@edgarblythe,
Yes my friend capital punishment along with the small risk of getting it wrong every millions time or so is worth it morally and every other way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briley_Brothers
Early lives
The brothers were born to a stable home with two parents in Northeastern Richmond, Virginia. With their younger sibling Anthony, Linwood and James were regarded by older neighbors as people who would help neighbors repair cars or mow lawns.
However, the brothers were increasingly dark and surreal. The three boys collected exotic pets, such as tarantulas, piranhas, and boa constrictors. It is also alleged that all three brothers engaged in zoosadism. Their father, James Briley, Sr., was unnerved enough by their behavior that he kept his bedroom door padlocked from the inside overnight. James Sr. was the only person the brothers feared.
First murder
In 1971, the first killing was committed by the then 16-year-old Linwood. While alone at home one day, he took aim with a rifle from his bedroom window and fatally shot Orline Christian, an elderly next door neighbor, as she passed by her window sill. The crime almost went undetected; however, her grieving relatives noticed a small bloody mark on her back at the viewing and asked the funeral director to re-examine the body. Upon a second examination, the director found a small caliber bullet wound in her back. Police investigators were contacted and they sought to find the source of the gunshot. Standing at the open window in her home where Mrs. Christian had been killed, a detective used a sheet of plywood to represent her body, with a hole cut out to represent the bullet wound. He soon determined that the bullet could only have come from the Briley home next door. There, the murder weapon was found and Linwood admitted to the crime with indifference: "I heard she had heart problems, she would have died soon anyway."
Linwood was sent to reform school to serve a one-year sentence for the killing. His young brother, James or "J.B." followed in his path at the same age, having been sentenced to time in juvenile hall for having pulled a gun and fired upon a police officer during a pursuit.
[edit] Murder spree
In 1979, the three Briley brothers and an accomplice, Duncan Meekins, began the seven month spree of random killings that terrified the city and the surrounding region.
[edit] William and Virginia Bucher
Their first attack occurred on March 12, when Linwood knocked on the door of Henrico County couple William and Virginia Bucher. Claiming that he had car trouble and needed to use their telephone, Linwood eventually forced his way into their home. At this point, he held the couple at gun point and waved his brother Anthony inside. The two Brileys tied up the couple and robbed the house, dousing each room with kerosene after picking it clean of valuables.
As they left, a lit match was tossed on the fuel. The two hurriedly packed their stolen loot " a television, CB radio, and jewelry into their trunk and drove out of the area. They were not around when Mr. Bucher managed to free himself and his wife from their restraints and escape just before the house became engulfed in flames. They would be the sole survivors of the rampage.
[edit] Michael McDuffie
Michael McDuffie, a vending machine serviceman, was murdered by the brothers at his suburban home on March 21. The brothers first assaulted McDuffie, before shooting him dead and stealing his valuables.
[edit] Mary Gowen
On April 9, the brothers followed 76-year-old Mary Gowen across town from her babysitting job. They followed her into her house, and violently raped her before she was murdered. The brothers escaped the residence with many of her valuables.
[edit] Christopher Philips
Seventeen-year-old Christopher Philips was seen hanging around Linwood Briley's parked car on July 4 by the gang members. Suspecting that he might have been trying to steal the vehicle, the gang surrounded him and dragged him into a nearby backyard. There he was wrestled to the ground by three brothers. When Philips screamed for help, Linwood murdered him by dropping a cinderblock on his skull.
[edit] John Gallaher
On September 14, disc jockey John "Johnny G." Gallaher was performing with his band at a South Richmond nightclub. Stepping outside between sets for a break, he inadvertently came right into the hands of the Briley brothers, having been looking around town for a victim all night without success. They decided to lie-in-wait for whoever might happen to step outside.
Gallaher was assaulted by Linwood and then put into the trunk of his own Lincoln Continental. He was then driven out to Mayo Island in the middle of the James River, where the remnants of an abandoned paper mill stood. There, he was removed from the trunk of his Lincoln Continental and shot dead at point blank range in the head. His body was then dumped into the river. The remains were found two days later. When arrested months later, Linwood was still wearing a ring stolen from Gallaher's hand.
[edit] Mary Wilfong
On September 30, 62-year-old private nurse Mary Wilfong was followed home to her Richmond apartment. The brothers surrounded her just outside the door and Linwood beat her to death with a baseball bat. The brothers then entered her apartment and robbed it of valuables.
[edit] Blanche Page and Charles Garner
Several days later on October 5, just two blocks from the Briley home on 4th Avenue in Richmond, 79-year-old Blanche Page and her 59-year-old boarder Charles Garner were both brutally murdered by the brothers. Page was bludgeoned to death while Garner was fatally assaulted with a variety of weapons, which included a baseball bat, five knives, a pair of scissors, and a fork. The latter two were left embedded in Garner's back.
[edit] The Wilkerson family
The final murders occurred against a long time neighborhood friend of the brothers, Harvey Wilkerson and his family. On the morning of October 19, having promised a judge earlier that day that he would stay out of trouble while out on parole for a 1973 robbery and malicious wounding conviction, J.B. led his brothers on the prowl for yet another victim that night.
Upon seeing the brothers presence down the street, Wilkerson, who lived with his 23-year-old wife Judy Barton (who was five months pregnant at the time) and her 5-year-old son Harvey, instinctively closed and locked his door. This action was noticed by the brothers, which then walked over to Wilkerson's front door. Terrified by their response if he refused them entry, Wilkerson allowed them in.
Both adults in the home were overpowered, bound and gagged with duct tape. Linwood Briley then assaulted Judy Barton into the kitchen, where she was raped within hearing distance of the others. Fellow gang member Duncan Meekins continued the sexual assault, after which Linwood dragged Barton back into the living room, briefly rummaged the premises for valuables, and then left the house.
The three remaining gang members covered their victims with sheets. J.B. told Meekins, "you've got to get one", at which point Meekins took a pistol and fatally shot Harvey Wilkerson in the head. J.B. then shot Barton and the 5-year-old boy to death.
Police happened to be in the general vicinity of the neighborhood, and later saw the gang members running down the street at high speed. They did not know where the shots had been fired. The bodies were not discovered until three days following the crime, but the brothers were all arrested soon afterwards.
[edit] Capture and incarceration
During interrogation by police, Duncan Meekins was offered a plea agreement in return for turning state's evidence against the Brileys. He took up the offer and offered a full detailing of the crime spree. As a result, he escaped the death penalty and was incarcerated at a Virginia prison away from any of the Briley brothers. The plea agreement gave him a sentence of life plus 80 years which at the time of conviction would make him eligible for parole after serving 12 to 15 years... Duncan Meekins is still in prison awaiting parole. The former prosecutors of the case as well as the Detective that arrested Duncan Meekins are publicly advocating his release to the parole board.
A single life sentence, with parole eligibility was handed down to Anthony Briley, youngest brother of the trio, due to his limited involvement in the killings.
Because of Virginia's triggerman statute, both J.B. and Linwood received numerous life sentences for murders committed during the spree, but faced capital charges only in cases where they had physically committed the actual killing of the victim.
Linwood was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder of John Gallaher, while J.B. received two death sentences, one each of the murders of Judy Barton and her son Harvey.
A Richmond judge presiding at one of the trials summed up the case following the verdict, "this was the vilest rampage of rape, murder and robbery that the court has seen in thirty years."
Both were sent to death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center near Boydton in early 1980. There, they were disruptive inmates who used their guile and physical prowess to threaten both fellow inmates and officers. A flourishing drug and weapon trade operated in the prison under their command.
[edit] Escape
Linwood and J.B. Briley were the ringleaders in the six inmate escape from Virginia's death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center on May 31, 1984. During the early moments of the escape, in which a coordinated effort resulted in inmates taking over the death row unit, both Brileys expressed strong interest in killing the officers that they had taken hostage. They went so far as to douse captive officers in lighter fluid and were prepared to toss in a lit match to complete the action. Willie Lloyd Turner, another death row inmate, stepped in the way of James Briley and forbade him from doing so. Meanwhile, cop killer Wilbert Lee Evans prevented Linwood Briley from raping a female nurse who had been taken hostage while en route to delivering medication to inmates in the unit. These events were featured on I.D. Channel in Escape from Death Row.
Splitting off from their two remaining free escapees at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Brileys went to live with their uncle in the north of the city. They were captured on June 19 by a heavily armed group of FBI agents and police. Returned to Virginia, few sought to plead for their lives to be spared.
[edit] Execution
In short order, the remaining appeals ran out for both brothers. They were executed in the electric chair at the Virginia State Penitentiary. Linwood was put to death in Virginia's electric chair on October 12, 1984. James Briley was executed in the same manner on April 18 of the following year.
Their younger brother Anthony remains incarcerated in Virginia's corrections system and comes up for parole consideration every few years. To date, all his applications for parole have been denied by the state parole board.
