RICHMOND, Va. – A man accused of suffocating a family of three methodically wrapped his victims’ faces in duct tape, ransacked their home and then drove off while snacking on food he stole from their refrigerator, a prosecutor said yesterday.

“He killed them!” Prosecutor Matthew Geary said in opening statements, pointing at Ray Joseph Dandridge. “These people lay there three or four minutes before they lost consciousness – unable to breathe, helpless.”

Dandridge, 29, is charged with three counts of capital murder for the Jan. 6 killings of Percyell Tucker, 55, his wife, Mary Baskerville-Tucker, 47, and her daughter, Ashley Baskerville, 21.

He is charged with killing someone during a robbery, killing more than one person at a time and killing more than one person in a three-year period.

He is accused of killing the family as part of a crime spree.