gray, a 28-year-old former convict, approximately 6 months before, and lived in a house owned by her family with her husband and Dandridge, his nephew, who had moved in with the couple following his release from prison on October 26, 2005 after serving over 10 years for armed robbery. According to John and Marna Squires, Treva's stepfather and mother, the Grays fought bitterly, and they saw claw marks on Ricky Gray's forearm the day Treva's body was found. While both Gray and Dandridge were interviewed by the Washington police, they were not considered suspects. Approximately a week after the discovery of their daughter's body, the Squires evicted Dandridge from their property; Dandridge then moved in with his father in west Philadelphia. On December 23, Gray moved out as well to stay with his maternal grandmother in Arlington, Virginia. Dandridge left Philadelphia on Christmas day to join Gray in Virginia. Marna Squires alleges that the police were lax in investigating Treva's death, going so far as to suggest to her that she had died of a drug overdose. While the police ruled her death suspicious at the time, no homicide investigation was launched until after Gray's confession.

On December 18, 2005, Sheryl Warner, 37-year-old legal secretary and mother of three, was found shot and hanged by an electrical cord in the basement of her burning house in the town of Reva in Culpeper County, Virginia. She had been on the phone with her father when she stated that a motorist with car trouble was asking to use her phone. Her father contacted the police when she failed to call him back, leading to the discovery of her body.

On December 31, 2005, 26-year-old Ryan Carey was attacked by two men he later identified as Gray and Dandridge in front of his parent's home in the 5100 block of North 25th Street in Arlington. Carey sustained extensive beating and stab wounds to the chest, neck and arms in a near-fatal assault, and spent the next two weeks in a coma. He also permanently lost the use of his right arm.