30 yr anni. - Officials seek release for Briley brothers accomplice
E/C Annie
bargainer.
e/c annie
The Briley Brothers - Lone Survivor Speaks
It was one of the worst crime sprees in Richmond history. And one of
its greatest mysteries, it all began in their home on 4th Avenue.
They had a solid family. Hard working parents. James Briley, the
father, worked at the School Street Concrete Block Factory.
The mother, Bertha, worked most of her life at The Grill at Virginia
Union University.
"Mrs. Briley is one of the sweetest ladies you'd ever want to meet,"
said Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones.
The couple had three sons: Linwood the oldest, then James and Anthony,
the baby.
The Briley brothers were known to be courteous and helpful in the
neighborhood.
"They always respectful and nice."
Our Mark Holmberg talked with their father off camera recently.
He said Linwood, was practically a genius and he can't point to
anything that would have caused their behavior.
The boy's wildness drove the mother out of the house. They were
separated, during the time of the murderous attacks.
The father locked his bedroom door - from the inside.
In 1971, when Linwood was 16, he fired a 22 caliber bullet into the
back of his elderly neighbor as she putterted in her kitchen.
Later during a psychiatric evaluation, Linwood said the neighbor was
old and was gonna die anyway.
He spent a year in detention, younger brother James soon followed. As
soon as he got out of prison, the rampage began.
March 12, 1979, the brothers were joined by a 16 year old neighbor,
Duncan Eric Meekins. He would later testify about the nine months of
hell to come.
The only known survivors were two victims on a quiet Lakeside Street.
Our survivor choses to remain anonymous but said this to our Mark
Holmberg:
"The door bell rang. I told the wife, I said well I guess that's the
paper boy. He used to come around about that time. Every two weeks.
So, I unlocked the screen door, when I did man he threw his hand in
there, pulled it open pulled a gun on me, get your ass back in there."
He and his wife were tied up and the Briley's ransacked the house
dumping all the valuables into pillow cases.
They loaded it up all into the victim's car. And then:
"They took the clothes down and put 'em under that table. Shot lighter
fluid on the clothes. Fire over here and fire over there. 'So they
left you to die?' Yeah they did. When she (my wife) said they'd gone,
I started wiggling my hands getting them out."
As smoke and flames filled the house he freed his hands and feet, then
cut his wife loose and they got outside.
"This guy Meekins was a guy, I think tied me up. I think he was a
rookie. He didn't know too much about what was going on."
Nine days later on March 21, the Briley's broke into the home of
Michael McDuffy, robbed and murdered him.
April 9, they robbed and raped 76 year old Mary Gowen, outside of her
home. Then shot her to death.
July 4, 17 year old Christopher Philips was killed by Linwood. His
head was crushed by a cinder block for apparently looking at Briley's
car.
September 14, the gang jumps well known WXGI radio personality, Johnny
G. Gallaher. They strip him, rob him and shoot him in the back and
dump his body by the river.
September 20, 62 year old nurse Mary Wilfong robbed and beaten to
death with a baseball bat.
October 5, two blocks from the Briley home, 79 year old Blanche Page
and her boarder, beaten to death, with a baseball bat. The man was
stabbed in the back at least 8 or 10 times with different weapons,
like butcher knives, meat clevers, scissors and all this stuff was
sticking out of his back.
October 14, Judy Barton, five months pregnant is gang raped as her
five year old son and boyfriend lie tied up. All three were shot to
death.
Investigators believe young Duncan Meekins and Anthony Briley were
lead astray by James and Linwood.
How could the two older Briley brothers do those things? Was there any
way to keep this from happening. Did something really terrible happen
to the Briley brothers when they were really young or, were they just
born that way?
Officials seek release for Briley brothers accomplice
http://tinyurl.com/pczude
Thirty years after Richmond's bloodiest, perhaps cruelest murder
rampage, key prosecutors and a lead detective in the case say they are
seeking the prison release of a man who helped begin and end the
killings.
"Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil," said Robert J.
Rice, one of two prosecutors who put the infamous Briley brothers
gang, suspected in as many as 20 murders, behind bars. Two of the
three brothers were executed.
Rice and veteran prosecutor Warren Von Schuch now say they are miffed
that Duncan Eric Meekins, the key witness who brought down the
Brileys, remains behind bars.
In a reversal of roles for both, Rice and Von Schuch are set to meet
next month with Virginia Parole Board officials to plead for Meekins'
release, a promise made to Meekins and his family when he agreed to
testify against the Brileys decades ago.
They will be joined by retired Richmond police detective Norman
Harding, a gruff veteran of at least 50 homicide investigations who
personally arrested Meekins in 1979 in a traffic stop.
The arrest ended the Brileys' reign of terror in Richmond.
"Without Duncan Meekins, none of this happens and more people die,"
Von Schuch said of the prosecutions.
Meekins, a neighbor of the Briley family on Fourth Avenue in Highland
Park, was taken under the Briley brothers' wing and ordered to kill.
He is believed to have personally killed two of the Briley victims and
raped another, a pregnant woman murdered by James Briley.
Meekins participated in, or was present for, most of the 11 killings
that could be verified, according to Von Schuch, Harding and Rice.
"He was 16 at the time, and he was easily led and manipulated," Von
Schuch said of Meekins, who sang in his church choir and attended John
Marshall High School.
Von Schuch, Harding and Rice said Meekins, under pressure from his
family and promises of leniency from prosecutors, was singularly
responsible for convictions of the Brileys and their death sentences.
In hours of interviews shortly after his arrest, Meekins gave
investigators details of butchery, rape and murder that took the lives
of an unpatterned spectrum of people: from a 5-year-old boy and his
parents in North Side; to a nurse who lived alone in Keswick Gardens
in Henrico County and whose head was battered beyond recognition; to a
popular DJ named Johnny Gallaher, whose body turned up in the James
River at Mayo Island.
The effort to free Meekins, who is now in his mid 40s, comes 25 years
after James Briley and his brother Linwood orchestrated the largest
successful escape from death row in U.S. history.
The May 31, 1984, escape froze Richmond-area residents in fear and
hinged on years of lax conditions on death row within the state's
Mecklenburg Correctional Center near the North Carolina border, a
facility once heralded as escape-proof.
Six death-row inmates, including the two Brileys, escaped after
overpowering guards and exiting the prison by staging a bomb hoax.
In fact, the bomb was a television set carried on a stretcher and
covered with a sheet. One of the escapees "cooled" the device with
blasts from a fire extinguisher.
All of the escapees were caught and eventually executed. A third
Briley brother, Anthony, was incarcerated in another prison at the
time and is serving a sentence of life plus 139 years.
Rice and Von Schuch said Meekins has been held for 30 years at
undisclosed prisons outside Virginia for his safety under an assumed
name. They refused to provide other details, saying to do so would
jeopardize his life.
"He's not just a snitch -- he put people in the electric chair," said
Von Schuch, one of the state's most dogged prosecutors. Eleven men in
Virginia have been executed based on convictions won by Von Schuch,
who still works as a special prosecutor for the Chesterfield County
commonwealth's attorney's office.
"But the commonwealth must live up to its promises," he said.
Meekins was spared death in exchange for his testimony and received a
sentence in Richmond -- life plus 80 years -- fashioned by prosecutors
to assure his eligibility for parole in 12 to 15 years.
At the time of sentencing, Meekins was subject to laws that allowed
consideration of parole for convicted murderers after about 15 years.
Later, parole was abolished for crimes that occurred on or after Jan
1, 1995.
Rice and Harding spoke with a state Parole Board representative a year
ago but were stunned, they said, that there seemed to be no
acknowledgment of the mitigating circumstances of Meekins' case. It
could not be determined yesterday whether Meekins had been formally
considered for parole prior to last year.
"There was just this sense that no one really had any idea of the role
that Meekins played," said Rice, who now works as a defense attorney.
Now Rice and Von Schuch will meet with parole officials next month to
press Meekins' case again. Harding is arranging a meeting as well.
They describe Meekins as having a trouble-free prison record; he has
gained a high school equivalency degree and has learned multiple
trades.
Family members declined requests to talk with reporters from the
Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Rice said he took up Meekins' case after Meekins' lawyer, Ralph
Robertson, who later became a judge, died in March 2006.
He received a call from a relative of Meekins asking for help and said
he was shocked to learn that Meekins hadn't been released.
Meekins already has served twice the amount of time prosecutors
expected, Rice said. He said Meekins apparently has been short-changed
by no-parole laws enacted a decade ago and an unwillingness by the
Parole Board to be swayed by pleas for leniency.
"There could not be a graver injustice," Von Schuch said, "than to
have Duncan Meekins serve the same amount of time as Anthony Briley."
March, April, July 1979: Two attempted murders and three murders in
Richmond and Henrico County are linked to one or more of the Brileys,
but prosecutors decline to bring the cases to trial.
Sept. 14, 1979: Disc jockey John Harvey Gallaher is shot to death in
South Richmond.
Sept. 30, 1979: Mary J. Wilfong, 62, is beaten to death near the Shops
at Willow Lawn.
Oct. 6, 1979: Blanche Page, 75, and Charles Garner, 59, are killed at
their home in 3100 block of Fifth Avenue in Richmond.
Oct. 19, 1979: Harvey Wilkerson, 26, Judith Barton, 25, and their son,
5, are killed in their home in 2300 block of Barton Avenue.
Oct. 22, 1979: All three Brileys and Meekins are arrested in the
Barton Avenue killings.
May 31, 1984: James and Linwood Briley lead the breakout of themselves
and four other inmates from Mecklenburg Correctional Center's death
row.
June 19, 1984: Brileys are captured in Philadelphia.
Oct. 12, 1984: Linwood Briley, 30, is executed in Richmond.
April 18, 1985: James D. Briley, 28, is executed in Richmond.
June 2008: Former Richmond prosecutor Robert J. Rice and Richmond
detective Norman Harding ask a state Parole Board representative to
consider Meekins' release. He has been serving a sentence of life plus
80 years for three murders and a robbery.
May 2009: Anthony Briley, now 51, continues serving life plus 139
years at Powhatan Correctional Center.
June 2009: Rice, Harding and special prosecutor Warren Von Schuch are
scheduled to ask the Parole Board for Meekins' release.
Chocolic
"E/C Annie" <blake_s...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:fa7f9207-82db-40d4...@t10g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
Another one of tthose mind boggling cases. Meeks testified and helped
convict the Brileys, okay, fine, he finally did something good. But to
release this murderer because of that makes me sick.
From the article*****"There could not be a graver injustice," Von Schuch
said, "than to have Duncan Meekins serve the same amount of time as Anthony
Briley."***** Where is the injustice? Why not?!?!? He was just as
involved as the rest. So what if he testified. He didn't get the dp
because of it. This guy is supposed to serve a life sentence plus 80 years
for a reason, regardless if he talked. I don't understand why they seem to
be so appalled by it. Meeks personally murdered two people and was present
or involved in 11 others and raped a pregnant woman before she was murdered.
Meeks is 46 now. Letting this time bomb out would be more of an injustice
to all of us.
I don't remember reading this awful case before. Cripes, how awful.
Chocolic
JonesieCat
"Chocolic" <chatt...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ZGtPl.234106$4m1....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
I don't remember it either. Okay, I understand prosecutors made a deal with
the POS and are standing by it. But - can anyone regret that the laws were
changed and the deal went south? This murderer may have a terribly
unfortunate family history and a low IQ, but: not my problem. He KILLED
people. Sheesh.
jc
Poe
That's what I was thinking. I can't believe anyone would waste their
time trying to ensure some kind of fairness that went south. Sometimes
when the laws are changed a POS like this benefits (like when the DP was
repealed). Other times, they don't. Life's not fair anyway. If it was,
innocent people wouldn't be brutally assaulted and murdered in their own
homes minding their own business.
MaryL
"JonesieCat" <jonesi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:R%zPl.11498$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
I'm happy *not* to have someone like this free to kill again. My one
problem with it is that the prosecutors made a deal. It is a *poor* deal if
looked at from the perspective of letting this person go free, but a *good*
deal if they really could not have convicted the others without his
testimony. In that case, we would have had still more murderers roaming
among us.
When I said that my one problem with it is that the prosecutors made a deal:
If defendants cannot rely on bargains that are made, won't this reduce the
possibility of others being willing to make similar deals?
MaryL
Chocolic
"MaryL" <stan...@yahoo.comTAKE-OUT-THE-LITTER> wrote in message
news:4a0ed4c3$0$23784$bbae...@news.suddenlink.net...
I understand what you are saying. But per the deal, he got a life sentence
+80 years and not the DP. I don't see why they think there is an injustice
that he is still in custody.
IMO the guy is still young. If they let him out, who knows what crimes he
probably will commit.
Chocolic
Poe
Normally I would agree, the deals need to be upheld or people won't
enter into them. My feeling on this one, though is that it's an
exception condition. The laws changed. I can see him and his lawyer
trying to petition for his release, but I can't see anyone else going
out of their way to help him out. Certainly, I can thing of "graver
injustices".
MaryL
"Poe" <hau...@terrible-thought.com> wrote in message
news:77843nF...@mid.individual.net...
Oh, yes, this would not rank very high in the category of "grave
injustices." However, the sentence was apparently crafted in such a way as
to make him eligible parole, and that seems to have been part of the
bargain. Changing the laws and making them retroactive also brings forth
images of ex post facto, even though there are numerous examples.
MaryL
E/C Annie
> "E/C Annie" <blake_swann1...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> news:fa7f9207-82db-40d4...@t10g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Old Richmond VA case; beneath this story is the plight of the plea
> > bargainer.
> > e/c annie
>
> Another one of tthose mind boggling cases. Meeks testified and helped
> convict the Brileys, okay, fine, he finally did something good. But to
> release this murderer because of that makes me sick.
>
> From the article*****"There could not be a graver injustice," Von Schuch
> said, "than to have Duncan Meekins serve the same amount of time as Anthony
> Briley."***** Where is the injustice? Why not?!?!? He was just as
> involved as the rest. So what if he testified. He didn't get the dp
> because of it. This guy is supposed to serve a life sentence plus 80 years
> for a reason, regardless if he talked. I don't understand why they seem to
> be so appalled by it. Meeks personally murdered two people and was present
> or involved in 11 others and raped a pregnant woman before she was murdered.
> Meeks is 46 now. Letting this time bomb out would be more of an injustice
> to all of us.
>
> I don't remember reading this awful case before. Cripes, how awful.
>
> Chocolic
-----------------------------
Yeah, we were talking about it at lunch yesterday. No one I've talked
with thinks he needs to be freed. I was living in MD at the time
raising my baby girl and burying my dad so I didn't remember it
either. Parents seem so ok; makes you wonder.
e/c annie
E/C Annie
> JonesieCat wrote:
> > "Chocolic" <chatter...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:ZGtPl.234106$4m1....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> >> "E/C Annie" <blake_swann1...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> >>news:fa7f9207-82db-40d4...@t10g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> >>> Old Richmond VA case; beneath this story is the plight of the plea
> >>> bargainer.
> >>> e/c annie
> >>> June 2009: Rice, Harding and special prosecutor Warren Von Schuch are
amen, sista
Nancy Rudins
> I don't remember it either. Okay, I understand prosecutors made a deal with
> the POS and are standing by it. But - can anyone regret that the laws were
> changed and the deal went south? This murderer may have a terribly
> unfortunate family history and a low IQ, but: not my problem. He KILLED
> people. Sheesh.
>
> jc
>
>
Once, maybe by a stretch even twice, could be due to a combination
of family history, low IQ, youthful inexperience, an easily led
person. But twenty times???? No way should he be out.
Nancy
--
Illinois: where our governors make our license plates.
nru...@att.net
JonesieCat
"MaryL" <stan...@yahoo.comTAKE-OUT-THE-LITTER> wrote in message
news:4a0ed4c3$0$23784$bbae...@news.suddenlink.net...
>
You raise a valid point. Prosecutors need to have the power to make deals. I
agree with that. However, in any state in the land, or federally, sentencing
laws are subject to change by one means or another. Felons know this as do
their lawyers. I don't believe this eventuality particularly disempowers
DAs. That is, perps will always be looking for deals, even if it so happens
that down the line circumstances (sentencing guidelines) change. Perps're
used to that. They've lived their whole lives accommodating. As have we all.
(IMHO)
jc
chris...@gmail.com
lalac...@gmail.com
If he didn't say anything, not only Brileys couldn't be put away for so long, but he, himself, would probably have not gotten this much time, if any
When prosecutors promise things, they should stick to them. Otherwise no one else would work with them
